Inside the lost museum : curating, past and present /

Inside the Lost Museum tells the story of Brown University's Jenks Museum, a 19th-century display of natural history and curiosities. Lubar (American studies, Brown) uses the Jenks as a historical lens and a framework for examining the usefulness, service, and functions of museums today. Throughout Lubar, a former museum curator and director, seamlessly relays stories of the past and present--stories of museum practices related to collecting, preserving, displaying, and otherwise employing artifacts and objects to the service of teaching, scholarship, and the dialogic activities of museums to collect and tell stories of communities. In the coda, Lubar contextualizes recent critiques of the museum, as an institution, by contemporary artists, including Allan McCollum, Vik Muniz, Alfredo Jaar, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, and--at length--Mark Dion. In sum, the volume offers a platform for understanding one museum (the Jenks) and also the history, trajectories, and possibilities of museums today. Impeccably researched, Lubar's vivid overview of curating and the functions of museums deserves a wide audience. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Juilee Decker, Rochester Institute of Technology