Title & Author:

Pathways of art : how objects get to the museum / Museum Rietberg ; edited by Esther Tisa Francini ; with the collaboration of Sarah Csernay.

Publication:

Zurich : Scheidegger & Spiess, [2022]
©2022

Description:

437 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), facsimiles, maps, portraits ; 27 cm

Notes:
The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition at Museum Rietberg, Zürich, June 17, 2022-June 25, 2023.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-431).
Foreword / Annette Bhagwati -- Pathways of Art : Introduction / Esther Tisa Francini -- Acquiring. Introduction ; From Libraries to the Museum : The illustrated pharmacopoeia Ikhtiyarat-i Badl'i by Hajji Zayn al-Attar / Rosine Vuille ; An Aztec Rattlesnake, the Shadow of Alexander von Humboldt, and the Limitations of Provenance Research / David Blankenstem ; Tlingit Sun Mask : Approaching the history of an object from multiple perspectives / Mira Jossen ; Traces of Colonial Injustice : Collaborative provenance research into artworks from the Kingdom of Benin / Michaela Oberhofer and Esther Tisa Francini ; The Art of Diplomacy : Gift exchange in the Kingdom of Bamum / Michaela Oberhofer -- Collecting. Introduction ; Power through Art : Imperial collecting in China / Kim Karlsson ; "Wild Things" in the Villa : The Oceania Collection of Sidney W. Brown / Sarah Csernay ; Multiple Displacements : National Socialist cultural policy and the Nell Walden Collection / Esther Tisa Francini ; The Fascination with Iran in the 1930s : Rudolf Schmidt and the collecting of the Luristan bronzes / Esther Tisa Francini ; Split, Donate, and Export : Alice Boner's efforts to preserve her art collection in India and Switzerland / Johannes Beltz -- Displaying. Introduction ; The Life Story of Chinese Bronzes / Alice Yu Cheng ; Canonization and the Cult of Relics : The Ardabil carpet and its remnant in Museum Rietberg / Axel Langer ; From Stage to Museum : Modes of presentation for No masks / Esther Tisa Francini and Khanh Trinh ; The Werner Reinhart Collection and the Reception of Indian Miniature Paintings in Switzerland / Rosine Vuille ; "Suspended before a white background, I exist" : Photography and the creation of the canon of African art in the Global North / Namna Guyer -- Dealing. Introduction ; Hayashi Tadamasa and the Creation of a Market for Japanese Art / Brigitte Koyama-Richard ; C. T. Loo : Art dealer and cultural mediator / Alexandra von Przychowski ; The Business of Art : Iconoclasm in Cote d'Ivoire and the trade practices of Swiss gallerist, Emil Storrer / Esther Tisa Francini ; From Ritual Object to Work of Art : The routes of Tibetica to the museum / Martin Brauen -- Fragmenting. Introduction ; Stories from the Edge : The reconstruction of Islamic painting and calligraphy albums with the help of borders / Axel Langer ; Antoine-Louis Henri Polier in India : Patron, collector, enlightened art lover? / Claire Brizon ; Local and Global Trading of Pre-Hispanic Andean Textiles : Insights into the collection / Cecilia Pardo ; Buddha Heads and the Reception of Chinese Buddhist Art at the Beginning of the 20th Century / Alexandra von Przychowski ; Market and Manipulation : The "beautification" of Chinese tomb pottery by art dealers / Alexandra von Przychowski -- Knowing. Introduction ; From Stone Lake to Lake Zurich : The 400-year journey of a Chinese painting / Kim Karlsson ; Research That Gets under the Skin : The role of conservation-restoration in object analysis / Axel Langer ; The History of a Maya Relief : The tension between transfer of cultural property and knowledge production / Christian M. Prager and Antje Grothe ; A Collaboration in Art-Ethnography : Haku Shah and Eberhard Fischer in Gujarat, 1965 to 1972 / Eberhard Fischer ; When Instruments Sing Again : Collaborative research and exhibiting / Johannes Beltz.

Summary:

Non-European artworks in European and American museums have become the subject of controversial debate. How exactly these collections of art from Africa, North and South America, Asia, and Oceania have been amassed in the Global North over centuries - and how such works continue to be acquired and traded in the twenty-first century - is under close scrutiny, and claims for their restitution to the places and people of their origin are voiced loudly. Zurich's Museum Rietberg, one of Europe's most renowned museums of non-Western art, has undertaken an extensive exhibition project to explore the thoroughly ambivalent history of its own collection. The essays in this illustrated reader published in conjunction with the exhibition investigate the pathways along which objects traveled to the museum. They shed light on how the meaning of these artifacts has shifted in the course of the transfers. And they demonstrate the importance of provenance research for learning comprehensively about, and taking a critical approach in, the assessment of the complex biographies of artifacts. This book offers an important contribution to the debate about the status and impact of non-European art in the Global North. It aims to foster awareness of the colonial and postcolonial contexts of trading and collecting such artworks and to help establish new museum narratives. (Exhibition: Museum Rietberg, Zürich, Switzerland (17.06.2022 - 25.06.2023).

ISBN:

3039420976
9783039420971 (paperback)

Subject:

Museum Rietberg Exhibitions.
Museum Rietberg
Art museums Acquisitions Exhibitions.
Art museums Collection management Exhibitions.
Indigenous art Collectors and collecting Exhibitions.
Musées d'art Gestion des collections Expositions.
Art autochtone Collectionneurs et collections Expositions.
Art museums Acquisitions
Art museums Collection management

Form/genre:

exhibition catalogs.
Exhibition catalogs.
Catalogues d'exposition.

Added entries:

Tisa Francini, Esther, 1972- editor.
Csernay, Sarah, contributor.
Museum Rietberg, host institution.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 316972
Call No.: 316972
Copy: 1
Status: External loan