Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations

In these 19 insightful and frequently witty meditations, Stephen E. Weil examines the purposes and functions of the museum in the late 20th century, proposing museums make encounters with a variety of visitors more central to their operation.

Stephen Weil was Deputy Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. He served as Adminstrator of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (1967-1974) and is a member of the New York bar. He was coauthor of the award-winning treatise Art Law and author of the widely acclaimed Beauty and the Beasts (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983).

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

xiii

Rethinking the Museum

Enough Museums? (1983)

3

(4)

Fighting Off Some Dry Rot, Woodworm, and Damp (1985)

7

(20)

A Meditation on Small and Large Museums (1987)

27

(16)

The Proper Business of the Museum: Ideas or Things? (1988)

43

(14)

Rethinking the Museum: An Emerging New Paradigm (1990)

57

(12)

Museum Management: Workers, Collections, and Other Concerns

The Well-Managed Museum (Earl F. Cheit, coauthor) (1989)

69

(4)

In Pursuit of a Profession: The Status of Museum Work in America (1987)

73

(18)

Coleman's Vision of the Museum Worker: Is it Still Valid Today? (1989)

91

(4)

The More Effective Director: Specialist or Generalist? (1987)

95

(10)

Deaccession Practices in American Museums (1986)

105

(14)

Deaccessioning Modern and Contemporary Art: Some Notes on the American Experience (1989)

119

(8)

Too Much Art? (1989)

127

(4)

The Museum Management Institute: Its Genesis and Early Years (1985)

131

(10)

Review: The Arts and Public Policy in the United States (1985)

141

(16)

Repose and Other Brief Legal Notes

Repose (1987)

(Afterword: Guggenheim Extract from 1989 Litigation Update)

149

(8)

Who Owns the Nataraja? (1989)

157

(4)

Legal Aspects of the Display of Imitations (1985)

161

(6)

A Mediatation on Work (1985)

167

(4)

Art, Law, and Utopia (1983)

171

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Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials