Making and Effacing Art: Modern American Art in a Culture of Museums

Philip Fisher charts the pivotal role the museum has played in modern culture, revealing why it has become central to industrial society and how, in turn, artists have adapted to the museum's growing power, shaping their works with the museum in mind. He explores how, over the last two centuries, museums have presented art objects outside their original context, effacing them, in order to represent them in a sequential ordering of styles. It is this sequence that artists such as Jasper Johns and Frank Stella have mirrored, even parodied. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of modern art and culture.