The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space

During 2019-20, visitors to the Haus der Kunst (HDK), a non-collecting museum for contemporary art in Munich, could view Black Chapel, created by the Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. Black Chapel was a platform for Gates’s ‘museum within a museum’, or an artist’s museum, composed of Gates’s scu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mark Rectanus
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Leicester 2025-05-01
Series:Museum & Society
Online Access:https://journals.le.ac.uk/index.php/mas/article/view/4716
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849725051121696768
author Mark Rectanus
author_facet Mark Rectanus
author_sort Mark Rectanus
collection DOAJ
description During 2019-20, visitors to the Haus der Kunst (HDK), a non-collecting museum for contemporary art in Munich, could view Black Chapel, created by the Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. Black Chapel was a platform for Gates’s ‘museum within a museum’, or an artist’s museum, composed of Gates’s sculptures, collections of images, and artefacts, including Jesse Owens’s music album collection. This article examines how Gates’s project deploys the historical signifiers and artefacts of Black urban experience in order to challenge the historical space of the Haus der Kunst. I argue that Black Chapel not only contributes to artistic experiments in museum making, it also creates a reversed cultural space and counternarratives within the architectural space of the HDK - a museum which was originally commissioned by Adolf Hitler as a platform for National Socialist art and cultural politics.
format Article
id doaj-art-4ba84d54df3e438ebde4b8cef89029df
institution DOAJ
issn 1479-8360
language English
publishDate 2025-05-01
publisher University of Leicester
record_format Article
series Museum & Society
spelling doaj-art-4ba84d54df3e438ebde4b8cef89029df2025-08-20T03:10:34ZengUniversity of LeicesterMuseum & Society1479-83602025-05-0123110.29311/mas.v23i1.4716The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural SpaceMark Rectanus0Iowa State University During 2019-20, visitors to the Haus der Kunst (HDK), a non-collecting museum for contemporary art in Munich, could view Black Chapel, created by the Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. Black Chapel was a platform for Gates’s ‘museum within a museum’, or an artist’s museum, composed of Gates’s sculptures, collections of images, and artefacts, including Jesse Owens’s music album collection. This article examines how Gates’s project deploys the historical signifiers and artefacts of Black urban experience in order to challenge the historical space of the Haus der Kunst. I argue that Black Chapel not only contributes to artistic experiments in museum making, it also creates a reversed cultural space and counternarratives within the architectural space of the HDK - a museum which was originally commissioned by Adolf Hitler as a platform for National Socialist art and cultural politics. https://journals.le.ac.uk/index.php/mas/article/view/4716
spellingShingle Mark Rectanus
The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
Museum & Society
title The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
title_full The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
title_fullStr The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
title_full_unstemmed The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
title_short The Artist’s Museum as Reversed Cultural Space
title_sort artist s museum as reversed cultural space
url https://journals.le.ac.uk/index.php/mas/article/view/4716
work_keys_str_mv AT markrectanus theartistsmuseumasreversedculturalspace
AT markrectanus artistsmuseumasreversedculturalspace