Museums, Managers of Consciousness? Institutional Critique and The Politics of Display

Since the 1960s many artists have focused their practices on exploring the apparent neutrality of cultural institutions, drawing attention to the economical, political, and social biases elided in the seemingly disinterested construction of artistic displays and museum collections. We will begin with a consideration of the initial practitioners of this tendency, known as Institutional Critique, and then also investigate feminist, postmodernist, and other more contemporary practices in this mode. Artists to be discussed will include Daniel Buren, Michael Asher, Hans Haacke, Martha Rosler, Louise Lawler, Fred Wilson, and Andrea Fraser. Readings will be drawn from artists' writings and primary documents, art history, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. Students will write short papers in direct engagement with assigned readings and complete a research-based project that may take visual form.