#museum theory

[wife-emailer]

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Here is an ongoing collection of readings on postcolonial theory and overlaps with feminist, gender, race, art theories. The readings range from easy-to-read to pretty academic, but there is a wide range of topics and levels.

some people: bell hooks, Zanele Muholi, Andrew van der Vlies, Nancy Fraser

some topics: Art of Identity, intersectional feminism, criticisms of neolberalism, decolonizing musems

I want to share this for those who are interested but don’t know where to start, its a little unorganized but I am working on adding tags and fixing the titles so it is easier to understand!

[hypokeimena]

Hi! Not disagreeing, just looking for an explanation: Your tag on that post, "cataloguing is an act of violence" - would you mind explaining that? I think I understand where you're going with it, but I'd appreciate a little more of the context. Thanks!

sure! so full disclosure i am WELL into my covid second shot reaction and have a fever currently, this is going to be unsourced and conversational. i am not a museums professional (currently) which is to say. source: dude trust me.  

i actually reblogged two posts with that/similar tags in rapid conjunction, so a good starting point is to put those in conversation. an archive/collection is a List of Relevant Things. so then the biggest, most important question is: what’s relevant? (the secret question hiding underneath that is: who decides what’s relevant?)

in museum contexts, this is also relevant with respect to how things are described within a catalogue. there’s a specific statue - i believe it was an aphrodite. i do not have sources. i mean i do have sources but i can’t find the specific article. the local population considered it a fertility statue, and typically surrounded it with dung and earth. classicists associated with the british museum took it out of this context, which was - more or less - one of cultural continuity, and cleaned it off (which of course is A WHOLE OTHER THING when it comes to museums and classical antiquities) and stuck it in a museum space. 

so as a thought exercise: what’s the tone the museum uses to describe the sculpture’s provenience? how does it describe its prior continuous context vs. the act of removing it from context and housing it? who decides what the Right context for an item is? (you also get this with issues around repatriation - some objects are meant to be temporary and decay and a museum context metaphorically kills them; some objects are meant to be used and museum preservation techniques make them deadly to use if returned)

additionally you can see the source of many facets of proto-colonialist thinking in cataloguing, often before those colonies themselves existed in the forms we would recognize them today. cabinets of curiosity, which are sort of the originator of what we would think of as a museum in the western world, and the origins of cataloguing overlap with the increase of maritime trade routes and better transport from parts of the world that it had not been possible to access quickly - which lead to more and varied curiosities entering the market. and you would get people writing catalogues of the stuff they had in their cabinets - and the rising enlightment desire to Describe The World. and then, everyone saw those catalogues and lists being published and distributed, and then everyone who saw those lists wanted the same kinds of things in their own cabinets of curiosity: birds of paradise, coral, narwhal horns, tortoiseshell, conches; every cabinet of curiosity ended up looking more or less the same. like pinterest boards for the 1600s. (notable that many of the things of particular interest were items that fall outside of easy categorization: coral, which looks like a tree branch but is a stone, that sort of thing).

so you have this increase in Describing Kinds of Things, and then increased demand for Those kinds of things, which were Special, and a growing class of people who could afford a couple special things here and there, not just kings and princes - and this is where you really start to see the idea of the exotic take hold in a broader, cultural sense. there are normal things, and then there are Special things, that you want to keep and have for your own. collecting - and cataloguing - is acquisitive; you end up wanting to complete the pokedex. so you start to see cataloguing and collecting as intrinsically linked to exotification and the rise of resource extraction and colonialism, all as sort of the same enlightenment project around Ordering the world. 

and obviously we’re not all, like, dutch traders who can afford to blow our tulip-bulb-boat’s worth of cash on some truly excellent ostrich eggs, nowadays, and that’s not what museums are. but especially when museums are functioning as arms of the state - which they often do, not just the british museum which gets a lot of (deserved) heat, but the ways in which american museums often originate as instruments of not just education but intentional assimilation, etc - you end up seeing the act of cataloguing used... like, if a catalogue is. intended as a description of the world. then a catalogue should describe the whole world. and no catalogue can do that! but you really have to pay attention to what’s missing, and who decides what’s missing, and what it means that that’s missing, in order to even start to undo some of the harm. here. uh

similarly, look at the fucking dewey decimel system. you can argue back and forth on whether some of this is obliviousness or malice (imo it doesn’t matter, it’s shitty either way), but there’s... whole cultures that don’t get as much space as greek and roman sculpture only. the catalogue is a site of cultural control. it decides what information is worth attention, and often how much attention, and from whom. it’s actively impossible for projects of cultural control which originate in entrenched ideas around order, cultural supremacy/Othering, etc not to ever be violent.

which isn’t to say that the project of restoring context, shifting focus, etc aren’t hugely important projects - they are, and they’re happening! but... it’s a start. the beast is huge and it’s going to take a long, long time. 

this got so long. i’m going to put a cut. 

edit: there's more i want to say here about cultural continuity, cryptocolonialism, and the concept of cultural/economic debt. i would refer you to "some debts can never be repaid" by y hamilakis but i remember it being academese even when i was devouring articles regularly, but those are other concepts that contribute to the catalogue as site of resource extraction and cultural control

[f0restpunk]

[betweenfictionandfact]

Palimpsest

#ObjectoftheMonth is all about Palimpsests #dissertation #thesis @MorganLibrary @metmuseum

Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) Palimpsest, 1946 Sugar lift, soft-ground etching and scorper Plate: 8 7/8 × 6 7/8 in. (22.5 × 17.5 cm) Sheet: 13 1/8 × 10 3/16 in. (33.3 × 25.9 cm)

Stewart S. MacDermott Fund, 1983 Accession Number: 1983.1141.1 © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

A palimpsest is defined as:

writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after…

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[historyismyboyfriend]

[redneckyacht]

I am so glad I’m getting out of academia proper

Theory might actually kill me:

"...any such theory seems to ignore the evident lack of any defensible definition of thingness. All may be condemned as "vulgar" because they adopt a commonsense rather than academic presupposition of what we mean by the word thing."

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN

[adrianrshaw-blog]

Museum theory: Reading List

http://www.museumsetc.com/products/exemplary Reinventing the Museum - The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift' edited by Gail Anderson and published by AltaMira This book features Anna Cutler's paper 'What Is to Be Done, Sandra?: Learning in Cultural Institutions of the Twenty-First Century (2010)'. Progression in Creativity - developing new forms of assessment: a literature review underpins a piece of work undertaken by the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester to explore the possibility of developing a framework for assessing creativity in school-age learners. The impact of creative initiatives on wellbeing: a literature review offers a theoretical overview of the concepts of wellbeing and creative learning and considers the evidence connecting them through an analysis of creative initiatives. documenta 12 education II: Between cultural praxis and public service. Results of a research project ed. Carmen Morsch, (Diaphanes Verlag, 2009) Documents of Contemporary Art: EDUCATION ed. Felicity Allen (Whitechapel Gallery, 2011) Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship Claire Bishop (Verso Books, 2012) Educational Psychology: Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky etc Palmer, J. (Ed) (2001) Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education - from Piaget to the present, London: Routledge Mercer, Neil., (2000) Words and Minds: how we use language to think together, London: Routledge Musuems and the shaping of knowledge http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/LOND%20934S09-Syllabus.pdf http://www.amazon.com/Museums-Shaping-Knowledge-Heritage-Greenhill/dp/0415070317#reader_0415070317 http://www.participatorymuseum.org/about-the-author/ http://designerlylearning.org/ After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture. http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Subculture-Critical-Studies-Contemporary/dp/0333977122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381499938&sr=8-1&keywords=After+Subculture%3A+Critical+Studies+in+Contemporary+Youth Ageing and youth cultures: Music, style and identity http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ageing-Youth-Cultures-Music-Identity/dp/1847888356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381500098&sr=8-1&keywords=Ageing+and+youth+cultures Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World http://www.amazon.co.uk/Youth-Lifestyles-Changing-World-Stephen/dp/0335200982/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381500444&sr=1-3&keywords=Youth%2C+the+Media+and+Moral+Panics After Photography - Fred Richin http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Photography-Fred-Ritchin/dp/0393050246/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381500696&sr=1-3&keywords=Fred+Ritchin CASCO: No Time to Fly Text by Deborah Hay Cover image by Judith Hopf Design by colophon.info Price: €5/$7 “If I can manage my perception of time and space to inform my body, then I do not have to think about what movement to do next. What I mean by my perception of time is that it is passing. And what I mean by my perception of space is that I include it in my dancing so that I am not seduced by the intelligence, past experiences, patterns, limitations, and/or sensuality of my moving body…” Deborah Hay Publishing Class How to Live Together series Books by Aziza Harmel, Isabel Marco, Hanan Benammar, Quenton Miller, David Maroto, Padraig Robinson, Larraitz Torres, Maja Hodoscek, and Marianna Maruyama (Dutch Art Institute) with further contributions by Binna Choi, Christian Nyampeta, and Yolande van der Heide Design by Werkplaats Typografie Price: €70/$96 for set of 10 “In a time when ‘collectivism’ is coopted by capitalism, attention to solitary forms of life might evoke ways to singularize our paths and at once look for solidarity.” Binna Choi, How to Publish Together in the How To Live Together series Undoing Property? Contributions by Agency, David Berry, Nils Bohlin, Sean Dockray, Rasmus Fleischer, Antonia Hirsch, David Horvitz, Mattin, Open Music Archive, Matteo Pasquinelli, Claire Pentecost, Florian Schneider, Matthew Stadler, Marilyn Strathern, Kuba Szreder, Marina Vishmidt; preface by Binna Choi, Maria Lind, and Emily Pethick Edited by Marysia Lewandowska and Laurel Ptak Design by Konst & Teknik Price: €22/$30/download the book here “How might an alternative system of artistic validation flourish when artists leverage their symbolic power in tune with growing social movements?” Lewandowska & Laurel Ptak, Publishing in Process in Undoing Property? Ministry of Highways: A Guide to the Performative Architecture of Tbilisi Contributions by Ei Arakawa, Ruben Arevshatyan, Levan Asabashvili, Bouillon Group, George Chakhava, Thea Djordjadze, Didier Faustino, Yona Friedman, Nana Kipiani, Nikoloz Lutidze, Marion von Osten, Nini Palavandishvili, Gela Patashuri, Lali Pertenava, Marjetica Potrc, Richard Reynolds, Slavs and Tatars, Gio Sumbadze, Sophia Tabatadze, Éric Troussicot, Jan Verwoert, Aleksandra Wasilkowska, et al Edited by Joanna Warsza Design by Kasia Korczak and Krzysztof Pyda Price: €15/$20 “The recent natural disasters in the world have once again convinced me that with the Space City approach, constructing houses on the coast is safer, expedient and advisable. The achievements of modern techniques give us the means to construct not only skyscrapers but also and ecologically clean, psychologically comfortable urban space delivered from the earth.” George Chakhava in Ministry of Highways In a Manner of Reading Design - Katja Gretzinger (Ed.) Contributions by Ruth Buchanan, Helmut Draxier, Faculty of Invisibility, Katja Gretzinger, Rama Hamadeh, Claudia Mareis, and Doreen Mende Design by katja Gretzinger Price: €18/$24 “The beauty of a blind spot is that we cannot isolate its appearance because it is a line of action providing the conditions of seeing without becoming manifest in an image.” Doreen Mende in In a Manner DB: Is the concept of art, with its rather specific European genealogy, an adequate category for grasping these developments? SM: The archaeology of the word art as understood within the Western system is an extensive subject. But look how dramatically we are leaving that system! Unless we are alert to the transformation of the concept and what we understand as "visual art," we shall not be able to grasp changes even within what is still conventionally referred to as visual art. There is much activity in India, China, Africa that is radically interdisciplinary. It deterritorializes received concepts of art. Groups working on the Internet or with film, video, performance, and other practices are involved in modes of knowledge production that often have oblique relations to the visual. They amount to spasmodic events that are rather different from what passes as visual art in the museum-gallery system. Are such practices more like research machines through which social, political, visual, statistical, epidemiological data are telescoped? These are visual-intellectual evolutions that cannot be reduced to constructions of the art system . What we call art activity is expanding, extending, transmogrifying in the global contemporary setting. Hence also my dogged interest in Duchamp's question "How to make a work of art that isn't a work of Art?" For me, it's a marker for ways we might be able to engage with works, events, spasms, ructions that don't look like art and don't count as art, but are somehow electric, energy nodes, attractors, transmitters, conductors of new thinking, new subjectivity and action that visual artwork in the traditional sense is not able to articulate. Check this interview http://www.thefreelibrary.com/In+other's+words.-a082800088

[ladyssaturnine]

Masculine domination (self) is dependent on feminine submission (other) for its identity.

Janet Marstine, New Museum Theory and Practice