1st Edition

Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums

By Margaret Tali Copyright 2018
    186 Pages
    by Routledge

    186 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book analyzes practices of collecting in European art museums from 1989 to the present, arguing that museums actualize absence both consciously and unconsciously, while misrepresentation is an outcome of the absent perspectives and voices of minority community members which are rarely considered in relation to contemporary art. Difficult knowledge is proposed as a way of dealing with absence productively.



    Drawing on social art history, museology, postcolonial theory, and memory studies, Margaret Tali analyzes the collections of four modern and contemporary art museums across Europe: the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, and the Kumu Museum in Tallinn.

    Introduction



    Chapter 1: The Presence of Joseph Beuys and the Struggle Over his Legacy in Berlin



    Chapter 2: Absencing and Presencing in Exhibition Narratives



    Chapter 3: Collectors’ Space and the Agents of Narration



    Chapter 4: The Ludwig Collection in Budapest and the Absent Eastern Europe



    Chapter 5: Interrogating the Archival Logic



    Chapter 6: Archival Absence



    Afterword: Turning Absence into Difficult Knowledge

    Biography

    Margaret Tali is Lecturer in Visual Art and Culture at Maastricht University.