Discourse and Display

The Modern Eye, Entrepreneurship, and the Cultural Transformation of the Patchwork Quilt

Bibliographic Data

ID2482011
AuthorsKarin E Peterson (0000-0003-4177-7249, University of North Carolina at Asheville, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume46
Issue4
Pages461-490
Publication date2003-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1525/sop.2003.46.4.461
OpenAlexW2114700249
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited26

This article explores the effort of two cultural entrepreneurs to persuade members of the fine art world to appreciate quilts on purely artistic grounds. Mobilizing museum resources to effect this transformation involved strategies of discourse and display that invoked the modern eye, a way of seeing that privileges modernist aesthetic standards. By examining these strategies, a deeper understanding of how the modern eye is constructed by the cultural tools of the museum (for example, gallery space, photography, catalogs, critical writing) becomes apparent. This piece also considers the implications of the modern eye for how marginalized culture becomes 'acceptable' in high culture contexts and the costs of invoking the modern eye as a means of enhancing cultural value

Aesthetics · Art · Linguistics · Quilt · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Value (mathematics) · Visual arts · Computer Science · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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