ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s I’ve worked as an exhibition evaluator, served as a judge for the American Association of Museums (AAM) exhibition awards, reviewed exhibitions for museum journals, and spoken as a panel member for the exhibition critique session at AAM’s annual conference. Living in Chicago, with a sizable pool of museum practitioners close by, I wanted to create an opportunity for a group of peers to meet repeatedly over a long period of time to review and critique exhibitions and then to develop a shared set of standards for making excellent museum exhibitions. I thought that if we could have enough time to think together, we could come up with a truly new and interesting way to judge excellence through a process or product that could have a lasting and positive impact on ourselves and on our work.
