International Museum Research Articles

Provenance and collection history of Tubicaulis solenites (Sprengel) Cotta: a unique fossil tree fern and its 200-year journey through the international museum landscape

Provenance and collection history of Tubicaulis solenites (Sprengel) Cotta: a unique fossil tree fern and its 200-year journey through the international museum landscape

IN MEMORY OF MARIAN SOŁTYSIAK

Marian Sołtysiak, PhD, director of the Mazovian Museum in Płock (MMP) from 1961 to 1977, passed away on 20 November 2016. During his office, the museum was transformed into a supraregional institution, extended its collections, expanded its scientific and popularising activity, established contacts with academic and artistic circles, and acquired a new building in the Castle of the Mazovian Dukes. The most significant decision which set the institution’s further course was to start collecting Art Nouveau works, which now form the largest collection of Art Nouveau in Poland and is a showpiece of the museum. They also contributed to the network of museums in the Mazovian region, which led to the development of cultural life in our region. Marian Sołtysiak wrote publications devoted to our museum, one based on his PhD thesis The Mazovian Museum in Płock. Its history and social functions, as well as a memoir The Secesja with petrochemistry in the background. Once he left the MMP, he held important positions in various institutions in Warsaw; for example he was the organiser and first director of the Board of Historical Garden and Palace Conservation of the National Museum, Deputy Director of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Director of the National Museum, Curator of the Arx Regia Publishing House of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, and Managing Director of the Patrimonum Foreign Enterprise. Sołtysiak was also an academic lecturer at the Pawel Wlodkowic University College in Płock and at the Pultusk Academy of Humanities, and a member of numerous Polish and international associations, museum boards, and scientific societies devoted to culture, protection of monuments and museology. For his indefatigable work for the protection of cultural heritage, he was given the award “For the guardianship of monuments” and the Annual Award from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

Museums and Public Policy: an introduction

(2017). Museums and Public Policy: an introduction. Museum International: Vol. 69, Museums and Public Policy, pp. 6-9.

Theory as a Platform for the Education of Museum Staff. Development of the Centre for the Study of Museology in the Years 1967–1982

AbstractThe aim of the presented study is to bring together almost fifteen years of the Centre for the Study of Museology of the Charles University’s Faculty of the Arts at the National Museum in Prague (herein - after referred to as the Centre), one of the most important contemporary methodological and educational centres in the field of museology. The subject of interest will gradually become an analysis of the factors and phenomena that led to its establishment in 1967, including the theoretical concept of the head of the Centre, Jiří Neustupný, which became the starting point for the final form of its curriculum. In addition to outlining the structure for the curriculum for the students of Charles University’s daily study and for the museum staff and introducing personalities who have participated in educational activities, the text also deals with its non-teaching activities (such as research and methodological activities, cooperation within both the domestic and the international museum organisations, while collecting and publishing museological literature). The work was created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the museological centre which is recognised by international authorities and, as the first one, this work seeks to map its development.

MÜZELERDE İNSAN KAYNAKLARI YÖNETİMİ

The aim of this study is to investigate into the significance and effectiveness of human resources management in museums. The concept, which got into the literature as an understanding of staff management, turned into an approach called human resources. That approach embraces each subject on humans and it aims to contribute to its effectiveness by fulfilling their needs. The productivity of humans adopts acceleration parallel with the increase of productivity among organisations. Employees possess an important role in ensuring the sustainability of organisations. For this reason; recruitment, training programmes, career developments and assigning the employees in accordance with their skills constitute a crucial process of human resources management. Human resources management is important for museums as well as other institutions. Human resources is positioned within the first three heads of management planning made by International Museums Council; however, it functions effectively only at four private museums among other 220. Human resources management process at these four museums can easily compete with leading museums all around the world. When the other 220 museums are concerned, it could be suggested that the human factor is approached only as an administrative element and the understanding of staff management still survives

Two Approvals from the 1931 Athens Conference: Anastylosis and International Collaboration for Architectural Conservation: New Evidence

The Athens Conference was an international meeting on architectural conservation, organized by the International Museums Office, an institution that belonged to the League of Nations, in October 1931. The discovery of official documents, such as the minutes and statements of participants, clarifies discussions for all nine sessions. This study addresses approvals of the restoration measure, anastylosis, and the worldwide safeguard for historic monuments. Furthermore, it argues that the Athens Conference was the first global meeting in the twentieth century to frame modern conservation principals in terms of a role model for archaeological interventions and global aids for architectural protection.

International Photography Networks and Walter Hahn’s Museum for Photography, Dresden

The Museum für Photographie, founded, developed and directed by Dr. Walter Hahn for only twelve years in the city of Dresden, has only recently emerged in scholarship on East German photographic culture. Although the museum definitely enjoyed a relationship with the East German cultural authorities within the Cultural League, or Kulturbund, it does not sit easily in the historiographical category of ‘official’ photography in the GDR. Hahn’s version of the history of photography was challenging to the socialist establishment, which hampered the further development of the museum and did not preserve the project after Hahn’s death. Hahn’s ambitions to expand his museum and gain membership in an international community of collectors and museum professionals drove him to contact a tremendous number of figures throughout the world and led to many fruitful exchanges on questions of the history of photography and the state of collections internationally. This article will address the degree to which Hahn’s networking through publications and correspondence and attempts at cultural diplomacy tied him more closely to the international community of photography collectors and photography museums – particularly in the West – than his Cultural League colleagues could ultimately sanction. It argues that Hahn and his museum represent a historical and historiographical anomaly that complicates the accepted narratives of East Germany history. Hahn’s interactions within the international museum community represent a significant instance of the international circuit of photographic images and literature during the Cold War.

In Dream and Soil: A Conversation with Bea Nettles

Bea Nettles rose to prominence at the beginning of 1970 with her autobiographical mixed-media and photographic work. During that year she had a solo show at the George Eastman House (now the George Eastman Museum, or GEM) in Rochester, New York, and was also included in the seminal exhibition Photography into Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In 2014, the show was re-mounted at Hauser & Wirth in New York City as the retitled The Photographic Object, 1970 and was accompanied by a publication of the same name from the University of Arizona and the University of California Press. Nettles has been exhibiting her work for nearly fifty years and is included in the collections of MoMA; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Canada; the Phillips Collection in Washington DC; the International Museum of Photography at the GEM; and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Her newest book, Dante Enters Hell (2016), has sold out and is in nine special collections libraries including those of Yale, Duke, and Northwestern universities. In 2016, her early work began to pop up around the country in various exhibitions including at the Met, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Portland Museum of Art. The recent reappearance of Nettles's early work--from the single pieces of the late 1960s to her Mountain Dream Tarot card deck (1975) and her visual autobiography Flamingo in the Dark (1979)--in museums and galleries is neither happenstance nor anomaly, but rather evidence of her importance in the history of American art. This work is visceral, poignant, humorous, and multivalent--and is as indicative of the experimental approach by many photographers of the 1960s and '70s as it is striking to twenty-first-century eyes. In particular, the return to materiality and the autobiographical in photography by many contemporary artists, as well as the mixed-media and photographic approach of painters today, prove Nettles was both ahead of her time and firmly situated within a legacy of artists (from Pictorialism to Victorian collage and book-making to Dada) in the history of photography. Although today artists must contend with the digital revolution, either embracing it or reacting against it, the impact of Nettles's layered approach, particularly in her early work, cannot be underestimated. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I met Nettles in 2005 as an incoming photography student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was teaching photography and book-arts classes and is now professor emerita. I gardened for her in exchange for books and time from 2007 to 2008, which I count as a pivotal year in my growth as an artist and being. In August of last year, I reconnected with Nettles at her home in Urbana for a conversation about the recent exhibitions of her early work and Dante Enters Hell. COLIN EDGINGTON: I had a student who saw your work recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). I think it is incredible that these early works are being seen by younger generations. What does it mean for you to see it exhibited forty-five years later? BEA NETTLES: Sister in the Parrot Garden, which is the piece on view at the PMA, was made at Penland [School of Crafts] near Asheville, North Carolina, in the summer of 1970. I would have been just out of graduate school. I still remember that piece because it was so difficult to make. When I coated Rockland Liquid Light photo emulsion on fabric it was extremely fragile; it would be processed just like a print, but if it folded in on itself the emulsion would smear and come off. It was delicate from start to finish. Often a mixed-media piece would start through experimentation and then I'd see the potential in it, or it'd crack open my thinking. I try not to be afraid or take myself too seriously with capital-A art, but I can be obsessed and I follow through on things. It is a delicate balance between my humor and being very serious, and I think my work reflects that. …

Natural, Manmade Treasures Abound at Balboa Park

Natural, Manmade Treasures Abound at Balboa Park

Preface

In Memoriam - Nastazija KeršytėAssociate Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University Nastazija Keršytė (b. 1948-09-22) died suddenly on 18 May 2016 – International Museum Day. She began work in the Communication Faculty’s Institute of Library and Information Sciences in 1996, after completing her doctoral dissertation “On the Development of Museums and Museum Practice in Lithuania during 1918–1940” (1994) at Vilnius University’s Faculty of History.More in PDF.

Lithuanian museology: Development of Lithuanian Museology from the Latter Half of the 18th Century to the 21st Century

his is the first book to analyze and evaluate the development of Lithuanian museology (museum studies) from the latter half of the 18th century into the 21st century. It is based on the extensive research materials, many of them archival, gathered by the author Dr. Nastazija Keršytė during 2012–2014 while doing the research project “Development of Lithuanian Museology in 1752–2012”, sponsored by the Research Council of Lithuania (contract LIT-5-16). A stimulus for the writing of this monograph was the opportunity afforded by the government program Lithuanian Museums in 1812–2012 (Lietuvos muziejų kelias 1812–2012 m.), one of the initiatives undertaken in the Year of the Museum in 2012. Unfortunately, Dr. Keršytė died before completing this monograph on 18 May 2016, International Museum Day. As a long-time friend and colleague, I had promised to write an English-language summary of her book.More in PDF.

Enhancing the mobility of collections and access to cultural heritage: immunity of cultural objects from seizure in Poland

This paper analyses, from the perspective of cultural policy considerations, the legal regime established by the recent Polish law on the immunity from seizure of cultural property on loan (2015). It deals with current trends of international museum exchange and explains the benefits and risks involved in cross-border loans of cultural material. This analysis is carried out by focusing on the actual practice and experiences of Polish museums, national and international regulations in force, and human rights considerations. The authors attempt to situate the Polish model for the protection of foreign cultural property on loan within the broader comparative context of the domestic legislation on museum exchange adopted in selected national jurisdictions. The article also offers a more general cultural policy discussion in the context of international museum exchanges of cultural material. Laws and policies facilitating such exchanges are weighed against other rights and interests encompassed in the protection of cultural heritage and the realisation of all human rights, including cultural rights.

Study of the Micro Biological Deterioration Effect on the Vegetable – Tanned Leather Shoes from Mamluk Era with an Application on the Agricultural Museum in Egypt

Vegetable tanned leather shoes are considered one of the most important museum artifacts in the both local and international museums, they represent cultural and civilized heritage, we can devise from them very important information about history, Art and important sciences. They are exposed to several problems in their excavated sites or inside museums and their stores; the most important problem is the Biodeterioration which causes the degradation and the loss of these shoes in the end by secreting organic acids like oxalic and citric acids. In this research this problem will be presented with an application on a chosen object from the Agricultural museum in Egypt, Biological scans by sterilized swabs were taken from the surface of the shoes to identify the Fungi grown on the surface of the shoes.

Cultural Landscapes and Museums

(2017). Cultural Landscapes and Museums. Museum International: Vol. 69, Museums and Cultural Landscapes, pp. 8-17.

Prediction and classification of the degradation state of plastic materials used in modern and contemporary art

Today, artworks partially or completely made of plastic materials can be found in almost all international museums and collections. The deterioration of these objects is now becoming evident mainly because these synthetic materials are not designed for a long life and the characterization of their state of conservation can help curators and conservators. In this research we investigated the applicability of a portable attenuated total reflection (ATR) infrared spectrometer for the non-invasive characterization and for monitoring the degradation of plastics used in modern and contemporary art. Several polypropylene and polycarbonate samples were artificially aged in solar box, simulating about 200 years of museum light exposure, and they were monitored with the portable ATR, creating an infrared library of the conservation state of plastics. Through the use of chemometric techniques like principal component analysis–linear discriminant analysis and partial least square—discriminant analysis, we built a robust degradation model of each material that can be used to predict and classify the degradation state of artworks and to identify the priority of intervention in the museum collections. Portable ATR coupled to multivariate statistics can be employed for taking care of plastic artworks as it is non-invasive, the analysis is very fast and it can be performed directly in situ.

Doha’s cultural armature on display: a response to Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums put the Nation and the World on Display

ABSTRACTAfter a brief discussion of the rapidly changing international museum world in Doha, this response piece engages with Peggy Levitt’s arguments around cultural armature and the role of museums in managing a city’s diversity, focusing on Doha, Qatar. Given the dominant migrant foreign population (88 per cent) and the careful protection of national citizenship in Qatar, the role of museums in managing diversity presents a situation that contrasts with older nation states: rather than encouraging inclusion, the museums in Qatar and the Arabian Peninsula states play a role in constructing and protecting a pure concept of national identity on behalf of a minority citizen population that deliberately fails to embrace any notion of diversity. This piece uses brief case studies to illustrate this process of exclusion, expanding Levitt’s original argument.

The Heritage of Displacement: Forced Migration in the Mediterranean through History

The Heritage of Displacement: Forced Migration in the Mediterranean through History

Curation as Public Scholarship

ABSTRACTMuseum archaeology offers opportunities to practice artifact storytelling, engaging visitors on the strength of objects that have been conserved and curated. Public appreciation of science and history is bolstered when museums exhibit objects of singular historic significance in a manner that allows visitors to build an experiential understanding of the objects’ provenance. Archaeologists and conservators began reassembling the 330-year-old French ship La Belle as a live-action exhibition on 25 October 2014 in the Bullock Texas State History Museum. The collaboration broke new ground by inviting visitors, in person and via streaming online video, to watch the experts rebuild the ship in full public view. Until, and after, the reconstructed ship hull was moved into its permanent first-floor gallery location on 21 May 2015, the exhibition brought archaeologists and international museum visitors into the same room to learn. The article interprets these events toward reimagining museum object curation as public scholarship.

O Público Infantil nos Museus

Resumo: Este texto apresenta reflexões acerca das relações entre cultura, educação e infância, a partir de estudos que se debruçaram sobre a temática da infância e dos museus, e do acompanhamento das visitas realizadas pelo público infantil ao Museu Internacional de Arte Naïf do Brasil, localizado na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. A investigação teve como objetivo contribuir para o diálogo entre os campos da Educação e da Museologia com vistas à garantia do direito de acesso e ao atendimento de qualidade das crianças pequenas a esses espaços. Com os resultados da pesquisa, foi aferido que os museus possuem um enorme potencial no desenvolvimento de momentos lúdicos de aprendizagem para o público infantil, desde que se diminua a lacuna nos estudos teóricos que elucidam as especificidades da infância nesses espaços.

Collecting, Collections, and Cultural Heritage in the Cameroon Grassfields

Collecting, Collections, and Cultural Heritage in the Cameroon Grassfields