Description

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Ruth Phillips argues that these practices are "indigenous" not only because they originate in Aboriginal activism but because they draw on a distinctively Canadian preference for compromise and tolerance for ambiguity. Phillips dissects seminal exhibitions of Indigenous art to show how changes in display, curatorial voice, and authority stem from broad social, economic, and political forces outside the museum and moves beyond Canadian institutions and practices to discuss historically interrelated developments and exhibitions in the United States, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Drawing on forty years of experience as an art historian, curator, exhibition critic, and museum director, she emphasizes the complex and situated nature of the problems that face museums, introducing new perspectives on controversial exhibitions and moments of contestation. A manifesto that calls on us to re-imagine the museum as a place to embrace global interconnectedness, Museum Pieces emphasizes the transformative power of museum controversy and analyses shifting ideas about art, authenticity, and power in the modern museum.

About the Author

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Ruth B. Phillips is an art historian specializing in North American Aboriginal art and a former director of the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology.

Praise For…

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"Museum Pieces is eminently readable - written simply and elegantly. There is no other book that covers forty years of Canadian museology with such historical depth and theoretical thoughtfulness." Jennifer Kramer, anthropology, University of British Columbia

"Ruth Phillips is one of the most well-respected and senior figures working in the domain of contemporary museum anthropology and critical museum studies. The great strengths of this volume are the author's careful research, her unique position within the