In Where What’s Done Comes Undone (Is a Museum), Ezra Shales touches on a pretty widespread trend in the art and craft world, which is a deep seated dissatisfaction with the museum. While the museum surely strips artworks of their original meaning by providing a bare, sterile context in which to view them, I’m sure most of us would agree that viewing art objects in a museum is better than not viewing them at all. They do their job of housing relics, artworks, and communicating ideas about them, but they undeniably change the way we would see them, especially when these objects are ones that are meant to be interacted with. This begs the question of how we might better approach the construction of a museum setting.
Shales mentions that he prefers settings in which an intrusion is present, where the viewing of art can be accompanied by lively discourse, where the church like reverence and silence can be broken through. These sorts of environments surely make the viewing of art more comfortable and genuine. But while we can all agree that we like to interact with art, that touch is important, and that the museum is too sterile and neutral a backdrop for most art objects, it’s hard to come up with reasonable compromise. Let’s face it, the public can’t be trusted to handle most art objects. If we allowed viewers to pick up functional pottery, how might we ensure that the pots get returned to the pedestal safely? That the viewers don’t chip the lid while admiring a finial? How could we allow viewers to interact with a Ken Price sculpture and trust that they don’t let their children climb all over them and scuff up the surface with their sneakers?
Shales points out that this dilemma of how to properly preserve and experience artwork illustrates a human failure --“either our ability to design obsolescence, or behavioral tendency to break things.” It’s important to keep this idea of the lacuna, or the gap, in mind when we design alternative galleries or museum spaces.
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