context lecture: museums, artists, & collecting

on

  • areas covered: museums and collecting, artists museums and institutional critique, artists and collecting 
  • make sense of our lives, construct narrative, make connections between things naturally eg objects, experiences, informs their work in some way. andy warhol has an entire collection, quite kitch. ‘Primal urge to create narrative and connections’ a kind of typology, an organisational principle. 
  • typology. classification. 
  • taxonomy. classification of something esp organisms, nature. 
  • where does the modern museum come from? different reasons why people collect objects, maybe from natural world to begin with. originally, a whole took. 1599 original, italian. collected different species, birds, mammals. books. (scientific perspective, to provide information about the creature, relative scale) 
  • franz franken. paintings, drawings collection, artefacts from natural world. era of the baroque. 
  • Berlin natural history museum, literal cabinet. these kinds of special things, very rare. very different approach now. at the time it was important for people have knowledge of this sort. 
  • would collect things with order, not just themselves but as a social comment
  • cabinets of curiosity, very valued in economic status- relating to possession of knowledge. why given status in society. have to have money to obtain objects or money to travel. difficult to get. souvenir. European collections, tropical shells. 
  • museums questioned what they stand for. feel disturbed to some displays. out of its normal situation. knowledge = the commodity that museums offer. maintained, curators have to interpret, service for their audience. please people that fund, write, visit them. 
  • how we know what we know. underpins knowledge. collected in a particular way. classification system. completely informs our knowledge and education. powerful. 
  • philosophical idea: epistemology. Knowledge based on this, provable information, western systems of knowledge
  • what is knowledge/can we have knowledge? how do we get knowledge? in epistemology 
  • how are museums constructed as objects? in oxford, museum very particular architecture, the collection that he owned was becoming public so needed a building. what does the architecture say to you? power and Roman ideals. columns, Roman/Greece/ temple to knowledge. 
  • how is the museum environment designed to codify the visitors experience? (eg british museum) elitist, archive. american history museum, stuffed animals almost like painting. sense of distancing? perhaps more welcoming than some galleries
  • michel Foucault: the order of things. ‘a certain Chinese encyclopaedia. what if we didn’t classify things the way they are in museums? system of classifying was a different one, like this example? taking away the fundemental underpinnings, hierarchies, how we should understand the natural world . The order of things - book (mythologies?)
  • do the existing systems of classification enable some ways of knowing, but prevent others? 
  • museums manipulate things?? 
  • pitts rivers museum, associations slightly different. how objects are obtained? pitts rivers was a man, personal collection, mainly bought them. bequeathed to university to be displayed in this way. himself was an archaeologist. spiritual:religion/ significance yet they’re displayed in a glass cabinet. maasai tribeswoman wanted to reclaim. 
  • Easter island moai, monumental size. (president of island talked about reclaiming this object, to original function) difficult topic. idea of returning objects. 
  • greek gov. want back from british museum. says these are accessible for anyone to see, conserved very carefully. difficult topic, somebody sold them. should be returned to original place? different elements to the negotiated. 
  • nigeria bronzes. no longer part of an empire. have agreed that they can be lent, permanent loan basis? very early bronze casting techniques. 
  • collected histories. alice procter, touring how some objects were collected, histories of colonialism and slavery. looting. ‘uncomfortable art tours’ very different context to the one we have now. 
  • ‘art object’ denying nature in a way? not everything collected fairly. 
  • Walter Benjamin: there’s no document of civilisation which is not at the same time w document of barbarism. 
  • Fred wilson: ‘mining the museum’ intervene in display. histories not represented in museum context. 
  • iconic 18th century painting in national gallery. couple independent were very wealthy. his installation work, without heads 
  • hall of wonders: artworks objects and natural curiosities. bridget riley painting juxtaposed with cheetah. colour and pattern. collapsing boundaries that we normally separate things by 
  • what and why do artists collect? 
  • Mickey Mouse museum, display is around the ears. his own collection of plastic objects/toys. 
  • jim shaw? big collector. religious pamphlets. created own religion. make sense of his work, reveal his narrative he built up. another part of his collections ‘thrift store paintings’ John currin. a knowing awkwardness. 
  • a cosmos - Rosemarie trockel. known for transgressing boundaries between art forms. constantly doing different sorts of works. combine things from different cultures. questioning boundaries between objects. serpentine gallery 2013
  • mark Dion. interested in how institutions frame our knowledge. authoritative role. did a dig in Thames and displayed in cabinet. history of London. 
  • steve claydon. sculptor. collect information, investigate it, juxtapose preexisting object 
  • carol bove, american artist, interested in display. sense of something quite poetic through objects and materials. 
  • surreal science, whitechapel gallery. italian artist. invited to work with collection. had access to entire collection to display how he chose. private collection so very unusual fascinating things. 
  • camille henrot: gross fatigue. archive different windows, video on how she browse through collection. different way of navigating a collection. French artist. 
  • curiosity: art & the pleasures of knowing, 2014. contemporary art, old master drawings, juxtaposing things never seen together. 
  • kader attia ‘museum of emotion’ Hayward gallery. if interested in ways things are displayed. juxtaposition between damaged statues alongside images of people devastated by ww1. for emotional response. longstanding interest in repair.