The Imaginary Museum, Ben Eastham
The Imaginary Museum, Ben Eastham
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The Imaginary Museum

Author: Ben Eastham

Narrator: Matt Bates

Unabridged: 2 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/06/2020


Synopsis

Join the art critic Ben Eastham on a private tour of an extraordinary museum. Let him walk you through a building constructed from memory and filled with a series of bewildering art works, while he delivers a guide comprised of personal experience, professional expertise and sympathy. In this stunningly original book, an introduction to contemporary art is combined with the author's own memories and reflections on what art means. With the help of a cast of interfering security guards, pretentious curators, sceptical visitors, angry protestors and elusive ghosts, Eastham proposes that the art of today offers a way of understanding our increasingly strange and complex times. Eastham doesn't ask you to like the artworks in his imaginary museum, but offers the tools for you to formulate and express your own opinion of them. He argues that art should be judged by the feelings it provokes and the conversations it generates: in talking about art, we learn to talk about ourselves and the world in which we live.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Courtney on September 09, 2024

"Art is not special: it happens all the time and every day." Eastham's essay about contemporary art brought me joy as he grabbed my hand and took me on a journey of his imaginary art museum with characters and unique art at every turn. He also pushed me to reflect on my own judgments and perspective......more

Goodreads review by Simon on January 19, 2021

Published in 2020, this is Eastham’s creative essay on the appreciation of contemporary art. It is structured as a tour around Eastham’s imaginary museum, and weaves together elements of his own history with art, discussion of specific pieces, and the big contemporary debates about what ‘counts’ as......more

Goodreads review by Monika on December 12, 2021

I cannot stress enough how much I loved this essay. Eastham really gets it! I have been waiting for years for someone to actually describe the experience of going to a gallery and interacting with art in a way that reflects my own experience and Eastham does it so well here. I want to give this essa......more

Goodreads review by Nicole on April 21, 2024

As a current art student, this was one of those books that gave me the “you’re not alone” whiplash. If comfort and understanding is something you seek from your reading then Eastham will provide it to you. This short read is not only insightful but delightfully mischievous at the same time. I recomm......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on May 01, 2022

Maybe it was the joy of being on a sun lounger in rural France eating a mango ice lolly while reading this that made it so incredible or maybe it’s actually a wonderfully inventive, educational tour of the art world in an accessible and fascinating way? Read it yourself and find out.......more


Quotes

Praise for Ben Eastham “A terrific, ferociously self-effacing writer”