Welcome to the world of highbrow cultural acquisitions. This is the realm of museums, libraries and national art galleries. Art and items of cultural importance are acquired by gift, bequest or purchase, most generally. Famous artists may, upon their death, have earlier, decided to donate important works to state institutions, thereby ensuring their posthumous celebrity. It is, often, how these artists make their way into the public canon for future educational purposes. Education is a major motivating force for cultural acquisitions by governments. Artists become the iconographic poster boys for the cultural messaging, which every nation builds its identity upon.
Collections of the State: How Governments Manage Their Art
A nation’s cultural heritage becomes the crown jewels, quite literally, to be stored in state run museums and institutions of this kind. There are all sorts of legal research undertaken by these state bodies to ascertain the exact provenance of the artistic work in question. It must, also, be confirmed that the art does not unnecessarily offend any group or transgress some politically incorrect parameter somewhere. The government may move these works around, hanging them in various departments and minister’s offices on loan. Exchanges are undertaken between various national and international institutions.
Art comes in many different guises and there are numerous categories of galleries for contemporary, modern and classical art. Check this site out for examples of domestic design and kitchen art. The artist works in a cornucopia of mediums in the twenty first century. For more information, in the digital sphere, these tools can be helpful. The management of art by governments, within their state collections, is something taking place on a broad canvas. The diversity involved can be breathtaking and the number of professional people employed is legion. Art plays an important part in defining who we are, culturally speaking.
The majority of a country’s population may ignore the arts and prefer their weekly worship at the temple of sports, but cultural iconography has a way of creeping up on them. Before they can blink an eyelid, they are imbibing national narratives about cowboys, Indians and founding fathers. Artists capture these stories on canvas, board and other mediums, reinforcing their powerful message. Governments use artists to sell their policies, by utilising cultural heroes like pieces in a game of a strategy. It has been happening since the time of Augustus and Virgil. Those art collections are an arsenal of cultural memes.
