Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (38.2005)

‘beauty’, or the visual in general were opposed to ra-
tionality, the domain of history and science. This is
a theoretical assumption of crucial importance for the
artistic production of the last two hundred years.
These few examples should be enough at the mo-
ment to point to the connection between art history
and art theory, a connection even to be found in the
works of Warburg and his fellows. An inévitable con-
nection of art history and the sphere of art produc-
tion as a whole is, in my view, what characterizes the
identity of this scholarly discipline. To me, it seems
to be an important task of the historiography of our
discipline to try to explain the complex structure of
the discourse of art history in Order to bring to light
the latter’s role within the modem systém of art.
Which, in the end, could essentially contribute to
a description, and a deeper understanding of the role
of art in modem society.
II. The discourse of the museum
— The order of things
This, obviously, is not an easy task. The problém
begins with the définition of the discourse of art his-
tory. It is far from clear which authors, what kind of
texts and publications, which institutions take part
in it, and how and when. Especially in the begin-
nings of the formation of the art historical discourse
this problém is, naturally, of crucial relevance. In my
view not only textual, but also visual discourses must
be taken into considération to analyse the history of
art history. If one accepts this proposition, the cen-
tral role of the museum cornes in view - or, to be
more précisé, the role of the museum of art — in the
process of the formation of what I conceive of as the

genuine ‘art historical discourse’. The museum of art
seems to me to hâve been the place where the joining
of historical and aesthetic criticism could and still can
take place in a very spécifie way.
Due to their one-sided relying upon textual sourc-
es, the earlier historiographers of art history largely
overlooked the museum as a place where a spécifie
art historical discourse was and is set forth. For a long
time, the museum has been understood first and fore-
most as an archive or a treasury. This conception cor-
responds with the view of many modem artists, e. g.
the futurists who conceived of the museum as a ‘burial
ground’. It corresponds as well with the view of an
advocate of modernism in philosophy like Theodor
W. Adorno who called the museum in his famous
essay entitled ‘Valéry Proust Museum’ even a ‘mau-
soleum’ and a ‘hereditary tomb of works of art’ {Erb-
begräbnis von Kunstwerken)?
This once widely agreed view has changed con-
siderably since the early 1980ies when a boom of
museum foundations and a postmodernist critique of
the museum as an institution like those advanced by
Douglas Crimp occurred simultaneously.* * * 8 In the same
years many artists hâve entered the museum of art
with changed attitudes, thereby discovering the mu-
seum as a field of activity and appreciating it even as
a source of inspiration.9 Some started to criticize from
their point of view what concerned their relationship
to the museum and their artistic existence. Or, in
short, they discovered the museum as a place where
art is not merely preserved but actually also made.
Parallel to the occurrence of this ‘institutional critique’
within the art scene some art historians, too, hâve
started to re-evaluate the museum10 and also the ‘art
exhibition’ or ‘the art of exhibiting’.11

' ADORNO, Theodor W.: “Valéry Proust Museum”. In: T.
W. A.-. Prismen. Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft. München 1963,
p. 176-189.
8 CRIMP, Douglas: On the Museums Ruins. MIT 1993- The title
is drawn from an essay published in October, 1980, Nr. 13,.
This Essay Starts with a quotation of Adorno’s above mentio-
ned sentence.
9 The museum as a muse. Artists reflect [Cat. exhib}. Ed. Kynaston
McSHINE. New York : The Museum of Modem Art, 1999-
10 McCLELLAN, Andrew: Inventing the Louvre. Art, Politics and
the Origin of the Modem Muséum in 18th Century Paris. Cam-

bridge (Mass.) 1994; MIJERS, Deborah: Kunst als Natur. Die
Habsburger Gemäldegalerie in Wien um 1780 (Schriften des
Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien, 2). Milano — Wien 1995;
GAEHTGENS, Thomas W.: Das Musée Napoléon und sein
Einfluß auf die Kunstgeschichte. In: Johann Dominicas Fiorillo.
Kunstgeschichte und die romantische Bewegung um 1800. Ed. Ant-
je MIDDELDORF-KOSEGARTEN. Göttingen 1997, p. 339-
369; SHEHAN, James: Museums in the German Art World. From
the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism. Oxford 2000;
WYSS, Beat: Trauer der Vollendung. Von der Ästhetik des Deut-
schen Idealismus zur Kulturkritik der Moderne. München 1985
(Transi, as Hegel’s Art History and the Critique of Modernity,
1999); PREZIOSI, Donald: No Art, no History. Victorian
Museums and the Metaphysics of the Subject. In: Visio, 4,

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