Statues also die, even… Time and Agency of Museum Display

Abstract

In this text, I hope to reveal some parallels between the issues that arise when displaying so-called “African” or “indigenous” art or artifacts in so-called “museums of world cultures” and the display of contemporary art.[1] I would like to show how both are subject to similar difficulties within the white walls of the museum.[2] To do so, I will focus on two common strategies that involve the political neutralization of these objects: the first negates the object’s contemporary nature when presented, either out of time/history or out of context within the white cube or the vitrine; the second reduces these “works of art” to an object of study instead of presenting them as thought-provoking items.