Art of memories : curating at the Hermitage / Vincent Antonin Lépinay.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lépinay, Vincent Antonin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh (Russia)--Officials and employees.

Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh (Russia).

Art museums--Social aspects--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Art museums.

Corporate culture--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Corporate culture.

Art museums--Social aspects.

Employees.

Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Physical Description:

xi, 273 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2019]

Summary:

Once the home of Catherine the Great's private art collection, Russia's State Hermitage Museum became the largest museum in the Soviet Union and, since the collapse of the USSR, one of the most active museums in the world. The Hermitage is a global model for the collection and preservation of fine art, deeply shaped by its need to protect itself and its holdings from the world beyond its gates. In Art of Memories, Vincent Antonin L pinay documents the Hermitage's curatorial practices in an innovative consideration of the museum as a cultural laboratory. L pinay analyzes the tensions between the museum as a space of exploration of the collections and as a culture heavily invested in self-protection from the outside world. During a time when traveling abroad was rare, a generation of art historians produced a culture of confined scholarship premised on their proximity to the holdings of a museum enclave. As the Hermitage has become increasingly present on the world museum scene, its culture of secrecy and orality has endured. L pinay analyzes the ethos of Hermitage curators and scholars over the transition from Soviet to post-Soviet museum cultures, considering the mobility of art, documentation of the collection, and the transformation of expertise. Based on L pinay's extraordinary access to the Hermitage and the scholars who work there, Art of Memories opens the door of one of the world's great museums to reveal how art history is made. It is an essential study for readers interested in the role that outside forces play in culture, organizations, and the production of knowledge.

Contents:

Introduction : Hermitage, a cultural laboratory

Moving objects

Interlude 1 : art history and Hermitage before World War II

Documenting the museum

Art history from the collections up

Interlude 2: mobility at Hermitage

The nostalgic modesty of Hermitage restorers

Guides : taking science down the galleries

Spaces and surprises: technologies of vision for a long winter

Conclusion : secreting documents.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Lépinay, Vincent Antonin, author. Art of memories

ISBN:

9780231191883

023119188X

9780231191890

0231191898

OCLC:

1051776069