At a time when a pile of bricks is displayed in a museum, when music is composed for performance underwater, and the boundaries between popular and fine art are fluid, conventional understandings of art are strained in describing what art is, what it includes or excludes, whether and how it should be evaluated, and what importance should be assigned the arts in society. In this book, Vera Zolberg examines diverse theoretical approaches to the study of the arts. Ranging over humanistic and social scientific views representing a variety of scholarly traditions, American and European, she then develops a sociological approach that evaluates the institutional, economic, and political influences on the creation of art, while also affirming the importance of the question of artistic quality. The author examines the arts in the social contexts in which people become artists, the institutions in which their careers develop, the supports and pressures they face, the publics they need to please, and the political forces with which they must contend. Particular subjects covered include the process by which works are created and 're-created' at different times, with changed meanings, and for new social uses; the role of the audience in the realization of artistic experiences; the social consequences of taste preferences; the reasons for change in artistic styles and for the coexistence of many art forms and styles.
In recent years, controversies concerning the construction of displays of historical events have turned attention to the role of these public sitings. Although virtually any location to which access is relatively unrestricted may give rise to disputes, museums in particular have become foci of these debates. Their prominence is not surprising, since they are institutions in which a nation's qualities are 'written' or 'shown.' In this chapter I tum my attention to an important polemic in which two nations are involved: the United States and Japan. The subject is how the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to be represented by a museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. It allows me to examine more deeply the interactions of groups representing divergent interests within the United States, in the context of global relations with a relative equal, rather than a dominated subject. In the process, I analyze the role of the museum as an institution involved in the construction of national narratives in two countries, the political controversies unveiled, and the lost opportunities for innovation in the museum's relationship to its public as politicians intrude upon professions.
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