In almost thirty interviews, Donatien Grau probes some of the world's most prominent thinkers and preeminent arts leaders on the past, present, and future of the encyclopedic museum.
Donatien Grau Books
Donatien Grau. Living Museums
Conversations with Leading Museum Directors
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
A modern history of the world’s greatest museums, as told by the people who know the institutions most intimately In his new book, French art critic Donatien Grau (born 1987) presents a case for the reconsideration of art museums as historical institutions and political forums, each one with its own rich biography.For this ambitious inquiry, Grau traveled to Williamstown, New York City, Vienna, Oxford, Ampthill, Moscow, Berlin and London to speak to the people working behind the scenes in the Western world’s greatest museums. Focusing on the 1960s to the 2000s, Grau details the stories of these cultural institutions from the perspectives of those who know them architect Frank Gehry explains his inspiration for the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain while Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova reminisces on the five decades she spent as Director of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.Grau’s incisive research is a testament to the influence of art museums as cultural touchstones throughout history.
After the crisis
- 254 pages
- 9 hours of reading
After the Crisis offers a platform for discussions between some of today's leading artists, writers, theorists, curators, and historians aimed at questioning the very status of photography today. Contributors come from the realms of critical theory, fiction, performance art, fashion photography, and museums, as well as film and design, and their conversations bring together history and the contemporary. Comparing the current situation of photographic images with the crisis experienced by representation at the time of the birth of photography, they set our relationship with photographic images in the digital era in perspective. Through these discussions, we come to sense the existential burden of being surrounded by images, while also beginning to grasp the historical depth of a questioning of images that started long before the current generation and engages with crucial political and cultural issues of our time.