This book examines ephemeral exhibitions from 1750 to 1918. In an era of acceleration and elusiveness, these transient spaces functioned as microcosms in which reality was shown, simulated, staged, imagined, experienced and known. They therefore had a dimension of spectacle to them, as the volume demonstrates. Against this backdrop, the different chapters deal with a plethora of spaces and spatial installations: the Wunderkammer, the spectacle garden, cosmoramas and panoramas, the literary space, the temporary museum, and the alternative exhibition space.

This collection examines the development of art criticism across Russia and Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Art criticism articulated local ideas about functions of art but, more importantly, it also became one of the most responsive fields in which a larger, transnational European exchange of ideas about the role of critical discourse could take place. Art criticism of this period was also rich in rhetorical strategies and textual diversity. International contributors to this volume, who include art historians, cultural historians, and specialists in critical and philosophical discourse, examine the emergence of art critical discourse in a variety of cultural and geo-political contexts.