Taming the Cultural Beast

Adam Gopnik in The Museum Today (Eva Holtby Lecture on Contemporary Culture No. 1) adopted for a piece in Walrus as "The Mindful Museum" arrives at his masterful proposal for the experience and the institution through a contrast between two types.

The secular ritual of museum-going historicizes art, even as it humanizes anti-art.

The key here is "secular ritual" and what follows is a sort of "apprivoisement" which to the discerning eye is not the equivalent of domesticization.

And so for day 1180
07.03.2010