Double Exposures

<p>A feminist literary theorist, specialist in Rembrandt, and a scholar with a knack for reading Old Testament stories, Mieke Bal weaves a tapestry of signs and meanings that enrich our senses. Her subject is the act of showing, the gesture of exposing to view. In a museum, for example, the object is on display, made visually available. "That's how it is," the display proclaims. But who says so?<br>Bal's subjects are displays from the American Museum of Natural History, paintings by such figures as Courbet, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Rembrandt, as well as works by twentieth-century artists, and such literary texts as Shakespeare's <em>Rape of Lucrece</em>.</p> Telling, showing, showing off; the value factory; the talking museum; museumtalk; first person, second person, same person; a postcard from the edge; the story of W 8 - his master's eye; head-hunting.