Topic

Museum/Art Museum exhibitions are all around us. These museum exhibitions have obviously great social and cultural impact shock; their ideas, objects and exhibition techniques have driven a special cultural landscape.

Museums display themselves outwardly through the interpretation and communication of exhibitions and education. Permanent exhibitions display their self-identities, whereas temporary exhibitions explore other possible aspects of knowledge. Since modern times, temporary exhibitions are expected to be dynamic forums, whose exhibitive narratives are similar to commentaries and critical genres, while being actively concerned with social issues and paying attention to different subjects. Temporary exhibitions have not only become a part of museums’ participation in socio-cultural practices, but are also often connected with cultural industries. However, the advent of “blockbusters” in national museums have foreshadow the way museums in Taiwan turn to market rationality. Once museum managers begin to position the museum according to market demand, the value of museum’s existence will eventually be marginalized in the capitalist system.

Exhibitions can blaze the trail for the development of museums, but are also likely to contradict the fundamental values that prompt scientific and cultural developments. Exhibitions can at the same time underscore the hermeneutics of subjects, and dilute the strength of cultural democratization by monopoly and exclusion. Contemporary museums must come up with some new concerns, develop new avenue to exhibitions, and constantly make sure that visitors truly understand the exhibitions. The understanding and criticism of exhibitions is a complicated whole; it involves the judgment on an existing exhibition made by different people, in different time and space, according to specific criteria, and in certain ideal forms or models.

Subthemes

1. The study of the origin and developments of museum exhibitions.

2. The exhibitive function of museums and its relationship with other departments in the museum.

3. The relationship between the practice of museum exhibitions and social institutions.

4. The relationship between museum exhibitions and specific cultural realms.

5. The museographic study of museum exhibitions.