Passionate, witty, and erudite, these essays by a radical curator describe how museums approach their sometimes conflicting missions to sponsor scholarship, generate popular appeal, and claim social significance. This analysis includes discussions of art and ethnology, the failure of late-Modernist art history, the construction of official culture, the intellectual history of European exploration in the Pacific, problems with cultural studies of the Pakeha Maori, and the conservation of archives and narratives.
About the AuthorIan Wedde is the former head of art, visual culture, and the humanities at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the author of
How to be Nowhere: Essays and Texts 1971-1994.
Book InformationISBN 9780864735034
Author Ian WeddeFormat Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Victoria University PressPublisher Te Herenga Waka University Press