TV Museum

Contemporary Art and the Age of Television

By (author) Maeve Connolly

Publication date:

15 May 2014

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

229x178mm
7x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783201815

TV Museum takes as its subject the complex and shifting relationship between television and contemporary art. Informed by theories and histories of art and media since the 1950s, this book charts the changing status of television as cultural form, object of critique and site of artistic invention. Through close readings of artworks, exhibitions and institutional practices in diverse cultural and political contexts, Connolly demonstrates television’s continued importance for contemporary artists and curators seeking to question the formation and future of the public sphere. Paying particular attention to developments since the early 2000s, TV Museum includes chapters on exhibiting television as object; soaps, sitcoms and symbolic value in art and television; reality TV and the social turn in art; TV archives, memory, and media events; broadcasting and the public realm; TV talk shows and curatorial practice; art workers and TV production cultures.

'Scholarship on the art world’s encounter with television takes a massive step forward with the publication of TV Museum. In this original and intelligent book, Maeve Connolly lays out a comprehensive anatomy of the shape this encounter has taken in recent decades, focusing not only on artists but also on curators, cultural agencies, and community organizations. Her research base is international in scope, her prose is concise and lucid, and her analysis has a freshness that readers will appreciate. This book leads the field beyond overly familiar binaries - high vs. low, authoritarianism vs. democracy - by showing that working professionals in contemporary art do not treat TV as a singular apparatus or set of effects. It is at once a physical object, an audiovisual archive, a source of entertainment, a business model, and a public purveyor of history, and Connolly’s thoughtful analysis traces the kinds of work that are made possible as artists, curators, museum directors, and gallerists increasingly acknowledge television in all these forms. This visually stunning book, packed with well-chosen color illustrations, promises to be the authoritative text on the incorporation of television and art for a very long time.'