UC Riverside

This chapter examines systems of classification supporting the front stage of museum exhibits. It traces the roots of European museum taxonomies found in colonial expositions and early museums of African art. It discusses the floorplans and displays strategies of French museums and contrasts them with theories proposed by anthropologists and African intellectuals. Museum classifications reflect inherited epistemologies and those of their era. These classifications are translated into labels and strategies for staging displays exhibitions, and expositions, that is, into exhibitionary complexes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of reconfigurations of the museum landscape with contrasting evidential support. It explores French museum closings and their deconstruction in relationship to historical antecedents and problems of labeling and reinstallation.