Museums and Photography

Museums and Photography combines a strong theoretical approach with international case studies to investigate the display of death in various types of museums-history, anthropology, art, ethnographic, and science museums - and to understand the changing role of photography in museums. Contributors explore the politics and poetics of displaying death, and more specifically, the role of photography in representing and interpreting this difficult topic. Working with nearly 20 researchers from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines, the editors critically engage the recent debate on the changing role of museums, exhibition meaning-making, and the nature of photography. They offer new ways for understanding representational practices in relation to contemporary visual culture. This book will appeal to researchers and museum professionals, inspiring new thinking about death and the role of photography in making sense of it.

Elena Stylianou is Assistant Professor in Art History and Theory at European University Cyprus and the founder and coordinator of its Cultural Studies and Contemporary Arts Lab. She has taught in well-known museums in New York, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Museum of the City of New York and has been involved in various curatorial projects. She has received several fellowships and awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship (USA) and an Art Table Museum Fellowship (USA). Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert is Assistant Professor at the School of Fine and Applied Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology and the founder and coordinator of its Visual Sociology and Museum Studies Lab. Her previous books include The Political Museum (2016), Museums and Visitor Photography (2016) and Photography and Cyprus (2014). She has received several scholarships and awards, including a Smithsonian Fellowship in Museum Practice (USA) and a Fulbright Fellowship (USA).

Approaches to Displaying Death in Museums: An Introduction Elena Stylianou & Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert PART I: EVIDENCING THE PAST Negotiating Death at the Great Kanto Earthquake Memorial Museum J. M. Hammond Honoring the dead: photography and the display of the Jewish Necropolis at the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki Iro Katsaridou "Death from the skies." Photographs in museums of the aerial bombing of civilians during World War Two Sheila Watson Saints, Martyrs and Heroes: "Sacred Displays" or the Iconography of Death in Cypriot Museums Yiannis Toumazis PART II: THE SPECTABLE OF DEATH The War/Photography Exhibition and the Display of Death Jean Kempf "Persons Unknown": Lynching Photographs in the Museum RM Wolff Human Skulls and Photographs of Dead Bandits: the Problems of Presenting a Nineteenth Century Museum to Twenty-First-Century-Audiences Silvano Montaldo and Eleanor Chiari Our First Murder: Exhibiting Evidence outside the Police Archive Stella Pekiaridi PART III: EMPAPHY AND RESTORING ANONYMITY A Gallery of Martyrs - The Martyr in the Gallery: Public Display and the Artistic Appropriation of Martyr Images in the Middle East Verena Straub What Will You Remember When I'm Gone? Funerary Photography in the Gallery's Public / Private Space Rosanne Altstatt Remediating Death at Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum Rachel Perry Photography and the Museum: visiting the sight of Death Pam Meecham PART IV: MUSEUMS AS AGENTS OF CHANGE Double Exposure: Absence and Evidence in Ken Gonzales-Day's Erased Lynching Reilley Bishop-Stall On May 1, 2011 (Alfredo Jaar, 2011) - Expanding the Frame of the Original Photograph Mafalda Dâmaso Photography as a form of taxidermy: Zoe Leonard's Preserved Head of a Bearded Woman, Musée Orfila Chelsea Nichols