Book Review - Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust

This spring/summer ANSM partnered with Saint Mary's University to teach a course on museum fundamentals and decolonizing collections. As part of the course, students were invited to read and review a related book from ANSM's reference library. Here is Claire Mercer's book review.

image from amazon.ca

What role do art museums hold within Western societies? How, and why does art, of all subjects, set certain standards for the relationship between public trust and museums? And what is public trust? James Cuno, former director of the Courtauld Institute of London and his colleagues attempted to answer these questions, and many others in the 2004 edited work, Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust. Cuno, the editor of the book, along with other prominent museum “elite” like Neil MacGregor, John Walsh, James N. Wood, Glenn Lowry and Philippe de Montebello each contributed an essay on different aspects of modern art museums and public trust. The focus of each essay varied, and considered concepts like art museum authority, deontological theory, emotion, art museums as an object and how these institutions fit into the daily lives of individuals. The volume concludes with a roundtable discussion between all the book’s contributors.

Each of the authors bounce their ideas off of one another and build onto the previous essay, and the stories introduced. Importantly, the stories being relayed encourage you, as the reader, to ponder your own emotional and physical experiences at art museums, and museums in general. Whose Muse? is therefore a worthwhile book to read if you are interested in museums as a whole, not only art museums or galleries. With that said, there were both highlights and shortcomings within Cuno’s book that can be further explored.

A few elements of Whose Muse? encourage positive assessment of the authors’ thoughts and contributions. One of these assessments’ centres on one of the themes that carries through the book, which is the emphasis on the importance of the layperson’s relationship with art and art museums. True consideration of the public, not only the population who were previously well versed in art, strengthened the book’s topic of public trust. By placing weight on the critical contribution of many visitors to museums, it allows you to continue reading Whose Muse? with confidence some confidence that the authors are looking at the larger museum landscape, and not solely from a top down approach.  

Public trust in art museums is best explored in Lowry’s essay, “A Deontological Approach to Art Museums and the Public Trust.” Museums in American are considered and perceived to be non-profits, but Lowry thoughtfully breaks down how certain institutions have challenged this mandate. Lowry’s essay is arguably the most impactful in the book and enables the reader to understand the consequences of museums becoming performative institutions in attempt to increase their profits. This deontological discussion situates itself nicely among the book’s explanations of museum politics, like how they are funded and what relationship they have with government in both the United States and France, for example. Wood’s essay, “The Authorities of the American Art Museum” expands on the politics of American art museums and discusses government the most. Wood’s essay is informative on a number of matters, including the ties between democracy and the risk of tyranny among the authorities of art museums in America.

In considering the highlights of the book, Wood makes an assertion that is seemingly relevant to the current situation with museums: the two main challenges facing museum “authority” are strong intellectual theory and extreme commercialization. According to Wood, intellectual theory can cause stagnation in a museum’s goals and their ability to enhance the visitor’s experience. Commercialization on the other hand can be dangerous for public trust in several fashions, but one of the main ones that Wood introduces is the situation when replicas are put on display to attract visitors. When scandalous situations like this come out, it erodes the public’s trust in art museums, and the institution of museums as a whole. Each of the highlights in Whose Muse? are worth pondering, and for every reader there would be undoubtedly different highlights, depending on their interests. However as previously mentioned, there are problematic elements of the work which could deserve critiquing.

Two main issues presented themselves when reading Whose Muse? and both relate to the book’s ignorance of colonial legacy within art museums. To preface, this book was written in 2004, and so I write this with some hope that terminology and ideas would have adapted based on social differences now in 2022. Whose Muse? reflects colonial museum discourse that current museum “authorities” are hopefully all striving to move away from. Some problematic terminology within this discourse includes “authorities” and “mission,” among a variety of other colonial terms. This terminology was likely amplified by the first larger problem of the book, which is its focus on Western art museums and an almost unjustified emphasis on American institutions. The title doesn’t indicate the exclusivity that would carry through the theme of the essays. In one sense, it’s understandable that the authors were explicitly aiming to write on the scope of their knowledge. But in another sense, there were generalizations made about art museums as a whole that are simply not applicable to what every individual would understand and experience as an art museum. Therefore, what the authors of Whose Muse? perceive to be elements of public trust toward art museums may fall out of line with what the public believes to be indicators of trust.

The other major critique applicable to Whose Muse? is the authors’ suggestion, or unwritten assumption that all are welcome into art museums, regardless of their status in society. Although the authors consider all visitors to museums, Whose Muse? doesn’t discuss the experiences of marginalized communities with art museums, and the possibility that they don’t even feel welcome to visit in the first place. In failing to address this exclusivity, Cuno and his co-authors don’t assess the ways in which marginalized communities have been potentially misrepresented by curators and directors alike, particularly in Western institutions. What does this demonstrate about Whose Muse?’s discussion of public trust? Well, without addressing the unique experiences of marginalized communities and public trust in their representation, Whose Muse? has fallen short of relaying an accurate depiction of the very topic it wished to claim expertise.

This brief review of Whose Muse? is intended to encourage my peers to read the book, however with skepticism. The social and political climate in Western society, and across the world has certainly shifted since 2004. This means that it could be time to revamp Cuno and his colleagues work and intentions, with a fresh perspective and a more informed sense of the relationship between public trust and art museums.

Click here to request this book from ANSM's reference library.