York, February 9-11, 2011)

Call for proposals, CAA Annual Conference Session 2011:

Session: Before the White Box: Museum Murals in the Nineteenth Century
Chaired by Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Seton Hall University

Mail to: Petra Chu, Department of Art, Music, and Design, Seton Hall
University, South Orange, NJ 07079

Email questions/proposals to: petra.chushu.edu<mailto:petra.chushu.edu>

For more information and instructions, see:
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2011callforparticipation.pdf

Session description: Even as today's museum architects are beginning to
defy the tyranny of the white box, it is difficult to understand the
impulse that led museum designers of the past to create interior spaces in
which walls and ceilings were covered with painted murals. To our eyes,
conditioned by the modernist museum experience, this sets up an
undesirable visual competition between the artifacts and their physical
surroundings. In the nineteenth century, however, decorative murals and
ceiling paintings were an important part of many museum buildings. In some
cases, they were intended to broadly summarize the mission of the museum
within the context of national goals and aspirations. In others, they
addressed or expanded on the specific educational role of the
museum-whether it be focused on art, history, anthropology, or natural
history. This session invites papers that deal with nineteenth- or early
twentieth-century murals that decorate(d) the walls and/or ceilings of
exhibition rooms as well as entrance halls, lobbies, and stairwells of
museums. A variety of approaches is encouraged.