ABSTRACT
The mid-twentieth century, dominant forms of art can be seen slipping deeper under the spell of a particular set of intrinsic values, seduced by the siren calls of autonomous status and a belief in universal aesthetic values. The practice of art as institutional critique has not solely been concerned with galleries and museums, artists were inevitability drawn to these sites as the institutions with which they were most concerned. Artists not only recognised that their own voices needed to be heard in the field of criticism, but also that to be in control of their own work they needed to be in control of the site in which it would be seen. Andy Warhol's and Broodthaers' projects can also be seen as part of 'the great escape' from roles ascribed to mid-twentieth-century Western artists. His archaeology museum project's affinity with the work of Michel Foucault stems from respective methodological engagements with the relationship of imperial power to knowledge/power.
