Article Rankings - last post!

Okay, so here are my rankings for the articles in the Museum Studies book.

I'll be honest like I have been in our meetings, this book is not my favorite. But it's mostly because of the rather random arrangement of articles. Some of them were very insightful, it was just hard for me to wrap my brain around how they fit into the big picture. I put them in chronological order rather than putting them in my own personal order, because I couldn't choose "favorites"... they all served a different purpose.

Top 15

#3: The Universal Survey Museum by Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach

• Great comparisons of museums to historical architecture and how they flow naturally out of human experience.

#9: At the Holocaust Museum by Alice Friman

• Poignant poem about the experience of a gut-wrenching history exhibition.

#10: To the Citizens of the United States of America by Charles Willson Peale 

• Example of curator asking for objects from "friends of the museum."

#17: Ambiguous Messages and Ironic Twists by Enid Schildkrout 

• Good example of what NOT to do as a curator.

#18: Thinking and Doing Otherwise by Mary Boquet

• The anthropology behind designing exhibitions.

#21: The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford by James Fenton 

• Nice imagery, a poetic interpretation of a museum. Nice change of pace. 

#26 -- Melodrama, Pantomime or Portrayal? by Gaynor Kavanagh

• Discusses the history museum and being careful with its accuracy, scope, and limits. 

#29 Museums, National, Postnational and Transcultural Identities by Sharon J. Macdonald 

• Concerning museum identity in general, and how they might be changing.

#30 - Architecture and the Scene of Evidence by Catharine Ingraham 

• Slightly unclear but makes interesting claims about the architecture design representing the museum.

#31 - Some Thoughts about National Museums at the End of the Century by Roger G. Kennedy

• Insightful points about the nature of museums here and now, in our postmodern society. 

#34: Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums by Mónica Risnicoff de Gorgas 

• Great examples of house museums, and the authenticity that is necessary within them. 

#38: Indigenous Models of Museums in Oceania by Sidney Moko Mead 

• Great example of a "specialized" museum, and the respect that is due the original culture of the objects. 

#39 - Museums and the Native Voice by Gerald McMaster

• Honoring the voice of the native people in your museum because it's easy to mix cultural assumptions with the truth. 

#42 - Aims and Principles of the Construction and Management of Museums of Fine Art by Benjamen Ives Gilman 

• This is probably the best introductory article, deals with how to handle and display objects, and the visitor's understanding of the art. 

#55: Museums, Corporatism and the Civil Society by Robert R. Janes

• Great article on the public purpose and function of the museum.

Bottom 10.... or 3?

So I actually don't have any more than 3 to put on the "bottom" list... but it's because all the rest of the articles in the book I either skimmed or didn't read because it looked boring or too long for the concept that it was dealing with. So I don't have a huge opinion on those. The three below are really the only ones where I would say " please don't make them read these." Hopefully all of this helps, and you can use the book in a way that truly aids the study of museums. 

#2: The Museum: It's Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy by Paula Findlen

• Far too involved for this class.. all about the meaning of the word museum. Only good if you are interested in etymology or have way too much time on your hands. 

#23: Presidential Address to the Museums Association, Maidstone Meeting, 1909 by Henry Balfour

• I'm sorry, this was just plain boring. Super long speech in which he talks in a roundabout manner, only hitting a few significant points. 

#27 -- Artifacts as Expressions of Society and Culture by Leone and Little 

• This was my absolute least favorite. They made a variety of clams that didn't seem to tie together at the end, and I was confused almost the entire time. 

Thanks for a good semester, and for the grace you showed us while we figured out how to do this "studying independently" thing.  I hope you have a wonderful time with the students in the spring semester! 

p.s. I don't know whats up with the funky formatting in the bullets... I can't fix it for some reason! Oh well....



FIN 

Ethnology

eth•nol•o•gy

: a science that deals with the division of human beings into races and their origin, distribution, relations, and characteristics. 

Article #16 -- Ethnology: A Science on Display by Fabrice Grognet. 

This article was all about the transition that ethnological and history museums have made along with that field of science that is ethnology. Grognet talks about how specifically the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro and ethnology took three huge steps: 1) Just objects and their stories, 2) institutionalizing those objects and employing professionals, and 3) ethnological research began to loose interest in the objects themselves. The author illuminates that the original intent of ethnological museums is "to educate the public about alien cultures" (Grognet 165). Then he goes on to say that in order to actually attain this goal, there needs to be a step taken back to focusing more on the objects. "How then can it [the object] be made to communicate? 'First and foremost by ridding ourselves of the notion of art work. The object must shed its invasive aesthetic dimension!'" (Grognet 165). It's this line that made me think the most from the whole article. 

I do agree that ethnological museums should not cease to use their objects as a first reference point, but the thing I don't like about this statement is that it assumes art is intrinsically and inseparably based on its aesthetic value, and that if you were to strip something of its "aesthetic dimension," it would cease to be art. We have all seen art that is not pretty, and nor is it meant to be pretty. Each object has an aesthetic whether is it meant to have one or not, and so I'm not sure what the author is proposing here. I tend to be more on the side of believing that almost everything could be considered art, and anything that pours out of a person as expression and records history is art. So if it was an object made by a person, I don't think you can strip it of its aesthetic values. 

That's my little tangent for the day. haha. Until next blog! 

Curator Snafus

#17: Ambiguous Messages and Ironic Twists by Enid Schildkrout

First of all, Enid Schildkrout. What a name. I should give one of my future children a middle name like that, because then when I'm angry and I use their full name, part of their punishment will just be the reminder that they have a middle name like Schildkrout. 

Secondly, this poor Ms. Cannizzo. (Cannizzo? Another unique surname.) Poor, poor Jeanne. I don't think she even knew what she was doing when she created such a controversial exhibition. For me, this article really illuminated the importance of a thoughtful and educated curator, or at least the importance of having curators on staff who are trained to design exhibitions for a specific category of art. In this particular exhibition at the ROM, Cannizzo failed to think about her audience, and to communicate clearly what she wanted to communicate. She wanted to create a dialogue, and instead the exhibition came off extremely biased. She did not give both parties being examined (people involved in colonialism and the people being "colonlized," or in this case, people in Africa) an equal voice. She, even if it was unwittingly, made it so it "appeared that colonialist-collectors were being allowed to speak for themselves (although, even here many observers felt words were being put in their mouths), while Africans were not" (Schildkrout 171). Since her audience was a good amount of African-Canadians, this put her in a bad spot, and also made the museum look bad.

Another quote from the article: "Tracing the life history of objects from Africa takes one through many minefields of history."
I would assume that it's like that in many specific art historical fields of knowledge, but ESPECIALLY when it comes to Africa. Cannizzo opened Pandora's box when she handled the topic of the colonization of Africa in the manner that she did. She shouldn't have tried to be so broad if she was not going to be able to research thoroughly, and accurately give voice to both people groups. It's the museum's job to identify these minefields, and I guess the lesson learned is to choose your curators carefully.

The comparing of the exhibition The Other Museum at the WPA gallery drives this point even further, since the exhibition dealt with colonialism, racial stereotypes, and misinterpretations of these. I mean, you are kind of asking for it when you do such a bold exhibition. Everyone has different ideas of these things! Even when there are stereotypes, people have slightly different ideas of what those are. I like the guts, and I think those things need to be discussed, but maybe framed as an art show of one particular artist, so it's that artist's voice and not the museum's.

Things to think about. Great article. Another blog to come, tonight if possible :) 

Back from Break

Okay, so here we go! It's Museum Studies for the next few hours! Tuesday too many study abroad things came up, so this night I may try to catch up or maybe I will have to work some on Friday. We shall see how this reading goes... and if I can read fast maybe I can do some Dream Museum research as well.

#11 - Letter of 1863 to Mr. Thomas G. Gary by Louis Agassiz

Well, like the Peale article, this is merely an address.. quite literally since it is a letter. There is not a whole lot to glean from this letter, except to see that in museums where they have a specific focus, it is good to move progressively towards attaining new works. Also, extending your intended scheme of works is good, if you have grown enough: "...and now that it has become desirable to extend our scheme to objects which have thus far been neglected I make another appeal to you." This quote also illustrated the next thing I got from the letter, which is that just like in every other industry, it is important for museums to utilize their connections. This is true generally in the arts, but here it rings true as a general rule. Make friends, and keep them.

#21 - The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford by James Fenton

Wow... this is a great work of poetry. Really evocative and imaginative, and not really informative but probably just included because it speaks of and describes a natural history museum. He makes it sound rather wonderful, and exciting, and dangerous even. I read it aloud, and the syntax is a work of art in itself. He speaks of the museum as a place for the imagination to roam free, "where myths go when they die." He talks of different types of museum visitors; the school groups, the students researching with their "soft electric hum," the lonely and unpopular, the solitary, the curious. He mentions the need to bring children to museums. He also speaks of a need to be careful, as if the museum were a piece of property with "men traps and spring guns set up on the premises." A place that is dangerous, but exciting. I'm not sure why he calls the museum dangerous. Perhaps it is the concept of the museum being a collections of memes and paradigms... which themselves can be parasitic in nature. I suppose there is danger of falling into a thinking that is not truly your own, but besides that I see no harm in seeing from other points of view. Overall, one of the most interesting things I have ever read with the subject being a museum.

Until tomorrow!

Charles Willson Peale

The article I decided to start with in Part II was To the Citizens of the United States of America by Charles Willson Peale. It's the first article, and by the dude I learned about in American Art Hist who started the Philidelphia Museum, so naturally I just started there.

If you remember, I've been running sound board for a Cave show all week. I was reading by the lights of backstage, like I've done most of my homework recently, and when I turned the page I realized that Peale still hadn't picked up his subject matter to address anything that had much to do with the museum as an institution, and there were like 200 words left in the address. So I finished the article as it came time for end-of-show sound cues, and then came here to the library to try and "write on my article." 

But honestly, what is this article about? It's an address to the public about the Peale Museum, by Mr. Peale. He states his hopes for the museum, and requests any "curious objects" and/or people who would like to help in the development of the museum. That's really all it is. I suppose perhaps this is simply a way to look at a museum from a museum developer's point of view, but that's really all I can think of to illuminate from this text. 

I suppose I'll try and choose a meatier article next time, but for now, I'm off to another meeting! 

Dream Museum Thoughts

So yesterday I spent my time thinking/writing about my Dream Museum project!

I decided to pursue conceptualizing an interactive, educational museum. In the end, I came to the conclusion that  I would rather err on the side of being too didactic rather than creating a museum that isn't new-art-viewer friendly. I'm realizing that while there need to be several different types of museums with different identities, if I were to work at a museum, I'd want to work at one that was colorful, fun, and engaging. I would want to share art in a captivating manner, teaching a passionate type of art appreciation via multiple media. Because of my passion for education and carefully designed exhibitions, my dream museum would be a Children's Art Museum. 

I started to do some online research to see if there were any of these institutions already in existence. There are a few, but they aren't super common! The ones that do exist, however, look so awesome. This is definitely the type of museum I would want to be involved with and represent. Here are a couple of examples:

Children's Museum of the Arts in NYC

Young at Art Museum in Florida


I think I will continue to look on these websites and make notes about how these museums seem to be run, and decide which elements I like and which ones I do not. I'm assuming that these museums are very program-driven, which is something that I actually do like. I suppose that is a defining factor of the "didactic" museum, and in this case it is purely educational. Didactic doesn't have to carry a negative connotation in any way with a Children's museum, especially one where the message is, "art is important and fun!" Work that is didactic only becomes negative when it's a message that people don't want to hear, but I don't know of anyone who would disagree with developing an awareness and appreciation of art in children. :)

Hopefully my museum would utilize many many media, not only 2-D and 3-D art but art that utilizes technology (meeting children in their own era) like videography or other computer art, fashion, music, architecture, and even some implications of visual culture, to show children that art is all around them.

These are my ideas thus far, there will be more to come!

          

Identity Summary

After reading through several of the articles from Part IV: Histories and Identities in the Museum, there are several conclusions that I can draw.

1. The history of any given museum is incredibly wrapped up in its role in society and how the public views the institution. The museum can look at itself via the society it dwells in or through the artists it is representing. Hopefully it can do justice to both.

2. There is a strange phenomenon within museums in which we re-live history, and often human suffering. Reliving human experience in general can become a mind-twisting thing if you think about it too hard, since, for example, the act of watching a video of a historical event is experiencing someone else's experience. Your experience of that person's experience will be different than anyone else's in the world. Museums are stewards of these experiences and this phenomenon.

2. House museums operate differently and have different values than institutional museums and school museums. They are supposed to imitate an experience of actually living and walking in the space, and there is less room for imagination. This is the space where the previous owner of the house actually LIVED and walked, and the patrons who come to the museum want to feel just how that previous owner did when they lived there. Therefore a more precise historical accuracy is to be aimed for.

3. Each cultural group has a different identity, and naturally they want to be represented well. Examples in these articles are of the Mexican culture, culture of museums in Oceania, Aboriginal culture, Southern New Ireland culture, and New South African culture. Some of these are just examples of exhibitions or museums that include the culture, or are run by the culture. I think there are things we can learn from each separate culture about how to value and exhibit artwork.

Identity in the museum is ultimately an inexhaustible subject. Each museum has to decide what kind of identity to portray and how to do justice to the identities of the cultures and artists represented. This makes it so that there are innumerable options for different museums, and obviously no two institutions will ever be the same.

yo I'm alive

Wow, what a whirlwind of a two weeks it has been. I've read bits and pieces of articles, getting through only a few of them completely. The semester is definitely rolling along, and I'm trying my best to keep up. I'll write another article about identity and combine some of the things I am getting from articles in this sections, but I really want to take a day to bullet my Dream Museum characteristics, and also do a ranking of the articles I liked/disliked. So I'll be doing that next. I am about to leave my apartment to go to our meeting right now, however, so this post was just a heads-up for what's been going on with this course. Time to sit and read is really no where to be seen lately! Life of a student, right?

Until... soon.
J

Aboriginal Art and Artist Voice

#39 - Museums and the Native Voice by Gerald McMaster

Using the vehicle of distinct aboriginal art, McMaster tells the story of aboriginal artists who want to be seen as current artists rather than art that only goes into ethnographic galleries. I totally understand where the artists are coming from with this issue -- I can see that museums in general have control over what art is seen in what category, and what if the artist didn't envision his art in that category? The article considered negotiation over meaning, critique of authority, power in authority, and visuality/display. These are all such important things in the grand sceme of museums. If museum people aren't sensitive to working closely with artists, it will be easier to accidentally misrepresent the artist and his art. Which, of course, begs the question, how important is it that the artist's work is represented accurately? It is important to the artist, but if other people interpret the work differently, isn't that part of the identity of the art? The fact that it has multiple interpretations?

As an artist myself, I would say that I really do care how people interpret my art, but it's also my job to decide how clear or vague I want to be. If my work isn't taken exactly how I want it to be taken, it's still out in the world and impacting people in a specific way. So regardless of whether it had the desired effect, it still did something. That said, it is nice when your art is presented in a way that tells the story you wanted to tell.

So that's my rant in response to the article, and here's a picture of Luna's performance art!

Indigenous culture vs Western industrialism culture

Article #38:

Indigenous Models of Museums in Oceania by Sidney Moko Mead 

Wow, so it was really interesting to read about "museum" type institutions or customs that are non-Western. And really, the notion of the custom house really makes so much sense when you get down to it. Really giving honor to the art by contemplating it for extended periods of time, and even sleeping over in the building so you can continue to digest the work late into the night and even the next day.
However, I do think our culture has too short of an attention span for this. The author is right in saying that in the west, "people are happy to be anonymous and prefer to look in their own particular way without fuss." The type of museum that we are familiar with really does suit our culture, and the many urbanized areas we have. But the author is also right in saying that the average museum institution requires extreme specificity and a large amount of highly trained people on board, rather than in the indigenous custom houses where they just let the objects be. Literally, because within a decade when the objects are falling apart or rotted, they just replace them with more current objects and move on with life. Really, really interesting to observe the huge difference between the cultures.

Do I love Western culture? This is a question I've been wrestling with since I worked with Latino students this past summer. The way Mead describes the indigenous people in the article sounds a lot like Mexican culture. They take their time, finishing one thing before moving on to the next. We in Western culture are always on a time schedule, always multitasking, but we're also always moving forward. We don't always enjoy life, but is that really the point? This is rhetorical, it really could be the point. We find ourselves going places we never dreamed of going, because of hard work. Not that other cultures don't work hard, it's just often geared in a different direction. We complicate things, and many other cultures keep things simple. I enjoy being around other cultures and taking things slow sometimes. Both times I have been to Mexico, I enjoyed this aspect of their culture. But could I live in it? Something interesting to think about.

Anyways, in conclusion it's cool to see how different aspects of culture, such as perception of time, really affect museum culture as well. Everything in society affects museums, it would seem!

Part IV and House Museums

New section!

Part IV - Histories and Identities in the Museum

So here we go.. 2 weeks, 6 articles.

Today's was the one I found most interesting just as I flipped through from the beginning of the section.
#34: Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums by Mónica Risnicoff de Gorgas 

The article was interesting, talking much about striving towards authenticity, in the house museum especially. It's sort of like what we were discussing during our meeting on Thursday... the striving towards authenticity and integrity in representing the history well helps create a more accurate experience for the patrons. Also this article was a great example of what I was talking about also during the discussion, about using certain institutions to drive certain points about musems. House museums specifically have a different sort of responsibility to objects than the gallery or art museum do. This is great to know in the grand scheme of Museum World.

She gave examples of three different house museums, so I thought I would find pictures of each. I was curious to what these looked like in contrast to Albert Barnes' house, because his was certainly not a history museum, although they used the space for educational purposes.

Museo de la Inconfidencia

Virrey Liniers house museum 

Unfortunately, I couldn't really find pictures of the inside of either of these museums (the museo de la inconfidencia seemed to only have one), and could find no pictures of El Paraiso, the summerhouse of Maniel Mijica. So, I didn't get to see a whole lot, but from the top picture it seems that the "house museum" is not a whole lot different than others I have seen! 

Thoughts? 

Til tomorrow, 

J

Museum Relationships

Article #57 -- Partnerships in Museums: A Tribal Maori Response to Repatriation by Paul Tapsell

This article honestly made me think more about the stucture of this class more than the actual relationships of museums with the public. The article made a good point - know your audience, know what is going to be important to them. In the case of these indigenous tribes, they really wanted to know that their objects, traditions, and histories were being respected. So an up-close-and-personal partnership with the indigenous people is something that is important, especially for this museum.

The Auckland Museum was a good example in itself to use and articulate this point.  So that got me thinking... and I think it would make sense to go museum by museum, using different institutions as examples to drive a certain point or explore a certain topic as you go through this course (I'm thinking for future classes, of course). These articles in Museum Studies do that somewhat, but I had the thought that it would be cool and engaging to go museum by museum. For example one museum could have a history of being extremely pedagogical in their approach. Discuss - is this good? when is it good, when is it bad? talk about curators who don't have good stewardship over the history they are displaying/representing, and other curators that do. Another could be a good example of a museum that has a very specific acquisition policy, and follow their specific process of bringing in new works. We sort of talked about that last time we met.. you gave examples of how things happened in museums you have worked in. That helped me a lot to bring some of these principles to life.

For example the Auckland Museum had a specific and unique set of characteristics that made it useful for driving the point of needing to establish connection between the museum and the society it represents. Going through the semester, highlighting the most important things to know about museums in general.

An example of engaging the class in their own research: "Next week we're going to be learning about the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Your homework is to go on the website and find as many distinctive characteristics of this particular museum as possible. Bring them into class on Monday, and we'll see what trends you identify." They can try and guess what you are going to highlight by researching the museum and identifying what is does well, or what it does poorly, or what it does because of its unique society. Then as the teacher on Monday you could reveal what type of museum or characteristics the IMA is a good example of, and give the students more information than they could have found just on the website. Throughout the semester you could, as a class, visit one or two museums that you have learned about in class.

I'm sure that my theory has holes, but it just came to me that going institution by institution would be more exciting for me than reading museum peoples' theories (often they seem to be theories), and trying to read between the lines about what this means for museums in general.

Would love to hear your thoughts tomorrow when we meet. :)
Til then!
J

Week 3 of 4: Identities.

Ok, so this last week was tough when it came to this class. I got about half of the reading done and started one blog post, but due to a handful of really hard assignments for other classes, and some family/personal stuff to work through, last week was just rough for Museum Studies. But here I am at my computer, in my living room at home over Fall Break, makin' an effort to catch up.


The articles I'll be writing over from this past week are #28, #29, and #30, to finish out Part III. Next week I'll focus on the articles in Part V, thinking a little more about museum relationships.
Each of the articles for this week speaks to some aspect of museum identity... what do a museum's characteristics say about itself?

I started with #30 and went backwards for whatever reason, I think it's because I wanted to start with the shortest of the three articles, assuming I'd have more time later in the week. I have now read all three of the articles and could blog about them all in conglomeration, but I figured I'd just do what I normally do. I began with Architecture and the Scene of Evidence by Catharine Ingraham.

You mentioned at a previous meeting, Dr. K, that I don't necessarily need to write lengthy responses to each article -- just show that I am learning. I'm still trying to get a hold of this, and perhaps now is a good time to implement that, since I am trying to catch up a bit. Haha.

Ingraham speaks to "the whole problem of 'bringing things to life' that have been, and still are, dead." She discusses the notion of evidence; how everything in a museum is evidence of a culture or a life, even the architecture of the building -- "the building and inhabitant caught together in a subject/object exchange of identity and location."

Building vs inhabitant -- this is something we often don't think about. Ingraham says, "Buildings, both civic and religious buildings in particular both house and give identity to cultures..." Later she continues to bring up the most interesting point from the whole article, which is the notion that buildings have a certain effect on their inhabitants as well as vice versa. "Living or working in a building is not a simple act. Buildings are also living in, and working on, their occupants. Among other things, architecture is a spatial organization extruded from our bodies." This idea is especially interesting to me, since through a lot of high school I was dead-set on being an interior designer. My thing was that I understood the effect living space had on attitude and outlook, and I wanted to influence people's lives for the better by creating beautiful, mood-lifting spaces for them to live in. I even wrote papers on this very topic, so when I was reading about how artifacts and their stories, architecture and its nature, influence the viewers and inhabitants, this made a lot of sense to me.

Well, I think I will sort of combine the Coombes article and the Macdonald article. Both have similar topics, but the Macdonald one was much more interesting to me. The Coombes article really didn't have much that I wanted to sink my teeth into, so I'll cover the interesting parts of Museums, National, Postnational, and Transcultural Identities.

Museums and their identities. Sharon Macdonald brings up many points during the beginning of the article that all point to one thing: museums are FANTASTIC places to explore cultural, even personal, identity. Their nature lends itself to this exploration, since objects themselves tend to speak to us, just because we're human and we experience the natural world through objects. The concern of this article is the museum's ability to articulate accurate identities. As the museum has the ability to be didactic, it also has the ability to sway its patron's views of the world, which is powerful and also frightening. Macdonald discusses - perhaps we should just let the objects speak for themselves? The museum is such a connecting part of culture, since culture itself needs a place to come and live. It is this cultural distinction and identity, shared experience, that makes a nation or state worth dying for, she argues. So we cannot throw away the museum itself, but rather we should be more careful about how it articulates identities. She proposes at the end that we should start with the objects themselves, and go from there in trying to tell the stories of history.

A cool thing she said that I've never thought about before, is that identity is how one "experiences oneself." That's an interesting notion... we all "experience ourselves," and this is controlled almost as often by external forces as it is by internal forces. We can experience ourselves in relation to other pieces of a culture -- other people's art. Their experience vs our experience. And we are validated somehow.

The Coombes article speaks to cultural identity in the nation and politics of early-twentieth century Britain, which was really hard for me to even begin. I kind of skimmed it, but the notions in the Macdonald article were really much more interesting to me. I can say that the article dealt with Imperialism, which is something we still sort of deal with, what with "the 99%" and such.

Overall the idea of identity of the culture being housed in the museum is the most important thing to pick up here -- that museums are a powerful, almost understated part of our culture, and it's important that museum staff are good stewards of the representation of cultural identity they hold in their hands.

Some Thoughts

Article #31 - Some Thoughts about National Museums at the End of the Century by Roger G. Kennedy

This dude's writing style was much clearer than yesterday's :)

He speaks to the issues of nationalism and the role of the museum in representing diversity. A few favorite or insightful lines:

"We strove to convert a storage facility with visitorship into a place where significant stories are told by the arrangement of objects."

"My own response has been a refutation of the notion expressed by some senators that the objects in history museums -- perhaps in all museums -- 'speak for themselves.'"

"Objects stand mute, except that their message may be imparted to people who live with them all the time and have learned their silent language. It may be wonderful to feel such a connoisseur, but no national museum would last long is it relied only on this group. [...] Objects speak most powerfully in intentional juxtaposition."

"Museums are still places in which people think."

He then goes on to talk about different museum prototypes in order to understand their strengths.

He also talks about acknowledging the diversity here in America.. not assuming that "national" means a conglomeration of different cultures into one, but a representaion of each. He frames resisting homogenization in a positive light, which I think is wise, although we should never cease to listen to one another's viewpoints and take all things into consideration.

Overall good article. Done with yet another week of talking about museum politics and relationships. These articles have been intellectually stimulating and interesting. I'm makin my way through! Have a good weekend!

Art(yup)i(mm)facts(eh).

If you can't tell, the parintheticals in the title are my responses to the syllables which correspond to different parts of this article. Don't get it? That's fine. I'm weird.

Today's article:

#27 -- Artifacts as Expressions of Society and Culture by Leone and Little

 This was not as clear for me as some other articles, but there were a few interesting things. It wasn't clear because I failed to truly see the connections they were trying to draw between the different artifacts they used as examples. I thought they brought up great points about Peale's innovation and how the influence of architecture is shown in the Maryland State House, but I kind of felt all over the place while reading this article. The authors made several claims and backed them up, but it was just a few too many claims for me without further explanation, considering the unsatisfactory concluding statements. I didn't feel like the tied all of their loose strings... because there were so many ways to read between the lines of their claims during the article. I didn't feel like they answered all of the questions they raised. But it could be a stylistic preference. I prefer more specificity... Since I have been writing (and reading other people's writing) a lot this semester I'm learning this about myself. So perhaps that's why sometimes these highly hypothetical articles sometimes take my brain on like 12 bunny trails and then I am lost at the end, trying to decide what the main point was.

Luckily, this article stated their points several times. In the conclusion they did so again (although my idea of what they were trying to say didn't quite line up...).
1) Native American claims to museum collections have drawn their foce from attempting to show the scientific worthlessness of the use of the remains.
2) Native Americans have claimed that some scientific practices and holdings of collections ciolate their First Amendment rights of freedom of religion.
3) Anglo-Americans have categorized Native Americans in a biased and stereotyped way, like associating them with birds and seashells.
4) A lot of random stuff about subversive geneology, requiring history to critique the present.
5) History within our society should be used to educate and to critique itself.

Maybe I missed the point, but this article didn't work for me.
Enjoyed the little tidbits of interesting subject matter though, I suppose, those bunny trails, even if they didn't end up at the same place.

I also enjoyed reading more about Peale and the innovations of his Natural History Museum, since I wrote my paper last semester in American Art about The Artist in His Museum.
Although the claims about Peale in this article were I think a bit more hypothetical and meant to raise questions than I expected, it was interesting to compare my pre-existing knowledge of the work and Peale's life.

:)

All that symbolism. Mmmmm mmm. Please talk to me about the emblems in this painting anyday, I'd rather discuss that. Haha. I guesssss it's also important to talk about Peale's innovation of explaining natural development to the public, whatever. ;)

Also I liked the discussion of the creation myths... this innate awareness of the human condition and trying to make sense of it. I suppose this could be tied in to out presentation of history and how it has to critique itself, but I still didn't quite like the way it was done.

Overall I was surprised how much I did not like this article. It's fine though, what can you do? Be a better writer yourself? Get used to art historian style? Maybe I'm being ignorant about this article? (highly possible.) Haha.

Well, til tomorrow!

p.s. I'm submitting this at 3:20 because my hour break earlier in the day was free and I could read during that time. So I'm ahead of the game today, who knew that would happen? It's been strange to try and fit Museum Studies into my 2-5 time block. Dr. K you mentioned trying to find a time when you can work most efficiently, and it's weird but I picked a time when I cannot focus for the life of me. It just so happens that it's really the only consistent free time I have, but other "more pressing" things always seem to pop up. So easily distracted and/or sleepy between the hours of 2 and 5. I've really had to fight to stay consistent in any way shape or form. In some cases the things that have come up really were more important, so I had to give them precendent and just get my Museum stuff done later. I have been pretty good about getting content on this site regularly, but here it is for the record: I'm still struggling through what it looks like to do an independent study. Learning learning learning. It's good for me.

So What REALLY Happened?

That's my question after reading today's article.

#26 -- Melodrama, Pantomime or Portrayal? by Gaynor Kavanagh

This article brought up some interesting stuff. Some great points.

I think the thing that stuck with me the most is the curator's ability to distort the past through exhibition and reconstruction of locations/atmospheres in history. Primary and secondary source materials being gathered. The ones you want people to see, the message you want to get across.

It made me step back and think. Woah... so technically the curator has the potential to have a lot of influence over how I perceive the world and its past.

That's crazy!

Kavanagh says, "Even a poor museum exhibition can elicit some response from say a grandparent to a child or between children."

At first this bothered me, but then I read on.

Of course there could be curators who don't attempt to rigorously pursue actual truth and wish to fabricate a story of the past, but hopefully they are rare and wouldn't be hired in the first place. Kavanagh's point was that "there will always be a plurality of interpretation."

He says, "For example, a reconstruction of a 19th century farmhouse in a museum context cannot afford absolute recreation of life in such a dwelling for visitors." He goes on to explain that the knowledge of how life was for the people in the farmhouse can be presented in the exhibit, but the experience will never be perfectly recreated. Because interpretation is something that's so slippery, and also beautiful at the same time. No two takes on something will ever be exactly the same, so any reproduction of history or art will always be a fresh presentation.

Another quote by Kavanagh to further this point (can you tell I thought he was legit?): "This is what makes history so exciting. If offered as a challenging and thought-provoking subject it can prompt the visitor to question and challenge too. [And here's where the quote from earlier comes in] For however rigorously professional the approach, there will always be a plurality of interpretation."

Kavanagh concludes that it's good for history to be controversial, but that it should include a striving towards a "strong sense of memory and record," and that it does a museum no good to ignore that need.

But I will leave you with the first sentence of his conclusion, because I like it.

"History, whether in museums, books, television, programmes or site records, will never be beyond controversy. It should glory in this."

Boom. Don't stress about the lack of absolute truth, just accept it how it is! is kinda how I take that. Good advice to a girl who always wants to find absolute truth.

Til tomorrow!
J

Corporatism

Today, I am just demonstrating that this information has gone into my brain. I didn't have time to do my own research... This was a particularly long article, which I think is why I'm writing this blog on Saturday rather than Friday.

My goal for next week: going back to my tuesday-wednesday-thursday schedule and getting all museum studies things done during the weekdays :)

Museums, Corporatism, and the Civil Society by Robert R. Janes:

Like I said, long article, but good stuff.

Corporatism

Dealing with the fact that museums, too, are businesses and are also "shot through with commitment to the goods and services of global economy" (550). This will play into institutional decision making, no matter what. There's a certain amount of integrity that goes into this decision making, and if you don't consider the original purpose of the museum, it can become a pursuit of popularity and a contest to "keep up with the next guy."

The Civil Society 

That middle ground between the private familiy society and the society of governmental state. All organizations of common interest, basically. Since I'm not really active in a family society (considering I live far from my family and mostly, my life is separate from theirs), and I'm not super active in matters of state, I felt like I really identified with being a part of the Civil Society. For the most part, college students in general probably would. We're kinda in that in-between. But anyways, museums are part of this civil society. A museum is pulling for a certain goal regarding the common interest of preserving art and displaying it for the public. I support this effort. :) Go museums.

Social Capital

Museums are creators and generators of social capital. This means they bond similar people and bridge the gap between people who are dissimilar. It's a great thing to produce social capital. Again, go museums. :)

Art and Healing

Loved the part about the gallery in a hospital, and how art can help heal people. Also, the majority of people who attended the hospital's gallery were actually not patients or hospital staff. Interesting to think of why... maybe it's just a mindset of going to a healing place to experience art. Museums tend to be very intellectual. Maybe if we thought of them less in that way all the time, we could experience healing by going to any museum and just taking in the beauty of art.


Basically then the article talks about what it means to work in or run a museum in light of these things. Reforming the marketplace, creating more autonomous museums, and branding the civil society. So he says museums should do what they can to keep accountibilty in staying grounded in societal interests and aspirations, trying to stay out from under government control, and branding your museum as a "values brand" in the civil society.

Welp, that's all folks. Til next week!!

Wait! It saved it!

Turns out the post was in my drafts!!!!!!!

Sooooo glad so glad!

Okay, pretend I didn't have the minor freak-out. Wow, I need to sleep, don't I? Here's what I wrote before:

~

Today's reading was hard for me. Especially the second article, just gonna be honest. All these men with their fancy language, and I feel like what they're saying isn't always so profound. Oh well, maybe it's just a style preference, and a lack of sleep this week.

The first article I read today was the Presidential Address by Henry Balfour. He said a lot of things that were similar to yesterday's Robinson article, like how there is a great need in each country for museums that tell of that particular country's history.

He also discusses the representation of the lower class, which I don't think Robinson did.

"These folk-museums and departments are devoted to...characteristic features of the more recent culture and social economy of the peasantry, the backbone of every nation."

I thought it was interesting that he brought this up, giving the museum yet another function -- a voice for people who might not otherwise have one. Obviously this has developed into a prominent idea for most people today. Art is here to give voice to everyone, and I was glad that Balfour recognized the need to prepare a place to tell the stories of the peasants.



He also talks a great deal in this article about the open-air museum, so I thought I'd find pictures of this phenomenon. I certainly was curious.


Scandinavia, where the open-air museum began:

(Skansen)

Hungary (Szentendre):

England: 

Japan: 

(Hakone)

http://julesdelicious.blogspot.com/2011/10/hakone-open-air-museum.html

(Just a blog with more pics from Hakone.)

So, I loved reading the websites for those open-air museums. That's fascinating. Since Balfour talked about the origin of the open-air museum, it was cool to see what sort of thing we still have today. It's very similar to Conner Prairie (maybe that is an open air museum?), and even things like the Fall Festival. Looks really fun though. I wish I could visit the colorful one in Hakone! 

Blogger 2 Jordan 0

Oh. My. Goodness. I just wrote a whole long blog post about the representation of the lower class via museums, and also about open-air museums. It had lots of great pictures and it was almost done, and then Blogger signed me out!! I logged back in and all of my work was gone.

AhlksjhkakjsagkSGJ;jh <----- documenting this course/frustration.

I literally don't have time to rewrite a blog right now or even tonight... so Dr. K, you might have to just trust me on this one.

This is the second time it's happened, last time it happened when I clicked "publish," and it had just been too long so it signed me out. But this time it happened for no reason. Maybe I should start copy/pasting my work every 10 minutes :/

Sooooooooo bummed. I'll have to post all the pretty pictures of the open-air museums later though, because they're just too cool.

Eleven Forty-Seven

My take on From On the Museum of Art: An Address:

In this article Robinson addresses reasons why there is a need for a permanent institution to house art. The reasons that I thought to be most interesting:

Believablity. Educating people about art helps them to believe that the messages artists are trying to convey are legitimate and relevant to every day concerns of life. This is really important. Along with that, he seems to think that the museum's most important function is as a mediator between the art itself and the human mind. When the museum provides tour guides, audio tours, and labels, it is helping bridge the gap between the abiguity of the art and the person who can appreciate it. I think that this is a great way to look at it. The museum is a vehicle for knowledge like no other. It lifts art to an honored position and there is this high respect of the art.

It's this notion that got me to thinkin'. If the museum is a pedestal to elevate and explain art for greater exploration and appreciation, it made me wonder if that was a form of worship. But then I thought no, because it really does stop at appreciation, for most people. It's a reveling in beauty and inspiration. So then I thought about theatre. I have often wondered at the praise and worship people give to actors in the theatre. It's almost... more than appreciation. There are some cool parallels to be drawn between the presentation of theatre and the museum itself. Both are mediators - bridges - between art and humans. Both elevate something, bringing certain elements of humanity into the light to be closely examined. But when I thought about what we are elevating when we put on or watch a theatrical production, I realized that it's a little different. In museums we are elevating the art of humans, but in theatre we are elevating humans themselves. Their stories, spun by theatre artists, but because it utilizes human actors who are the subject of our attention, we're elevating those particular humans onstage as well. Their actions, their personalities. If you think about it like that, theatre is elevating God's art -- humanity itself, while museums elevate the second-generation perspectives and work of humans. At least, that's my perspective from a background of Christianity. Just an interesting thought.

In addition to that, Robison seemed to have a pretty common stance on the way the museum should be ordered. In a coherent, cohesive manner, and with a clear label. Since in that time they were just moving on from the Crystal Palace Exhibition, which didn't explain the items specifically one-on-one (I don't think). In this article Robinson really stresses the need for labels and other didactic instruments in the museum, which I also think is entirely true.

This week so far it's been hard to get to blogging, for reasons that I mentioned in my previous post. But I'm still a-readin, and a-bloggin! (even if it's happening 11:47 at night) Future posts should have more outside research and such, but for right now I'm sticking to the text.
Til' tomorrow.

New Section/New Week Intro Post!

Happy Monday, guys! I suppose it's officially Tuesday now, but I haven't slept yet so it doesn't count.

This week is a little crazy, so I've gone through ahead of time and decided which articles I'll be focusing on this week, and when.

Just overall, these next four weeks will be ALL about national issues mostly concerning identity and museum relationships. Since we're focusing on both Part III and Part VI this period, I think I'm going to choose a few articles from Part III and one from Part VI each week, incorporating them, comparing contrasting, ect.

The reason I'm writing this blog on Monday instead of Tuesday, is because I think I might have to shift my schedule just for this week ("already?!" you say, "but you haven't even gotten used to your schedule yet!") And to that I would reply, I know... but sometimes desperate times just call for desperate measures. I've got a whole 10-minute play due on Wednesday, which doesn't sound intimidating until you try and sit down and write a whole story with interesting characters and a compelling plot that will only last 10 minutes. Being concise is hard, so I'd like to be able to work long hours on Tuesday to get this thing done.

So, I've decided that I'll work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week, shifting my work days over just a smidge. This doesn't affect anyone but myself really, but this is just a heads-up and record of my thought processes. Making the shift will pay off, since what we're doing in my Playwriting class next week is reading through alllll those 10-minute plays! :)

This week I've gone through ahead of time and chosen these articles to capitalize on:

From Part III: 
#22 From On the Museum of Art: An Address by Robinson (Wednesday)
#23 Presidential Address.. by Balfour / #25 The Architectural Museum.. by Kaufman (Thursday)
From Part VI:
#55 Museums, Corporatism, and the Civil Society by Janes (Friday)

Hopefully I'll be able to tie all 4 of the articles in together, contrasting relationships going out from the museum with the identities that they are projecting.

Happy studying of Museums, I'll be back on Wednesday!

Social Objects, and the Participatory Museum

The beginning of my study time today was spent trying to decide what is most important to know from the remainder of information in the book about objects in the museum. Well, for whatever reason, I just couldn't seem to find one good thing I could really embellish upon in the text. I went through the introduction to Part V, trying to get a good feel for the content of each article. The thing is, none of these articles talked explicitly about the objects and their presentation, which is kind of what I was looking for and what I want to know about. Actually none of them speak directly to anything about objects, but rather behavior of museums and some parts were about objects. I found some interesting things in general from this section, but categorizing in my brain just wasn't happening. Although I skimmed a lot of chapters in the text book, I ended up spending most of my time today reading chapters from  The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon, which are all online (you can see them if you click the hyperlink). The chapter that pertained most to object presentation was Chapter 4, and that's what I'll talk about here. 

"Imagine looking at an object not for its artistic or historical significance but for its ability to spark conversation."I thought it was interesting how she looked at objects in life, not just in museums, as opportunities for shared experience. I think these "social objects" are one of my favorite parts of life. Objects that you can refer back to from certain places or experiences and whoever else was there with you will understand the feeling behind it. Love that. She discusses the reasoning and affect of bringing more social objects into the museum. It draws people in, and lends itself to a more immersive experience. Nina Simon's book in general talks about the museum experience and how to make it more dynamic, and well, participatory. She is an exhibit designer and museum consultant, so it makes sense that she would care about object presentation and the effect this has on patrons. She provided great insight on how to make museum experiences more community-centered. 

Art, Artifacts, and the Deployment of Objects

Well, these past three weeks were supposed to have been spent in Part V of the textbook, Art, Artifacts, and the Deployment of Objects in the Museum. While I have read about 4 of the articles from this section, I haven't been reading them in a way that is conducive to my new thought structure about the course. I was reading slow as a sloth -- underlining as I went, taking notes on things I thought I could put in the blog. Of course that's not bad at all, but I wasn't getting anywhere. It's basically why I haven't been actually reading enough of them. Trying to get through 4-5 articles a week and steadily blogging on them felt like trying to wade across a river of molasses while being chased by an ugly, 8-foot vampire. I say ugly and 8-foot because I'm not talking about a sparkly, human sized Edward Cullen, I'm talking a stress-inducing, he's-got-longer-legs-and-is-really-going-to-eat-me kind of vampire.

As it turns out, I was crossing through the river of molasses when there really were a bunch of ropes hanging from trees that I could have been using to swing across on! Okay.... yeah that's not a super great analogy. But the point is, I didn't have to go so slow, and I didn't know it. The vampire wasn't really there, he was a figment of my imagination, and I'm actually allowed to skim the text book. I just have to read it. But maybe not INGEST it. This knowledge is very, very freeing.

Along with feeling liberated from the clutches of an ugly vampire, I now also understand the course in a more topical sense (like I mentioned in the previous post). My future blogs will stay within a certain topic for three weeks, switching to a new one with each "all-class meeting."

So! Now that I've been incredibly dramatic and ridiculous in establishing my thoughts about a new blogging/studying format, this will be my first post regarding OBJECTS in the museum.

Hopefully this will include standards for acquisition, philosophies, presentation and representation, among other things. Since I technically will only have 2ish days this week to work on this rather than what should have been 8 for the whole topic (9th day will always be an official meeting with Prof), I might revisit the first two sections in the following weeks, trying to round out my undertanding of museums. Not making any promises, but I think that research including topics of the first two sections will make its way naturally into my future blogs.

Phew. See, already this feels better.

Since I've already read some of these articles, let's discuss what they have to say.

First, principles and standards.

**Benjamin Ives Gilman
His article is almost completely about standards for object acquisition.
He is adament about the aquisition of works that "possess artistic quality." He seems to think that a work having artistic quality is one that can be understood by its message. Basically, appreciation = understanding and therefore usefulness.
His principles:
I. Simplicity - the museum itself should be designed simply so that the art will stand out.
II. Segregation - a museums should be organized into digestable/compatible sections.
III. Dual Arrangement - selected objects (displayed) vs. remaining objects (in storage but available).
IV. Quality - art should meet a certain standard of "responsible criticism."
                                 *Promote the art
                                 *Comprehensive collecting secondary to choice collecting
                                 *Duty to local artists
V. Harmony - objects should be installed in a way that they best aid each others' appreciation.
VI. Reality - reproductions should not be exhibited with originals.
VII. Service - the museum should be active in exhibition as well as aquisition.

I think all of those are very valid. There are some things I see that museums could do more often. In the last section he mentions holding concerts inside and outside the museum to attract visitors. This is something I have never even heard of a museum doing! DOMA did a theatre performance one time, but that's all I've seen in that vein. It's an interesting concept, although I don't think many modern day museums would hold concerts unless they were of a certain type, and only outdoors in the summer. The motivation behind it is good, though. Different types of people being drawn to the museum through different activities.

In this article and in the next one by John Cotton Dana, there is the pervading idea that museums should always be fluid and real as far as reflecting life and the changes in their collection. They both think it is important to continue improving the collection, instead of having something like a made-to-order museum.

Museums like University of Alaska's Museum of the North think it's most important for the works they accession to be educational, useful for research, and reflecting some value of Alaska in general.

Most museums' requirements are based on what type of museum they are. For example, the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard only accepts work that has to do with the studies in their title.

I will continue exploring other aspects of object acquisition tomorrow during my Museum Studies block. I'm thinking reception and presentation. Until then!!

Studying Independently is Easy... Right?

Well, the answer to that question is no. No no no. But that doesn't mean it can't be done :)

For me, the hardest thing about this independent study thus far has been cutting out the time to actually sit down and STUDY the material. Blogging isn't too hard once I've got all the information in my brain, but I still have to get it there somehow.

So, I have been organizing. And thinking. And organizing. The results:

These are a couple of my notebook pages regarding where I want to go with the course.

When I met with Dr. Kuykendall to dicuss these things, it really helped to get us on the same page. Of course, I haven't gotten enough done thus far in the course, and it has mostly been because I was thinking about the course differently than I should have been.

From here on out I will hopefully be thinking more topically about museums, rather than article-by-article. This will help me to truly learn and appreciate the material I put on this blog, rather than feeling like I just have to intently read each article and give a response to it. The thought of doing that was overwhelming to me. This way, my work will be better recorded and I can include my own research about each topic, rather than each blog post being solely based on the articles (while I will still be using them).

I have also devised a new schedule for myself, which will help immensely (I think/hope/pray).

The new schedule will be:
Tuesday 2-5
Wednesday 2-5
Thursday 2-5

This will give me time to get all of my research and studying done, while also getting into a rhythm and habit of studying on those three consecutive days. Today has been the first day on that schedule, and I can already tell that I'm going to have to be so so strict on myself to keep those hours free for studying. Sometimes things come up, but when they do it means I have to spend more time later catching up. So we'll see how it all progresses.

Studying independently is not easy! If nothing else, I've learned that :) This has been really good for me though, since I'll have to be even more self-directed in the future. It's teaching me to guard specific hours for certain things that AREN'T meeting in a classroom or meeting with an organization on campus.

Here's to improved and more steady blogging!

The Art of the Steal: Some Thoughts

This film was so interesting to me. I thought it illuminated some key things about humanity.

We have an innate instinct to protect the past, and other people's creations. It seems to stem from the need to protect life itself. One of the people interviewed for the film even said, "Art isn't something separate from life. It is life." As humans, we are enemies of death. So we fight it in our own way. We cannot keep people from dying, so we hold on to as many aspects of them as possible. This could be an entire race or era full of people as we try and preserve their heritage and what they were all about, or it could be in the case of a single person, like Albert Barnes.

Barnes was just one person, and a good amount of the wrong behind the Barnes controversy was the State of Philidelphia's decision to go against Barnes' dying wishes. It is directly ignoring a portion of a man's life, making him slave to the consequences of death, the enemy of all men. Naturally a person who understands this would feel betrayed by any fellow human who would deny someone their legacy, and their free will. But in addition, we could view Barnes as the protector of each life that was reflected or projected in the art he possessed. By violating his wishes, the State of Philidelphia also overlooked the best interests the lives represented by each signature on every painting. Life, expression, history... Barnes was the steward of so much. Yet the State of Philidelphia did not honor his well-thought-out desires for the collection. I think that is one of the underlying reasons why most people were so easily enraged by the actions of Philidelphia. While the leaders of the state did not harm the collection, they destroyed Barnes' arrangement of the art and his intentions for its use. Like I said, his written words were one of the last evidences of his life, and it could only be ignorance or cruelty that would lead men to deny Barnes this shred of dignity in his deceased state.

The other thing that somehow just stuck out to me about this film, that I remember when I look back on watching it, was that Albert Barnes was not popular during his lifetime. Especially in the museum world, he and his collection were both harshly criticized. He had an opinion that was different from most of the rest of the world about how to utilize his artwork, and even in the face of opposition, he stuck to it. I admire him for this. It's not easy to be one of the only people who hold to any one opinion, and to be treated badly because of it. Yet he did not chance his stance once during the course of his life, and I think it's cool to see how many people agree with him now that the controversy is so prominent. Albert Barnes may not have been liked during his life, but now, after his death, he is respected. He did not use his art for his own advance, but solely for the education of young people. He brought a set of unique ideas to students. His legacy has not been properly respected, but Albert Barnes himself never let up, doig what he could to preserve what he believed was right. I think he would have been a very cool person to know.

In conclusion, I think it will be interesting to see how the issues presented in this particular controversy reappear in other museum stories as we press on in this course.