Displays of Power (with a new afterword): Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation!
Steven C. Dubin
Museums have become ground zero in America's culture wars. Whereas fierce public debates once centered on provocative work by upstart artists, the scrutiny has now expanded to mainstream cultural institutions and the ideas they present. In Displays of Power, Steven Dubin, whose Arresting Images was deemed "masterly" by the New York Times, examines the most controversial exhibitions of the 1990s. These include shows about ethnicity, slavery, Freud, the Old West, and the dropping of the atomic bomb by the Enola Gay. This new edition also includes a preface by the author detailing the recent Sensation! controversy at the Brooklyn Museum. Displays of Power draws directly upon interviews with many key combatants: museum administrators, community activists, curators, and scholars. It authoritatively analyzes these episodes of America struggling to redefine itself in the late 20th century.
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About Steven C. Dubin
Reviews for Displays of Power (with a new afterword): Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation!
Art in America
"A lively and insightful new book. ... Using an evenhanded journalistic approach and remarkably revealing interviews, Dubin documents how the institutions, run by idealistic and politically naive curators and exploited by conservative opponents, were marred by allowing minor conflicts to blow up into front-page stories. ... Show[s] that while museum may be adept at producing spectacular displays of propaganda, they are often incapable of predicting the reactions of their audiences."
Artforum
"Displays of Power is contentious, irreverent, and entertaining, but it is also absolutely serious. ... Is the book useful or intimidating? Is it a cautionary tale or a diatribe against museum complacency? I believe that it is all of these things. ... A cautionary tale told boisterously and wittily."
Museum News
"A signal contribution to the 'culture wars,' Dubin dispassionately examines the contemporary American museum as a battleground for the control of expression where elitist and populist camps clash over politically sensitive art. ... His provocative study gives voice to curators and partisans on all points of the spectrum, making his book something of a lively free-for-all. ... Cogently demonstrates that modern museums are crucibles for change rather than pleasant refuges, and that they are expanding the public's awareness that we live in an increasingly multicultural society and a multinational world."
Publishers Weekly