Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Museum as a Way of Seeing

The essay The Museum as a Way of Seeing by Svetlana Alpers proposes that museums establish their own way of seeing an object, dubbed the 'Museum Effect.' When an object is placed in a museum and put up for the display and contemplation of others, that object becomes estranged from its place of origin and its original cultural context. In this way, even mundane objects, such as a crab shell, become exotic objects that provoke the interest of its viewers. In her article, Svetlana Alpers believes this added interest, by which objects placed in a museum possess an importance and power that they might not have otherwise had outside of its display case, is what makes museums so special. Museums use this way of seeing to capture the interest of visitors viewing the objects in their collections.

Objects on display in a museum are carefully selected from their collections because they are of artistic or intellectual value to the public. When items are placed on display for the enjoyment of the community, all objects in a collection essentially become works of art. And, like art, some things placed in a museum can be strange or even controversial. The museum effect is perhaps strongest in the most unusual of objects of a collection. The strangest thing that ever caught my attention in a museum was a small replica of Stonehenge on display at the Experience the Music Project in Seattle. The object was a prop used in the movie This is Spinal Tap during one of its funniest scenes. By itself, the statue is a hunk of Styrofoam that is nearly worthless, but to those who have seen and enjoyed the film, the statue is elevated from a mere prop to an object of cultural value. When this little Styrofoam Stonehenge was placed in a glass case, the museum "encouraged one to look at it in this way" (Alpers 25).

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Spiral Jetty


Recent industrial development surrounding the Great Salt Lake in Utah has placed the existence of a local piece of artwork at risk. Many questions have arisen about the artifact known as the Spiral Jetty created by artist Robert Smithson. In addition to if and how the Spiral Jetty should be preserved, people have asked if the area that surrounds the Spiral Jetty should be considered a museum.

A museum is defined by the Museum Association as "an institution which collects, documents, preserves, exhibits, and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit" (Pearce 2). The primary purpose of a museum is to preserve natural and cultural artifacts that the public deems to have value. The question that arises is what value does society assign to Spiral Jetty? The popularity of the site has caused many to question the artist's original intentions for the piece and whether the site should be protected.

The difficulty around the issue of conservation arises from the artist's original ideas and intentions about his creation. While alive, Smithson explained that his art, ''takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day'' (Kennedy 1). The piece has changed over time. Salt from the lake has turned the basalt white, and the monument bears marks and graffiti from past visitors. The piece's creator must have known that in time Spiral Jetty would decay into something unrecognizable and eventually fade into nothingness.

Because Spiral Jetty is a single artifact, it cannot be a museum of itself; however, it's owners should preserve the site for future generations without interfering with the artist's original plan to let nature take its effect on his art. The Dia Art Foundation has begun restoring the monument after it re-emerged from the depths of the lake in the past few years. Nevertheless, while conservators are hard at work preserving and documenting Spiral Jetty, it has yet to be declared a museum, national park, or other type of protected site (Kennedy 1-2).



Works Cited
Kennedy, Randy. "How to Conserve Art That Lives in a Lake?" New York Times (Nov. 18, 2009). Section C, Column 0, The Arts/Cultural Desk, Pg. 1.

Pearce, SM. "Museums, Objects and Collections." Smithsonian. pp 1-11. 1992