In Exhibitionism, Lynne Munson identifies a culture of intolerance that overtook the art world in recent years - "a prejudice that has operated in reverse of the established stereotype," she writes, "favoring the so-called 'cutting edge' over the traditional, preferring political art at the expense of painting." Munson concludes that this new dogmatism has not only placed narrow limits on what kind of art may be funded, exhibited, and created, but has pitted the art world against the public and in turn sparked the art wars.Drawing on original research, including more than a hundred interviews with artists, scholars, curators, museum directors, critics, and government officials, Munson explores the personalities and workings of major art institutions. She gets behind the facade of the National Endowment for the Arts' Visual Arts Program to document its shift from excellence to fashionability; describes how one community of New York painters survived critical boycott by taking refuge in co-op galleries; examines the "new museology" that has revised not only the content of art exhibitions but the very shape of museums; explains how Harvard's Department of Fine Arts, a onetime beacon for object-centered connoisseurial study, has devolved into a theory-driven curriculum nearly divorced from actual artworks. Read Less