A cultivating journey
Subtitle: the Herman H. Levy legacy = Un voyage au cœur de l'art : le legs Herman H. Levy
Contributors: McMaster Museum of Art; Vancouver Art Gallery; Kelowna Art Gallery
Publisher: McMaster Museum of Art
Published: 2018
Place of publication: Hamilton, Ontario
Language: eng; fre
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781926632186
Subjects: Exhibitions; Art collections; European Art; Art; Private collections; Expositions; Collections d'art; Art européen; Collections privées; ART / Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions; McMaster Museum of Art
Other titles: Voyage au cœur de l'art :
Description: A cultivating journey' examines the collection of significant European historical and modern art donated to the McMaster Museum of Art by Herman Levy in 1984, and includes works by Courbet, Derain, Monet, Pissarro and Van Gogh. Today the production of such a project raises the critical question: how does the museum collect in the twenty-first century? This would have been a much easier consideration when the Levy donation entered the museum's collection. Up until that time, art history and the museum were Western inventions that served a particular period (circa 1860-1980) without contestation. The situation has since changed, forcing a reconsideration of the making, collecting, and presenting of art in a diverse and global world through a decidedly ideological institution. This thoroughly illustrated publication serves as both exhibition catalogue as well as an analysis of the task at hand. In essays and extended didactic statements on individual works, experts in their fields document the conundrum while speaking to/in the present museological moment. Discussions include the act of collecting; the transfer of personal to public; the enduring yet changing cultural significance of works of art - formally and socio-politically; the changing nature of collections; and the role of the museum in naming, classifying, interpreting, and maintaining works of cultural heritage.
Notes: Catalog of a touring exhibition held at the McMaster Museum of Art from September 1 to December 9, 2017, at the Vancouver Art Gallery from March 3 to May 21, 2018, and at the Kelowna Art Gallery from June 16 to October 28, 2018.

Text in English and French.