Camilla Murgia – författare

This book examines ephemeral exhibitions from 1750 to 1918. In an era of acceleration and elusiveness, these transient spaces functioned as microcosms in which reality was shown, simulated, staged, imagined, experienced and known. They therefore had a dimension of spectacle to them, as the volume demonstrates. Against this backdrop, the different chapters deal with a plethora of spaces and spatial installations: the Wunderkammer, the spectacle garden, cosmoramas and panoramas, the literary space, the temporary museum, and the alternative exhibition space.

This book examines the impact of space on the perception of art and visual culture in early nineteenth-century Paris. It turns its attention to the way in which space determines the understanding and the development of visual culture. The abundance of images, their status, and their employment alike offer a means to grasp the extent of the development of an approach to art which further involved the spectator. Space is here conceived as a multifaceted entity, spanning architectural, scholarly, artistic, and visual dimensions. These various aspects offer means to consider the way in which images work and are consumed, and the individual experience they represent. Space works as a link and a connecting tool between different intellectual and visual categories, and this study examines how this interaction applies to works of art as well as everyday objects.

This book explores ephemeral exhibition spaces between 1750 and 1918. The chapters focus on two related spaces: the domestic interior and its imagery, and exhibitions and museums that display both national/imperial identity and the otherness that lurks beyond a country’s borders. What is revealed is that the same tension operates in these private and public realms; namely, that between identification and self-projection, on the one hand, and alienation, otherness and objectification on the other. In uncovering this, the authors show that the self, the citizen/society and the other are realities that are constantly being asserted, defined and objectified. This takes place, they demonstrate, in a ceaseless dynamic of projection versus alienation, and intimacy versus distancing.

This book examines ephemeral exhibition spaces from 1750-1918, focusing on domestic interiors and public exhibitions that displayed national/imperial identity alongside foreign otherness.

This book examines ephemeral exhibitions from 1750 to 1918. In an era of acceleration and elusiveness, these transient spaces functioned as microcosms in which reality was shown, simulated, staged, imagined, experienced and known.