Museum Gallery Research Articles

Museums and Sexuality

Sex and sexuality are fundamental aspects of what it is to be human, but they have been ignored or neglected by museums historically. Some institutions transferred sexually graphic material to secret museums during the 19th and 20th centuries, recognising its importance and preserving it, but denying public access to it. Other museums did not collect relevant material at all. Museums have now begun to respond to significant changes in society and acknowledge sex and sexuality more directly, but traditional approaches impose limitations. This paper focuses on a small number of recent projects that have addressed sexuality through alternative approaches to objects, collections and narratives. Collectively, these raise bigger philosophical questions of intention, audience and impact. Some institutions, including the British Museum (A History of the World in 100 objects) and the 's National Portrait Gallery (Family Album), have addressed alternative sexualities as an integrated part of broader projects or touring exhibitions that have been aimed at a wide audience. The temporary queering of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Queering the Museum) and the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland (Ars Homo Erotica) are representative examples of an alternative approach that impacts a wider audience, but arguably, in different ways for Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender () and non‐ publics. Museums have a duty to represent the past and present accurately and meaningfully for future generations, and this includes acknowledging histories of sex and sexuality. Although the projects discussed here adopt different approaches, they all demonstrate the potential for museums to use their collections to help generate greater awareness and acceptance of diversity in sexuality, and a more inclusive and tolerant society.

Surface Reflectance for Illuminance Level Control in Daylit Historical Museum Gallery under Tropical Sky Conditions

Malaysia has tropical sky conditions, receiving plenty of natural light throughout the year. Natural light fluctuates greatly and it can be rather tricky to provide good distribution of daylight throughout an interior space and this prompts the need for strategic daylight control programme in a historic museum gallery. Surface reflectance is a significant design consideration, particularly with regards to how light is distributed throughout an interior space. Research on how the internal surfaces reflectances are controlled for long-term preservation of museum exhibits is still lacking for tropical skies conditions. The study aims to assess the internal surface reflectance contribution at a west facing daylit historical museum gallery through in-situ measurements and simulation model assessment. The results obtained in these experiments are visually compared with the existing surface reflectance values through simulation modelling. The results show new knowledge on light damage issues. The results also highlight daylighting distributions control and light exposure limits through realistic predictions’ images and reflectance’s alterations. The study confirms that surface reflectances can be a control mechanism for preventive conservation in the historical museum gallery.

French primitivism and the ends of empire, 1945-1975

For over a century, the idea of primitivism has motivated artistic modernism. Focusing on the three decades after World War II, known in France as les trentes glorieuses despite the loss of most of the country's colonial empire, this probing and expansive book argues that primitivism played a key role in a French society marked by both economic growth and political turmoil. In a series of chapters that consider significant aspects of French culture - including the creation of new museums of French folklore and of African and Oceanic arts and the development of tourism against the backdrop of nuclear testing in French Polynesia - Daniel J. Sherman shows how primitivism, a collective fantasy born of the colonial encounter, proved adaptable to a post-colonial, inward-looking age of mass consumption. Following the likes of Claude Levi-Strauss, Andre Putman, and Jean Dubuffet through decorating magazines, museum galleries, and Tahiti's pristine lagoons, this interdisciplinary study provides a new perspective on primitivism as a cultural phenomenon and offers fresh insights into the eccentric edges of contemporary French history.

Luminous Exposures and Light-Fastness Survey in Daylit Historical Museum Galleries under Tropical Sky Conditions

This paper highlights the results of light levels and light-fastness study conducted in four daylit historical museum galleries in Malaysia. These museums architectural features allow sun radiation into the building, causing light exposure damage to artifacts. This study aims to evaluate the luminous exposures and light-fastness as an initial preventive conservation measure in daylit historical museum galleries under the tropical sky conditions. Light sensors with data-loggers and Light-fastness dosimeters were installed throughout the museums to take cumulative light exposure measurements during museum opening hours. Both instrumentations were tested in the field during different campaigns exposures. After exposures between 90 and 100 days, these dosimeters showed photo-induced colour changes which translated exposures into equivalent luminous exposure and estimated annual exposures (Lux hours) which were used to validate the measured values of illuminance data. Simulated light dosimeters and measured illuminance data show good correlation. Thus, equivalent light dosimeter makes sense to assess the impact of light distributions.

Environment and Object: Recent African Art. Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, February 5–July 31, 2011

<b>Environment and Object: Recent African Art</b>. Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, February 5–July 31, 2011

Creating New Realities

Artistic museum intervention has become an established practice since late 1980s and has been used by museums as a curatorial and interpretive tool ever since. Exhibitions such as 'Uncomfortable Truths: The Shadow of Slave Trading on Contemporary Art' held at the V&A in London (February-June 2007), and 'Queering the Museum' at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (November 2010-February 2011) are recent testimonies of museums’ welcoming approach towards invited artists’ interventions. Author Miwon Kwon has described commissioning institutional interventions negatively as the museum’s self-promotional tool and the resulting status of the artist as commodity. Prior to this, in his 1997 essay ‘The Artist as Ethnographer?’ Hal Foster described the artist’s subjective engagement with institutions and communities as 'ethnographic self-fashioning'. Whilst museums are engaging with its multi-cultural audience through events and activities, the potential of the artistic sub-altern voice in bringing both personal and global associations to the collections offers a non-monologic interpretive approach. This article, however, critically reflects upon the collaboration between ethnographic museums and artists from the diasporas as a method of displaying 'the other' or the work of the celebrity artist. It makes a case for a non-tokenistic and a more democratic process of intervening the museum, one that opens it up as a valuable and accessible site for fresh epistemological engagements by the artist with collections and their meanings.

Craig, Barry (ed.): Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes. The Masterpieces Exhibition Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery

Craig, Barry (ed.): Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes. The Masterpieces Exhibition Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery

Designing an Upper-Level Vertebrate Paleontology and Taphonomy Course for Undergraduate Geoscience Majors

Designing and teaching a vertebrate paleontology course for geoscience majors presents several challenges. Students often come to the course with limited or nonexistent biology backgrounds, and therefore may begin the semester anxious about their ability to master course material. Moreover, students may be skeptical about the value of learning vertebrate skeletal anatomy for their future careers as geoscientists. Vertebrate Paleontology and Taphonomy is an upper-level elective for geoscience majors that was intentionally designed to allow students to develop a basic understanding of vertebrate osteology for themselves before focusing on formational histories of vertebrate skeletal accumulations in geological context. The course relies heavily on hands-on exposure to modern and fossil skeletal material, field trips to local museum galleries and collections, cooperative laboratory activities and projects, and analysis of real-world data sets. Students work together with one another and the instructor to make observations on vertebrate fossils, analyze their own data and data from the primary literature, and interpret taphonomic histories of actual vertebrate assemblages. This structure makes success in the course less about ‘learning vertebrate paleontology’ and more about using vertebrate paleontology and taphonomy as a tool to become effective practicing geoscientists.

A Study on the Airborne Particulates Matter in Selected Museums of Peninsular Malaysia

An indoor pollutant gives harmful effects to human health and became one of the main causes of the cultural heritage deterioration. The research is focuses on the airborne particulates at the indoor of the museum galleries. Equipment used to sample inhalable dust was the 7-hole sampler and the Cyclone sampler for sample respirable dust. The results show that mass concentrations at selected location were exceeding the limit of safety Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Malaysia standard limit for TSP and PM10 in 8hours sampling. Thus, it is important to control the level of contaminants within the buildings for safety purposes.

Review of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery'sPre-Raphaelite Online Resource(Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2009)

Review of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's<i>Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource</i>(Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2009)

The Hamilton Inn Sofa: reconciling wildly different approaches to conservation

The Hamilton Inn sofa was acquired by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) in 2005. It is a double-ended Regency-style sofa that is particularly significant on account of its very early date of manufacture (considered to be ca 1820–25), its upholstery being original, and its unaltered and very largely unrestored form. International Conservation Services (ICS) were commissioned to undertake conservation treatment on the sofa in January 2008. The process began with the creation of a conservation plan, extensive analysis and review of treatment options, both with the museum and fellow conservators, and also with interested parties such as the Furniture History Society.

Michael J Clarke collections, from the Geological Survey of Tasmania, are transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

Over 300 primary type and figured specimens of Late Palaeozoic invertebrates described by Michael J Clarke have been transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collections.

FISHER, C. and CALABY, J. The top of the top end: John Gilbert's manuscript notes for John Gould on vertebrates from Port Essington and Cobourg Peninsula (Northern Territory, Australia): with comments on specimens collected during the settlement period 1838 to 1849, and subsequently. The Beagle, records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory. Supplement 4. 2009. Pp

FISHER, C. and CALABY, J. <i>The top of the top end: John Gilbert's manuscript notes for John Gould on vertebrates from Port Essington and Cobourg Peninsula (Northern Territory, Australia): with comments on specimens collected during the settlement period 1838 to 1849, and subsequently. The Beagle, records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory</i>. Supplement 4. 2009. Pp

Connecting—Inside and Out

Gregory Sale's <i>It's not just black and white</i> residency/exhibition aspired to give voice to the multiple constituents who are involved with the corrections, incarceration and criminal justice systems. The Arizona State University (ASU) Art Museum gallery space operated as a site for developing and displaying visual and mediated exhibitions, dance and other staged events, discussions, readings and performances. During the course of more than 50 events, an ongoing civil discussion evolved with representatives from all sides of the issue gathering and working in the space. While art museums often focus on the relationships between visitors and objects, this project measured its success by the respectful connections developed between people and groups and the lives and opportunities that were changed. John Spiak, the curator, discusses how <i>It's not just black and white</i> provides just one example of how museums have the opportunity to provide a venue and platform for conversations on contemporary social issues.

Comment from the Field: Transforming Bodies: Prosthetics Seminar

Organized by Dr. Ria Cheyne, Lecturer in Disability Studies and Deputy Director of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University, this seminar took place in November 2010. It was the first of three seminars in the series Transforming Bodies: New Directions in Medical Humanities and Cultural Disability, funded by the Wellcome Foundation to engage with key topics at the intersection of medical science, disability, and culture. Professor Stuart Murray from the University of Leeds opened the proceedings by underlining the multidisciplinary nature of all three seminars, which seek to address directly the dearth of conversations between medical practitioners and cultural theorists. Murray argued that an interdisciplinary engagement with the theme of prosthetics is crucial, particularly since a tension has grown up between cultural theorists' use of as part of a critical vocabulary, where the term may have status as merely an unreflective metaphor, and the fact that constitutes a material reality of twenty-first-century life. Moreover, the science of prosthetics offers a challenge to our notion of normality, since prosthetic interventions increasingly extend human embodiment into hyper-ability in addition to their original function of the body which is disabled by lack. Dr. Julie Anderson from the University of Kent gave the first presentation, Intimate Aids, Public Scrutiny: Ex-Servicemen, Artificial Limbs and Queen Mary. Using authentic photographic material from the World War I period, this paper examined the role of military hospitals as sites of spectacle, where patients and their prostheses were constructed as objects of curiosity. In establishments such as Roehampton Hospital, wounded servicemen's management of their prosthetic limbs was scrutinized not only by medical staff, but also by members of the public, and even members of the royal family, such as Queen Mary, who were invited to marvel at technical interventions in the men's damaged embodiment. Dr. Anderson pointed out that this prurient interest in rehabilitated bodies lay in juxtaposition to the private process of psychological and physical adjustment among the ex-servicemen. Dr. Anderson's fascinating presentation of the lived reality of adjusting to prosthesis use at a point now beyond living memory was to meet an absorbing counterpoint later in the day when Sarah Deans explored present-day attitudes to the rehabilitation process. In the same panel, online materials from the British Optical Association Museum's gallery of artificial eyes, spectacles, and contact lenses were presented by its curator, Neil Handley, who indicated the museum's commitment to opening this rich resource to wider professional and public audiences alike. In this sense, Handley's presentation proved an illustration of exactly the kind of dynamic encounter to which the seminar was committed. Handley outlined a history of ocular prosthetics, arguing that the development of artificial eyes was of principal benefit not to the prosthetic wearer, but to other people, because it was designed to deflect attention and prevent revulsion. Handley's paper showed how the museum also engages with the symbolic meaning of eyes: he argued that there has been a recent shift in the cultural value pertaining to some ocular prostheses with the entry into the commercial market of, for example, coloured contact lenses. Handley's point led to a lively post-panel discussion about the growing trend to use prostheses as body-enhancing supplements, rather than as solely a means of making good a loss or absence. The actress and activist Aimee Mullins was mentioned as an example of a prosthetic limb user who commissions legs to enhance her body as well as to replace missing parts. From the Centre for Biomedicine and Society, King's College London, Dr. Alex Faulkner gave a presentation entitled Policing Prosthetics: Conflicting Pressures on Orthopaedic Implants, which traced the development of prosthetic practice from its basis in hardware prosthetics to a field which now includes the potentiality of regenerative techniques using orthobiology and nanotechnology. …

Reflections on The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, British Museum, London; Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham; Brighton Museum and Art Gallery; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, April 2008–December 2009

It is tempting to regard the remarkable success of this exhibition of works from the British Museum's American prints collection, as it toured England, as a response to the demise of the Bush Administration and the election of Barack Obama. However, George W. Bush was in the White House throughout the period when these prints were on display at the British Museum from April to September 2008.

Designing museum and gallery shops as integral, co-creative retail spaces within the overall visitor experience

A museum and art gallery experience study reveals that visitors view shop spaces as an integral part of the experience during a visit, therefore having the ability to support and expand the on-site and continued learning experience, rather than acting purely as souvenir shops – generating memories after the event. Museum and gallery shops could aid in the construction of meaningful, personal visit mythologies in an immersive, self-developmental event, corresponding to co-creative retail theory. It is proposed that shop spaces should be more integrated within a holistically designed visitor experience orientation (gestalt) than is apparent from impressions to be gained from the museum experience literature, which reveals a gap between curators and shop operation. For integration purposes, it is recommended that the shop space should be included in the provision of a mix of spatial types, each featuring differentiated qualities or characteristics. All spaces should be considered in a complimentary manner to deliver a synergistic balance of holistic, sociocultural-economic experience and flow for each visitor type, including the contribution of creative retail spaces.

Review: Raum der Gegenwart (Room of Our Time), by Schirn Kunsthalle

Raum der Gegenwart (Room of Our Time) . Kunsthalle, Erfurt, 29 March––24 May 2009 Bauhaus, Dessau, 9 June––24 October 2009. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 8 October 2009––7 February 2010 We enter the gallery. An undulating, transparent wall directs our eyes to the right half of the room as it guides our bodies leftward, toward a photo mural composed of Bauhaus architecture, design, and art (Figures 1, 2). Separated from the outset, body and vision are at least perfunctorily reunited by an endless backlit band that requires a push of a button to set into motion half a dozen large photographs, including the glass corner from Walter Gropius's 1925––26 Dessau Bauhaus building and a diagram from Moholy-Nagy's 1924 film manuscript Dynamik der Groββstadt . Three suspended, circular, glass displays appear to free their content——Wilhelm Wagenfeld's 1924 Bauhaus lamp and other design objects——from the constraints of gravity. Private, circular viewing consoles for avant-garde films——including Viking Eggeling's Symphonie Diagonale (1924) and Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929)——are visible at the opposite end of the room. In short, we are thrust into an exhibition environment where technological reproductions predominate; images are nearly freed from material substrates and projected as sequential stills or in fluid movement; and materials like glass, nickel, and Trolite are exploited less for artworks than as frames, bases, and encasings. We are in a recent (re)construction of the Raum der Gegenwart (Room of Our Time). Figure 1 Raum der Gegenwart by Laaszloo Moholy-Nagy, as reconstructed by Kai-Uwe Hemken and Jakob Gebert and installed in the Kunst Licht Spiele exhibition, Kunsthalle, Erfurt, 2009 (photos by Sabine Bielmeier, Kassel) Figure 2 Raum der Gegenwart by Laaszloo Moholy-Nagy, as reconstructed by Kai-Uwe Hemken and Jakob Gebert and installed in the Kunst Licht Spiele exhibition, Kunsthalle, Erfurt, 2009 (photos by Sabine Bielmeier, Kassel) The environment is hardly unfamiliar in contemporary museums, but it was without significant precedent in the interwar museological landscape. Without precedent in part because the Room of Our Time——a multimedia museum gallery …

Inclusion and museums: developing inclusive practice

Recent policy on inclusion has had an impact on the development of museum galleries and related educational provision. Museums are used as learning organisations and, as such, need to consider how to create an inclusive environment. However, inclusive provision for people with learning difficulties in museums tends to be isolated and small scale, lacking the formal structure found within schools. While much can be learnt from the development and evaluation of practice in schools, there is little research or published literature that explores the inclusion of people with learning difficulties in museums. This article, by Hannah Shepherd, Exhibition Co-ordinator at Freeman College in Sheffield, analyses an example of a specific exhibit within a gallery development. This example reflects an approach that uses guidance from the literature to create a more inclusive experience for visitors, particularly those with learning difficulties. A case is made for the use of consultation and partnership to develop inclusive museum provision.

Shivers down your spine: cinema, museums, and the immersive view

Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction Part I. From Cathedral to IMAX Screen: Case Studies in Immersive Spectatorship 1. Immersive Viewing and the Revered Gaze 2. Spectacle and Immersion in the Nineteenth-Century Panorama 3. Expanded Vision IMAX Style: Traveling as Far as the Eye Can See 4. A Moving Picture of the Heavens: Immersion in the Planetarium Space Show Part II. Museums and Screen Culture: Immersion and Interactivity Over Centuries 5. Back to the (Interactive) Future: The Legacy of the Nineteenth-Century Science Museum 6. From Daguerreotype to IMAX Screen: Multimedia and IMAX at the Smithsonian Institution 7. Film and Interactive Media in the Museum Gallery: From Roto-Radio to Immersive Video 8. Conclusion Notes Filmography Bibliography Index