ABSTRACT
The word 'masterpiece' has been adopted widely and indiscriminately as a measure of perfection in all spheres of human activity, so much so that its ubiquity renders it invalid, relegating the notion from the highest realm of art to the more popular strata of culture industry. It is difficult not to notice, instead, that a significant number of 'masterpiece' books have been, and still are, produced by museums. Masterpieces are not given, but are constructed by the museum and academic art history textbooks and, to a large extent, by the shifting demands of popular opinion. When discussing the concept of the critical museum, the hegemony of the masterpiece in the museum world, then and now, presents one of the issues to be considered rather than bypassed. The critical museum's mission is to use the aura of the masterpiece to release its emancipatory potential, and to reintegrate art into the praxis of life.
