Once again, I love that the various parts of my life sometimes intersect in amazing and helpful ways.
Last week I managed to take a long stroll through the American art galleries while at work. I am ashamed to admit how infrequently I am able to visit the gallery spaces in my own museum. Because I had not visited the American art wing for such a long time, I had forgotten just how many pieces of furniture the museum owns. Not only are the pieces beautiful in their own right, but they also helped me with the collections inventory work I mentioned in an earlier post. Based on what I saw, I was able to confirm some of the identifications and date ranges I had placed on the objects with which I was working. Receiving confirmation of one's suspicions about an object can be uplifting and I will admit that I enjoyed the boost to my self esteem.
I often wonder if other museum employees neglect to visit their own museum's gallery spaces. I find myself putting the visits of for tomorrow because the galleries aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps I will make it my goal for the second half of 2011 to spend more time inside the galleries. The stuff inside them is, after all, what made me want to work in museums in the first place.
Showing posts with label material culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label material culture. Show all posts
16 July 2011
03 July 2011
Better Together
I love when the various areas of my life intersect in unexpected and exciting ways.
First, a note on my prolonged absence from the blog. Following a health issue that took me out of commission for several weeks, I started an internship at a local historic house. I spend my days off cataloging all sorts of furniture, glass and paintings in an attempt to complete the first-ever inventory of this particular organization's collections. The emphasis in this project has been on getting the basics down on paper: a description of the object; its dimensions; and its location within the house. More in-depth analysis and research will be done later, once the full inventory has been completed.
This relatively new area of my life collided with my "real life" last weekend on a visit to Pittsburgh. I, along with my boyfriend and best friend, visited the Heinz History Center (which you should definitely check out on your next stop in the Steel City).
We strolled through a fascinating exhibition entitled Shattering Notions, which described in detail the importance of glass manufacture to the Pittsburgh region. As I studied some of the objects in the exhibition I realized that I had seen them before--when I cataloged them.
I nearly squealed with delight in the middle of the exhibition. The historic house at which I am interning has no curatorial files whatsoever. We know next to nothing about the objects in the collection or from where they may have come. And, as previously mentioned, our focus is entirely on other areas at the moment. I was naturally excited to be able to match an object to a label on a wall and take back a few valuable pieces of information. We can now correctly date several objects, as well as accurately report their manufacturer, which will eventually lead to new avenues of research.
This episode, for me at least, represents more than a strange coincidence on a weekend away or the ability to fill in gaps of knowledge for a wonderful historic house. My encounter with a piece of Pittsburgh pressed glass reminded me of something that I love about objects--they can connect us to another time and place. Just like hearing your favorite song from fifteen years ago can transport you back to the first time you heard it, seeing an object that used to belong to a grandparent can make you relive the moments you spent with them.
As museums reconsider the role that objects should play, we need to remind ourselves of the power that objects can have when used and interpreted effectively. As Stephen Conn states in his book Do Museums Still Need Objects?, objects lose relevance when "the objects cease to provide coherence to the ideas behind their collection and display, when the ideas themselves fail to coalesce into a coherent body of knowledge, and when other institutions position themselves better as producers and providers of information." When used as complements to fantastic ideas objects can help an visitor relate to an exhibition on a much deeper and more personal level than label text. Sometimes we just need a piece of pressed glass to remind us.
First, a note on my prolonged absence from the blog. Following a health issue that took me out of commission for several weeks, I started an internship at a local historic house. I spend my days off cataloging all sorts of furniture, glass and paintings in an attempt to complete the first-ever inventory of this particular organization's collections. The emphasis in this project has been on getting the basics down on paper: a description of the object; its dimensions; and its location within the house. More in-depth analysis and research will be done later, once the full inventory has been completed.
This relatively new area of my life collided with my "real life" last weekend on a visit to Pittsburgh. I, along with my boyfriend and best friend, visited the Heinz History Center (which you should definitely check out on your next stop in the Steel City).
We strolled through a fascinating exhibition entitled Shattering Notions, which described in detail the importance of glass manufacture to the Pittsburgh region. As I studied some of the objects in the exhibition I realized that I had seen them before--when I cataloged them.
I nearly squealed with delight in the middle of the exhibition. The historic house at which I am interning has no curatorial files whatsoever. We know next to nothing about the objects in the collection or from where they may have come. And, as previously mentioned, our focus is entirely on other areas at the moment. I was naturally excited to be able to match an object to a label on a wall and take back a few valuable pieces of information. We can now correctly date several objects, as well as accurately report their manufacturer, which will eventually lead to new avenues of research.
This episode, for me at least, represents more than a strange coincidence on a weekend away or the ability to fill in gaps of knowledge for a wonderful historic house. My encounter with a piece of Pittsburgh pressed glass reminded me of something that I love about objects--they can connect us to another time and place. Just like hearing your favorite song from fifteen years ago can transport you back to the first time you heard it, seeing an object that used to belong to a grandparent can make you relive the moments you spent with them.
As museums reconsider the role that objects should play, we need to remind ourselves of the power that objects can have when used and interpreted effectively. As Stephen Conn states in his book Do Museums Still Need Objects?, objects lose relevance when "the objects cease to provide coherence to the ideas behind their collection and display, when the ideas themselves fail to coalesce into a coherent body of knowledge, and when other institutions position themselves better as producers and providers of information." When used as complements to fantastic ideas objects can help an visitor relate to an exhibition on a much deeper and more personal level than label text. Sometimes we just need a piece of pressed glass to remind us.
20 March 2010
Futhermore...
One additional thought about the Mutter Museum.
The stated purpose of most museums or historical societies is to educate the public and to preserve art or historic objects. What does it mean for a museum to educate the public? On a basic level, a museum wants the visitor to understand things like how a fid or seam rubber is used or how Pablo Picasso revolutionized the art world. A museum visitor should exit the building having learned something.
I would argue, however, that that something should be more than basic facts or historic timelines. Museums and historic sites should always teach one something about him or herself. Because art and historic objects are three-dimensional and therefore tangible, they possess a sense of naturalism that history books and labels simply cannot replicate. They are the "living" remnants of times and people long since gone. Nancy Moses, former director of the Atwater Kent Museum in Philadelphia (which is, incidentally, on my list of places to visit) once said that historic objects are "very powerful, infused with meaning, for they tell us who we are as individuals and as a society; they connect us with our past." [The book is called Lost in the Museum: Buried Treasures and the Stories They Tell. It is delightful. Look into it.] Historian David Lowenthal agrees, and claims that "a past lacking tangible relics seems too tenuous to be credible." [The Past is a Foreign Country; also a fanstastic read.] Therefore, in order to fully understand the past, one has to understand historic objects. Why bother to understand the past? Because it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to understand who you are and where you have come from without a comprehension of the past.
What does this mean? In essence, it means that a visitor should leave a museum having learned something about himself or herself, not just bits of trivia.
What does this have to do with the Mutter Museum, you ask? The majority of the museum's collection is not historic objects per se; rather, it is a collection of bones, organs and tissue. But how better for a visitor to understand from where he or she has come than by understanding the human body and how it works?
The museum represents material culture with a fascinating twist, which gives me one more reason to return.
The stated purpose of most museums or historical societies is to educate the public and to preserve art or historic objects. What does it mean for a museum to educate the public? On a basic level, a museum wants the visitor to understand things like how a fid or seam rubber is used or how Pablo Picasso revolutionized the art world. A museum visitor should exit the building having learned something.
I would argue, however, that that something should be more than basic facts or historic timelines. Museums and historic sites should always teach one something about him or herself. Because art and historic objects are three-dimensional and therefore tangible, they possess a sense of naturalism that history books and labels simply cannot replicate. They are the "living" remnants of times and people long since gone. Nancy Moses, former director of the Atwater Kent Museum in Philadelphia (which is, incidentally, on my list of places to visit) once said that historic objects are "very powerful, infused with meaning, for they tell us who we are as individuals and as a society; they connect us with our past." [The book is called Lost in the Museum: Buried Treasures and the Stories They Tell. It is delightful. Look into it.] Historian David Lowenthal agrees, and claims that "a past lacking tangible relics seems too tenuous to be credible." [The Past is a Foreign Country; also a fanstastic read.] Therefore, in order to fully understand the past, one has to understand historic objects. Why bother to understand the past? Because it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to understand who you are and where you have come from without a comprehension of the past.
What does this mean? In essence, it means that a visitor should leave a museum having learned something about himself or herself, not just bits of trivia.
What does this have to do with the Mutter Museum, you ask? The majority of the museum's collection is not historic objects per se; rather, it is a collection of bones, organs and tissue. But how better for a visitor to understand from where he or she has come than by understanding the human body and how it works?
The museum represents material culture with a fascinating twist, which gives me one more reason to return.
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