The Museum Establishment and Contemporary Art

Winner of the Laurence Wylie Prize for best book in the field of French Cultural Studies 20062007. The protests that shook France in 1968 served as a catalyst to a radical reconsideration of artistic practice that has shaped both art and museum exhibitions up to the present. Rebecca DeRoo examines how issues of historical and personal memory the separation of public and private domains and the ordinary objects of everyday life emerged as central concerns for museums and for artists as both struggled to respond to the protests. She argues that the responses of the museums were only partially faithful to the aims of the reform movement. Museums in fact often misunderstood and misrepresented the work of artists exhibited as a means of addressing these concerns.