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Thinking about the past or about a distant world through things is always about poetic re-creation. We acknowledge the limits of what we can know with certainty, and must then try to find a different kind of knowing... Can we ever really understand others? Perhaps, but only through feats of poetic imagination, combined with knowledge rigorously acquired and ordered.

Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects

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I like America and America likes me, Joseph Beuys 1974

“I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.”

Beuys was a German avante-garde performance and avant garde artist, whose work forced viewers to question museums and view them naked and stripped. His work transformed museums from untouchable monuments to spaces of cultural experience - while also parodying and making political statements.

In I like America and America likes me, Beuys spent 5 days in a room without food or water living with an untamed coyote. The only other items in the room were a wool blanket, in which he swathed himself, and shredded articles from the Wall Street Journal. Beuys’ hope was that the coyote would use the WSJ shreds as a nest, but never explained his intended metaphor. One can only guess.

[msmmvmt-blog]

Let’s get the painful truth out of the way: museums are borne out of classist ideals, found in the projection of wealth in wunderkammer’s kept by rich aristocrats and the style of the “gentlemanly hang” meant to educate the elite masses in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain. Even up to the current decade, many cultural institutions still prioritize collection/protection over education instead of approaching these goals as hand in hand.

Yet, there are still movements to “break down the walls” of the museum and increase accessibility and outreach. Digital museums, tours, exhibits and online catalogues have been jumped on as a solution. Increasingly, interest in art and museums are driven by word of mouth on social media outlets like Instagram and Tumblr. Despite this many professionals fret that digital expansion and allowing collections to leave the physical walls of the museum will lead to visitor disinterest in the “real thing.” On the contrary, most visitors use digital museum sources as a jumping off point:

Even in the latest phases of the digital era there is still reassuring evidence that people want access to the ‘real thing’. They like to read about things on-line, to identify collections through catalogues and other materials. If anything, these virtual experiences appear to spark a stronger desire to commune with the actual objects and to have access to original sources.

Good museum programming now has to prioritize community engagement and partnerships. Visitors want to feel connected, either by being reached on a personal level or via physical contribution to an exhibit. The “Pop Up Museum” movement out of the Santa Cruz Museum of History and Art incorporates visitor inclusion in a new and exciting way.

Pop up museums are “temporary exhibits created by the people who show up to participate” and are often partnerships with local organizations that lead to the cultivation of relationships with people who may not consider themselves “museum visitors.” Allowing visitors to take control of their personal narratives moves museums into the position of knowledge collaborators instead of just knowledge repositories.

In order to continue to best meet the needs of the public and keep up with the increasing rapidity of information consumption, museums must think about their impact outside their physical space. Cultivating community partnerships and designing programming that meets the needs and interests of multiple different groups (across educational, age, and class lines) are going to be important steps in keeping institutions relevant.

Other Resources

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 

Duncan, Carol. 1995. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. New York: Routledge Press.

Tate Museum. nd. “Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities.” Online exhibit.

[benigoat]

[msmmvmt-blog]

What are art museums for? 

Increasingly, museums are having to justify their purpose in society. A study by the Museums Association found that most people, whether they’re regular museum visitors or infrequent attendees, see museums as having a trifold responsibility: 

What the public sees as essential purposes – [1] care, preservation and display of heritage; [2] entertaining education for all children; [3] and trustworthy information for all adults – explain why museums are held in such high regard. 

Seeker, a digital magazine from Discovery Communications, challenges that museums “are not doing enough for [visitors] as they might, their whole purpose in modern society has not been explored.” Harkening back to the regular conversation about “what museums are for,” Seeker conceptualizes art museums as spaces to “help us cope with our inability to focus on what is beautiful and precious in life.” In this vein, art museums become escapes from everyday hubbub -- but it is on curators, museum educators, and exhibit designers to ensure that everyone escaping to the museum leaves it with newfound information or appreciation.