1st Edition

Museums as Cultures of Copies The Crafting of Artefacts and Authenticity

Edited By Brita Brenna, Hans Dam Christensen, Olav Hamran Copyright 2019
288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

288 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Few institutions are warier of copies than museums. Few fields of knowledge are more prone to denounce copies as fake than the heritage field. Few discourses are as concerned with authenticity, aura, originals and provenance as those concerning exhibiting and collecting. So why is it that these are institutions, fields and discourses where copies proliferate and copying techniques have thrived... Read more

Museums as cultures of copies





Introduction



Brita Brenna, Hans Dam Christensen, Olav Hamran





Section I: Models





Section 1 Introduction





Chapter 1 - The Art and Science of Replication. Copies and Copying in the Multi-Disciplinary Museum



Samuel J.M.M. Alberti, Alice Blackwell, Peter Davidson, Martin Goldberg and Geoffrey N. Swinney





Chapter 2 - Knowing with models



Brita Brenna





Chapter 3 - Documenting, educating, recapturing – copying practices at the Norwegian Technical Museum



Olav Hamran





Chapter 4 - Mostly making models: The Scientific Use of Natural Heritage Collections



Henry McGhie





Section II: Mobility and instability





Section II Introduction





Chapter 5 - Lost Continents, Projective Objects



Mari Lending





Chapter 6 - Turkish Neo-Ottoman memory culture and the problems of copying the past



Gönül Bozoğlu and Christopher Whitehead





Chapter 7 - Replica Knowledge: Travelling Thrones



Felix Sattler & Anna Simandiraki-Grimshaw





Chapter 8 - Looking for originals in a museum of copies? The ambivalence of the Thorvaldsens Museum



Hans Dam Christensen





Chapter 9 - Copying as Museum Branding: Souvenirs with Edvard Munch’s Bedspread Pattern



Joanna Iranowska





Section III: Body, Life and death





Section III Introduction





Chapter 10 - Ethnographic Mannequins: Copying as artefactualization of human difference



Anne Folke Henningsen





Chapter 11 - Constructing Museum Nature: Photography and Specimens in Natural History Museums around 1900



Liv Emma Thorsen



Chapter 12 - Faces of death. Death masks in the museum



Ole Marius Hylland





Section IV: Text as/of thing





Section IV Introduction





Chapter 13 - Commonplaces, copies, and copiousness



Anne Eriksen





Chapter 14 - The proof of the original is in the copying: Heavenly chain letters



Siv Frøydis Berg





Chapter 15 - Documenting museum objects: A practice of copying and a ‘copious’ practice?



Janne Werner Olsrud





Chapter 16 - Breaking the frames? The creation of digital curatorial agency at Swedish cultural historical museums



Bodil Axelsson





Chapter 17 - Towards a Future Museum of Copying



Marcus Boon

Biography



Brita Brenna is Professor of Museology and Head of Centre for Museum Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway.



Hans Dam Christensen is Professor of Cultural Communication at the Royal School of Library and Information Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.



Olav Hamran is Head of Research and Development, Arts Council Norway.

"The variety of chapters from different times, places and disciplines adds something new, relevant and important to the ongoing discussion of the credibility of the museum as a modern institution within museum studies and the heritage field more broadly.[...] it achieves its objectives by extending understanding and appreciation of the culture of copies in museums while providing a rich resource that scholars and practitioners can use as a springboard for further research."

-Gitte Westergaard, PhD candidate in the Department of Cultural Studies and Languages at the University of Stavanger