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Museum Legs, Amy Whitaker

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Museum Legs
• First Friday
• Liederkranz
• The Insulated Judiciary
• On the Origins
• Ladies Who Launch
• Revenge of the Homunculus
• On Boredom
• Why Museums Matter
• Exhibitionism and Appreciation
• Making Copies
• Alfred Barr Got Fired: Art Museums as Art Projects
• Women in Fancy Sweatshirts
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Suggested Reading

PUBLISHED BY:
Amy Whitaker,
Author & Project Manager
Libby Hruska, Editor
Catherine Casalino, Designer

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Museum Legs, Amy Whitaker

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"Amy Whitaker's sparkling meditations on the museum are both delightful and pressing. She explains how we might reattain our sense of wonder, and how museums might rediscover their essence: relating to patrons without being patronizing, and sustaining themselves without selling out." —Jonathan Zittrain

If you’ve ever considered going to an art museum and then thought, errr, I’ll do something else… If you’ve ever arrived at one and left a little glazed and confused… If you’ve ever thought, I might read an eight-page article about art museums but not a whole book… Then this is your story.

Museum Legs—taken from a term for art fatigue—starts with a question: Why do people get bored and tired in art museums and why does that matter? As Whitaker writes in this humorous and incisive collection of essays, museums matter for reasons that have less to do with art as we know it and more to do with business, politics, and the age-old question of how to live. Maybe the great age of museums will yet be a great age of creativity and hopeful possibility in everyday life.

Advance Praise

"Whitaker is the perfect docent--wise, wry, and engaging. Her essays are as captivating as the artworks they describe." —Daniel Gilbert, Professor, Harvard University, author of Stumbling on Happiness

"Whitaker writes with such wit and style--I was completely absorbed and laughed and nodded in equal measure. Really, I loved it." —Sophie Howarth, Director, School of Life

"Whitaker's thoughtful and intriguing essays are a reminder of the gifts of moments of reflection, insight, and pleasure that museums can offer to society, and the missed opportunities if we aren't ever mindful of what museums can accomplish." —Gail C. Andrews, Director, Birmingham Museum of Art

"It is so extraordinary to ask these simple questions and to have the courage to look for answers. Museums would be a better place to visit if they questioned themselves as Whitaker does." —Alfredo Jaar, artist

Related Titles

Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton (2008, W. W. Norton); Museum Highlights, Andrea Fraser (2007, MIT Press).

About the Author

photo by Kim CurtinAmy Whitaker has an M.B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. in painting from the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She has worked in art museums including the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate, and for a well-known artist and a well-known hedge fund. This is her first book.