Readings recommended by CIMAM members
For the week of December 27, 2024, we have some reading recommendations for you that have been suggested by CIMAM members. These articles and books are related to museums and collections of modern and contemporary art.
Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum
Edited by Dare Turner and Leila Grothe. University of Washington Press, 2024.
Published on the occasion of the "Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum" initiative at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this book centers Native artist voices and challenges collective understandings of Native peoples' pivotal role in North American history. The written and visual contributions address and refute the oppressive and pervasive hierarchies of colonialism upon which museums are based. The book features essays by heather ahtone (Chickasaw / Choctaw), Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), and John Lukavic; newly commissioned poetry by Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe); a comic conceived, written, and illustrated by Weyodi Old Bear (Comanche), Dale Deforest (Diné), and Lee Francis IV (Pueblo of Laguna); and transcripts of roundtable discussions with contemporary Native artists.
The Idea of the Avant Garde: And What It Means Today, Volume 2
Edited by Léger Marc James. Intellect Ltd, 2019
The first volume of The Idea of the Avant Garde – And What It Means Today provided a lively forum on radical art theory and partisan practices. This second volume presents the work of another 50 artists and writers, exploring the diverse ways that avant-gardism develops reflexive and experimental combinations of aesthetic and political praxis.
Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving
by Caitlin DeSilvey. University Of Minnesota Press, 2017
Transporting readers from derelict homesteads to imperiled harbors, postindustrial ruins to Cold War test sites, Curated Decay presents an unparalleled provocation to conventional thinking on the conservation of cultural heritage. Caitlin DeSilvey proposes rethinking the care of certain vulnerable sites in terms of ecology and entropy, and explains how we must adopt an ethical stance that allows us to collaborate with—rather than defend against—natural processes.
Curated Decay chronicles DeSilvey’s travels to places where experiments in curated ruination and creative collapse are under way, or under consideration. It uses case studies from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to explore how objects and structures produce meaning not only in their preservation and persistence, but also in their decay and disintegration. Through accessible and engaging discussion of specific places and their stories, it traces how cultural memory is generated in encounters with ephemeral artifacts and architectures.
An interdisciplinary reframing of the concept of the ruin that combines historical and philosophical depth with attentive storytelling, Curated Decay represents the first attempt to apply new theories of materiality and ecology to the concerns of critical heritage studies.
Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics
Edited by Sofia Lemos. Sternberg Press, 2024
Inspired by how rivers bend and curve, connecting entire ecosystems, Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics unfolds the cultural, historical, spiritual, and ecological trajectories of waterways, reflecting the vitality of water, from source to sea. A diverse group of artists and writers set out to trace river systems from the sierras and forests of southern Spain, to the heartlands of the Americas and the undersurface of the Mediterranean, proposing new routes for collaborative research and knowledge-production.
Exclusive for CIMAM members >> Editorial Discounts
- Exclusive for CIMAM members, enjoy a 25% discount on a selection of contemporary art and curatorial books through Lund Humphries online bookstore.
- CIMAM members can now enjoy an exclusive 20% discount on all the titles included in the Hatje Cantz's selection created for CIMAM members.
Access the Members Only section to get further reading recommendations by CIMAM members.