Review of Museum Exhibit

Title: Ambitious but Practical Women

Location: MASC

The objectives of this exhibit seem to be to showcase the life of real women in the 19^th century who traveled along the 'Oregon trail' and experienced the wild 'West', as well as the more specific aspects of the life of a missionary woman. The objectives of the exhibit seem to be to show the difficulties a woman had to face in order to become a missionary, for instance, the woman on whose life the exhibit is showcasing, Mary Walker, was rejected initially from becoming a missionary for her unmarried status. So in order to become a missionary, she married another missionary hopeful named Elkanah Walker, to improve both their chances of being accepted as missionaries. More specifically I think, the one of the objectives of this exhibit is to bring about understanding of the various difficulties faced by women when pioneering their way West, and the how the dangers and difficulties increased if one was a missionary or a missionary's wife. The materials in the exhibit included Mary Richardson Walker's diary, as well as various letters she sent as applications for missionary status as well as her rejection letter. She possessed an enormous library by the standards of her day, and many of the books are represented in exhibit cases. Mary Walker's autograph album is also present for display. Almost an entire display case is dedicated to the letters between Walker and Narcissa Whitman of the infamous massacre of missionaries in the West. Also included on display is a coverlet from her marriage bed, several bonnets, the trunk in which her things would be packed for travel, a worn writing desk, quill pen, ink, her fan, mitts, baby's clothing, thimbles, basic everyday items used by women at the time. The various domestic items, and several replications of everyday house dresses, are meant to display the everyday lives and concerns of missionary's wives and frontier women. There is also several pictures of plants, and the medicinal or poisonous purpose and uses from the knowledge available then. Along with the plants are several items that pioneer or missionary women might collect from the local Indian population like woven baskets, moccasins and carry sacks. I would think these are trying to show the interactions between the encroaching white pioneers and native tribes might not be always hostile as we have the exciting imagery of fighting cowboys and Indians. The exhibit also has photographs of Mary Walker and her family throughout their lives, providing a base for the imagination when viewing the physical objects within the exhibit. Also included are Walker's drawings, a hobby of hers to sketch the things she saw throughout her travels, which survived the various hardships they were put through. Overall I'd probably give this collection an 8 ½ out of ten, because the sheer number of items that survived to be included from a single person is quite astonishing, and certainly add to the appeal of the exhibit. The organization of the collection is the reason for it not getting a 9 or 10 out 10, because it is a rather small area in which they have to display this, and the organization of things is rather confusing. I was not always sure which display case was next, and it made the storyline rather choppy at places, rather than a smooth continuum. But the individual items within their cases were organized nicely, each piece complimenting each other, and adding to the case's mini-story, instead of random items being put together all willy-nilly like. So overall the mini-museum had very nice appeal, both aesthetically and enticingly. Each object was well taken care of, though the age and importance of an item was showcased to its full potential and only added to the appeal, as opposed if they were not cared for before put on display, which would have been obvious and detract from the overall aesthetics, which was not the case here. As most historians know, finding primary source material about women or other minorities before a recent era is very difficult, so the enticing appeal of this exhibit collection was strong, in that it displayed a person, a group, half of the population, which is not normally talked about. The organization of the whole detracts from the effectiveness of the exhibit, but that is only with a small part of the display. Overall this was a very effective exhibit for me, one I'd recommend people to experience.

Review of a museum website

Museum: The American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog

URL: www.museumofthedog.org

Mission Statement: The AKC Museum of the Dog is dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of the art, artifacts and literature of the dog for the purposes of education, historical perspective, aesthetic enjoyment and in order to enhance the appreciation for and knowledge of the significance of the dog and the human/canine relationship.

This museum website was incredibly well organized and presented. It is well laid out, colors contrast and complement each other nicely, with a nice ratio between photos/pictures and text. Each section link is labeled, and it has enough of them to provide the information one would want when looking at a website in order to determine whether or not they wanted to go to the museum in question. It starts out with a 'about us' section, describing the mission state, what the museum is all about. Then it has a little mini history section, describing about how the museum came into existence and a few points of importance throughout its history. Then it has a 'museum information' section, with the hours/days open, the address and location, and contact information. Useful information in its own section easy to see no matter where you are on the sight. It then continues on to a section describing current and past exhibits, ones that they have certain times a year and the permanent exhibit. So no matter what there is a permanent exhibit as well as one that changes, so each visit can be different. Its description of the current exhibit is quite long, but it provides the history of the pieces in the exhibit, the reasons for why this exhibit is important and why it was chosen; it connects the current exhibit to the permanent exhibit as well as to its self proclaimed mission statement, which is to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret the art, artifacts, and literature of dogs for education, history, beauty, and to enhance the appreciation and knowledge of man's best friend. The website certainly provides enough information, as well as how it is presented on the website, to fulfill the museum's mission statement. For any and all additional information desired, the museum also has a newsletter, and a section dedicated to describing said newsletter as well as information pertinent to signing up to receiving the newsletter. It also allows for donations of money or objects online, as well as certain perks for members. Overall I'd consider this website to be extremely effective; it is well organized and presented, it offers its mission statement and seeks to supplement it and connect each section to it throughout the website, and visually is aesthetically pleasing.

Review of NY Times article

Title: 'At a Biennial On a Budget, Tweaking and Provoking'

Author: Holland Cotter

Date: Friday, February 26, 2010

Section: Weekend Arts: fine arts leisure; page C19, continued on C28

Though the author starts out the article by stating that the Whitney Museum of American Art was not going to be the exhibition of the century, and would in fact be quite a letdown after previous years, the article actually paints a very positive image of the museum's work thereafter. Cotter quickly points out that the museum show "lives up—or down—to its billing" and that it "has no theme; its catalog is slight; its installation, Spartan". He continues to explain that "spectacle is out" and that the exhibit is really quite bare, and boring. The exhibit is nothing special, though like anything it had its positive points, though they couldn't outweigh the negative. This negative viewpoint is established in the first three paragraphs, before Cotter abruptly about faces with all the positives of the museum exhibit. He describes the wonders of the exhibit so well that it completely belays all his previous negative comments; "And the shock they generate, in part because of the exploitive vibe they give off, ripples through everything around them. Suddenly you notice that the ceramics on Ms. Hutchinsin's sofa resemble severed limbs; that the masklike faces in a nearby sculpture by Huma Bhabha look eaten away; that the muscle-bound minotaur in a fantastically delicate drawing by Aurel Schmidt is bionic monstrosity, possible sire to Thomas Houseago's sasquatch-like 'Baby' elsewhere in the show." In actuality, it seems like the disparate comments at the beginning of the article are intended to throw the reader of course, to showcase the image that the museum gave itself. But just as the writer was surprised by the subtly of the exhibit, the way the theme and organization seems completely ill-planned at first, until the reality of it hits you, seems to be behind the way he set up the organization of the article. In order to give a true review of the art museum exhibit, in order to truly convey what it was about to the reader, he had to present his findings in the same way that he discovered them. The very last sentence of the article I think is key to understanding it, to receiving the message that the review, and the museum, was trying to convey to potential audiences. It was about an artist whose piece of art is to the reviewer the central piece to the exhibit, the one that draws all the pieces together into theme and organization, without which it would not be the same. "Mr. Asher was originally told his piece would last a week, but the museum, for budgetary reasons, has cut it back to three days, a regrettable breach of promise in a Biennial that is otherwise exactly what it said it would be."

Architecture

I would probably say that the architecture of a museum has influenced my experience with that museum, but not so much that it could make or break the experience. Of course I couldn't experience the museum exhibits without influence from the architecture of the museum, no matter what it is going to influence the experience. Like if it is a very small museum with really big or cluttered exhibits because they don't have enough space, which is going to affect my experience and opinion of that museum. Whether or not the cluttered and cramp is intentional is also going to influence my experience. I'm from Snohomish, and they have a little museum supposedly showing the history of the town, as it was the first in the county. But the building is this tiny, square building with a huge desk in one corner with a 'help' person, who really had no idea about anything when I talked to her as part of my research for a paper on a certain event in Snohomish's history, and a bunch of awkwardly placed cases around the small area. It gives off a cramped and disorganized feeling, and that it is purely unintentional that it turned out so unappealing. So in that case, I'd say that the architecture had a pretty big impact on my experience there. But as for the outside, the decorative architecture like the EMP, with its crazy weird structure, it didn't really have that much influence on the experience, for me. Sure it looked kinda crazy cool, but inside it was well organized and not confusing; it didn't really have an impact for me once I was inside. So I suppose it depends on the architecture, and the intention, as for whether or not a museum's architecture 'determines' my experience with that museum.

Quality and Success in Museums

Based on my experiences with museums, the aspect of a museum, beside the content of the exhibit, what struck me as particularly effective in making my museum experience "successful" would be the educational aspect. That is, did I learn something from the visit, was the educational aspect of the museum effective. I don't know about anybody else, but I go to museums not for the aesthetic appeal, or for a purely pleasurable experience, but to learn something. Of course, I usually find learning something a pleasurable experience, so it is a "kill two birds with one stone" type of deal, but I judge whether or not a museum is effective, is successful, based on what I learned. The educational aspect of museums is as important, in my point of view, as the content of the museum. I'm a history major, and am getting my teaching certificate at the same time, and one of the things that we are always told in teaching and learning classes is that learning isn't passive. The best way to learn is not by sitting in one's seat and listening to a lecture but by participation, by involvement, engagement. So for a museums' education program, or aspect, to be effective, the set-up of the exhibit has to be engaging and interactive in some way. This could be questions that inspire further thought on the written information on the exhibits, or physical interaction with the artifacts, or a scavenger hunt throughout the exhibit, a crossword puzzle to take home and see how much one really paid attention. It could be videos, or speakers, anything really. But the educational aspect of a museum is generally what I judge a museum on in deciding whether or not the experience was successful and worthwhile, because museums are about knowledge for me, about awakening curiosity in a subject through physical pieces and offering information and inspiring a desire to further one's knowledge by further focus outside of the museum.

Contextual Approach

Susan Pearce wrote about "contextual approach to understanding" that developed in museums. What she meant by this was that museums developed a "contextual approach to understanding" as a way of summarizing their belief about the way that anthropology, archaeology, history, should be looked at; that each human society or nonhuman event needed to be looked at within the context of its own time, that one cant, or shouldn't, look at another's society through the values of their own society, but within the context of the group being looked at, so that each unique aspect of humanity can be appreciated. Museums offer a way of understanding other cultures; they offer a way of sharing the material objects of a people or culture that may not be readily available to the masses. Museums offer a taste of other societies, of demonstrating shared experiences or allowing certain experiences to be shared and become part of the whole, like with the Holocaust museum. A contextual approach offers a tangibility to a certain concept; its like comparing seeing a picture or virtual tour of the Louvre on the internet as opposed to actually going there and experiencing it. Seeing pictures on the internet is nowhere near the same experience as actually hopping on a plane to Paris and visiting one of the most famous museums in the world, getting to experience a tangible piece of history. In class we compared museums to temples, equated going to a museum as a form of pilgrimage. Museums allow us to pay homage, to make the objects and concepts shown to us into a piece of ourselves. But if we look at it that way, is the experience of going to a museum the same as actually going to the place itself? If you think of it like that, no. Going to a museum about ancient Egypt will not have the same effect as actually going to Egypt and standing at the base of one of the pyramids of Giza, or walking along the Nile, or seeing Petra. But for most of us its about as close as we are going to come to some things, to understand others different from ourselves. As for if a contextual approach would be likely to be found and successful in museums today, especially considering an increasing trend towards "museums" that document modern cultural movement, moving away from an agreed upon goal of education towards one of aesthetic appeal, I'd have to say that I think a few will survive with a contextual approach. Because there will always be historians, archaeologists, anthropologists out there whose entire goal is education, who read and learn merely for the sake of acquiring knowledge for knowledge's sake. But for the most part I think with the increasing trends away from education and towards aesthetic appeal, the contextual approach in museums will largely die out, leaving a few precious places left to provide understanding and knowledge to the world.

A Way of Seeing

Svetlana Alpers wrote about museums as a way of seeing. In describing her first visit to a museum as a child, she writes while looking at an encased giant crab, how she marveled at its size, and how previous to her museum visit, “had therefore not imagined that it was possible” (pg 25). She explains that the museum had “transformed the crab—had heightened, by isolating, these aspects, had encouraged one to look at it in this way”. (pg25) Meaning, that the museum had opened her up to a new way of looking at crabs, had made what could have been considered a relatively normally object, and transformed it. By merely being present within a building that called itself a museum, an object is transformed into something else. It could have been the most ordinary of things, but simply by occupying museum space it was granted power, and meaning. In class we talked about this, how an object is given power, whether or not this power is deserved is beside the point. One classmate remembered hearing about an incident where a man moved signs from exhibits within an art museum to random, everyday objects within the museum. He moved the exhibit signs from the artwork to objects like a drinking fountain, a bench, a child’s discarded jacket, or the gum infested underside of a table. And this man would stand in astonished amusement as he watched people ooh and ah over these completely ordinary objects that had exhibit signs in front of them, sometimes completely ignoring the real artifact itself; “museums turn cultural materials into art objects” (pg 31). If those people had been in any other building, with any other social connotation attached to it, they wouldn’t have given those objects the time of day. They wouldn’t have given such items much though, or even a passing glance, let alone stand in front of them for an hour discussing the perceived intention of the artist with this or that piece. The social construct attached to the word, idea; of museum is one that changes a person’s perceptions and thoughts about an experience, item, or artifact. For example, I will discuss our class’s visit to the Conner Museum on Thursday. In any other place I would have regarded the skinning and stuffing and posing of dead animals in disgust. I would have cringed away and avoided looking at what I would have perceived as the mutilated remains of what were once live animals. It would not have been a pleasant experience, and I would have regarded the individual who collected such things as a cruel, sadistic, and certainly odd, person. But we were in a museum, and as such my thoughts and perceptions on the exhibit were completely different because of it. Before most of the class arrived I walked around, looking at the animals posed in life like positions, reading the information plaques, partaking in the learning of knowledge. Because of the implication of a museum, that if an item is within it, then it must something of importance, it must have been considered a positive by the museum to cultivate learning. We are taught to consider things within a glass case, or isolated from other things or within a museum as objects of importance and power. We give them power, and so they have the ability to sway and move us, where otherwise they might not have the ability to do so.