Museums and Popular Culture

Part 1 The Chantrey episode: art classification, museums and the state circa 1870-1920; the origins of the early picture gallery catalogue in Europe, and its application in Victorian Britain; the devaluation of "cultural capital" - postmodern democracy and the art blockbuster; the collection despite Barnes - from private preserve to blockbuster; the public interest in the art museums' public; audiences - a curatorial dilemma; extending the frame - forging a new partnership with the public; revolutionary "vandalism" and the birth of the museum; Rome, the archetypal museum, and the Louvre, the negation of division; the historicality of art - Royal Academy (1780-1836) and Courtauld Institute Galleries (1990 - ...) at Somerset House. Part 2 Reviews edited by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill: "He shoots! ... he scores!" - Toronto's new Hockney Hall of Fame is a winner; St Mungo's Museum of Religious Art and Life; from Petrarch to Huizinga - the visual arts as an historical source; report on the conference "To the genealogy of the museum", National Museet Copenhagen, 23-25 September 1993.