In 1954, the French writer, politician, and publisher Andre Malraux (1901-1976) posed at home for a photographer from the magazine Paris Match, surrounded by pages from his forthcoming book Le musee imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale. The enchanting metaphor of the musee imaginaire (imaginary museum) was built upon that illustrated art book, and Malraux was one of its greatest champions. Drawing on a range of contemporary publications, he adopted images and responded to ideas. Indeed, Malraux's book on the floor is a variation of photographer Andre Vigneau's spectacular Encyclopedie photographique de l art, published in five volumes from 1935 on years before Malraux would enter this field. Both authors were engaged in juxtaposing artworks via photographs and publishing these photographs by the hundreds, but Malraux was the better sloganeer. Starting from a close examination of the photograph of Malraux in his salon, art historian Walter Grasskamp takes the reader back to the dawn of this genre of illustrated art book. He shows how it catalyzed the practice of comparing works of art on a global scale. He retraces the metaphor to earlier reproduction practices and highlights its ubiquity in contemporary art, ending with an homage to the other pioneer of the museum without walls, the unjustly forgotten Vigneau.

Contents : The book on the floor -- A stunning image -- Journey into an interior -- Overtones -- Down on one knee -- At home -- "The greatest art historian of our time" -- Demystification -- Thought transference -- Malraux-Benjamin-Valéry -- Malraux-Salmony -- Imaginary museum and photographic encyclopedia -- André Vigneau and the encyclopédie photographique de l'art -- Photo credits -- The "logistics of the spirit" -- A "museum in the home" -- Image and text -- Frozen sculptures -- The discourse of design -- The layout of world art -- Deregulating the concept of art -- Reproduction fever -- Agents of world art -- The "anthropological turn" -- The concept of art in parallel universes -- The universe of forms -- Reception histories -- World art returns to Germany -- The imaginary museum at Documenta 1 -- Topic of reception -- Update -- Imaginary museums -- Painted picture galleries -- Collections of plaster casts -- Musées des études -- Paper museums -- The imaginary museum director -- The museum as space of representation -- Metaphors of the century -- Artists' museums -- Curated memory -- Marcel Broodthaers -- Dennis Adams or the revival of Malraux -- André Vigneau -- A media nomad -- A phantom in media history -- Vigneau-Benjamin -- Coda: the floor as exhibition space.