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Museum



Main article: Zoo

Although zoos are not often thought of as museums, they are considered "living museums". They exist for the same purpose as other museums: to educate, inspire action, study, and preserve a collection. Notable zoos include the Bronx Zoo in New York, London Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, Berlin Zoo, Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, Frankfurt Zoo, and Zoo Zurich in Switzerland.

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Museum

The Larco Museum is housed in a viceroyal mansion atop a pre-Columbian pyramid. Lima, Peru.
The Larco Museum is housed in a viceroyal mansion atop a pre-Columbian pyramid. Lima, Peru.

Early museums began as the private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions of art and rare or curious natural objects and artifacts. These were often displayed in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities. Public access was often possible for the "respectable", especially to private art collections, but at the whim of the owner and his staff.

The first public museums in the world opened in Europe during the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment:

These "public" museums, however, were often accessible only by the middle and upper classes. It could be difficult to gain entrance. In London for example, prospective visitors to the British Museum had to apply in writing for admission. Even by 1800 it was possible to have to wait two weeks for an admission ticket.[citation needed] Visitors in small groups were limited to stays of two hours.[citation needed] In Victorian times in England it became popular for museums to be open on a Sunday afternoon (the only such facility allowed to do so) to enable the opportunity for "self improvement" of the other - working - classes.[citation needed]

The first truly public museum was the Louvre Museum in Paris, opened in 1793 during the French Revolution, which enabled for the first time in history free access to the former French royal collections for people of all stations and status. The fabulous art treasures collected by the French monarchy over centuries were accessible to the public three days each "décade" (the 10-day unit which had replaced the week in the French Republican Calendar). The Conservatoire du muséum national des Arts (National Museum of Arts's Conservatory) was charged with organizing the Louvre as a national public museum and the centerpiece of a planned national museum system. As Napoléon I conquered the great cities of Europe, confiscating art objects as he went, the collections grew and the organizational task became more and more complicated. After Napoleon was defeated in 1815, many of the treasures he had amassed were gradually returned to their owners (and many were not). His plan was never fully realized, but his concept of a museum as an agent of nationalistic fervor had a profound influence throughout Europe.

American museums eventually joined European museums as the world's leading centers for the production of new knowledge in their fields of interest. A period of intense museum building, in both an intellectual and physical sense was realized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (this is often called "The Museum Period" or "The Museum Age"). While many American museums, both Natural History museums and Art museums alike, were founded with the intention of focusing on the scientific discoveries and artistic developments in North America, many moved to emulate their European counterparts in certain ways (including the development of Classical collections from ancient Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and Rome). It is typically understood that universities took the place of museums as the centers for innovative research in the United States well before the start of the Second World War, however, museums to this day contribute new knowledge to their fields and continue to build collections that are useful for both research and display.

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Controversies

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There have been controversies recently regarding artifacts being damaged or being exposed to high risk of damage whilst on loan. For example, an ancient Egyptian stone lion on loan from the British Museum was being manually carried down a flight of stairs (as shown in a BBC Television documentary 2007). The supervisor in charge advised the people carrying it if it starts to fall, let it drop.[citation needed] The irony is that these artifacts have been carefully excavated and transported, often thousands of miles, without damage. Once arriving at a museum the artifact usually does not receive the same level of care and attention that it received whilst being excavated and transported.[citation needed] Another example of this is the recent return of a Terracotta Army horse on loan from a museum in Rome, which showed the item to be damaged on return.[citation needed] As yet, there is no internationally agreed protocol for a level or standard of care of artifacts on display or on loan from museums.

Like any institution dedicated to the memorialization of the past, museums play a substantial role in the construction of ideologies and identities, which is accomplished through a variety of means, though these typically pertain to the particular ways in which the past is put on public display.

Museums serve to homogenize our views of the past by the following means: 1. failing to account for matters of historical (or more accurately, historiographical) dispute; by not providing alternative viewpoints 2. by presenting the past in terms of a coherent, linear, unified narrative 3. by creating complex audio, visual and textual experiences, in which the observer is overwhelmingly confronted by the massive weight of all the physical evidence: the photos, the facts, the personal vignettes -- after being penetrated in such an intimate way by a holistic bodily experience, observers are then typically directed to gift shops, where they are likely encouraged to purchase books which can help to further reinforce the desired indoctrination of the museum's particular ideology 4. they present a view of history based entirely upon the romanticization of the achievements of great men, brilliant thinkers, cultural or scientific innovators, war heroes (and their technologies)

As is self-evident to the seasoned traveler, most national museums around the world adhere to the same basic structural patterns, whereby the past is divided up into a series of epochs, beginning with "prehistory," then passing through the ancient and medieval worlds until finally arriving at the nation's present. This view of the history is plainly teleological, which is to say that the past is depicted as a series of trends and developments which inevitably led to the present condition (i.e. the past could not have resulted in anything else).

The point is often under-emphasized by those who love museums that a sizable percentage of museum artifacts have been acquired unethically (if ethics are defined in a Kantian sense at least). The government of Egypt for instance has consistently pressed the British Museum in London to return the enormous hordes of pharaonic objects plundered by British (though not exclusively British) archaeologists during Britain's period of colonial administration in Egypt, which began officially in 1882 (while the end is just a matter of opinion).

The National Museum of Iraq was created during the British Mandate period through the efforts of colonial officer and Oriental Secretary of the short-lived British Mandate, Gertrude Bell.[citation needed]

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Management

The museum is usually run by a director, who has a curatorial staff that cares for the objects and arranges their display. Large museums often will have a research division or institute, which are frequently involved with studies related to the museum's items, as well as an education department, in charge of providing interpretation of the materials to the general public. The director usually reports to a higher body, such as a governmental department or a board of trustees.

Objects come to the collection through a variety of means. Either the museum itself or an associated institute may organize expeditions to acquire more items or documentation for the museum. More typically, however, museums will purchase or trade for artifacts or receive them as donations or bequests.

For instance, a museum featuring Impressionist art may receive a donation of a Cubist work which simply cannot be fit into the museum's exhibits, but it can be used to help acquire a painting more central to the museum's focus. However, this process of acquiring objects outside the museum's purview in order to acquire more desirable objects is considered unethical by many museum professionals. Larger museums may have an "Acquisitions Department" whose staff is engaged full time for this purpose. Most museums have a collections policy to help guide what is and is not included in the collection.

Museums often cooperate to sponsor joint, often traveling, exhibits on particular subjects when one museum may not by itself have a collection sufficiently large or important. These exhibits have limited engagements and often depend upon an additional entry fee from the public to cover costs.

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Museum exhibition design

São Paulo Museum of Art in São Paulo, Brazil.
São Paulo Museum of Art in São Paulo, Brazil.

The design of museums has evolved throughout history. Interpretive museums, as opposed to art museums, have missions reflecting curatorial guidance through the subject matter which now include content in the form of images, audio and visual effects, and interactive exhibits.

Some of these experiences have very few or no artifacts; the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, being notable examples where there are few artifacts, but have strong, memorable stories to tell or information to interpret. In contrast, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC uses many artifacts in their memorable exhibitions.

Most mid-size and large museums employ design staff for graphic and environmental design projects, including exhibitions. In addition to traditional 2-D and 3-D designers and architects, these staff departments may include audio-visual specialists, software designers, audience research and evaluation specialists, writers, editors, and preparators or art handlers. These staff specialists may also be charged with supervising contract design or production services.

Notable commercial exhibition design firms include Ralph Appelbaum Associates, C&G Partners, ESI Design, Burdick Group, André & Associates Interpretation & Design Ltd.

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See also

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References

  1. ^ ICOM Statutes. INternational Council of Museums. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  2. ^ Frequently asked questions. Museums Association. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  3. ^ Mouseion, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
  4. ^ Findlen, Paula (1989). "The Museum: its classical etymology and renaissance genealogy". Journal of the History of Collections 1: 59-78. 
  5. ^ Ptolemy I Soter, The First King of Ancient Egypt's Ptolemaic Dynasty. Tour Egypt. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  6. ^ H.C. Ackermann, The Basle Cabinets of Art and Curiosities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in: O. Impey & A. MacGregor (edd.), The Origins of Museums: The cabinet of curiosities in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, 2nd edition, London: House of Stratus 2001, pp. 81-90, quoted in Marta C. Lourenço, A Contribution to the History of University Museums and Collections in Europe, presentation at the UMAC 2002 Conference, Sydney/Canberra, Australia, 29/9-4/10/2002, available at http://publicus.culture.hu-berlin.de/umac/2002/lourenco.html.
  7. ^ a b c The history of the British Museum. British Museum. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  8. ^ McClellan, Andrew (1999). Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum.... University of California Press, pp. 14-20. ISBN 0520221761. 
  9. ^ History of The Czartoryski Museum. Czartoryski. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  10. ^ LiMAC. LiMAC. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  11. ^ Virtual Museum of Canada - Musée virtuel du Canada. Virtual Museum of Canada - Musée virtuel du Canada. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  12. ^ Rhizome. Rhizome. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
  13. ^ Pollock, Griselda (2007). Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum. Routledge. ISBN 0415413745. 
  14. ^ Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - Southern England - UK Attraction

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Further reading

  • Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, Routledge, 1995.

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External links

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