373) Mark Rectanus: Reclaiming the arts from corporate influence
Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
Kaméa Chayne
4.8 • 694 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
"In many cases, corporations are using [the museum's cultural capital] to reaffirm their status in a local community... Artists are increasingly concerned about the context in which their work is displayed and also the values of the museum and the sponsor."
In this episode, we revisit our past conversation with Mark Rectanus, a University Professor of German Studies (Emeritus) in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University. His publications include research on the German publishing industry, the book and electronic media, contemporary German literature, corporate sponsorships, cultural politics, museum studies, and contemporary art. His most recent book is Museums Inside Out: Artist Collaborations and New Exhibition Ecologies.
Some of the topics we explore in this conversation include the influence of corporate funding on art and culture, what it might mean to decolonize museums in spite of many of their troubled pasts, how artist-activists have been shifting the politics of art from within, and more.
(The musical offering featured in this episode is Black Moss by Johanna Warren.)
Green Dreamer would not be possible without the direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today: GreenDreamer.com/support
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have a quick but important ask. As you're probably aware, Green Dreamer is an independent |
| 0:07.9 | podcast and we don't take on corporate advertisers to fund our work because we don't want those |
| 0:13.7 | considerations to influence our curiosities or our abilities to question whatever it is that we want to question. |
| 0:22.3 | So if you value and believe in our work, this is our call out. |
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| 0:47.6 | grateful for whatever form or level of support that you're able to share with us. |
| 0:55.0 | Hey, it's your host, Kamea, and you're listening to Green Dreamer. |
| 0:58.9 | As a community-powered podcast, which does not take corporate advertisers, and we really hope |
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| 1:19.1 | already, be sure to sign up to our newsletter at greendreamer.com to receive the highlights and |
| 1:24.5 | resources from each episode. |
| 1:35.3 | There used to be this assumption that museums were by and large neutral, and now workers for museums are saying we need to move beyond neutrality. |
| 1:42.3 | We need to advocate for socially responsible positions. We also need to make |
| 1:50.9 | sure that board members, people who have control of museums, are also socially responsible. |
| 2:12.6 | Today we're revisiting our conversation on the corporate influence on culture and art museums with Dr. Mark Rectanis, who is a university professor of German studies at Iowa State University. He's published numerous books and articles, including essays in New German Critique, Performance Research, and Museum and Society. |
| 2:21.3 | And his most recent book is Museums Inside Out, Artist Collaborations and New Exhibition Ecologies, which explores what it means to be a museum in the 21st century and how museums are blurring the traditional boundaries |
| 2:35.4 | between their galleries and public spaces. |
... |
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