Reenvisioning histories of American art: transforming museum practice

Abstract

"In recent years, museums have faced increasing pressure to reckon with their histories and legacies, many of which have depended on exclusion, exploitation, and even theft. This institutional self-reflection and transformation has emerged in tandem with a focus on incorporating antiracism and decolonization throughout museum work in general. Although more and more museums are seeking to diversify and make their collections, exhibitions, and staffs more inclusive, very little has been published about the actual processes involved in this meaningful work. This volume emerged from that dialogue, and highlights new scholarship and museum practices in diversifying collections, exhibitions, and staffs; discussing new frameworks for how museums develop institutional priorities; and interrupting colonial structures in museum curation and teaching art history"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Always becoming : Art and history in this land / John R. Stromberg -- Introduction : Beyond the land acknowledgement / Michael W. Hartman and Jami C. Powell -- Part I, Complicating Histories : Curating across Disciplinary Boundaries -- 1. Collaborative Methodologies for an Expanded American Art : This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World / Morgan E. Freeman and Thomas H. Price -- 2. A site of struggle, a methodology of accord / Janet Dees and Alisa Swindell -- Generative Collaboration : Toward a More Expansive American Art / Austen Barron Bailly and Karen Kramer, with Michael W. Hartman and Jami C. Powell -- Part II, Reframing Collection Practice and Care -- 4. Reflection and Representation : Native Art Acquisitions for the 50th Anniversary of the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery / Anya Montiel -- 5. Recontextualizing and reckoning historic American art / Mindy N. Besaw -- 6. Feke's Kincemoss : Collaboratively Rewriting a Colonial Painting / Layla Bermeo and Roger Paul -- Part III, Interrupting Colonial Structures -- 7. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?": The Aesthetic and Curatorial Politics of Invitation and Interruption in Imperial Museums / Kirsten Pai Buick -- 8. Imagining Otherwise / Hazel V. Carby -- 9. Braiding, Stitching, Sweeping: Black Feminist Domesticity and Art History / Alexandra M. Thomas -- 10. Tyrus Wong's Asian Americana / Yinshi Lerman-Tan -- Conclusion : An Invitation / Michael W. Hartman and Jami C. Powell.