This dissertation traces the rhetoric of two Philadelphians, attorney John G. Johnson and Dr. Albert C. Barnes, as they collected art with a specific public in mind, namely working Philadelphians around the turn of the twentieth century. The individual bequests and resulting legacy institutions of Johnson and Barnes serve as rich case studies to assess the efforts of collectors to control the reception of their respective collections by the public. These particular histories, exceptional in their own ways, are juxtaposed to offer an objective view onto previously understudied challenges to the status quo, mounted by a few collectors by way of unique discursive practices and the establishment of distinctive single collection institutions, in the formative period for American art museums around the turn of the twentieth century in Philadelphia. The focus is on the two men’s often shared, but eventually divergent, ideas pertaining to art and the public, which can be tracked to relevant discourses that informed those views. At stake in this investigation is the relative tension between the agency of the collectors and the repurposing of their individual collections by future publics. More plainly, the goal is to study the interrelated narratives of collectors, Johnson and Barnes, as they unfolded over the course of the long twentieth century with an eye to what is gained or lost from the unraveling of the deliberate plans left by the collectors, which in both of these cases, included relocating the art work from the original site, leading to coincident shifts in the manner of display and targeted audience. It is not the point of this study to weigh-in on matters of justice regarding the individual cases, rather the goal is to probe the limits of an art collector’s vision held against the dynamic needs of publics, and evaluate what this might mean for the twenty first century. / Art History

The problems of this study may be stated as follows: (1) to show the various methods used by Virginia savings and loan associations in handling their delinquent accounts, (2) to determine by research their major advantages and disadvantages, and (3) to determine which methods or procedures would serve the best interests of the associations and their customers. Information concerning the current procedures and conditions were supplied by thirty (30) savings and loan officers, who answered questionnaires mailed to them. These replies represented over 50 per cent of the associations currently doing business in Virginia. In addition, selected representative associations were visited and operating personnel interviewed. The conclusions which were reached as a result of the analysis of the accumulated information have been stated. The study shows that procedures followed by the different savings and loan associations vary to a considerable extent and that innovation in management techniques would benefit many of these organizations. / Master of Science

No description available.

In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century the collecting of objects from colonized countries and their subsequent display in western museums was widespread throughout Western Europe. How and why these collections were made, the processes of collection, and by whom, has only recently begun to be addressed. This thesis is an exploration of the ethnographic collection of Gertrude Emily Benham (1867-1938) who made eight voyages independently around the world from 1904 until 1938, during which time she amassed a collection of approximately eight hundred objects, which she donated to Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in 1935. It considers how and why she formed her collection and how, as a an amateur and marginalised collector, she can be located within discourses on ethnographic collecting. The thesis is organised by geographical regions in order to address the different contact zones of colonialism as well as to contextualise Benham within the cultural milieu in which she collected and the global collection of objects that she collected. An interdisciplinary perspective was employed to create a dialogue between anthropology, geography, museology, postcolonial and feminist theory to address the complex issues of colonial collecting. Benham is located within a range of intersecting histories: colonialism, travel, collecting, and gender. This study is the first in-depth examination of Benham as a collector and adds to the knowledge and understanding of Benham and her collection in Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. It contributes to the discourse on ethnographic collectors and collecting and in doing so it acknowledges the agency and contribution of marginal collectors to resituate them as a central and intrinsic component in the formation of the ethnographic museum. In addition, and central to this, is the agency and role of indigenous people in forming ethnographic collections. The thesis offers a foundation for further research into women ethnographic collectors and a more nuanced and inclusive account of ethnographic collecting.

Personal media collections are becoming increasingly digitised with physical representations of music, film, games and books being replaced by virtual counterparts. Through qualitative fieldwork, this thesis examines the relationship that people have with traditional collections, and therein seeks to outline the aspects of which we find to be meaningful and enjoyable. Furthermore, this project attempts to apply these qualities to the design of digital media collection services. The research reveals that elements pertaining to identity, curation, presence, sharing, preservation and status are key. In addition to the fieldwork, a market analysis of current digital media collection services is carried out and drawn upon in the development of a design concept. The concept is used as a platform to discuss potential solutions addressing the unfavourable characteristics of digital media collections.

This thesis considers the contemporary work of the museum in the post-industrial setting of Glasgow. It interprets and understands how the museum as a space gives voice to New Labour’s concepts of social inclusion and citizenship whilst being embroiled in the wider process of urban regeneration and city enhancement. This research has been conducted using a mixed methodology incorporating policy analysis, participant observation and interviews, engaging with policy documentation, museum professionals and museum users in its goal to understand how the museum has been and is positioned within society. In exploring how museums have sought to become more socially inclusive, the research examined four different programmes in detail. These included two outreach projects; one working with adult learners and the other with different religious groups in the city. The research has also followed the contribution of a group of volunteers and finally it has engaged with the on-going processes surrounding the building of the city’s latest museum. The research findings have highlighted a complex and entangled set of power relations in the attempts to articulate social inclusion policy through the museum. This suggests, building upon the work of Foucault, that the museum embraces a soft-disciplinary power in relation to citizens. Specific programmes of the museum service targeting social inclusion reveal the benefits the individual may enjoy through participating in cultural events from which they might otherwise feel excluded. Yet, the reach of such programmes question the extent to which they are able to address social inclusion in the city. Recent developments – the production of the city’s newest museum as part of the riverside regeneration in particular – reveal how the installation of the iconic museum is closely allied to the wider project of urban economic regeneration. The planning of the Riverside Museum, however, has been attentive to the social inclusion agenda, particularly through the questions of access. Finally, the research shows how the city’s dominant growth agenda has resulted in a changing role for curators, shifting their agency away from a more traditional practice in which they were key gatekeepers, coordinating what museums displayed and how they did so, and towards a role that reflects a more scrutinised form of managerial control.

Sexually themed objects from ancient Greece and Rome have been present in debates about our relationship with the past and with sexuality since they were first brought to modern attention in large numbers in the Enlightenment period. However, modern engagement with this type of material has very often been characterised as problematic. This thesis pushes beyond the story of reactionary censorship of ancient depictions of sex to demonstrate how these images were meaningfully engaged with across intellectual life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and America. It makes a significant and timely contribution to our existing knowledge of a key historical period for the development of the modern understanding of sexuality and cultural representations of it, and the central role that antiquity played in negotiating this fundamental aspect of modernity. Crucially, this work demonstrates how sexual antiquities functioned as symbols of pre-Christian sexual, social and political mores, with which to think through, and to challenge, contemporary cultural constructions around sexuality, religion, gender roles and the development of culture itself. It presents evidence of the widespread and prolific acquisition of sexually themed artefacts throughout private and institutional collecting culture. This deliberate seeking out of ancient images of sex is shown to have been motivated by debates on the universal human connection between sex and religion, as part of wider constructions of notions such as ‘culture’ and ‘primitivism’, with Classical material maintaining a central position in these ideas, despite research into increasingly diverse cultures, past and present. The purposeful engagement with sexual imagery from antiquity is also revealed as having acted as a valuable new source of knowledge about ancient sexual life between men which gave new impetus to the negotiation, defence, celebration and promotion of homoerotic desire in contemporary turn of the twentieth century, Western society.

This is a project about the method of collecting, exploring properties and finding out when an object changes to another. It takes its starting point from the analysis of my collection of intuitively chosen objects, or fragments as I call them, and my interests of how space and object relates to each other and us as human beings. The outcome of my project is a collection of pieces of furniture that wants to interact with you, letting you decide how you want to use them depending on how you perceive them.

Vi lever i en ömtålig vardag. Vi gör den än ömtåligare genom vårt sätt att leva. Det är ingen idé att jag säger det med ord; jag har redan sagt det så många gånger att människorna runt omkring mig har slutat lyssna. Kanske är objekt en bättre ingång till samtal. I det här arbetet har jag, genom såväl text som praktiskt arbete inom corpuskonstfältet, undersökt vad som händer med oss när vardagen faller sönder och kaos utbryter. Genom en startpunkt i klimatkatastrofen år 536, som ledde till att närmare hälften av Nordens befolkning dog, har jag spekulerat kring om samma sak skulle hända idag, eller kanske att det händer idag. Resursbrist leder alltid till våld. Trots att vi vet det fortsätter vi knapra i oss jorden en liten bit i taget. Vad är tanken att vi ska göra när den tar slut? / We live in a fragile everyday. We make it even more fragile by the way we live it. There is no point in saying it with words any more, I've already tried that so many times that people have stopped listening. Maybe objects are a better way to start a conversation. In this project, that consists of this thesis and the physical body of work "Memories from a parallel future", I've been investigating what happens to us when the everyday falls apart and chaos erupts. With a starting point in the climate-crisis of the year 536, that led to the death of almost half of the Norse population, I've been speculating what would have happened today. Or maybe that it is actually happening today. Depletion of resources always results in violence. We know this, but still we keep nibbling at the earth, a little chunk at a time. What do we plan to do when there is nothing left? / <p>Bilder av verk av konstnärerna Iain Baxter&amp;, Naoko Ito och Luiana Rondolini har tagits bort av upphovsrättsliga skäl. Titlarna på verken står dock kvar. </p>

This study provides the first comprehensive account of the institutional history of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) from the earliest calls for its foundation at the start of the twentieth century to the recent series of exhibitions marking its fiftieth anniversary in 2010. The SNGMA is both a unique case‐study and a useful illustrative example of the specific category of modern art museum: the account of its history sets the institution within its wider cultural context and explores the inevitable complexities facing a public gallery devoted to modern art. The study examines how the institution has balanced the need to represent a full historical survey of modern art with the desire to engage with the contemporary, and how it has addressed the question of collecting and displaying the work of Scottish artists alongside international art. By providing a close documentary analysis of the evolution of the institution, drawn from within the Gallery’s own archives, combined with extended reflections on the central dilemmas it has had to face, the study constitutes an original contribution to museum scholarship. Various methodologies are employed to assess the diverse factors that have affected the institution’s development. The narrative confirms the close correlation between the architectural frame and the public perception of the institution. It traces the evolution of the acquisitions policy and notes how this shaped the permanent collection, allowing a shift from an aspiration to universal coverage of the international trends of 20th century art to a more targeted specialisation in certain areas, primarily Dada and Surrealism. It charts the attitudes towards temporary exhibitions and the display of the permanent collection, and examines these in the light of current exhibition theory and practice. The analysis concludes that the SNGMA has been largely successful at achieving the aims and ambitions it originally defined for itself, although its role is constantly evolving in response to changes in the broader context of art museums.