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The whole picture : the colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it / Alice Procter.

By: Publisher: London : Cassell, [2021]Description: 319 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations ; 20 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 1788402456 (pbk.)
  • 9781788402453 (pbk.)
Other title:
  • Colonial story of the art in our museums and why we need to talk about it
  • Colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.470941 23
LOC classification:
  • N430 .P763 2021
Contents:
Part I. The palace -- 1. Vases & attitudes -- 2. The sarcophagus -- 3. Pitt's diamond -- 4. An offering -- 5. Forged relics -- Part II. The classroom -- 6. The kangaroo & the dingo -- 7. Mai -- 8. The tiger of Mysore -- 9. Abolitionists -- 10. England's greatness -- 11. The shield -- Part III. The memorial -- 12. A Haida carving -- 13. Mokomokai -- 14. Mining the museum -- 15. Human zoos -- 16. The coffin -- Part IV. The playground -- 17. Museum highlights -- 18. Crowd control -- 19. The ship -- 20. Sugar baby -- 21. Change the date -- 22. Return -- Conclusion -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Picture credits -- Index -- Acknowledgements.
Summary: Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall? How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space : The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India ; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans ; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today. The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

Originally published: 2020.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 296-305) and index.

Part I. The palace -- 1. Vases & attitudes -- 2. The sarcophagus -- 3. Pitt's diamond -- 4. An offering -- 5. Forged relics -- Part II. The classroom -- 6. The kangaroo & the dingo -- 7. Mai -- 8. The tiger of Mysore -- 9. Abolitionists -- 10. England's greatness -- 11. The shield -- Part III. The memorial -- 12. A Haida carving -- 13. Mokomokai -- 14. Mining the museum -- 15. Human zoos -- 16. The coffin -- Part IV. The playground -- 17. Museum highlights -- 18. Crowd control -- 19. The ship -- 20. Sugar baby -- 21. Change the date -- 22. Return -- Conclusion -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Picture credits -- Index -- Acknowledgements.

Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall? How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space : The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India ; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans ; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today. The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

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