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!
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
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!
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!
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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
Until... soon.
J
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
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!
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!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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!
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!
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