Title
(Re)imagining the west: The Whitney Gallery of Western Art's sacred hymn
Abstract
In 2009, the Whitney Gallery of Western Art (WGWA), located within the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) in Cody, Wyoming, was redesigned - its art rehung and its vision of the West reimagined. The newly designed gallery replaced the structuring principles of history, artist, and genre that had governed the previous layout and design of the gallery with a thematic structure that elicits a series of affective dissonances. In this essay, we argue that the redesigned Whitney Gallery of Western Art performs a sacred hymn that - in repositioning Buffalo Bill Cody as its orchestrating figure - resolves discordant images and narratives of the West, harmonizes diverse themes into a single vision, and reconstitutes national identity in terms of the Western sublime.
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708612464633
Keywords
affect, memory, movement, sublime, Whitney Gallery of Western Art
Publication Date
2-1-2013
Recommended Citation
Dickinson, Greg, Brian L. Ott, and Eric Aoki. "(Re) Imagining the West: The Whitney Gallery of Western Art’s Sacred Hymn." Cultural Studies? Critical Methodologies 13, no. 1 (2013): 21-34.
Journal Title
Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies
