When considering cultures in collision a museum is a fine example of a clash of positives and negatives. This can be a troubling idea for the curators and visitors of museums because their collective pursuit of further cultural knowledge is often pure. However, in constructing a museum more often than not items of important significance are transplanted from their original location to be viewed and studied by a foreign people in a foreign land. The concept of the “rightful owners” of history and artifacts is a complicated one that leads to many cultural collisions. This is because multiple cultures often lay claim to the same artifacts leading to conflict among the claimants. With all of these ideas in mind the process of selecting a piece of art from the Cornell Fine Arts Museum for analysis became far more difficult. In examining the thought-provoking piece Lonesome George by Juan Travieso a warning message is telegraphed loud and clear.…
In “Why Museums are the New Churches” by Jason Farago, he argues how the art museum has surpassed the church as the most important and ultimate building of our society. Also, Farago continues to show how people mimic and copy religious acts and rituals while visiting a museum. He provides numerous examples from history and buildings from around the world. He also gives many modern examples of this shift from churches to museums. Throughout his writing, Farago builds an argument that museums have become the most vital building, and he uses some interesting techniques along the way.…
Executive Summary – The overall goal of the collections plan created by the Boca Raton Museum of Art is to outline the parameters for preserving, collecting, and exhibiting contemporary and modern art, while fulfilling the museum’s mission. The plan will guide museum staff in making decisions regarding collections management that properly represent the museum to the community with high professional standards and fiscal responsibility. This plan also addresses gaps in the current collections and provides deeper understanding of areas of weakness. Evaluation of the plan will also take place on an annual basis and adjusted accordingly to fulfill the museum’s vision towards an ideal collection.…
The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC is a timeless building and a work of art itself. The building was designed with a contemporary style and is an outward expression of its artistic, belongings inside. I visited the Museum on Tuesday, July 02, 2013, at around 2 in the afternoon. I was within the museum for about 2 ½ hours, observing the exhibits. The building itself exceeded my expectations, but the inside took my breath away. Every detail within was elaborate and intended with thought; from the glass windows, to the straight lines of the architecture, to the overlooked design of the staircases. The museum was not extremely busy. The museum was occupied with an adequate amount of people, creating a comfortable, quiet, atmosphere to enjoy the art. I was able to enter the museum without feeling bombarded, compared to most popular attractions. The displays were prearranged for pleasant viewing, easy to maneuver around, and located suitably by collection and design. The ambiance and setting was much more peaceful than I expected. I particularly enjoyed the visit to the Mint Museum and am now encouraged to visit other art museums!…
This features and the museums’ distance from their local communities in culture and atmosphere can make many potential visitor feel that the space is not one for them. Museums in some communities virtual empty of locales because they have no hand or investment of any kind in it. However, by giving the public the opportunity to be actively involved the museum’s activities, a museum becomes relevant and meaningful to their communities. A good example of this can be seen in the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA), mentioned in McLean’s “Whose Questions, Whose Conversations?”. This museum has reworked itself into a places important to its community by welcoming local teenagers to co-curate an exhibit in its Gallery of California Art in 2009, called Cool Remixed. By getting these local teens involved in the creation of the exhibit, they not only made the exhibit, and hence the museum, mean something to them, their families and their friends, but also communicated to all the public that the museum is a welcoming…
The museum has a massive, unique, collection of art by a very well respected artist that has never been shown anywhere else in the world, this is a great strength of the museum. This also means that most people are totally unfamiliar with the art contained in the museum and don’t have a lot of context as to what the exhibitions entail, which is a weakness. But, these factors create the opportunity for the museum to make a name for itself in the world of art exhibitions, but it hasn't quite achieved the fame it is capable of, yet. The location of the museum can also be viewed in different lights. It is firstly an opportunity in that the campus aspect of the museum area of downtown Denver means that the Clyfford Still Museum will receive more unexpected foot traffic than if it were located away from other museums. This also can be a threat beauce the close proximity of the two museums means that many people mistakenly enter the Clyfford Still Museum confusing it with the Denver Art Museum and ultimately decide not to stay for a visit. The museum has done a good job of putting its strengths out front by creating unique, engaging exhibits, by comparing and contrasting the work of Still with the work of the work of more well known artists who respected him, by advertising its facility as a work of art in its own right and…
Museums bring history and culture to life by allowing individuals to gain unique hands on experience that is different from learning from textbooks or television. One can never know the reality behind certain artifacts and art until they see it for themselves. The perception of viewing a multitude of replicas and pictures such as the Mona Lisa can be dramatically different from witnessing the painting up close. The interactive experience allows one to engage and immerse ourselves back into time to learn about the truth of different cultures and traditions. The intent of museums is not purely to enthrall historians and scholars, but to create an environment which is welcoming to all individuals. While historians argue that museums…
Museums are a perfect way to represent what history has unfolded for the public’s eye. Consideration needs to be made when a person is shopping for fragments of history such as arts or artifacts. A main consideration is profit; however, there are consequences if the museums does not make enough money. If a museum does not make enough money, this could suggest that people are not interested in taking tours throughout the museums anymore,the new age of technology is taking over. What happens after the museums cannot keep their wonderful art?…
A method of critiquing colonial dominance within museums, is critical museology. Shelley Butler uses critical museology to argue against a colonial politics of domination in museums. Butler argues that colonial museums were both ‘silent, and silencing’ (Butler, 2000, p.76). Colonial museums were silencing as they subjected the artefacts to a Western gaze, only artefacts deemed visual interesting were to be shown. The lack of contextualisation of these artefacts meant that they became art for viewing, not for understanding. Svetlana Alpers creates a theory for the lack of contextualisation, naming it the ‘museum-effect’. The museum-effect is ‘the tendency to isolate something from its world, to offer it up for attentive looking and thus to transform it into art’ (Alpers, 1991, p.27). By privileging viewing the object in this way, colonial museums began to enforce the idea of the museum as a space for seeing, or, ‘a space of the 'do not touch’.’ (Hetherington, 2000, p.451). Not only has the idea of the museum as a space in which touch is disallowed been carried through to post-colonial museums, so too has the museum…
Financial stability is key to the existence of any institution, and often for these museums being beholden to donors was a setback for them. A main example of this is the African-American Museum of Philadelphia being beholden to their donors who wanted them to create the museum in time to open for the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, as the museum was formed as “a direct response” to the celebration. This time crunch did not allow the museum to take the time and care it needed to have a truly proper opening, and this concept of being restrained due to finances is a running theme throughout this…
When one goes to a Museum, it is easy to assume that they will go to the most famous and well known pieces that are showcased, look at them, and then be well on their way. Although Museums are a part of the spectacle, when looked at in the right context they can also enable to viewer to gain a new perspective. What better a place than to think “otherwise” than a museum? The setting upholds works of art that are categorized and characterized by certain attributes. But these institutions can also view the everyday in a new context – take a look at the Surrealists or the Stituationalists. In Museum Hours, by Jem Cohen addresses how people should look at art through a different lens, and how value legitimizes collections of art in museums.…
Art has a long history of being censored by the government, different communities of people, and museums and even through self-censorship. To understand the idea of self-censorship committed by museums, the evolution of censorship is essential. In Christopher B. Steiner words, censorship “attempts to critique or control the dissemination of images or knowledge from an institution which the group perceives to be unilaterally powerful and from which the groups feels excluded.” Using this as a basis to define what censorship is in the context of museums will help expand on the multiple layers of what the issue is and how it is addressed in different countries and cultural institutions. It also needs…
Let’s start with the building style, or architecture, of the Museum. The Museum describes itself as an “Eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel.”. The Museum is built almost entirely out of recycled or repurposed architectural and industrial materials, including cranes, old bridges, a human-sized hamster wheel, a bank vault, and even an old school bus. That gives it an irregular personality with the unexpected always lurking around the next corner.…
Throughout my travels, I have been blessed with the opportunity to visit many museums. Through those visit, I have learned that every museum has something different to offer. From the art they display, the decoration and architecture of the museum itself, to the people in the museum all those factor shape the ambiance and ultimately influence our experience. For this assignment I chose to go to the Dallas Museum of Art in downtown Dallas TX. I chose this museum because it is an art museum, which matches the requirements for the assignment, and it has been over a year since I visited this museum. The Dallas Museum of Art has so many different types of art that everyone is sure to fall in love with at least one work of art. One of the many things…
This report is to analyze the creation of a Jazz Hall of Fame in Charlottesville, VA, which was initiated by Mr. Robert Rutland, a history professor, and jazz enthusiast. Mr. Rutland believes he can create a Jazz Hall of Fame and is planning the plan for the project. Since there is an old theatre in town he believes would be a perfect location, he created an idea and dream to create a national Jazz museum to share the history, promote the music through live concerts, and memorialize archives and pieces of significance throughout the history of Jazz Music. He creates a board directors and attempts to create it. He works on planning and promoting, but realizes from the feedback that he has more challenges ahead if he is to realize his dream.…