Focalization and Embodied Viewing Experience in Exhibition Narrative: Asia > Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum

Abstract

This article shows the importance of focalization in understanding potential ideological undertones and subjective interpretations of museum exhibitions. Focalization is conceived here as both a narrative device that denotes the perspectival filtration of a museum presentation and an analytical tool that can explicate the potential ideologies behind an exhibition. To illustrate facets of focalization often manifested in the interplay between exhibition designs and viewing experiences, I provide a close reading of the arrangement in Asia > Amsterdam (2015), a temporary exhibition on cultural contact hosted by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Drawing on cultural theorist Mieke Bal’s conception of focalization, I call attention to an instance of internal focalization in a gallery that juxtaposed Chinese porcelain of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) with seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes. This juxtaposition, along with the specific visual order of the showpieces, promoted an embodied spectatorship that is filtered by the subjective sensory impressions of the Dutch artists: a viewing experience that drew audiences into seeing the visual and material qualities of Ming porcelain as if through the eyes of Golden Age Dutch artists. In this way, the lens of focalization also offered a framework for examining the exhibition’s subtext regarding the Dutch domestication of Asian goods.