a visit to the Museum of Cambridge: Jesse Wine, Sludgy Portrait of Himself
Ashamedly I had never visited the Museum of Cambridge until today, despite being Cambridge born and bred, and spending most of my academic life a few doors down at Kettle’s Yard. And I will admit that it was the the tie with Kettle’s Yard that drew me to this exhibition. However, as a self described social history museum that preserves and presents an historic way of life, it appealed to my interest in the house museum. Simultaneously through, I am wary of such displays as, in the name of safeguarding, such a presentation can become stale by remaining unchanged and therefore rather more like a freeze frame. For me there is little curatorial merit in this and limited educational possibility. Perhaps it is this unfortunate presumption that has prevented me from visiting the museum all these years. However, the selection of Jesse Wine represents a dynamic and immersive engagement with a multidisciplinary art that is far removed from its own collection and, in turn, points to some bold and innovative decision making from the curatorial team (or loaned curator from Kettle’s Yard). I am happy to report my presumptions about the Museum of Cambridge were entirely incorrect.
Upon arrival, the visitor is offered headphones and at designated times an audio guide transports you through the museum. Your route is signposted by a cleverly automated lighting system, drawing your attention here and there, so seamless you could be guided by an invisible figure. The changeable lighting conditions, unusual in a museum (especially one with so many steps!), create pockets of darkness and tricks your already nervous periphery vision as you are lulled with ghostly folklore.
The audio guide is no new phenomenon to the museum experience, which tends to alienate the viewer from the autonomy of the museum going experience and renders visitors to slow shuffling crowds of sheep. But Jesse Wine has elevated the medium, through storytelling, to a fully immersive and interactive medium of engagement, a potential that is rarely fulfilled. The keen attention paid to the collection, built upon hand-me-downs and hearsay in the wake of countryside myth and folklore, has allowed Wine to develop a piece rooted in history, yet contemporary in execution - the silent disco of the museum.
The visitor is greeted by sounds of clinking mugs, a crackling fire, and joyful pub-dwelling jeers. Two key voices, a well-spoken English gentleman, our narrator, and a rather un-fen-like (sorry) barman, introduce you to the bar, the snug, the kitchen as you are welcomed into everyday 17th century pub life but make sure you don’t miss the casual nod to the giant’s boot. Slow synthy rhythms evoke 80s horror cinema, carpenter-esque, and add the slightest foreboding undertone as we are told of Joseph Hemsel’s refusal of a room at the pub, one particularly dark night, as he makes his way across the bleak fens. By now you can recognise this is a ghost story and things don’t work out too well for Hemsel.
Most impressive is the seamless integration of Wine’s ceramic works into the existing collection. The large smudgy faces, like horrific distorted toby jugs and cumbersome grabbing limbs emerging from the bog, secret themselves amongst the collections, hidden in dark corners and peering from cabinets. These pieces are partnered with select pieces from the Kettle’s Yard collection: paintings by Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson, sketches and sculptures by Gaudier-Brzeka. Although I might have detected a fleeting reference to Henri in Wine’s story, this pairing seems to only half-heartedly point at Kettle’s Yard, and literally with Wine’s chubby ceramic fingers. A grasping connection has been made between the guided tour nature of Wine’s interventions and Jim Ede’s tours of his house way back when, but I struggle to see the relevance of this at the Museum of Cambridge or to Kettle’s Yard’s contemporary audience (as today the visitor’s navigation of Ede’s house is largely autonomous). That being said I will never sniff at an opportunity to see the Kettle’s Yard collection outside of the ‘magic’ of Kettle’s Yard, but I will save that for another exhibition review (just down the road!).
Overall I can only compliment on the execution of Jesse Wine: Sludgy Portrait of Himself at the Museum of Cambridge. It has introduced a local art historian (who should be ashamed for not visiting earlier) to a new collection whilst simultaneously reinventing the social history museum. It will do the same for families, school groups and everything in between. The effect is fun and flawless, insightful and entertaining, exactly what you want from a museum experience. Even my slightly cracking headphones added only to heighten the atmosphere.
