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It is currently part of the mission of art museums to actively involve children in learning experiences and empower them through a variety of programmes – including developing text panels specialized for children. To date, we have only a limited understanding of the semiotic resources in audience-sensitive exhibition text panels. Drawing upon Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper analyses and compares 56 text panels in an exhibition from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. They are comprised of two versions of text panels for 28 artworks, targeting different groups of audiences, respectively (children and adults). It is found that the children's texts have been recontextualized to evoke interest in learning to paint, while the adults' texts focus on aesthetic appreciation. The comparative analysis shows that audience-sensitive text writing is interrelated with its social context in view of field, tenor, mode, and genre. This paper further explores how the production of audience-sensitive text panels contributes to the pedagogic, commercial, and community value of art museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on an investigation of the visual memory of the Pinacoteca art museum of the State of São Paulo. The objective of this paper is to understand the process of association of the visual image of the museum's edifice and its graphic signature in the 1990s. The paper utilized a research approach that included identifying and analyzing visual memories and interviewing designers who worked for the Pinacoteca during the 1990s. The conclusions point to a conjuncture of political, historical and structural factors that influenced the incorporation of the visual image of the building to the visual identity of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical consideration of the proliferation of art museums situated in shopping malls in China. Creating interventions of art and the art museum within retail structures can be conceptually understood as a synthesis development model, whereby the combination of art and commerce is adopted by real estate enterprises in China. The operational characteristics of mall museums reflect a growing tendency for art to be used instrumentally to align with everyday life: an aestheticisation of the ordinary. In the late twentieth century, postmodernism placed great emphasis on the blurring of boundaries between art and everyday life, signalling the collapse of the distinction between high art and mass/popular culture [Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. Simulations. New York: Semiotext; Featherstone, Mike. 1990. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, 64–80. London: SAGE Publications]. Nonetheless, through the example of the Chi Shanghai K11 Art Mall, this paper considers public engagement practices where 'art is for the masses' within such structures to explore whether curatorial strategies and art practices are influenced through a constant adaptation into 'art museum retail'. It also aims to consider whether the development of these 'persuasive spaces' thus has the potential to include experimentation and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Do they read? Oh, yes, they do," was the conclusion of a paper identifying the proof of label use in visitors' in-gallery conversations versus the difficulties of observing them reading. This paper -methodologically refines this research question by asking how exactly exhibit labels are used. Answers are derived from an empirical study that analyzed viewing behavior both before and after the reinstallation of a museum's collection through mobile eye tracking (MET), subjective mapping, and questionnaires. As the introduction of interpretive labels was one of the major changes implemented, the paper demonstrates differences in visitors' responses to the artworks with or without contextual information. Analytical emphasis rests on the exploration of patterns in the process of decision making (differentiating between visitors' reading affinities); visual engagement (analyzing the combined activities of looking and reading); and memory (echoing label texts in visitors' artwork reflections). Our findings show that all visitors read, albeit to very different extents, the majority being medium-affinity readers; that the basic viewing pattern "art-label-art" becomes more complex with more text and more -visitors on-site; and that art interpretations deepen and differ through additional information. The power of labels to guide eyes and thoughts suggests their intentional use in museum and curatorial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discursive turn in heritage studies has made major contributions to our understanding of heritage as a set of processual practices, demonstrating how they are inherently contingent while acknowledging their role in the legitimation of specific relationships of power. More recently, there has been a related interest in the rhetorical uses of heritage, and the paper builds on these debates to explore the ways in which the National Gallery (London) mobilised a rhetoric about access as part of its scheme of post-WWII reconstruction. The popular 'Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures' (1947) sheds light on the rhetorical devices employed by the Gallery. These were a cogent example of the Gallery's intended programme of emancipatory viewership, premised on visitors' the right to look, but simultaneously reinforced the Gallery's authoritative discourses. The paper shows how photography's reportedly unbiased language became embedded in the Gallery's democratising agenda and helped shape distinctive forms of publicness which fostered a consensual view about the Gallery's practice of cleaning. Rather than seeing both episodes as mutually exclusive, the paper investigates the internal logic of democratisation and professionalisation as a series of co-dependent rhetorical operations that simultaneously enabled freedom and coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper elaborates on the Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Art established in 2017 in the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Culture. Paradoxically, this fund is perceived both positively and negatively by various institutions. On the positive side, from the year 2017 to 2019, the fund has allocated 41,257,888 CZK (1,517,753 EUR) for the purchase of 287 artworks by 29 institutions. On the negative side, only 29 out of 218 eligible institutions have applied for support from the fund during the three years of the fund's existence. This low application rate is attributed partly to the time consuming and complicated administration of the application for support, and partly to apprehension from some institutions regarding the likelihood of the actual realisation of the receipt of financial support. In turn, due to this low application rate, the institutions that have applied have had a high probability of receiving funding. The paper sheds new light on the lack of financing for acquisition in art institutions and opens the question of the effectiveness of the Acquisition Fund in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for the design of interpretive media in art museums. These have been developed based on a review of the literature and the study of current practices of interpretation design in art exhibitions. The study supports the urge to promote design for experiences that resonate with the visitor and that increase diversity in the art museum. Practitioners who design interpretation strategies integrated into art exhibitions often omit visitors' voices from the process, resulting in practices which do not reflect visitors' contexts and needs. This practice-based research project aims to be used and adapted by art institutions in the design of interpretation strategies for their exhibitions, in collaboration with visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista CPC is the property of Revista CPC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with digitally mediated museum experiences of novice visitors at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and discusses them in the context of museum inclusion. Research participants included families with young children and members of minority communities in Vienna whose visit was facilitated by two app-based guided tours developed for children. The research goal was to explore the impact of the mobile guide’s digital content and modes of communication on the visitors’ interaction with the guide, with the museum space and objects, and with family members. The families’ interactions were observed, recorded and analyzed. The results suggest that carefully considered and created content on mobile guides has the potential to provide novice family visitors with experiences that support their independence and active engagement, create opportunities for mutual facilitation, and support their different identities, all of which have been considered as conducive to inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vital role of entrepreneurship for economic growth and its impact for job creation in mature and developing economies is widely recognized and quantified (OECD, Entrepreneurship and Business Statistics, 2015). According to Get2growth data (How Many Startups Are There?, 2015), 100 million start-ups are created each year of which 1.35% are technology-based companies, and according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (Fairlie, 2013), almost a quarter of new businesses in the USA were started by entrepreneurs aged 55 and older. Survival following failure data for start-ups are numerous and complex in the interpretation, and data presented by the Statistic Brain (Startup business failure rate by industry, 2015) show a 55% failure rate within the fifth year. Entrepreneurship is important for growth but sustainable entrepreneurship is hard to achieve. This paper, by means of a case study of a German private art museum 'Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund', analyzes the disruptive methods, both atypical and contrary to the mainstream art industry, developed to ensure the sustainable success of such an innovative endeavor. Our analyses and results contribute to the understanding of the building blocks and roadmap designed by the Kunstmuseum to successfully enter the elitist contemporary art industry, as an outsider, and provide an early indication that such methods can be theoretically replicated in other industries by other entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The communication process is an important component of the marketing strategy. The paper focuses on the particularities of museums in general and art museums in particular that lead to the necessity of comprising educational, informational and financial components in the strategy. The role of the communication process is to offer a coherent and unitary character to the message and enhance its effects. The research conducted in this paper refers to the present cultural sector in Romania, the way museums are seen by the public and what communication means they use. The data gathered through secondary research and a pilot survey is presented in the form of a case study of the «Centrul Artistic Baia Mare» County Museum. The main findings regard the current usage of mass media as mere communication channels instead of important stakeholders and focus on means to improve the effectiveness of the art museum communication process through and towards all stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes part in the ongoing debate around how museums have begun to address LGBTQI+ and feminist issues in the 21st century. While Portugal is a particularly interesting country to consider, given that it has passed some of the most advanced legislation on LGBTQI+ rights in Europe (Santos 2012), this progressivism is not reflected in Portuguese museum practices, given that gender museology has been slow to emerge (Vaquinhas 2014). After briefly contextualising initiatives addressing gender in Portuguese art museums, we present as a case study Trazer a margem para o centro (Bringing the Margin to the Centre), a series of three talks hosted by the Berardo Collection Museum, which is considered Portugal's primary modern and contemporary art museum. Unlike previous initiatives in art museums, which were museum-led, the series of talks was led by the small intersectional feminist collective FACA. A sociologist (Rita Grácio) and the three members of FACA (Andreia Coutinho, Laura Falé and Maribel Sobreira) designed and conducted the three talks that constitute the initiative Bringing the Margin to the Centre. Grácio designed and conducted the qualitative study of the audiences that attended Bringing the Margin to the Centre. This study consisted of participant observation at the event series, at which an adapted version of the Personal Meaning Mapping technique (Falk and Storksdieck 2005) was applied; semi-structured phone interviews with participants were then conducted after the event (Falk and Dierking 2011). The main findings show this event raised awareness among cisgender visitors with heteronormative perspectives and provided a space for counter-narratives of the queer community, showing the role of collective curatorial activism and museums in promoting gender equality and inclusiveness, if acting as gate-leakers, rather than as gatekeepers. Hence, museums can provide lessons to other organisations interested in promoting diversity and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies documenting the real-time details of human interactions have revealed the way in which artefacts in the immediate physical surround facilitate the display and demonstration of knowledge. The museum setting in which physically present objects prompt and support visitor displays of knowledge is particularly well-suited for individuals managing symptoms related to memory loss as a result of dementia, especially of the Alzheimer's type. In this paper, we explore question-answer sequences taken from three hour-long guided sessions within an art gallery program involving museum guides who were specially trained to work with visitors with dementia. We investigate representative sequences 1) in which visitors exercise interactional control by posing questions to guides that relate to the visitors' own interests and 2) in which guides pose questions to visitors regarding topics that relate to the visitors' personal lives. We argue that these two discursive practices promote interactional meaningfulness, in that the former pattern affords the visitors interactional agency, while the latter pattern allows them to display their epistemic authority. Finally, we consider how insights from this therapeutic model may be translated from the museum to the home setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore whether the teaching of the abstract literary concepts of symbolism, narrative perspective and style to young readers can be made more effective by the study of art in an art museum context. The research is an interpretive qualitative case study exploring the learning of 6 participants within a class of 28 students aged 11-12. The results show that the students developed positive learning behaviours in the museum, and that these supported the students’ ability to reflect on the artists’ use of symbolism and style in narrative paintings. It demonstrates how some of these skills could be applied to the reading of texts in the English classroom. The paper hopes to encourage English teachers to question what it is they want students to learn about reading and use a cross-arts approach to adopt a more holistic pedagogy than the English National Curriculum might propose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The position that feminist art holds within the art museum is complex and often contradictory. As Meaghan Morris pointed out, feminism “is not easily adapted to heroic progress narratives”. There is a very real danger that when absorbed into the museum exhibition, feminist art can become a historicising category, framed as a singular movement rather than a currently relevant set of strategies. The alternative would be the presentation of feminism as a set of living practices. Since 2010, the feminist artist collective LEVEL has been involved in a range of activities designed to reinvigorate the discussion of women's position in the art world and society more broadly. LEVEL was commissioned to provide a public program as part of theWAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT): YOKO ONOexhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in late 2013. This paper discusses the design of that project as an attempt to move beyond the script of feminism as a historical moment, and back to the lived experience of feminist art as political understanding and social engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a theoretical perspective on an art museum as an ecosystem, drawing on the ecological perspective described by Gregory Bateson. This perspective views individuals, human societies, and nature as interconnected and interdependent through communicative networks. Museums fit nicely into this paradigm in that staff members, departments, collections, mission statements, visitors, and other cultural and educational institutions are linked together, influencing and being influenced by each other. The operational systems of many museums, however, are hierarchical and non-communicative. As a result, knowledge and ideas are not efficiently shared and transformed among museum professionals and the communities they serve. These museum practices have excluded diverse perspectives and neglected the interests of underrepresented people. Through hypothesizing the ecological museum model, I provide an alternative museum management and educational model that sees museums as holistic and ecological institutions as part of their larger communities and societies. By introducing this theoretical model, I hope to influence museum discourse in ways that make museum practices more inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the dialogue between the present and the past within the new orientations of a certain number of art museums. The recent commission by the Musée du Louvre of a monumental work for permanent display by the contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer (1945-) is an illustrative example of this phenomenon. The growing importance of contemporary art in the 21st century Museum of Fine Art shows how the art museum intends to be inclusive in regard of a long historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I have recently argued in various places that each kind (as the word is defined in the paper) has a history, and only kinds have histories. Because 'art' is shown not to be the name of a kind it does not name a kind with a history. This conclusion relies upon a meme-driven account of cultural evolution, providing historical studies in general with a rationale running intellectually parallel to that which sustains objective accounts of biological evolution. I propose that the word 'art' should not be used in the conventional way but as a name for the general category of memetic innovation, and the phrase 'work of art' as a name for the items of the class of entities inspected by an unprompted eye in search of memetic innovation. These arguments are recapitulated in a form encouraging speculation about their consequences for the art museum and gallery. One effect of a conceptual revision would be to widen the scope of the art museum: on the face of it, without restriction. In order to impose a practical constraint it is suggested that an institutional criterion might be applied to acquisitions and display policies, simultaneously and consistently with a rejection of the Institutional Theory of Art that is currently influential in the art world. It is further argued that the art gallery should be conceived primarily as a domain of entertainment with the underlying function of encouraging creative discovery by the unprompted eye, and not as an art-historically instructive domain. The art museum's collection will inevitably lend itself to study and presentation in various intellectually coherent patterns by cultural historians, but--if the thesis is correct--not by those 'art historians' who mistakenly suppose that a bogus 'history of art' provides an appropriate structure for the understanding of works of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The role of the visual arts in medical education has been understudied, especially with regard to program evaluation and learner assessment of complex competencies such as professional identity, team building, and tolerance for ambiguity. We designed a study to explore how an integrative art museum-based program might benefit 3rd and 4th year medical students. Methods. We piloted 6 sessions with 18 participants. Evaluation methods included post-session surveys and semi-structured focus groups, which we qualitatively analyzed using an open-coding method. Results. Seven themes emerged from the analysis related to the overarching realms of 'form' and 'function.' 'Form' themes included structural elements of the sessions that enabled engagement: (1) group format, (2) methods (e.g., discussion prompts, activities), (3) setting (e.g., physical space of the museum, temporal space), and (4) objects (e.g., paintings, sculptures). 'Function' themes included the personal and professional value and meaning derived from the sessions: (1) appreciation of others, (2) critical skills, and (3) personal inquiry. Discussion. Our results expand what is known about the role of the visual arts in medical education by suggesting that the visual arts may facilitate clinically relevant learning across a range of competencies via specific formal aspects (group format, method, setting, objects) of art museum-based pedagogical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three distinct types of urban art spaces in Montréal - art museums, art galleries, and artist-run centres/collectives. Though one may view art in each of these spaces, their purposes and distribution throughout the city are distinct. Art museums and art galleries are oriented towards art consumption and sales, whereas artist-run centres/collectives emphasize art production with much less of a commercial function. Each type of space gravitates to its own respective clusters in the city. Art museums are distributed in key neighbourhoods within the downtown core: Quartier du Musée, Quartier des Spectacles, and Old Montréal. Art galleries are clustered densely in Quartier du Musée, Quartier des Spectacle, and Old Montréal as well; however, there are key differences among the art galleries in each of those locations. Finally, artist-run centres/collectives can be found distributed the least densely and farthest from the downtown core, extending to Mile End and Le Plateau. The author posits that museums and art galleries are located in Quartier du Musée, Quartier des Spectacles, and Old Montréal because of their ability to pay higher rents, the abundance of tourists in those neighbourhoods, and their proximity to prestigious neighbourhoods inhabited by wealthy consumers. The outspread distribution of artist-run centres/collectives in Mile End, Le Plateau, and beyond demonstrates the sequential displacement of artists who migrate to neighbourhoods with lower rents, reputations for being creative hubs, and distance from mainstream norms where experimentation and innovation can more safely take place. Artist-run centres/collectives' focus on artistic production mean that they must have a closer relationship with artists, and thus exist in locations farther from the downtown core of Montréal, closer to where artists live and authentic creative districts emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The main purpose of scheduling exhibition projects for art museums is to provide the visitors with more exhibitions and to utilize the galleries as fully as possible. Because the combinations of possible exhibitions for all galleries at any given time are numerous, it is difficult for the art museum’s planner to make an optimal decision. Therefore, this paper developed a decision support model with genetic algorithms, called SCHEMA ( SCH eduling E xhibitions for M useum of A rt). In the model the galleries are the resource which the exhibitions utilize in the sequence of their priority values. The model’s evaluation shows to be significantly effective in planning time, percent usage of the gallery, and the number of exhibitions scheduled. Because all the complex computations are done by the model, the decision making process of the scheduling stage is speeded up considerably. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper, which takes the form of a case study, focuses on the conflictual relations between two particular agents, the curator and the local artist, which became prevalent in public art museums in Japan from the 1970s. These two agents had affinities to different sets of culture, and their conflict was intensified over the use of regional museums. I discuss the most controversial example of such conflicts, which took place at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, and I show the complexity of these agents, their struggles and their outcomes. For this purpose of the analysis, I combine Pierre Bourdieu's field theory and the conceptual framework of transculturation. Field theory explains the mechanisms of ongoing struggles between the agents associated with different cultures over the boundaries of the field. The perspective of transculturation is useful as way of expanding Bourdieu's theory and as a means of understanding the complexity and fluidity of the field structure. Originally developed in relation to postcolonial studies, the concept of transculturation highlights both the hybridity of modern Japanese culture and the interactions between different cultures in the artistic field. The case of Tochigi shows that regional art museums in Japan have been developing not as 'frontiers' or 'fortress' of the curator but as 'contact zones' -- i.e. the sites where the curator and the local artist interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyses two texts by the Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski (1952-2015) articulating theoretical stances towards art museography. Reflecting on how they deal with psychological as well as openly political issues, I interpret and assess their joint contribution to the broader interdisciplinary field of (critical) museography. The texts are "New Museums in New Europe" and "Making the National Museum Critical". Together the texts developed Piotrowski's concept of "the critical museum" as a way of dealing with the challenges of running an old national art museum based on masterpieces while also striving to engage with pressing contemporary issues. which is a prerequisite for critical intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In extending Bernard Stiegler's conceptualizations of life as the economy of death and Alexander Marshack's historical tracings of early-human artifacts in relation to flowers, I strive to situate and read flowers as media that they carry an embedded history and infrastructure that reflects and challenges the anthropocentrism that has cultivated, commodified, and curated blooms throughout time. In looking to theorists such as Donna Haraway and Jane Bennett, I study a specific event in which flowers are presented to the public as art: the North Carolina Museum of Art's Art in Bloom. Art in Bloom offers and sustains a complex media ecology, where paintings and sculptures readily and more permanently adorn the gallery spaces, living blooms are used as accompanying pieces of floral art for four days a year, text embeds all signifying information through the museum, money gains admittance to the space, and visitors experience the collective forces of mediation - and contribute to it by documenting their experience through personal digital photography. Such a study of flowers as both media and art must simultaneously recognize the humanist structures blooms are cultivated and commodified within, emphasizing Art in Bloom as a prime instance in which the tensions surrounding nature, gender, art, and media collide - and where traditional perceptions and understandings of what constitutes art is deconstructed and reverted for the human-oriented benefit and economic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society and policy makers are increasingly expecting art museums to be democratic and socially relevant platforms that are inclusive to everyone. To manifest this shift, each institution must draw on the entire spectrum of museal knowledge, not least audience and education knowledge. There has been a history of professional hierarchy and knowledge hegemony inside the art museum, where object-based knowledge has trumped practice-based knowledge and where the education discipline has had a low rank. An important reason for this imbalance has been the great backlog in education research that, among other things, is related to a lack of institutional facilitation and adequate practice-related research methods. Research in art museums has largely operated within traditional art history, but now more and more museums are drawing on other models outside the museum disciplines to develop new research standards. One of the museums that have been transformed by a new outlook on practice and research is Tate, which has developed a practicerelated research method inspired by models within the arts and school systems. In this article I will reflect on the importance of art museums establishing a research framing that ensures efficient interdisciplinary creative processes, reflection and knowledge sharing to create the best practice for the audience. In my argumentation I draw on both the Tate model and my own experience from working at the National Museum in Oslo for over a decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An active engagement with arts in general and visual arts in particular has been hypothesized to yield beneficial effects beyond arts itself. So-called cognitive and socio-emotional "transfer" effects into other domains have been claimed. However, the empirical basis of these hopes is limited. This is partly due to a lack of experimental comparisons, theory-based designs, and objective measurements in the literature on transfer effects of arts education. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design and experimentally investigate a theory-based visual-arts education program for adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years (M age = 15.02, SD age = 1.75). The program was delivered in a museum context in three sessions and was expected to yield specific and objectively measurable transfer effects. To conduct a randomized field trial, three strictly parallelized and standardized art courses were developed, all of which addressed the topic of portrait drawing. The courses mainly differed regarding their instructional focus, which was either on periods of art history, on the facial expression of emotions, or on the self-perception of a person in the context of different social roles. In the first and more "traditional" course portrait drawing was used to better understand how portraits looked like in former centuries. The two other courses were designed in a way that the artistic engagement in portrait drawing was interwoven with practicing socio-emotional skills, namely empathy and emotion recognition in one course and understanding complex self-concept structures in the other. We expected positive socio-emotional transfer effects in the two "psychological" courses. We used an animated morph task to measure emotion recognition performance and a self-concept task to measure the self-complexity of participants before and after all three courses. Results indicate that an instructional focus on drawing the facial expressions of emotions yields specific improvements in emotion recognition, whereas drawing persons in different social roles yields a higher level of self-complexity in the self-concept task. In contrast, no significant effects on socio-emotional skills were found in the course focussing on art history. Therefore, our study provides causal evidence that visual-arts programs situated in an art-museum context can advance socio-emotional skills, when designed properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art has the power to activate learning and emotion in unique ways—this is true of humans generally, and museum visitors specifically. Yet art galleries are often overlooked in the museum field as forums for dialogue and sites of learning about climate change. This article investigates the significance of artist-led projects and art museum exhibitions in engaging visitors with issues of climate change and greater planetary change through the lens of the Art Gallery of Ontario's Anthropocene exhibition featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier and the related Anthropocene Project by the same trio of artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Šolsko Polje is the property of Solsko Polje and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Arts Management is the property of International Journal of Arts Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Among the accepted ideas on the subject of the museography of fine arts, there is one that constantly recurs: visitors almost never read displayed texts. What is worse, their presence tends to distract visitors from the contemplation of masterpieces. Does the systematic observation of public behavior in a very large museum in Paris and interviews with small groups of French and foreign visitors confirm this suspicion? To answer this question, our team undertook two parallel series of investigations: one on the techniques employed in written signage design within this museum, and the other using observation and semi-directed interviews conducted with a random sample that distinguished between French and foreign visitors. Many categories of comments emerge from this research, all of which concern types of relationships between written signage and activities the public may undertake to appreciate works of art. This inquiry allows us to: (1) identify the elements of complexity in the museum's written materials; (2) describe the way these materials are used; and (3) understand the role they play in the social aspects of the museum visit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community art museums emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s as alternatives to mainstream art museums. However, these nontraditional/ethnic art organizations have become increasingly similar to established museum models. This article examines the historical evolution of a community art museum in New York City and the factors that contributed to its conventionalization. The study suggests that fieldwide economic and professional pressures were the driving forces behind the transformation of this organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]