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.

Here's another video with people talking about why museums are awesome.

The kids interviews are my fave.  It's really cute. 

Enjoy! 

Blueprints and Scripts

It seems that this course is already changing my ideas about museums, and how I will experience them in the future! Until reading the first few articles in our text book, I only thought of the museum as a place that human civilization created in order to house all the art being produced by humanity and to provide another vehicle for the study of history and culture. It is those things, and it sounds like the people in the below video would agree! But now I know it is also so much more... or at least, its history consists of more. :)

Firstly, I thought that it was interesting to learn about the word museum. While a bit dry for my taste, the article on this topic was insightful and comprehensive. I liked learning that the word museum originally was not used only in reference to a tangible structure or even collection, but that it was more of an "epistemological structure which encompassed a variety of ideas, images, and institutions that were central to late Renaissance culture" (Findlen, 23). The term museum used to be much less specific, and more as an umbrella term for a wide variety of philosophical modes, discussions, and memes. "The Renaissance notion of museum [only] defined [an] imaginary space" (Findlen, 27). The word then evolved into a means for gathering materials for a text, and eventually into a name for the institution that we are familiar with today. 

I loved the metaphors, comparisons and evocations drawn for the modern public museum in The Universal Survey Museum by Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach. Even if it was not always in direct comparison, I liked how often they crossed-referenced other cultures and practices.

Museums... 

are "simultaneously temples, palaces, treasuries and tombs - buildings filled with echoes of ancient ceremonial practices of accumulation and display."

are like "Roman displays of war trophies."

are "Western supremacy and world domination." 

The Museum...

"stands as a symbol of the state, and those who pass through its doors enact a ritual that equates state authority with the idea of civilization." 

"organizes the visitor's experience as a script organizes a [theatrical] performance."

is "set up only for the sacred purposes of art." 

I think my favorite one is the notion of specialized ritual, and how the museum's architectual set-up is comparable to the script of a play. So interesting to me. This was illustrated later in the article, when the authors detail the ritualistic experience of the Louvre. I'm so glad I read that part, because if I ever get to visit the Louvre, I'll know why certain elements (like the arches, or the grand staircase) are in place! And of course, now I will be trying to figure out the experiential intentions of each museum I ever visit in the future (...in addition to experiencing the art). Sounds like all my future museum visits will consist of either 1. much verbal processing and probably annoying my friends or 2. trying my darndest to internally process all of my conjectures based on the architectural layout of each institution. Haha! Here's to the art nerds... :)

Time, Time, Time.

This post will be primarily about the first article, From the Museum Age, in Part 1 of the textbook Museum Studies. Although such narrow coverage of content is less than sufficient for 3 weeks into the course, I plan to finish Part 1 reading and blogging this weekend, so I am caught up to Part 2 starting these next 3 weeks.

This article by Germain Bazin was incredibly interesting, since I have studied each time period he mentions but never from the perspective of museums. He first speaks to this idea of time and a desire to escape the present. "When the present becomes unbearable, there are two means of escaping it: the past and the future. Plato chose the second..." (Bazin, 19). Interesting because he brings up the notion of philosophy by mentioning Plato. He is essentially suggesting and perhaps later, stating, that the two ways we tend to escape the present are through philosophy and history (especially via the vehicle of museums, libraries, ect). I thought this was an accurate reflection of humanity throughout all ages, and while philosophy might be its own branch, it is included within the walls of any museum you will find on this earth. Wrapped up in the mimes and paradigms that people carry around are ideas of what will happen in the world; personal philosophies. When an artist creates he incorporates these memes, whether consciously or subconsciously. So really when we attend museums, we are suspending our own ideas of the world in order to experience others' for an afternoon.

Although philosophy plays a large part in history, it is true that humanity soon separates it from history and labels it "science." As its own outlet through which to explore the world and make sense of it, science museums were the product of a new way of thinking. This way of thinking is characterized by the idea of a "Renaissance Man," a destiny proposed by oneself rather than by God. Continuing in this vein, Bazin goes on to decribe the 19th century era as having "a great idolatry of the past." They had a nonchalant attitude towards the present, and "perspectives of the future were nightmarish." The museum itself had become "a temple where Time seems suspended."

I thought all of this very interesting because I recognize the obsession with the past in our own culture today. Even people who "aren't interested in history" participate in elements of its influence every single day. As an art student and someone who is very interested in fashion, I have always had a particularly retro style. But are there any streams of fashion or art these days that are not directly influenced by another time period? No, we know this -- there is nothing completely new being made anymore on this earth.  So what is this fixation with returning to the past? It caused me to examine my own style choices and motivation behind this. Why do I like clothing that looks like it's from the 30's, 40's, 50's? Why do I integrate it with elements from our modern way of dress? Am I subconsciously attempting to relate and identify with the past, or am I simply bringing two foreign elements together for  contrast? I had never thought about all of this before. Regardless, I am not the only one. Bezin even mentioned in the text: furniture designers, architects, you name it. They are all influenced by other time periods. He seemed to believe that it was because of a search
for stability. "Does it not indicate at the same time a need to escape from the vertigo caused by acceleration of time... a concentration on the uomo qualunque throught the centuries... whose "happy life" we wish to evoke in our antique-filled interiors?" Perhaps he is right. Maybe my art student friends and I (as well as the people in the photo on the left) tend to lean towards an older look, as he says, filling our bedrooms with antiques or older items in general (why else would we all love Goodwill so much?), because we are searching for something concrete as we zoom through life, the instability of the present, the unpredictable future.

I think as I continue to study museums and galleries, I will continue to look for these trends. I want to seek the "why" behind how people run museums, why we do what we do in modern society. I hope to supplement my reading from here on out with more than just quotes from the text, including links to other articles and videos. For now these are my thoughts. More to come soon!

J

Bloggin' for class

This will be the blog for processing my reading for AHS450, Museum Studies! 

More to come! 

J