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