To Collect, Preserve, and Interpret

In anticipation of visiting the American Association of Museums (AAM) on Friday, a peek at the purpose of the institution seemed appropriate.  The AAM tenders a mission “to enhance the value of museums to their communities through leadership, advocacy, and service.” Since 1906, the association has marshaled American museums to set common benchmarks, to exchange scholarship or information, and to sponsor the entirety of the museum population.  The AAM embraces the gamut of museums—such as art and history museums, zoos, science and technology centers, botanical gardens, and several other types of museums and cultural centers.  Also, the organization proposes definitions of museums and explains the link between them being “a unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the things of the world.”  Museums professionals have promoted these three actions for decades (at least), so how are they put into practice today?

Collecting.  MoMA boasts one of the world’s most paramount, comprehensive collections of modern art.  The Barr galleries, for example, display at any given time 400 works from the collection predating 1975, and this number is chosen from a pool of approximately 2,800 pieces.  Regardless of the deep pockets of the collection, Ann Temkin, MoMA’s latest chief curator of painting and sculpture, efforts to continually add flavor and “surprises” in the permanent collection.  They now intermingle media as well as install works like a Louise Bourgeois in place of a tried and true Jackson Pollock as

opener and thus mise en scène for the 1940s to 1970s display.  Temkin explains, “The tradition here has been fluid special exhibitions and the permanent collection is relatively unchanging….  I want a fluidity and constant rhythm of change.”  Additionally, Temkin stripped many of the Abstract Expressionists’ canvases of their wood frames to release their strokes and bared them in a way appropriate to their radicalism.

Yesterday, AMUS students had the terrific opportunity to meet Lucille Spagnuola, the art collector associated with the galleries at Georgetown University.  Her collection is not an example of an AAM museum, of course, but still worth mentioning. The pictures that showed the art hung in her home were absolutely astounding, as her walls were reminiscent of a nineteenth-century museum with floor to ceiling paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures.  Interestingly (and perhaps to some obviously), she, as a collector, exhibits a similar mindset to a museum professional.  She contemplates the best and most appealing pieces to collect for herself and others, debates the method and position for the display in her home, and questions whether or not to show all her works at once or store some to reduce wall clutter.  While she still abstains from storing in her home because of her inability to part with the works, Mrs. Spagnuola nevertheless feels compelled to share her and her husband’s collection with the public.  Exhibitions of her art in galleries, she explains, gives her an opportunity to see the art as an individual—piece by piece—to refresh her view of and love for the piece.

Preserving.  The labors of MoMA serve also as an exemplar for museum preservation.  In conjunction with the preservation efforts of other institutions like the Deutsches Filmmuseum, the Korean Film Archives, and the World Cinema Foundation, MoMA hosts an annual film festival called “To Save and Project.”  The purpose is to salvage various films—such as John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Lester James Peries’s film on Sri Lanka titled The Changing Village (1964).  Many restored films like Kim Ki-young’s “The Housemaid” inspire contemporary filmmakers and illustrate the significance of film preservation: “a major work reclaimed from the past that points to the future.”  On another note outside of the American museum circuit, the advocacy of preservation has also provided some museums with leverage over others—for example, in the case of the British Museum and the museums (and even the government) in Greece.  The British Museum, holding fast to several Parthenon marbles, previously claimed that the museums in Athens lacked the ability to properly preserve the pieces.  With the building of the new Acropolis Museum, no doubt the art world sits on the edge of its seat in anticipation of how the drama over preservation between the British and Greeks will now unfold.

Interpreting.  In order to enrich art historical studies, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker designed Smarthistory.org, which launched with podcasts for the Met and MoMA (there seems to be recurring theme in art news, no?) in 2005.  The endeavor has since expanded into comprehensive, organized sets of audios, videos, and images that educate on and enliven art history.  The project has not only permeated museum education but also entered American school systems; for example, in August the Smithsonian American Art Museum hosted the Clarice Smith National Teacher Institute, where the dialogue inevitably shifted to correlative matters of interpretation, types of speech (informal, formal) in audios, and the concretion of knowledge through questions and exchange.  Today, the use of technology for aesthetic interpretation appears almost critical to dispersing knowledge for the coming generations, and applause should be given to museums for not only interpreting art for the public of their individual museums but also actively engaging schools across the nation to advance an understanding of art.  No doubt, methods such as these exhibit tangible evidence of the AAM's productivity and mission.

Should we be concerned?

This past week, Artforum news issued the article “Credit-Rating Agency Gives Arts Groups Strong Marks,” which declared museums, alongside other cultural institutions, as “stable and resilient.”  I found myself bewildered. 

Over the summer, reviews poured in from the Venice Biennale, one of the leading contemporary art fairs in the world, that remarked on the conspicuous infusion of the global economic crisis—such as in the visitor numbers, the level of festivity extravagances, and the tone of the art.  In September, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, as mentioned in a previous post, chose to dedicate the entire museum space to the collection to both hype its holdings and conserve funds.  Around the same time, author of artmarketblog.com Nicholas Forrest mourned the passing of the Art World Magazine.  October ushered in the Frieze Art Fair in London, which revealed a thirty-percent drop in art prices vis-à-vis prices during leveled economies, and this week we read Robin Pogrebin’s article provocatively titled “And Now, an Exhibition from our Sponsor.” Pogrebin reports on the rise of corporate art collections and their design of “ready-made” exhibitions, which appeal particularly to smaller institutions that seem—to speak frankly—desperate in their willingness to sacrifice autonomy to “opportunity.”  In “The Recession and US Museums,” Adrian Ellis states what Pogrebin only alludes: the “little guys” of cultural institutions confront the toughest roads ahead.  Also, Ellis warns of the retreat of wealthy patrons in failing economies and that the full effect of financial markets lag behind nearly five years in art markets (should we brace ourselves for 2013?).

Exactly what, “credit-rating agency,” seems so very “stable”? (I will give them “resilient,” as I must look optimistically in to my own professional crystal ball!)  Even further, who is “stable”?  They, in a magnanimously presumptuous manner, even offer museums a consolation to the constriction of funds:  “They will likely benefit from an increase in regional tourism, a gain in repeat visits, and government stimulus money for education and science programs.”  Government stimulus money! Ha ha, good one “credit-rating agency,” ha ha!  Both museum students and museum professionals devote countless discussion hours and written pages to the conundrum of achieving the recurrent audience.  Good, a bruised economy solves that quandary!  Of course, the source for this information must be taken into consideration: a “credit-agency” is not exactly a sexy establishment today.  However, I found the article to be not only shoddy but also misleading in its gloss over the museum’s current financial woes.

To end on a lighter note, Ellis proffered three bright, constructive ideas to help combat the depressed market: unorthodox lures for audiences rather than showstoppers, increased exploitation of collections, and a global solidarity (of sorts) among the institutions.  The latter materializes with “collection sharing, joint acquisitions, pooling conservation resources, and pooling curatorial appointments.” A global “museum economy” within a globalized, postmodern, hybrid-to-the-nth-degree, poststructuralist world—that idea, for one, appears reasonable. 

Constructive/Construction

Henri Loyrette, the director of the Louvre, has recently felt the heat of his French public, notorious for taking to the streets of Paris to demand changes—such as with political issues—but apparently will have nothing of the sort for their poster-child museum.  In spite of the Louvre’s dramatically increased attendance rate (67%) and boosted endowments since Loyrette’s arrival, the French berate the director for being a government crony as well as for “diluting the Louvre brand at best and cheapening it at worst” with his international wheeling and dealing, which many French feel rings of American behavior.  They are unhappy with his attempts to create a satellite in Lens (France) as well as deals he has struck with other institutions, such as in Abu Dhabi and Atlanta.  Even art historians feel scandalized by what they describe as Loyrette’s “commercial and promotional use of masterpieces of our national heritage.”

First, I was taken aback by the scarcity of American paintings (only three!) in the Louvre! Okay, I am fibbing: I found the paucity more revealing than shocking, since France and the US have plunged into a noticeably frosty relationship in the last few decades.  The Louvre’s collection, seemingly a reflection of the political (maybe even cultural) chasm between the two nations, demonstrates the museum’s knack for simultaneously revealing both contextual and historical conditions.  Further, I give kudos to Loyrette for challenging the nearly moribund state of the Louvre vis-à-vis contemporary artists and prodding the institution to be “more modern.” The notion of “selling-out” to institutions aside, exhibiting in the Louvre offers living artists unimaginable prospects and, let us be honest, swagger, and one cannot blame the director for hoping to lure visitors past showstoppers like Winged Victory (the included picture of the statue shows my personal encounter with this seemingly magnetic force that draws copious crowds).

Also, I am curious as to their distaste for the employment of art for “commercial” and “promotional” purposes. How exactly have the French used their art in the past, if not to advertise French nationality and refinement or to promote French culture and cultivation?  What is the relationship between nations and their art, and does art serve a utilitarian purpose?  If so, exactly how is this different from the late-twentieth, early twenty-first century trend of “branding” museums and employing business tactics?  Let me preface the following discourse with this: I straddle the fence on the issue of museums conducting themselves as businesses; therefore, I appreciate the logic in arguments from both camps. That being said, my challenge to Loyrette’s critics as well as those who wag their fingers at curators or directors is to develop other methods and practices, which they deem acceptable, that augment museums.  Continually hearing bombardments and chastisements becomes frustrating when alternatives are never (or from what I have read thus far) proffered.  Sensibly, if a better, less controversial idea was submitted to museum professionals, then they would undoubtedly employ the idea in a heartbeat to cease the recurring arguments against the operational judgments of their institutions.  This is not to say I support all of Loyrette’s decisions concerning the Louvre, since I quite frankly do not know them all; instead, I suppose this is my campaign for constructive criticism.

Decisions, decisions

Peanut butter and jelly, Simon and Garfunkel, Yin and Yang, Wine and Theory Reading (you know who you are!), Curators and Museum Educators—together they embody the legendary words of Jerry Maguire, “You…complete me.” Latching on to the latter coupling, last week’s seminar with Debora Gaston from NMWA prodded me to keenly consider the interrelationship of the curatorial and the educational affairs in a museum. Both grapple with appealing to wide varieties of audiences, both advocate “non-traditional learning” through material encounters, both vacillate with regard to constructed meanings and environments, and both dwell on the visitor experience. In particular, one question—one posed to curators and educators alike—jotted in my notes leaps out from the page, and with impending exhibition proposals, the question reverberates during turbulent stretch of research for the project. “What do you want people,” the note reads, “to take away from an exhibition?”

My first reaction: oh EVERYTHING! I want them to grasp the theoretical concepts, the aesthetic and didactic meanings, and the historical, contextual, and ongoing narratives while surveying and considering the objects, the design, and the artists! However, such goals in actual exhibition designs—accordingly, the meanings visitors acquire from the exhibition—are, I have found, a bit lofty. Through the investigation and measurement of the profusion of artworks from East Germany (GDR) prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, I found that making thematic and temporal fetters, narrowing down images and events, and just simply offering narratives through visual arts actually proves quite the task! The Obamas just showered the White House with works loaned from various Washington museums, one of which is an Ed Ruscha piece that brings to mind my current state: indecisiveness. I cannot help but wonder: what is the art in the White House meant to communicate, if anything at all?

Further, my heart goes out to Jeff Koons, who, in his upcoming stint as guest curator at the New Museum, faces the challenge of sifting through and coherently exhibiting thousands of artworks from the collection of industrialist Dakis Joannou. And how do exhibition giants like MoMA manage to fit and focus fourteen years of Bauhaus (exhibition: Nov. 8 to Jan. 25, 2010) works? The more I apprentice in and learn about the museum, the more I marvel the profession and its undertakings (not to toot our horns our anything!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/arts/design/07borrow.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/arts/design/25vogel.html?ref=design

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/10/04/style/t/index.html?ref=magazine#pagewanted=0&pageName=04bauhaus&