After canons: Writing on the wall (historical and sociological connection between aesthetic experience and the strategy of a museum display, New Museology in the age of postcultural hierarchy)
P. Gyorgy, After canons: Writing on the wall (historical and sociological connection between aesthetic experience and the strategy of a museum display, New Museology in the age of postcultural hierarchy), FILOZ VESTN, 20(3), 1999, pp. 53-63
The essay concerns the fate of the historical and sociological connection b
etween aesthetic experience and the strategy of a museum display. The allia
nce of the theoretical and practical, or more precisely the institutional s
ide of interpretation and maintenance of artwork/collections play up to the
same interests. The isolation of artworks from everyday life and from thei
r social contexts served the interests of the undisputed domination of the
Western canon.
The museums have remained the guardians of the -sometimes empty- norms and
forms, the last and extremely popular "Institution" of the conservation of
tradition and the advertisement of Order. But the multicultural challenge a
nd relativism have definitely undermined that tradition.
The critical reinvestigation of the dominant forms of collective memory som
etimes resulted in the crisis of museological practice. The classification
and collection of strategies proved too empty, meaningless, abstract and po
wer-oriented. New Museology offered new kinds of theorems for collection, c
lassification, visual display and museum pedagogy and proposed a new contra
ct with the multicultural word, where European traditional perception is on
ly one of many. New Museology abandoned the concept of a separate high cult
ure and classical arts, but in exchange for the loss of exceptionality, a n
ew and promising traffic has begun between art and anthropology in the age
of postcultural hierarchy.