Exploring the culture of intolerance that overtook the art world in the postmodern era, Lynne Munson shows how a new dogmatism established itself in the NEA, museums, academia, and even the artist's studio, where experimental art was favored at the expense of the traditional, and limits placed on what might be funded, exhibited, studied, and created. The subject is hot. Her tone is cool. Her case histories speak for themselves. This is a brave book. —Andrew Forge, Yale School of Art. Invaluable and shockingly intelligent...Lynne Munson lays bare the new, rigid art ethic enforced by government bureaucrats and official academicians. —Maggie Gallagher, Washington Times. Illustrated.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In this devastating critique of the art establishment, first-time author Lynne Munson demolishes the postmodern idea that art can't be separated from politics and defends the traditional belief that art ought to be judged primarily by timeless aesthetic standards. This may sound like common sense, but it's a controversial view in America's leading art institutions, where inflammatory works crowd out serious art in exhibits that deliberately bait the public, such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" show and its feces-stained depiction of the Virgin Mary. "Some art historians now advocate turning the traditional museum, dedicated to providing an unfettered forum for learning through looking, into a new revisionist institution recommitted to the pursuit of altering visitors' beliefs," writes Munson. Indeed, Munson shows that this view infects not just museums, but the whole art world, from art-history departments in universities to the National Endowment for the Arts.
Munson takes readers on an eye-opening tour of all these places. She describes prominent museums in Baltimore and Cleveland that have blocked off glorious neoclassical entrances, with their tall columns and wide staircases, because these awe-inspiring gateways supposedly encourage elitism; visitors now shuffle through somewhat less magisterial side doors. She reveals how Harvard's art-history program, once the envy of every school in the land, has decayed into a place where students learn fancy theories but gain little practical knowledge of art objects. She shows how the NEA funded talented and promising artists at its inception, but now (with a bloated budget) considers its first mission the advocacy of social change. The problem isn't that great art isn't being made today--Munson argues that it is, and makes her case well in a chapter on painting. Instead, it's that the current art establishment, at war against the notion of quality, is too confused to recognize any of this. Exhibitionism is a profoundly sensible book that belongs on the reading list of every art fan. --John J. Miller
Review
Helps us better understand some of the ideological arguments that fuel current art world debates. (K. Marantz Choice )
Lynne Munson has done what many thought impossible...written an art museum book that is achieving buzz. (Stephen E. Weil Museum News )
"Every once in awhile, a book comes along that answers a long-lingering question...Lynne Munson's Exhibitionism is such a book." (Barnes, Michael American-Statesman )
The subject is hot. Her tone is cool. It is a brave book. (Andrew Forge )
Vigorous...a book which should prompt readers to reexamine their very notion of art. (Virginia Quarterly Review )
Mesmerizing. (George F. Will Newsweek )
Lynne Munson has done what many thought impossible...written an art museum book that is achieving buzz. (Stephen E. Weil Museum News )
"Every once in awhile, a book comes along that answers a long-lingering question...Lynne Munson's Exhibitionism is such a book." (Barnes, Michael American-Statesman )
The subject is hot. Her tone is cool. It is a brave book. (Andrew Forge )
Vigorous...a book which should prompt readers to reexamine their very notion of art. (Virginia Quarterly Review )
Mesmerizing. (George F. Will Newsweek )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Art for art's sake?,
By Robert E Witwer (CO, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance (Hardcover)
Munson's observations about the politicization of high culture are intelligent and original -- and right on the money. She argues not against the particular biases of museum curators or art history departments, but against the common, vulgar didacticism that so often accompanies the presentation of art. She demonstrates how aestheticism and trained objectivity have been mugged by interest-group politics. She gives voice to ideas that are often thought but rarely so well expressed. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about art and high culture, and I commend its author for her insight and thoughtfulness on the subject.
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Telling the Truth,
By A Customer
This review is from: Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance (Hardcover)
Think of the last time you were in a museum, gallery, or art history class... If it was before 1980, Miss Munson's book is a quick read that may shock you in a way that the Sensation show didn't. If you're a regular her investigations can't be denied. Liberals, conservatives, artists and non-artists alike will find these stories captivating and sad. As a painter living in New York, I can assure Munson that hope is not dead in the artist's studio even if the art world or public is too cynical to use their eyes.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Can Gauge the Success of Munson's Arguments...,
By Robert Haile (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance (Hardcover)
...by the threatened reaction from those that have little to gain and all to lose by steering artistic focus toward definitions of beauty, quality and meaning executed by passionate artists, and away from the use of art exhibitions as purely political and social tools of the left, or simply because it's a fashionable career path in many of today's institutions.If you're tired of art being defined by publicity stunts and attacks on your intelligence or values by naked emperors and empires, you ought to read this, because you are not alone. There are many of us who feel this way. It took courage to write this book and I applaud her for it.
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