Art, empire and museums: who owns art? | Art and design

Starter quiz

All art is permanent and displayed in a gallery.
- True
- False ✓
Art can make change in the world through changing ______, actions and policy.
- 'opinions' ✓
What is the term given to the form of art based on designed activities on film or confined to a time and place?
- 'performance' ✓
What is the term given to artwork that is made to be purposefully temporary and to change over time?
- ephemeral ✓
- performance
- abstract
- representational
The ______ of an artwork is the focus, topic or image of an artwork.
- 'subject' ✓
How can abstract art be defined?
- Art that depicts a realistic picture of a place, person or object.
- Art that only uses black and white to depict a place, person or object.
- Art that doesn't depict a recognisable picture of a place, person or object. ✓
- Art that is created solely for commercial purposes of places, people or objects.

What is the official term given to selecting artwork and organising art for presentation?
- present
- curate ✓
- display
- show
- stage
Which of the following statements is correct about museums and galleries?
- Museums and galleries do not allow visitors to see the artwork.
- Museums and galleries are only for displaying art from local artists.
- Museums and galleries have collections of art the public can visit. ✓
- Museums and galleries primarily focus on selling art to collectors.
Which statement about public institution collections in the United Kingdom is correct?
- All of the artwork and artefacts originate from the United Kingdom.
- None of the artwork and artefacts originate from the United Kingdom.
- Some of the artworks and artefacts originate from the Britain. ✓
What is the term given to artworks that are returned to their country of origin?
- 'repatriation' ✓
Why do some artists prefer not to display their work within traditional gallery spaces?
- to create larger artworks that can't fit in a gallery
- to focus only on art that can be sold to exclusive audiences
- to display it in more accessible places to gain larger audiences ✓
- to work exclusively with digital media so a gallery is not needed

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Museums and galleries have a range of artefacts from around the world and often link to histories of Empire.
Museums are rethinking the ethics behind collections in terms of colonialism.
Some indigenous communities are asking for their artefacts to be given back and this is known as repatriation.
Understanding the original purpose of artefacts is vital as this may differ to how they are shown in museum collections.

All of the artwork held in public institutions within the United Kingdom originates from there.

Some artwork held in the collections of public institutions in the UK were created by civilisations that were colonised by the British Empire.