Collecting the New

Museums and Contemporary Art

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Art: History & Theory

Edited by Bruce Altshuler

Princeton University Press

Due/Published July 2005, 208 pages, cloth

ISBN 0691119406

Collecting the New is the first book on the questions and challenges that museums face in acquiring and preserving contemporary art. Because such art has not yet withstood the test of time, it defies the traditional understanding of the art museum as an institution that collects and displays works of long-established aesthetic and historical value. By acquiring such art, museums gamble on the future. In addition, new technologies and alternative conceptions of the artwork have created special problems of conservation, while social, political, and aesthetic changes have generated new categories of works to be collected.

Following Bruce Altshuler's introduction on the European and American history of museum collecting of art by living artists, the book is comprised of newly commissioned essays by twelve distinguished curators, representing a wide range of museums. First considered are general issues including the acquisition process, and collecting by universal survey museums and museums that focus on modern and contemporary art. Next come groups of essays that address collecting in particular media, including prints and drawings, new (digital) media, and film and video; and national- and ethnic-specific collecting (contemporary art from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and African American art). The closing essay examines the conservation problems created by contemporary works--for example, what is to be done when deterioration is the artist's intent?