Past Imperfect: A Museum Looks at Itself

Description

This text explores the mission and origins of American art museums from their founding to the present. Using their own institution as an example, the curator and staff of The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, installed a landmark exhibition, "A Museum Looks at Itself". The show demonstrates how the Victorian and imperialist politics that abounded when the museum was established informed the founding mission and collection policies of this and other American museums. This look at our cultural past clears the ground for a critical look at the museum's role in the future. Essays by curator Donna De Salvo and critics Alan Wallach and Maurice Berger explore the assumptions about race, class, and nationality that undergird modern art installations.

Donna De Salvo is chief curator and deputy director for programs at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has curated exhibitions, authored catalogs and essays, and lectured on a wide range of modern and contemporary artists. She curated the 1993 exhibit A Museum Looks at Itself: Mapping Past and Present at the Parrish Art Museum, 1887-1992 and authored the companion book Past Imperfect: A Museum Looks at Itself (The New Press).