My memory is terrible.
I want to recommend a fantastic podcast from the BBC called "A History of the World in 100 Objects." Anyone who agrees that historic objects are central to an understanding of ourselves and our past can't help but enjoy the podcast.
Look for the podcast through iTunes or on the BBC's website.
29 June 2010
Money Honey
My source of all interesting news stories passed this very unfortunate one to me this evening. It seems that financial problems have forced the State Museum of Pennsylvania to cut hours and raise admission prices.
This story is heartbreaking. A lack of state funding forced the museum to begin charging admission fees last summer, and the situation has only gotten worse in the meantime. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has continued to slash state funding to museums, to the point that the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission barely has any staff left. I strongly support appropriately funding cultural institutions of all kinds so that everyone can afford to visit.
It is a travesty that the state of Pennsylvania cannot do any better than this.
This story is heartbreaking. A lack of state funding forced the museum to begin charging admission fees last summer, and the situation has only gotten worse in the meantime. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has continued to slash state funding to museums, to the point that the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission barely has any staff left. I strongly support appropriately funding cultural institutions of all kinds so that everyone can afford to visit.
It is a travesty that the state of Pennsylvania cannot do any better than this.
23 June 2010
Quite Free
I want to praise the Philadelphia Museum of Art (my employer, in case you have forgotten) for providing a day last week free of charge. The museum waived the cost of general admission last Saturday in honor of the museum's late director Anne d'Harnoncourt. I love these kinds of days because they make museum collections accessible to large portions of the population who may not normally be able to afford a trip to a high-quality art museum. Days with free general admission help a museum to accomplish one of its most important goals: educating the public about its collection.
But nothing can be that simple.
Without fail, free admission days mean that museum staff will spend much of their time asking visitors not to eat or drink in the galleries, to turn off their camera flashes, and not to touch the art work. Children will run and scream. Parents will yell. Everyone will talk too loudly. Generally speaking, the people who come to museums on days with free admission spend very, very little time inside museums. The visitors lack knowledge about museum conduct.
Let me be quite clear: I do not fault these people for being unaware of proper museum protocol. Many people just do not know how to behave in museums. The reasons for this are complex and not easy to pin down. Many children attend a museum of some kind while in their elementary years, and should, in theory, learn how to act at museums on these trips. However, these trips are probably too infrequent and brief to make much of an impression. I would also argue that the dynamic of school trips is different than on a regular trip to the museum. The students often eat in a separate location and are provided with stimulating activities. This kind of stimulation is likely to occur on a weekend visit with their parents or older siblings.
Part of the problem may also be that museums tend to be minimalists when it comes to signage. They fail in many cases to make people aware of the rules upon entering the museum. In my mind, listing the rules on the back of the museum map in small print simply doesn't cut it.
I'm quite sure that I'm missing a host of other reasons for people's bad behavior, but I want to make some observations about potential fixes for this issue. The first is obvious: make museum attendance a more common theme in every child's formative years. Make sure that these trips extend beyond the elementary years and well into middle school and high school. I am not talking about more trips for kids whose parents are likely to take them to art museums anyway. I'm talking about the kids whose parents have probably never been to a museum since their own school years.
Museums should also not feel shy about posting the rules in a more obvious way on days when the building will be flooded with visitors coming more for free entertainment than for the museum itself. A couple of well-placed signs will certainly intrude less upon a person's experience at the museum than screaming children and irritable security guards. (For some great journalism about the importance and necessity of good signage, read this series of articles by Slate's Julia Turner.)
In the end, museum etiquette is no different than etiquette at the symphony, the opera, or a church service. The way people behave in any public situation comes down to knowledge. If people are not aware that a code of conduct exists, how can we expect them to follow it?
In the name of spreading the word, here are a couple of good references for proper museum behavior.
http://www.artagogo.com/reviews/learn1/learn5.htm
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/397360/museum_etiquette_how_to_behave_when.html?cat=2
But nothing can be that simple.
Without fail, free admission days mean that museum staff will spend much of their time asking visitors not to eat or drink in the galleries, to turn off their camera flashes, and not to touch the art work. Children will run and scream. Parents will yell. Everyone will talk too loudly. Generally speaking, the people who come to museums on days with free admission spend very, very little time inside museums. The visitors lack knowledge about museum conduct.
Let me be quite clear: I do not fault these people for being unaware of proper museum protocol. Many people just do not know how to behave in museums. The reasons for this are complex and not easy to pin down. Many children attend a museum of some kind while in their elementary years, and should, in theory, learn how to act at museums on these trips. However, these trips are probably too infrequent and brief to make much of an impression. I would also argue that the dynamic of school trips is different than on a regular trip to the museum. The students often eat in a separate location and are provided with stimulating activities. This kind of stimulation is likely to occur on a weekend visit with their parents or older siblings.
Part of the problem may also be that museums tend to be minimalists when it comes to signage. They fail in many cases to make people aware of the rules upon entering the museum. In my mind, listing the rules on the back of the museum map in small print simply doesn't cut it.
I'm quite sure that I'm missing a host of other reasons for people's bad behavior, but I want to make some observations about potential fixes for this issue. The first is obvious: make museum attendance a more common theme in every child's formative years. Make sure that these trips extend beyond the elementary years and well into middle school and high school. I am not talking about more trips for kids whose parents are likely to take them to art museums anyway. I'm talking about the kids whose parents have probably never been to a museum since their own school years.
Museums should also not feel shy about posting the rules in a more obvious way on days when the building will be flooded with visitors coming more for free entertainment than for the museum itself. A couple of well-placed signs will certainly intrude less upon a person's experience at the museum than screaming children and irritable security guards. (For some great journalism about the importance and necessity of good signage, read this series of articles by Slate's Julia Turner.)
In the end, museum etiquette is no different than etiquette at the symphony, the opera, or a church service. The way people behave in any public situation comes down to knowledge. If people are not aware that a code of conduct exists, how can we expect them to follow it?
In the name of spreading the word, here are a couple of good references for proper museum behavior.
http://www.artagogo.com/reviews/learn1/learn5.htm
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/397360/museum_etiquette_how_to_behave_when.html?cat=2
09 June 2010
All Those Expectations
I want to reflect on something that happened this week that has me completely baffled.
Having heard nothing but positive things about the Barnes Foundation since I moved to Philadelphia, I was ecstatic when I learned that a work-related trip to the museum was being planned, and that we would be visiting the Barnes before it moves just a stones throw away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Franklin Institute on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
I was disappointed.
Before I complain, here are a couple of possible justifications for my displeasure.
1. I spent just over an hour in the museum. You simply cannot absorb the Barnes in that amount of time. I will make another trip to see the collection as soon as possible and will then reassess the my feelings about the museum.
2. My visit to the museum was with a large group of people. I am the kind of person who prefers to experience museums, particularly art museums, on my own or with very small groups. Its possible that the format of this trip predisposed me to disappointment.
3. The Barnes probably could not have ever lived up to the expectations I had for it. Because of all the things I had heard about the collection, I expected it to be life-changing, perhaps even earth-shattering. It wasn't.
All of that being said, here are my thoughts about the Barnes:
1. The guide my group had was amazing. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the collection, the artists and the paintings. Because the Barnes has no interpretive signs, she gave the collection a context it might have otherwise lacked. Part of the problem with this, however, is that Dr. Barnes allegedly arranged his collection in such a way as to make interpretive signs and guides unnecessary.
2. Dr. Barnes' much-vaunted and celebrated method of arranging his collection of paintings and sculptures failed to move me. I found the ironwork on the walls distracting rather than helpful; I honestly would have rather had an interpretive sign. I do not get enjoyment out of a painting because I see that lines in the painting are echoed in the candlesticks placed strategically on a table in front of the painting. I enjoy great paintings because they are sometimes so beautiful, so breathtaking that it brings tears to my eyes.
3. A visit to the Barnes is hampered at this point by its impending move to the BF Parkway. Because I work for the PMA I won't even get into all of this, but it is supremely irritating that some galleries are closed and that one cannot visit without having to think about the upcoming move. (Go watch The Art of the Steal if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
What is my final assessment? Go see the Barnes. The collection is truly amazing. I would, however, caution you to be realistic in your expectations for the collection, the building and the museum's method of interpretation. Go see the paintings because they are masterpieces, not because they are hung in some supposedly revolutionary way. Go see the paintings because each one really could change your life.
Having heard nothing but positive things about the Barnes Foundation since I moved to Philadelphia, I was ecstatic when I learned that a work-related trip to the museum was being planned, and that we would be visiting the Barnes before it moves just a stones throw away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Franklin Institute on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
I was disappointed.
Before I complain, here are a couple of possible justifications for my displeasure.
1. I spent just over an hour in the museum. You simply cannot absorb the Barnes in that amount of time. I will make another trip to see the collection as soon as possible and will then reassess the my feelings about the museum.
2. My visit to the museum was with a large group of people. I am the kind of person who prefers to experience museums, particularly art museums, on my own or with very small groups. Its possible that the format of this trip predisposed me to disappointment.
3. The Barnes probably could not have ever lived up to the expectations I had for it. Because of all the things I had heard about the collection, I expected it to be life-changing, perhaps even earth-shattering. It wasn't.
All of that being said, here are my thoughts about the Barnes:
1. The guide my group had was amazing. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the collection, the artists and the paintings. Because the Barnes has no interpretive signs, she gave the collection a context it might have otherwise lacked. Part of the problem with this, however, is that Dr. Barnes allegedly arranged his collection in such a way as to make interpretive signs and guides unnecessary.
2. Dr. Barnes' much-vaunted and celebrated method of arranging his collection of paintings and sculptures failed to move me. I found the ironwork on the walls distracting rather than helpful; I honestly would have rather had an interpretive sign. I do not get enjoyment out of a painting because I see that lines in the painting are echoed in the candlesticks placed strategically on a table in front of the painting. I enjoy great paintings because they are sometimes so beautiful, so breathtaking that it brings tears to my eyes.
3. A visit to the Barnes is hampered at this point by its impending move to the BF Parkway. Because I work for the PMA I won't even get into all of this, but it is supremely irritating that some galleries are closed and that one cannot visit without having to think about the upcoming move. (Go watch The Art of the Steal if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
What is my final assessment? Go see the Barnes. The collection is truly amazing. I would, however, caution you to be realistic in your expectations for the collection, the building and the museum's method of interpretation. Go see the paintings because they are masterpieces, not because they are hung in some supposedly revolutionary way. Go see the paintings because each one really could change your life.
02 June 2010
Imagination
Please read this article by Paul Bloom. Not only is it a fascinating article, but I believe it holds important lessons for exhibit designers, curators, and anyone involved in the creation of historical fiction (audio or visual).
Thanks to Matt (my favorite) for passing this along.
Thanks to Matt (my favorite) for passing this along.
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