Spoons on Trays

Hayward bound

2012-02-28T16:53:00.001-08:00

The Southbank is one of my favourite placesin London. Whenever I go, at whatever time of year, it is always vibrant andjoyful, full of people doing a myriad of different things they love, fromcocktails to skateboarding, mime artists to symphony orchestras … to art. Whichis why I never understand how I so often forget that the Hayward Gallery isright there amongst it all. It does suffer from being set back from the riverbehind the National Theatre, but I am clearly alone in forgetting it as, on asunny Saturday afternoon last week, the queue for tickets stretched well out ofthe door.

The Hayward’s modernist and flexibleexhibition space has, in the past, staged some spectacular andthought-provoking shows. Here I’m thinking particularly of Anthony Gormley: Blind Light, Walking in my Mind, and Mark Wallinger: The Russian Linesman, among recent shows. But, I feel that now the Haywardincreasingly falls between two stools. It cannot, and I think shouldn’t, stagethe blockbuster modern art exhibitions that are the preserve of the Tate, Royal Academy, or the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, but equally it is nota small avant-garde contemporary gallery. In some ways it is the Londonequivalent of the new contemporary galleries that are appearing in the regions– Nottingham Contemporary, the Baltic, Turner Contemporary etc – and aboutwhich I have written before. Yet, it performs this role within the difficultsetting of the London art scene.

Take the two current exhibitions for example:Brain Activity by the British Artist David Shrigley, and Joy in People by TurnerPrize winner Jeremy Deller. Shrigley’s work is witty, irreverent anddisconcerting, from dead rats to simple line-drawn animations. It is wry, andthe exhibition is enjoyable as much as a visitor experience as a ‘straightforward’ art show. The more interactive show is something that the Hayward hasalways done well. But I left wondering what the point of the exhibition was,and feeling that Shrigley’s humourous work is better enjoyed in the greetingcard form in which it is better known.

The Deller exhibition is a collection of hispast work. The eclectic, participatory and installation-based nature ofDeller’s work makes this difficult and left the show feeling incoherent. Therewere some stimulating pieces like the It is what it is installation of a bombed-out car from Baghdad which Dellertook on a tour of the US, but this felt flat in the straight gallery space. Idid enjoy the ‘failed projects’ section, but so many of Deller’s piecesrequire a level of back-story and text explanation that I felt deadened theart itself. The stand-out piece for me was Exodus:a 3D-projection film of thousands of bats in flight. It was beautiful, movingand unsettling. It made me think of work I love by Tacita Dean or Werner Herzog.

This was a re-work of Deller’s final piecefor the Turner Prize, which left me wondering if the Hayward needs to embraceits ‘regional’ status and vie with the other ‘regional contemporaries’ to playhost to the Prize and establish itself firmly on that stool.

Trust in the future

2012-02-19T16:23:00.003-08:00

Irecently saw an interview with John Bird, thefounder of the Big Issue, in the National Trust magazine, where he discussedhow he thought the trust needed to change. I am a big fan of the National Trust and the wonderfulrange of houses and gardens that they run, but I agree with him that the trusthas an image of middle-class days out with afternoon tea, which it is provinghard to shake.

I supposethat a key purpose of the NT – to preserve for the nation the quintessentiallyEnglish gentry country houses that were being lost due to inheritance tax anddecimated families after the two world wars – does bring with it an element ofaspirational tourism with a middle class flavour. These were the houses thatappealed to readers of Country Lifeand Tatler who wanted to know howto style their homes in Hampstead or Newmarket, and who wanted to learn aboutthe educated, leisured people who had lived in such elegant surroundings. Yet,the Trust is about so much more than this: they care for areas of outstandinglandscape, not to mention working estates and farms, which carry out researchand are ripe for outdoor activity; estate history gives us a wealth ofinformation on the people who ran these houses, inside and out, both then andnow; Trust sites actively engage with their local communities with both eventsand produce, and can be a centre of local history.

One ofJohn Bird’s suggestions was for the Trust to engage more with London, afterall, many Trust properties are very hard to reach without a car. Yet, one of myfavourite sites in London belongs to the National Trust. 2 Willow Road inHampstead is the 1930s house designed by the architect Ernö Goldfinger(eponymous inspiration for the Bond villain) and filled with art by the likesof Henry Moore and Bridget Riley, eclecticbelongings, and his own designed furniture. It is a wonderfully evocative housemuseum and is often shown to you by the resident keeper, who is the best kindof guide. The Trust also owns other wonderful urban sites like Fenton House in Londonor the Hardman’sHouse in Liverpool. These are usually much less well known than places likeStowe or Hardwick Hall.

Likewise,Bird suggested the creation of a National Trust museum in London, featuring achanging exhibition of stellar objects from properties across the country. Thisis a version of the space at TwoTemple Place that has been created as a venue for publicly-owned regionalcollections in London. I think it is a fantastic idea, not least because of theoptions which it offers for uniting objects from different houses to tell newstories. But I wonder in what kind of building such a museum could be housed?Any historic space would immediately reflect differently on different objects.I envisage a glass building, like one huge display case, a collection-sizeversion of National Museum Scotland’s ‘Windowon the World’ (about which I have bloggedpreviously) which would allow visitors to walk around and read myriad differentstories. A new Trust for a new age?

A fine specimen

2012-02-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

I am ashamed to say that today was my first trip to the Hunterian Museum in London. Despite working on eighteenth-century collections, being ahistorian of science, and having even attended a lecture in the building in thepast, I had never been up the stairs to the museum. It both was and wasn’t whatI was expecting.

Discussions with friends who have visited had led me to envision awood-lined, gloomy space filled with gruesome specimens in jars, with little orno contemporary interpretation – Pitt Rivers Museum meets the Ministry of Magic from Harry Potter. What I found was a clear, bright space with rows of intriguingcases and jars, extensively labelled with excellent supporting material. Acrosstwo floors, the outer walls put the eighteenth-century surgeon John Hunter andhis collection in context, from his era to the present day, discussing changesin surgery, medicine, collecting and the history of the collection itself. Ihad no idea that a large proportion of it was destroyed by bombing in WWII.

The double-sided central quadrangle of cases, called ‘The CrystalGallery,’ which stretches up bridging the two floors, displays the vastspecimen collection thematically according to the anatomy or pathologythey exemplify. These pieces of flesh in jars of slightly yellowing liquid aresurprisingly beautiful and show fascinating comparisons across species. Eachspecimen is briefly labelled. I felt that some of the language was a little tooclinical in its attempt at brevity, and therefore left me unsure what I waslooking at. But, I was quite happy enjoying the visual effect and the feel ofthe stacks of jars rising to the ceiling around me, all overlooked by busts ofHunter and Sir Joseph Banks at either end of the gallery. Separate smallgalleries deal with the paintings and surgical instruments that also form partof the collection. I would have liked to see these more integrated.

It is possible to get specimen ‘fatigue’ at the Hunterian due to thesheer volume of the collections. I did also feel that there was more contextualinformation than I could really assimilate – I will have to go back. But,overall I felt the museum struck a good balance between curious objects andmodern explanation. A fine specimen of the historic collection brought bang upto date.

Practice makes Perfect

2012-01-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I went to the stunning Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination show at the British Library. Thecurators have created a tour de force,bringing out the jewels of the manuscript collections, demonstrating not onlythe quality and range of their holdings, but also the commissioning andcollecting practices of the British monarchs behind these texts. We see thecomplicated history of such objects from the medieval context behind theircreation, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment discourses that led the Britishmonarchy to collect and preserve them. My personal favourite was the map by Matthew Paris which shows the pilgrimage route to the Holy Land via keyEuropean cities. The best type of interactive alongside the manuscript alsobrings this map to life.

But, if you look closely, this show also tells you some interestingthings about changing practice once these manuscripts entered the moreinstitutional museum environment, which is what interests me here. Many of thepages on display featured a red ‘Museum Britannicum’ stamp, harking back towhen they were part of the earliest founding collections of the British Museumin the 1750s and 1820s. This shows the eighteenth-century changes which ledGeorges II and IV to give these treasures to the British nation, rather thankeeping them for personal aggrandisement. Many such stamps, however, are bangslap in the middle of an illuminated page. If you read The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey it’s clear how greatthe security risk to such pages can be, even in a fortress like the BritishLibrary, and therefore how helpful it can be to mark them. Yet, affecting theintegrity of the object with such a stamp is something which we would never dotoday. Conservation and display practices have changed too. Think about one ofmy favourite objects in the V&A collections: the giant fig leaf which theVictorians added to protect the modesty of their cast of Michelangelo’s David.Likewise, conservators frown on the browning varnish which ‘protected’ oilpaintings in the nineteenth century, and collections managers despair at the1970s policies which disposed of ‘duplicates’ in once whole historic numismaticcollections.

Yet, our current practices are also controversial. Tate Britain’s recentJohn Martin show (discussed in arecent post) featured, extensively restored, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, damaged by water in the1920s, of which 20% had to be repainted. This is now done in such a way thatmodern changes remain visible and reversible while maintaining the overall‘feel’ of the work. But the question remains whether this should still bedisplayed as solely John Martin’s work. What will we be saying about suchpractices in fifty years’ time? If this blog, or its next cyberspaceincarnation, is still going, I shall let you know.

Small Miracles

2012-01-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

In December I posted an enthusiastic blog about the Wellcome Collection’s Charmed Life show. Irevisited last weekend and, finally, also saw it’s paired show Infinitas Gracias: Mexican Miracle Paintings,which friends had told me was the better of the two. Regulars of this blog willknow that I am an admiring fan of the Wellcome’s exhibition team; so I found ita minor miracle to have elements that disappointed me in this second show.

The first two rooms, I should stress were fascinating, showing a wealthof these small paintings commissioned to commemorate the intercession of asaint in the drama of an ordinary life: saving a crop of a loved one, finding a lostanimal, preventing an accident. Each had a simple label translating the text,and I found it impossible not to look at and read carefully every one. Yet,I felt that the third and fourth rooms which put these in the context ofspecific Mexican religious sites, lacked depth and felt rather like spacefillers. The display narrative was too disjointed across the show as a whole.

Given the power of the paintings themselves, just as evocative as theLovett amulet collection across the corridor, I would have liked to have seen apaired artistic response. The Wellcome blog is in fact hosting six modern illustrators’responses to ‘miracles’ submitted by visitors to the show, but I would haveenjoyed this much more in the gallery space. This is the kind of thoughtful,contemporary angle that I have come to expect from the Wellcome, and which Ifelt, for once, this exhibition itself sadly lacked.

From the sublime to the practical

2012-01-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

What better way to fight the January blues than a culture hit inLondon on a bright, frosty spring day? My Sunday started with a trip to Hogarth’s House in Chiswick, PhD tourism really, which you can see and readabout here. Then followed a surprisingly rewarding trip to Tate Britain, as Isqueezed into the last day of John Martin: Apocalypse.

This was surprisingly rewarding because I had no idea of the breadthof Martin’s interests and talents. Most people are aware of his huge, sublimeand apocalyptic biblical scenes (I referenced one, in fact, back in July, in apost about the RA Summer Show). These are indeed spectacular in the ‘flesh’ butI, for one, had no idea of Martin’s other passionate work to avoid contemporary, urbanapocalypse by re-designing the London sewers, long before the famous andlong-serving constructions by Bazalgette. Incidentally, I read a verycompelling novel recently about the Victorian sewers, the Crimean War,self-harm and natural history, The Great Stink by Clare Clark. There is something of the claustrophobic horror whichthis novel conjures in Martin’s most apocalyptic paintings of the worldconsumed by fire and darkness. Yet works like The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum also show an intenselevel of detail in Martin’s attempt to represent the two ancient cities asaccurately as possible.

It is interesting to see Martin’s seemingly easy jump from moreClaudian pastoral scenes featuring small, allegorical figures in peacefullandscapes – painted at both the beginning and end of his career – to suchfigures overwhelmed by rugged, sublime nature in his huge works in oil. Herepresents a more ‘romantic’ vision, but also one fearful of human chaos anddestruction at the dawn of the industrial age. Yet Martin’s highly accomplishedengravings and mezzotints show an engagement and interest in these more mechanical,mass-produced forms of art, just as his sewer plans sought to bring art to thesanitary lives of the mass producers themselves. One particularly successfulroom recreates the kind of sound, light and effect shows that accompanied hislarge paintings on tour and, I’d imagine, brought both beauty and terror to industrialisinglives.

These seemed to me like a type of cinema, and the paintings do evokeimages of sci-fi films, video games, and blockbuster battle scenes drippingwith life, colour and activity. Yet it was the juxtaposition of these epicswith the quiet watercolours and careful sewer plans which struck me. From thesublime to the practical, Martin was meticulous about his detail and his populareffect, and was eminently a man of his age.

Already There! Already Where?

2012-01-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

I wrote in October about my very enjoyable visit to Nottingham Contemporary, which was a recce for a lecture which I gave in December about the history of collecting and classification, linking to Klaus Weber's curated show Already There! My talk is now available as a podcast online for anyone who has an hour to spare. Please do have a listen. Thanks to Nottingham Contemporary for inviting me.

Headlong

2012-01-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

One of the downsides of doing a PhD (and not commuting an hour and ahalf to work every day) is that I rarely seem to have time to readfiction. I have therefore read little (and nothing relevant to this blog) sincemy last post on The Museum of Innocence.But, recently, I have finished a not unrelated novel, Headlong, by Michael Frayn.

This work also considers the strange emotive power of objects, oneobject to be precise, and also pivots around a car crash. But this car crashdoes not establish the power of a collection of objects like Pamuk’s museum,rather it destroys the painting around which Frayn’s novel revolves, bringingit the different mythical status which belongs only to famous artworks whichare now lost. Headlong is the storyof Martin Clay, a youngish, fledgling art historian who discovers, in a rundowncountry pile, what he increasingly convinces himself is a lost painting fromPeter Breughel’s The Months. His raceto establish the scholarship behind this attribution and to win for himselffame, a benevolent role in the art world, and a small fortune involve somehighly dubious, and increasingly dramatic, dealings with the painting and it’sowner. He is plunged ‘headlong’ into a series of lies and decisions, which seehim wrestling constantly with his inner scholar to gain the strength to simply walkaway from the painting.

What the novel beautifully shows, therefore, is the compulsionexperienced in scholarship when you are drawn by the tantalizing scent of a newsource. The more Martin investigates, the more he becomes obsessed with thepainting, and begins to see it as ‘his’ by right. At the end, he is unable todistinguish the priority of saving the Breughel or his friend/mistress (a relationshiphe is similarly unable to distinguish properly) from the burning, crashed car.Frayn pulls the reader into a Breughelian world of detail and colour, bringingboth the context and the paintings vividly to life. You are left believing thatthe painting exists, and wondering why Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus features on the dust jacketinstead. This leaves me unsure whether including other illustrations would aidor hinder the reader’s idea of the painting.

Despite the irritatingly Olympian quantities of travel and research thatMartin is supposedly able to achieve in a day, not to mention the level of incomeat his disposal for impromptu train travel, Frayn’s novel paints a colourfulimage of the joys and dangers of scholarship, and the strong emotions which sourcesand objects can arouse. It is almost on a par with the incomparable Possession by A.S. Byatt, incidentally, recently dramatisedon Radio 4.

All hanging out at the Guggenheim

2012-01-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

A new venture for the New Year. In the time-honoured manner of guest editors on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, I am hosting a 'guest' blog. This is something I would like to do regularly, featuring exhibitions which I can only visit by proxy. The first contribution comes from Dr. Gregory Lim, my regular companion at many exhibitions featured in this blog ...

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Until January 22^nd 2012, the Guggenheim in New York is hosting a retrospective of almost the entire catalogueof works (either originals or reproductions) by the provocative sculptorMaurizio Cattelan. All,as the exhibition is concisely entitled, does not, however, adhere to thestandard gallery format. Instead of using the wall space of the ascending,helical ramp in the rotunda for which the Guggenheim is so famous and which soreadily lends itself to a linear, sequential display,nearly 200 works of art are suspended from the central oculus and dangle in a seeminglyhaphazard and perilous fashion in the usually vacant central void.

Cattelan, who hasnever shied away from controversy (famous works on display include life-sizemodels of Adolf Hitler kneeling as if in supplication or prayer, and Pope JohnPaul II being struck by a meteorite), has deliberately and ingeniouslyflouted the conventional rules of curatorship. Suspending the sculptures allowsthem to be viewed from novel angles and this experience is enhanced by thespiral shape of the Guggenheim walkway. Further exhibits are revealed to viewas visitors ascend, and can be seen in ever-changing juxtapositions, contexts,and relationships with the surrounding objects. These novel interactions havebeen carefully created by placement of the sculptures within three-dimensionalspace because, despite the initial illusion of chaotic disarray, they graduallyresolve into some degree of form, structure, and order.

Nevertheless, inherentproblems exist. The viewer is restricted to the walkway and cannot move around, or get as close to the sculptures as one might in a ‘normal’gallery. Furthermore, the exhibits lose some of their independent meaning and provocativepower, and are at risk of being reduced to constituent parts of a tumblingcascade of artwork. Admittedly, Cattelan has maintained his reputation forinnovation and disrespect of the establishment; with each sculpture hanging asif with a noose around its neck, he likens this exhibition to a mass executionof his art. This departure from convention undoubtedly suits these items andthis artist very well. Although each exhibit might have surrendered some ofits individuality to create the profound overall effect, my time at theGuggenheim was unquestionably a visually stimulating way to ‘hang out’.

My (Christmas) window on the world

2011-12-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the holiday season, I have made a new set of photos, of shop windows, featuring some of my favourite festive decorations. Merry Christmas from Spoons on Trays.

A beautiful face in the crowd

2011-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I was one of what felt like thousands of people whoattended the Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan exhibition at the National Gallery. I am alwaysslightly sceptical about blockbuster exhibitions, especially ones so hyped asthe Leonardo, but had determined togo with an open mind, and plenty of energy to combat the crowds.

The gallery have tried to do something similar themselves, byminimising wall text, and instead giving the visitor all the painting labels ina fat exhibition booklet, and putting more emphasis on the audioguide. I havediscussed (read ranted about?) audioguides here before, so needless to say I didnot get one. It seems ridiculous to me to make visitors pay an extra £4 or £5to get the information required for an exhibition for which they have alreadybought a ticket. The effect of the guides was, of course, to make most visitorscrawl slowly around the walls of each gallery in a long queue, staring absentlyat a picture while being told about it. This exacerbated the effect of thecrowds, but if you were prepared to dip in and out against the crowd actuallyafforded the possibility for some close-up scrutiny of the works.

This was eminently necessary to follow the narrative of theexhibition, which looks at the development of a selection of da Vinci’s workswhile at the Milanese court, through preparatory drawings, paintings, and worksby his pupils and associates. There are some beautiful things here. His Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (The Lady with an Ermine), loaned from the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow being a notableexample, whose serene expression belies the scrum in front of her. There isalso a stunning selection of drapery studies. However, the overall effect ofthe hang is to make the drawings appear dingy and uninteresting in comparisonto the paintings, and make the quality of the da Vincis eminently visibleagainst his associates. Both, therefore, appear to be largely exhibitionfiller, which is a shame for the drawings. Given the work which the labels didto connect the works, I was also sad to see few of the audioguidees lookingfrom one to another. Perhaps the pressure of the perimeter queue made movingagainst the crowd too daunting.

It was wonderful to see the two versions of The Virgin of the Rocks in one room, and to look closely at thechanges between the two, in the context of the surrounding drawings. Thecurators have also added a fascinating seventh room (which, being up in theSunley Room in the main gallery rather than the Sainsbury Wing space, was much quieterso sadly seemed to have eluded many visitors) pulling together the drawings forda Vinci’s famous The Last Supper.However, the surprise of this extra room, made clear to me how much NationalGallery exhibitions now seem to follow a formula from masterpiece to filler,and how this overwhelmed rather than enhanced the undeniably beautiful facesamongst the crowd.

Utterly Charming

2011-12-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

I have always been a fan of the Wellcome Collection. The trademark mixof art and science that gives such life and interest to their exhibitions isjust what I aspire to. They always manage to give their shows both breadth anddepth while keeping them visually stunning and with a spark of unusualinterest.

The current small show Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects is possibly the best yet. It has been selected by the medallic artistFelicity Powell from the Edward Lovett collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum.This collection of amulets comprises small, eclectic, and unassuming objectscarried in the pockets of Victorian Londoners. Powell has selected herfavourites and arranged them in a horseshoe shape cabinet at the centre of theexhibition, in thematic and aesthetic groups with somewhat whimsical titleslike ‘Foodstuffs and Journey.’ The flowing display gives the objects a vitalpower lacking, I felt, in the similarly conceived installation Stirring the Swarm which I saw last weekat Nottingham Castle.

Around the walls, Powell has picked out some key amulets, a smallcircle of paper on which is written the Lord’s prayer in minute script, forexample. Added to these is Samuel Johnson’s ‘touchpiece’ against the king’sevil from the British Museum collections; also, Powell’s own exquisite seriesof works in wax on mirror backs. Medallic in form, but made more vulnerable bythe use of wax, these capture the desperate, hopeful essence of the amuletswith a series of heads (resembling the artist’s own) unravelling intotentacles, tears, trees, honeycombs, or hands producing glowing strands ofcoral.

Two haunting films in a second room show the ‘sleight of hand’ behindthe show, combining one series of close-ups of the process of producing thesepieces, and one inter-layering images of the amulets with MRI, PET and CT-scans of Powell’sbody. The Wellcome’s message of the unsettling and eclectic human response toillness and adversity is here compelling, thought-provoking, and utterlycharming.

Powerfully made

2011-12-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

I hate to disagree with my mother, but that is what I found myselfdoing on Sunday during a trip to the V&A. One of their two excellentexhibitions at the moment is The Power of Making, looking at the presence of craft practices and products in modern-daylife, and exploring the materials and methods behind these. The exhibition isstaged jointly with the Crafts Council.

I felt it was a small but powerful show, which marshalled a visuallystimulating range of craft pieces from furniture to jewellery, boats to bionicbody parts, dresses to sugar sculptures. It made interesting relationshipsbetween the craft practices behind these and managed to give a sense of thematerials without being able to touch the pieces. It gave a sense of theproducers as both artists and makers, working between studio and industry. Iparticularly liked the set of three screens which showed a close-focus film ofthe artists at work on the objects in the show. But, then this was similar towhat I try to do with my ‘objects’ photostream opposite.

As a maker herself, my mother comes at the show, of course, from avery different angle to me who, if I can claim any specialism, would approach it as a curator/collections person. I enjoyed the visual effect of thepieces juxtaposed up the walls of the gallery, and felt it gave a good sense ofthe range and power of contemporary craft. This is, of course, old hat toanyone in the world themselves who has known this power for years, and finds anexhibition like this somewhat limited and/or banal; with a simplistic messageabout the power of craft and the nature of making in the 21^st century.Perhaps one of the featured makers acting as a joint curator would have addednuance to this exhibition?

Luckily, we were in accord over the other special exhibition, Postmodernism, which stages animpressively clear and simple account of the origins and growth of postmoderndesign, art, fashion, music and film. The curators have used the exhibition spaceitself to power the narrative, using reconstructed architecture, billboardadverts, neon signs and scaffolding within the construction. Equally, they haveused film and music within the show to great effect, transporting the visitorto the 1980s and 90s. Powerful stuff.

Dance for the Camera

2011-12-11T17:10:00.001-08:00

Itseems that Sadler’s Wells are not new in the relationships between dance andphotography which they drew, and I so enjoyed, in Undance last week. In fact, the artist Edgar Degas was making justsuch connections over a century ago between his paintings and sculptures, andthe new photographic technology that was emerging at the end of the nineteenthcentury. I learnt this at the Royal Academy’s brilliant special exhibition Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement.

Thisexhibition was, sadly, very poorly advertised I thought, as all of thepublicity material I have seen featured only one of Degas’ well-known picturesof ballet practices, and gave no indication of the ground-breakingrelationships which the exhibition has made between his art and contemporaryphotography. It tells a very convincing story of Degas’ initial hostilereaction to the static requirements of early portrait photography, and thengrowing interest in the possibilities created by techniques like photosculptureby Francois Willeme and, indeed, Muybridge’s Human Locomotion series. This is taken on into Degas’ own work withphotography, and to looking at how his style of painting and sculptingresponded to these experiences. Particularly striking is the reconstruction ofDegas’ series of sketches for the sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, showing how they develop the figure from all sides asDegas’ observed her. If only the sketches had been reproduced to the scale ofthe statue surrounding it rather than on a small text panel.

As aproto-historian of science, I was pleased to see the inclusion of actualphotographic technology in the show, including a camera which Degas may haveused himself, but was disappointed to see little connection made between thecameras and the brilliant films and photographs displayed alongside thepaintings. Linking the medium more firmly to the machine and therefore to waysof seeing through it would have added a useful layer to this very effectivepicturing of movement.

A Passage on India

2011-12-08T15:23:00.001-08:00

TheNatural History Museum has recently ‘launched’ it’s Centre for Arts and Humanities Research, a brilliant initiative to make scholars outside of thenatural sciences aware of the breadth and wealth of the NHM collections, and inturn to get those collections used more creatively. One of their initiatives isa residency for a modern artist.

Iworked for CAHR the year before last, at the beginning of their ‘Nathaniel Wallich and Indian Natural History’ project conducting a collections survey ofthe South-East Asian natural history drawings. I spent a very happy couple ofmonths working on the collections at the NHM, Kew and the British Library, andthen writing up my report. I was therefore equally happy to relive thatexperience on Tuesday at the conference of the same name held as part of theproject, I particularly enjoyed hearing what Kapil Raj has achieved with his expertresearch founded on my basic survey.

I wasparticularly struck by one speaker’s comment that such natural historydrawings, mostly commissioned and collected by East India Company employees,were based on a ‘capitalist aesthetic’ that required them to be both useful andbeautiful. They needed to be both attractive objects and an accurate record ofthe flora and fauna being discovered. Not only this but their attraction wasitself utilitarian, as it formed part of EIC ‘advertising’ in England of thebeauties of the sub-continent, and allowed a whole range of specimens to enterour parks and gardens and form well-loved decorative motifs on our fabrics andchina.

Whatoccurred to me was that these drawings’ beauty is still proving utilitarian, asit is the stunning nature of such collections which undoubtedly helps CAHR togain funding for its important projects. Lets hope that the ‘capitalistaesthetic’ continues to operate for years to come.

OnDance

2011-12-04T14:26:00.001-08:00

Thenames Mark Wallinger, Richard Serra and Eadweard Muybridge don’t usually springto mind when you think of ballet. But these three artists were behind theballet that I went to see at Sadler’s Wells on Friday as part of an intriguingdouble-bill.

Theshow opened with a visually stunning vocal piece called ‘Twice through theHeart’ designed by OpenEnded Group. The single female singer existed in aseries of intense squares of light like an Edward Hopper painting; but alsobehind a screen on which nebulous 3D images of rooms or of writing appeared asshe sang. These reminded me of some of Tacita Dean’s blackboard images. It wasa spine-tingling piece.

Theballet followed this: a collaboration between the choreographer Wayne McGregor,composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, and artist Mark Wallinger. It was built aroundRichard Serra’s verb list from the 1960s and Muybridge’s The Human and Animal Locomotion Photographs. The eleven-strongtroupe of dancers appeared in skin-coloured body suits in front of aMuybridge-style grid. A projection of them followed their moves on the rearscreen creating a mirror image. As they danced in and out of different groupsand pairings they resembled multiple Muybridge snapshots of the human figure inmotion, but they also became like Anthony Gormley statues, plasticine figures, faminevictims or soldiers; a complex association with the ‘UN’ signs projected byWallinger at the sides of the stage.

Window on the World

2011-11-27T15:28:00.001-08:00

I’ve always been curiously drawn to thephrase from the Sound of Music,‘Where the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.’ This kept comingto mind on my visit to the newly re-vamped National Museum of Scotland thisweekend, about which I’d heard so much. I was up in Edinburgh for a verystimulating conference run by the AAH on ‘Madness and Revolt.’ Not havingvisited ‘Auld reekie’ for about fifteen years, this gave me a welcomeopportunity to stay on and soak up some culture and atmosphere.

The new NMS space is stunning. On abracing, cold Edinburgh day the museum was packed with families and friendslearning and enjoying. But, the Grand Gallery, reminiscent of a giant Victorianbirdcage, managed to maintain an air of calm, elegance even as an enthusiasticfolk duo kicked off the build up to St. Andrew’s day celebrations at itscentre. This large space has opened up the museum, so that all the galleriesare enticingly visible from the centre. The simple theming around the ‘Natural World,’ ‘World Cultures,’ ‘Art and Design’ and ‘Science and Technology’ (theScotland section is not visible from the grand gallery and has, in any case,been open for some time) makes these easy to navigate, while also maintaininglinks across sections. My only qualm was that the carefully structuredorientation was not always immediately clear within galleries, such that Ifound some initially confusing.

The displays are simple but effective. Inthe ‘Natural World,’ animals, birds and reptiles stand on ‘islands’ on the groundfloor grouped by their characteristics, and reach up to the higher galleries.Above them, other specimens and skeletons fly across the space. ‘World Cultures’ showcases different environments, religious practices, and artisticlegacies, while highlighting common cultural concerns with performance anddisplay. Some particularly effective interactives bring out the smells ofdifferent cultures. ‘Art and Design’ looks at how taste and skill have changedover the last 400 odd years, from the altarpiece to the mini, majolica toelectric guitar, highlighting key figures and developments. Every section makesclear the breadth and beauty of the NMS’s collections.

But why the Sound of Music? A striking feature of the new museum, is a ‘Window on the World’ wall which covers one complete side of the grand gallery. Thisshowcases 800-odd objects from the collections, juxtaposed in small groups.Propellers sit next to shells, armour next to railway signs, porcelain withbottled specimens, and typewriters with Isnik tiles. In front of each section,a simply-designed terminal allows you to learn more about each group ofobjects. This is a wonderful window on the NMS, but also, for me, on how simplyand effectively such museums can make the breadth of their collections beautifullyclear to the public, and how modern museums can make the most of their pasts as‘cabinets of curiosity.’

Art against the Wall

2011-11-27T15:17:00.001-08:00

I was sad last Saturday to miss a one-dayconference at the Courtauld which considered the relationship between a pieceof art and the wall on which it hangs. It had caught my eye because it relatesinto the main figure in my PhD research. But, I can’t really complain as Imissed the conference because I was in Berlin, a wonderful, eclectic city whichis now firmly in my top 5.

I did keep thinking about the topic of theconference, though, especially at two highlight points in my trip. The firstwas the East Side Gallery, which has preserved a stretch of the Berlin wall andinvited a whole host of artists to graffiti a section of this. The result is astimulating outdoor gallery, with contributions ranging from the riotouslycolourful to monochrome simplicity, and overtly political to abstract oreminently personal. It succeeds in preserving the wall as an irreplaceablehistoric landmark, but links Berlin’s troubled past to it’s vibrant present.It’s impossible not to photograph almost every section, or to resist posingwith some of them …

My second ‘wall’ experience was in thePergamon Museum, gazing in awe at the Babylonian mosaics that form part of the 'Processional Way' and 'Ishtar Gate.' I had wanted to seethese since learning about them in the British Museum’s Babylon: Myth and Reality exhibition back in 2008-9, but was not prepared for their sheerawesomeness (in the true sense of the word). My friend confessed to me afterour visit, that when I had said we must visit the ‘Babylonian tiles’ she hadimagined a few bathroom-sized tiles in a glass case and had thought this wastypical of me in museums (see the explanation of the name of this blog whichI’ve now added above).This made me realize how inadequate anything I could say would be to give thesepieces justice. So here I give you 'Berlin against the wall' in pictures, unable to do justice to itin mere words.

Spoils of War

2011-11-22T02:54:00.001-08:00

Thanks to a colleague for alerting me to this Guardian news item:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/20/grand-tour-loot-presa-inglesa

This certainly says something interesting about the power of objects in the past, and possibly links to what I said before about the recent riots? I'll certainly be going to the Ashmolean next year!

Vermeer's Women?

2011-11-15T01:53:00.001-08:00

Recently, I have been doing quite a lot ofreading and thinking about Michael Fried’s concept of ‘absorptivity.’ Althoughhe focuses on French genre painting of the 1750s onwards, especially Chardin’s,his analysis of such paintings as portraying a new absorption in the self, inthe everyday task, oblivious of the viewer, which is yet still orientated as akind of performance, seemed obviously relevant to me at the Fitzwilliam Museum’scurrent show, Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence.

It’s contentious whether the title isaccurate. For ‘Vermeer’s Women,’ onlya handful of the works are by Johannes Vermeer. But, the curators havecertainly succeeded in creating the feeling of Vermeer in the exhibition. Themuted wall colour, soft lighting, and secluded corners all help to create thecalm, translucent atmosphere of a Vermeer. In such context, it’s just a shamethat the show is so popular and therefore rather crowded!

The exhibition is nonetheless compelling.Themed around ‘invitation,’ ‘threshold,’ and ‘sanctum,’ it considers thedomestic female spaces so beloved of Vermeer and his contemporaries, and theglimpses of lifestyles and attitudes which these reveal. The works they have marshalledare alluringly beautiful, epitomized by Samuel van Hoogstraten’s View of an Interior, in which soft lightdraws the eye through an open door towards a portrait of a woman reading aletter, turned away from the viewer, secret and silent.

The Museum as Tomb?

2011-10-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

TheBritish Museum has recently been hosting increasingly interesting shows thatmix contemporary art with their collections. In 2008, Statuephilia features the work of five contemporary sculptors inand around the museum, from Marc Quinn to Anthony Gormley, with Damien Hirst’s intervention in the Enlightenment Gallery being the most effective to my mind.Now the museum has gone a step further, inviting the artist Grayson Perry to curatehis own show.

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, despite my first impressions, is charming,effective and very thought provoking. The premise, which could be betterintroduced at the start of the exhibition, is that it is Perry’s highlypersonal engagement with the collections, related to his teddy bear, Alan Measles, and a pilgrimage to Germany on which he took him. Thus, the displaysare themed to ideas like pilgrimage, sexuality, relics, cultural conversation,and each include a mixture of Perry’s own works with and in response to BritishMuseum objects. His ceramics in this show are particularly exquisite. They makevisually very successfully his argument about the importance of thecraftsmanship that went into these objects, as well as the culturallyconstructed meanings that surround them, and how these are changed in themuseum. The centerpiece of the show is ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’constructed like an ancient burial with a large sculpture by Perry at thecentre. This is a ship of objects copied from the collections, with a hand-axeat its centre, sailing into the unknown of life and meaning.

Appropriately,questions inherent to Perry’s exhibition were also raised by Sir Mark Jones inhis Francis Haskell Memorial Lecture at the National Gallery on Friday. SirMark gave a provocative talk about ‘Museums, Collecting and CompetitiveDisplay,’ in which he argued that the large, expensive modern museum hasreplaced the cathedral as the centre of national competitive display. As such,they act to sanctify wealth and beauty, and as a sort of ritual deposition forprivate collections. Collectors therefore remain the key personalities behindpublic collections. Objects are not ‘dead’ in museums because they arefulfilling their ultimate role as objects of display for both these collectorsand for the institution. This is a self-acknowledged ‘useless’ role performedby museums as conspicuous consumption for a wealthy, successful society.

Yet, ifwe think about these arguments in conjunction with Perry’s show, we see thatmuseums are also repositories of meaning. In Sir Mark’s picture I am leftunsure what the role of the curator is, but in Perry’s the curator is centralto keeping the multi-layered meanings alive. It is this which gives collectionspersonality, not just the artists or collectors behind them.

Branching out to other Websites

2011-10-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned the 'Things' Seminar programme on this blog before. Today a discussion piece that I've written in relationship to the series is on the University of Cambridge website, all about the riots and why objects and consumption are as important now as they were in the eighteenth century. It also talks about my hero, the artist William Hogarth. Please take a look ...

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/uncategorized/things-are-getting-complicated/

Spending time with my Contemporaries

2011-10-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

One ofthe good cultural phenomena that came out of the new millennium was the growthof contemporary art galleries and collections across the UK. With the advent of big Lottery funding and the boom in funding for big capital projects from otherarts bodies, a number of exciting new spaces have appeared in the last decade.If Tate Modern was sorely needed in London, then so were the Baltic inGateshead, Turner Contemporary in Margate, Nottingham Contemporary inNottingham, and so on. This month’s Museums Journal features an excellent interview with the Baltic’s current director.

I’mashamed to say that I had visited none of these regional contemporarycollections, until today when Iwent to Nottingham Contemporary. If this is indicative of the other newgalleries, then I am hopeful for the future of both contemporary art andregional spaces. Nottingham Contemporary, in its eye-catching, purpose-built,gold and green building has the luxury of starting with the kind of visitorfacilities which older institutions are putting expensive work into creating.The entrance hall is filled with an attractive shop, stocked with well-designedand affordable objects as well as a good selection of books. The ground floor provides a trendy bar/restaurant with an enviably good menu and a friendlyvibe. On a Sunday afternoon it was full of groups enjoying leisurely lunch ortea. Likewise, large windows in the stairwell showed me a large flexible eventsspace, and open-plan offices. The importance of such facilities to attractingthe right kind of visitor cannot be over-estimated. While we don’t want ‘an ace caff, with quite a nice museum attached,’ these are clearly helping to pull in the crowdsto Nottingham Contemporary’s shows.

And theshows on today were equally impressive. The four galleries currently presenttwo complementary shows ‘If you leave me I’m not coming’ is a solo show by theGerman artist Klaus Weber; and ‘Already There!’ a collection of objectsborrowed from other collections which he has curated. I went to see these,because of a talk that I will be giving in the gallery in December on how‘Already There’ fits into the history of collecting and classification, so moreon this will feature in a later blog. Suffice it to say that the two shows makeinteresting relationships between contemporary art and more ‘traditional’museum objects, older means of display and interpretation, and contemporarycurating. A third small show features old ‘cabinets of curiosity’ with drawersfilled by a commissioned artist, for the next 6 months Ruth Claxton and AndrewWilson. Claxton’s selection of art postcards, from which she has cut and bentlayers to create rays emanating from the people pictured are truly striking.

With theTurner Prize due to be hosted at the Baltic this year, only the second time ithas left London, I’m hopeful of more rewarding time spent with mycontemporaries.

Size Matters

2011-10-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

On a whirlwind trip to theNational Gallery recently I was reminded of a phenomenon that always used tointerest me when I worked there as a Gallery Assistant. I went to look at Rooms6, 7 and 8, which have been beautifully refurbished and hung since my last visit.These rooms house the Italian Renaissance paintings, notably an impressivecollection by Raphael.

Among these is one of the gems of theNational Gallery’s collection The Madonna of the Pinks. It features on the ‘highlights’ tour so is often the visitors’main aim when they enter room 8. But, they barely ever spot the paintingstraight away, and often have to ask the Gallery Assistant where it is. This isbecause The Madonna of the Pinks is atiny jewel of a painting, only 27.9 x 22.4 cm. It is dwarfed by most of the other paintings inthe room. Yet, in the tiny pictures in the visitor guide it is the same size asevery other highlight. Size makes a real different to people’s expectations ofand reactions to the painting. Thrown by this Raphael’s size, many visitorsalmost recoil from it, which always saddens me, as it’s softness of expressionand beautiful colouring make it rightly a highlight.

Similarquestions arose recently in a seminar programme that I am co-convening thisyear at the Centre for Research in the Arts Social Sciences and Humanities(CRASSH) at Cambridge: ‘Things: Material Cultures of the long Eighteenth Century.’In our first session, on 'Artefacts' we discussed the challenges posed by using objects andimages as researchable sites of knowledge. One point which struck me was that aPowerPoint presentation, although vital when discussing objects, reduces (orenlarges) everything to the same size 2D square on the wall. This intrinsicallyaffects our reaction to what we see. I don’t pretend to have a solution to thisproblem, but I’m becoming increasingly aware how much size matters.

Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax … or Prints and Clocks and Typewriters

2011-10-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

When the V&A opened it’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries (one of my favourite places) in 2010, Brian Sewellcomplained in his review for the Evening Standard that the new displayscontained little art and only ‘whimsical curatorial bundlings of shoes andships and sealing wax.’ I thought then that he seemed to be missing the point,that the galleries are trying to show the range of life in the medieval andrenaissance periods, as well as the breadth of the V&A collections, which‘shoes and ships and sealing wax’ precisely do. I thought of this again lastweekend when visiting Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science.

Their new exhibition ‘Eccentricity: Unexpected Objects and Irregular Behaviour’ does everything that Brian Sewellmissed. They have taken the opportunity to showcase the more ‘whimsical’ piecesin the MHS collections, showing the eccentricity of patterns of museumcollecting as well as of the history of science and the objects associated withit. It’s a wonderful little exhibition, mixing well-known and obscure figuresin cases which are as eccentrically organised as the objects. Some focus on aneccentric person like Charles Daubeny, some on an irregular group of objects inthe museum’s collections, like typewriters, including a Chinese one. Alongsidethis run representations of ‘mad’ scientists, including my own favouriteHogarth’s ‘longitude lunatic.’

The interpretation is also nicelyself-reflexive, showing the processes by which odd objects joined thecollections and why these wouldn’t normally be displayed, as well as how theexhibition was put together. It draws visitors out into the permanent displaysinto different stories and questions, and gets you thinking about the status ofobjects in and outside museum collections. It creates a world which Alice woulddefinitely have enjoyed, even if there are no actual shoes, ships or sealing wax.

A feast for the eyes

2011-09-28T16:21:00.001-07:00

Not just spoons on trays, but edible spoons on trays ...

On(or over the)line

2011-09-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

A number of major museums have re-vamped their websites recently, notably the V&A, British Museum, and National Maritime Museum. In some cases this was long-needed. I have long found the National Maritime Museum website counter-intuitive and confusing. The re-vamp has been part of a complete re-brand, attempting to make the mission of the three buildings that the NMM comprises (the maritime galleries, Royal Observatory, and Queen’s House) clearer and to tie them together with a common set of imagery.

All three websites are now stylish and trendy, with large banners featuring images of objects, and lengthy pages divided into grids of stories and information. Most navigation has moved to the bottom of the pages. All feature more interactive elements for virtual visitors to engage with the collections, the staff and the buildings. All feature a simpler text-style, greater access to online ticket sales and shopping and, it would seem, more content in general. So far, so good.

Yet, I am unclear what these revamps have actually added to the visitor experience, apart from making the websites look newer and more fashionable. In most cases these lengthy grids of content are more complicated to read and navigate. I now find it harder to find the collections online sections, which should surely be the point of any of these websites. If they are to create a virtual museum for the visitor, collections online should be at the heart of these. Newer media elements such as blogs, news films and interviews should enhance rather than detracting from the collections, which at the moment, sadly, is what they seem to do.

I learnt at the conference in Germany, mentioned in my last post, about a wonderful collections online project that has been established by the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. This gives the visitor, through a website, access not only to 360° images of all the objects, complete with detailed information, but presents these within the eighteenth-century setting which the museum still boasts. Thus you navigate via the case and shelf arrangements to each object, losing less of the historic experience than in a standard collections online offering. Yet, this incredible resource is hard to find and is not linked at all prominently to the main museum site. This seems indicative of the broader problems with how new museum websites relate to their key content: their collections.

What's in a label?

2011-09-24T03:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve been at a conference in Germany this week, which has involved visits to a whole host of wonderful museums: in Kassel, the Cabinet of Astronomy and Physics, Marble Bath, Gemäldegalerie alte Meister, Murhard Library, and Naturkunder Museum; the Institute of Physics and Astronomy in Göttingen; and the Historical Museum of Frankfurt. This has got me thinking about labels, interpretation and how we use them.

The majority of interpretation in these museums has, of course, been in German and, not speaking German at all, I found this very frustrating at a basic level. When looking at an interesting object your first impulse is to look at the label to find out more. Likewise, on entering a gallery, you look for the orientation panel for an idea of how to approach the space and the displays. Yet, it is so easy to treat an exhibition essentially like an essay, and focus almost exclusively on the text, barely looking at the objects with any real attention. My irritation when I see people doing this has the same foundation as my frustration with audio guides.

In the absence of intelligible labels, you are in fact, forced to look more carefully at the objects, making sense of their function and aesthetics for yourself, and working out your own relationships between them. This makes both you and the displays do more visual work. I had such an experience in the ‘Dialoge’ exhibition at the Gemäldegalerie alte Meister, in which I was forced to combine the displays with the few words I could decipher from the room labels. This meant I really had to look at the paintings, and work hard to see relationship between them. My conclusion was that the exhibition is a ‘dialogue’ between the two contemporary baroque collections put together by the rulers of Kassel and Darmstadt. Any German speakers, please do enlighten me. But, to an extent it doesn’t matter if I’m correct or not as the experience forced me to engage unusually with the art, and come away with a different appreciation of the collections of the Gemäldegalerie alte Meister.

Dispensing happiness

2011-09-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today, in Frankfurt, I made a wonderful discovery. There on the station was a vending machine, not for drinks or snacks, but for modern art! In a sleek black box, were rows of small contemporary artefacts, ranging from jewellery to T-shirts to pencil cases. Prices varied from 1 to upwards of 50 Euros and you could pay by cash or card. It was like a tiny contemporary gallery or museum shop sitting quietly amongst the bagel stalls and ice cream stands.

In order fully to experience this wonder, I bought the cheapest item in the machine: a 1€ white box containing a length of coloured ribbon. Mine was yellow, but the following boxes included blue, red and pink. I enjoyed watching the clean-lined black shelf move up the machine to bring my box carefully to the bottom. But, this made me wonder how successful such a machine can be. I bought the cheapest thing, because I didn’t trust the view that I was getting of anything more expensive. I will keep the ribbon because of the circumstances in which I got it, but otherwise it doesn’t fit with the other more expensive designed objects on sale here. This vending machine is a bizarre mix of a display case and a shop, and is both an exciting mix of both and somehow not quite successful as either. I’d love to see how one was received in St Pancras Station or Westfield.

Heaven knows

2011-09-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

The British Museum have started their next series of special exhibitions, this time on world religions. The first show ‘Treasures of Heaven’ focuses on Christianity, bringing together a host of glorious objects from around the world to consider how Medieval Europeans conceived of, decorated, collected and worshipped religious relics.

The show makes beautiful use of the round Reading Room (which will sadly be looking for a new purpose now that the Paul Hamlyn Library is set to close, and once the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre opens,). The soft lighting invests the space with some of the feeling of a church, enhanced by the soft medieval church music that plays from the centre and encourages you to look up into the golden ceiling. Each beautiful object is given a jewel-like quality by careful spotlighting. The sections and cases are well spaced to give some of the feel of an open church space, and leaving the visitor path enjoyably uncongested.

The display manages to invest these complex religious objects with a sense of reverence, while also maintaining a detached and informative attitude to Christianity as a religion. The principles and purpose of relics are explained simply and clearly through the objects, with the colourful stories of the various saints whose body parts are on display, carefully woven in. I found it odd, however, that so little attempt was made to address the fundamentally interesting question of the value of relics as objects. Given that their religious value stems from their authenticity as body parts of saints, where does their value lie when this authenticity is called into question? How does this relate to their obvious monetary value, lavishly decorated as so many of them are? What does it mean to display such human remains in this museum context? Given so many of the debates happening in museums currently, such questions could have linked these beautiful relics out into the wider museum collections and the other cultures and religions on display.

For me, this would have let them shine all the more.

Paris object-ified

2011-09-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

Observant readers of this blog, will have spotted that I've been in Paris. While there I thought I would create a special set of 'object' photos of Paris from close-up. The set is now on Flickr. Take a look ...

Out of this World

2011-09-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly has been much hyped. It was President Jacques Chirac’s answer to a culturally divided society, which would showcase the arts and cultures not featured in the Louvre.

Much about the MQB is spectacular. The building stands out boldly against Haussman’s Parisian buildings with its bold, modern materials and design, set amongst lush beds of grass. The collections are stunning, showcasing the best art from across the globe, with pieces lit and arranged with care, making them appear jewel-like and magical. The museum is divided into four sections – Oceania, Asia, Africa, and the Americas – and a laudable effort has been made to differentiate cultures and countries within these, showing the breadth of artistic achievements in each region.

Yet, overall, the museum seems to fail in its aim of making disenfranchised French communities feel more included. The lighting and display increase the unreality of many of the objects, which, when combined with the cave-like gallery design, serves to emphasise the otherness not the sameness of the cultures on display. Likewise the guide leaflet’s description of the design as aiming to ‘take you to an entirely different world, away to other continents … no walls, only display cabinets spread like a forest in subdued light,’ and the jungle imagery covering the outer walls of the museum, give an impression of cultures struggling to artistic success out of the dark and the wild. The message seems to be ‘Look how much these other cultures have achieved! Oh, they’re definitely not European, but haven’t they done well nonetheless?’

The collections at the MQB are out of this world, but sadly, with the current curatorial approach, they will stay firmly beyond the boundaries of their own world for most French visitors.

Changing Times

2011-08-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Exciting changes are a-foot at Tate Britain at the moment.

Until 2013, the gallery is undergoing a restoration and expansion project to the south-west corner of the Millbank building, expanding the education space and improving the circulation of visitors to the front of the building. Currently un-seen parts of the fabulous building will also be opened up, bringing back some of its original 1890s glory. The small display of plans and photographic projections by the dome gives a real feel for how the space will work. I am particularly excited to see the effect of the new spiral staircase beneath the dome which will join the ground and basement floors. Likewise the new members room. Museums can gain a huge amount from their members/friends, and Tate Britain's members room has been sadly in need of a re-think (incidentally, this is an area on which the British Museum also falls down).

While all this renovation work is underway, the galleries are also changing. The Turner collection has been given a re-think, setting his works in their 'Romantic' context. The exhibition is refreshing, emphasising the romantic painters as individuals responding to similar influences, rather than as a defined, coherent group, hence 'Romantics' rather than 'The Romantics.' The first room introduces some themes common to these painters - landscape, poetry etc - placing Turner within each context. The next room then stages an 'imaginary exhibition' of paintings that 'Romantics' would have seen on display in contemporary London. Further rooms then place Turner's early and late work in this context, and look at how his innovations were picked up by artists like Constable.

This is a stimulating re-think of what have become slightly tired galleries, and it is good to see Tate Britain re-thinking its displays along with its buildings. The only sad note, for me, is that this does not seem to have extended to the historic British paintings. These collections have been condensed into one room, to make way for a large display of twentieth-century works. Surely this is what Tate Modern is for?

Photographically Speaking

2011-08-11T16:23:00.000-07:00

A single wall towards the back of one of the Sainsbury Centre’s two current photography shows does, with quiet beauty, everything that I have been trying to achieve in my ‘Objects’ photostream.

‘A World Observed’, a retrospective of photos by Dorothy Bohm, is made up of a striking collection of photographs from across the world, of scenery, people, shop windows, torn posters, still lifes and unobserved moments. Moving from black and white to colour photography she captured the essence of so many communities, cultures and eras. This small show of photographs is a visual feast. Her eye for detail and composition is made particularly clear by the series of four photographs of North Norfolk taken specially for the show which capture beautiful but ordinary scenes in Norwich, Wells-next-the-Sea and Sheringham. But, most striking to me, was the single wall hung with a simple grid of Polaroid photographs taken across a number of years. Each shows a close-up, slightly abstracted image of saturated colour, focusing on a flower, a shadow, a piece of furniture or cloth. They give a life and piquancy to each object and, as a whole create a wonderful modern wunderkammer.

The Sainsbury Centre’s other current show is equally rewarding. ‘The Face of the Artist’ showcases a selection of photographs from the Centre’s newly acquired John Hedgecoe collection. Hedgecoe was a unique and renowned portrait photographer who took images of some of the most famous artists of his day, and developed personal relationships with them that shine through in the portraits. Most striking are his series of images of the sculptor Henry Moore, which beautifully evoke the relationship between the man and his sculpture. Some portraits show an artist with his or her work, some focus on simply the face. Hedgecoe’s close up of David Hockney frowning in thick, black-rimmed spectacles is as evocative as the one of Francis Bacon before his painting, or Mary Quant in her sitting room. His portrait of Cecil Beaton with a classical bust can’t but make you smile. As a group, the portraits reveal a photographer who could pull a personality into the camera.

Both the Bohm and Hedgecoe shows are a tribute to the Sainsbury Centre’s usual curatorial flair in putting together beautiful and thought-provoking shows. In pairing the Hedgecoe portraits with works by the artists from the permanent collection, they connect these images out into the galleries. Bohm’s eloquent photographs speak to the collections in their own right.

Feels like Home

2011-07-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog will have spotted that I’m a fan of house museums – especially 18^th century ones – but I have yet to write about them specifically. I think that good house museums give objects the life, character and stimulating interrelationships that are sometimes lost in a didactic museum exhibition. Examples include two of my favourite museums: The Wallace Collection, and the Sir John Soane Museum. The latter is particularly stunning on their candlelit late-night openings.

But, my favourite place in the world is a more modern example – Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge – the house of Jim and Helen Ede – left as it was when they led and entertained the local and national (and sometimes international) art scene. Their house mingles world-renowned artworks with antiques, simple furniture, found objects and plants to create a serene yet stimulating space, which never fails to be a complete joy. The fact that visitors can sit in the chairs and read the books, spending all afternoon quietly contemplating the house and its objects if they wish, makes it feel like home. In this space, the art and objects come alive as loved and valued possessions, assembled by a particular creative mind, as well as for their own aesthetic and natural qualities. The concerts regularly held in the house further enhance the space’s vitality and utter charm.

Every time I visit Kettle’s Yard, I am particularly struck by the bold and atmospheric oil paintings of William Congdon that are in the collection. I have never seen his work elsewhere, and there seems to be very little written about him in English. I wish that Kettle’s Yard would stage an exhibition of his work. While the house is a jewel, I find that the exhibitions in the temporary gallery often feel forced and unconnected, both internally and with the house. The latest show ‘Von Ribbentrop in St Ives: Art and War in the Last Resort’ would be a case in point. Last year’s ‘John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day’ show, however, would be a notable exception. It continued the charmed mix of art, music and creative flair that illuminates Kettle’s Yard, and showcased the kind of exhibitions that can add further magic to such house museums. Sadly, the current ‘Von Ribbentrop’ shows the kind of empty assemblage of objects that leaves bad house museums soulless when they try to force objects together to evoke someone who once lived there.

Among the Crowd

2011-07-25T01:32:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent a thought-provoking two days at the National Maritime Museum, at their ‘Peopling the Past’ conference to coincide with the opening of the new Sammy Ofer Wing.

In a broad sweep of papers, the conference considered how we can tell the story of the past through objects, which is also essentially the over-arching concern of this blog. Two big, ongoing questions emerged from the papers for me. The first was over how we balance the big names and the ordinary man in our historical narratives when we inevitably tend to have more objects associated with the former. The second, related, question was over using new media to address this balance – community projects, new approaches to object display, and crowd sourcing to tell the stories of ordinary people. Three particularly interesting papers discussed such approaches at the Imperial War Museum, Australian National Maritime Museum, and the Museum of London.

New media as a means of widening the scope and audience of museums is something that increasingly interests me. With my ‘Electronic Media Editor’ of the Journal of Museum Ethnography hat on, I can tell you to look out for some excellent reviews of new projects in the 2011 and 2012 volumes of the Journal. These mostly consider websites, however, and I’m now becoming interested in how new media can be used in galleries (as an antidote, perhaps, to audio guides?).This is something that, I think, the National Maritime Museum’s new introductory ‘Voyagers’ gallery in the Sammy Ofer Wing does particularly successfully. Visitors are met by a huge wave construction (which you can see in the photo stream) that fills the front of the gallery, onto which are projected key words moving in a wave pattern, interspersed with images from the archives. This is accompanied by a sound recording of the sea.

Behind this, along the back wall, a single long case tells an introductory story of maritime experience through emotions – anticipation, love, sadness, pride etc – and key figures within each of these. Featured characters include Nelson, John Harrison, Matthew Flinders and other celebrities, but also many lesser-known figures. Both objects and characters come out of the crowd to give a real sense of what the National Maritime Museum collections are about.

As far as the new media initiative is concerned, I think it is a visually spectacular and courageous attempt to harness the powers of technology within the museum space, without detracting from the objects (something which many science museums could learn from). It will depend how well it works and wears as to whether the gallery itself will stand out from the crowd.

(Not) What I would call Art?

2011-07-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is traditionally one of the high points of the British cultural calendar and, of recent years, the organisers and RAs seem to be making a concerted effort to appeal to younger and wider audiences. This year is no different with visitors greeted by a large reflective sculpture by Jeff Koons on entering the Burlington House courtyard (which you can see in the photo stream).

There are several things that I love about the Summer Show. Firstly, I love the more bustling atmosphere that it tends to give to Burlington House, with the indefinable whiff of commercial excitement which the ability to buy the works on show offers. Those little red dots on increasing numbers of the works certainly effect the way that visitors compare works, whether for good or ill. Secondly, I love watching the range of people who visit the show, and how they interact with the work. One conversation that I overheard this year was between a 6 or 7 year-old boy and his father. The boy said to his father that a series of paintings was ‘not what I would call art’ and the father replied that he was ‘surely too young to be so closed minded.’ But, I think this is, surely, what the Summer Show is all about. Its point is to bring together the full spectrum of contemporary art from both RAs and submissions and to get people thinking about how these work together, and what they do and don’t like. The commercial aspect is the most obvious way in which people show their opinions, but I think it should be a space for such discussions.

Thirdly, and relatedly, I love the variety of works on show, and the range of curatorial approaches and hang styles which appear. (Although I was sad to note that film pieces were relegated again to a single, hard-to-view screen in the last gallery, after being given such prominence last year). It is a fairly new departure, I think, to have each room curated by, and credited to, specific RAs but this helps to add a personal touch. This year they seem have been more adventurous with their curation, creating more dense and diverse hangs. I think this works very well, widening the traditionally dense hang in the Small West and Print Rooms which are beloved of so many regulars, including myself. Displays this year have moved more towards the style of the architecture room, which is invariably my favourite, and which always showcases a stimulating mix of models, drawings, collages and photographs of both realistic and fantastical buildings.

Fourthly, I love the absurdly pompous text panels that introduce each gallery. But I love these from the privileged perspective of feeling that I can view and understand the works on show in my own way, and from a satirical angle. Overall I feel that these let the show down badly. While they add a personal touch in introducing the RA behind the room’s curation and giving them a direct voice, this hardly welcomes the visitor when, as in Room V this year, the text says that the room is ‘only for people who are sensitive, intelligent and thoughtful. No one else will enjoy it.’ They certainly won’t when thus patronised. Nor do the majority of the texts elucidate the rooms, but instead discuss the works in an over-abstract manner. One initiative this year, by Michael Craig-Martin, has been to curate the Lecture Room solely of works by new, ‘up and coming’ RAs which is certainly successful in showing a meaty range of work, including some arresting pieces by Anthony Gormley, Cornelia Parker and Anish Kapoor. Yet, the text panel has Craig-Martin commenting that ‘there isn’t a dud work here’ in comparison, it implies, to the other rooms in the show. What message does this give to visitors on either the RAs’ attitude to submitted work or on how they should approach the works during their visit?

To guide or not to guide?

2011-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Building on my last post, one way that people regularly perform in museums and galleries is, of course, as guides, room warders, or historic re-enactors. This is a role that divides opinion among visitors. There are two types that you’ll encounter in most museums: either the audio guide, or the tour guide / well-informed room guard. The former is increasingly prevalent in national museums, the latter in house museums. Both aim, in general, to add to the visitor experience.

I, in general, find both infuriating. Audio-guides inevitably focus the visitor on a selection of key exhibits. Visitors learn information about these which could not be included on a label for reasons of space, time or media. Yet, this not only means that visitors are mostly blind to the rest of the museum, but that they congregate around these key exhibits to the detriment of other visitors. Audio guides seem to make visitors oblivious of their wider surroundings, meaning that they both miss the more general museum experience of ‘following your nose’, and that they impact on the experience of others by heedlessly walking in front of or into them.

Tour guides / room warders are a different danger. They are there to answer visitor’s questions or to make a house that is sparse in interpretation more accessible. Yet, I generally find that such guides have been insufficiently informed on their surroundings and are unable to tailor their information to the groups that they encounter. Being dragged away from something that interests you to hear a garrulous and ill-informed anecdote is surely not the point of such collections. The wonder of house museums is in allowing the visitor to experience the full surroundings of objects and atmosphere. This requires time, space and independent exploration.

All of this said, there is undoubtedly a use for such guiding, which can add to the visitor’s experience with more than information. The audio guides in Tate Modern’s Rothko show in 2008-2009 included a section of music to accompany visitor’s contemplation of the central room. Likewise, I have been on specialist tours of house museums – notably the National Trust’s 2 Willow Road, and the Wallace Collection – led by well-informed and engaging guides that left me fired with enthusiasm. With new digital media guides, visitors can be shown related images and objects which could not be included in the show. Of course this again raises the problem of focusing visitors on the guide rather than their surroundings.

The problem arises when such guides give information which should be available for all visitors, or detract from both the individual and general experience. Guides require thoughtful and creative training (or construction) to make them an asset to the visitor. I worry that cuts to museum education budgets will only make this less of a priority.

People are People

2011-06-24T03:19:00.000-07:00

A number of discussions and events recently have started me thinking about people as objects. Essentially, in museums, we try to put people in the past on display through the objects that they used and made. We also commemorate important, and unimportant, figures in portraits and display these as representations of people in the past. A contemporary issue for museums is likewise over the retention and display of human remains. While these can be invaluable for showing past attitudes to the body, they are also the remains of real people and therefore carry a wealth of cultural, religious and political complexity.

But, what of living people? How do we collect contemporary life and practice in museums, make people aware of the contemporary life and practice of museums, and how do we put either of these on display? The Natural History Museum’s Darwin Centre is one answer. They have attempted to put their practice as scientists within the museum on display to the public, by creating the cocoon from which visitors can watch staff at work. The idea is to see the staff in their ‘natural habitat’ just like the displays and interpretation of specimens. The problem is, of course, that this puts pressure on staff to ‘perform’ whether merely through being aware of an audience while they work, or through the more controlled interaction with visitors in the miked working area. The British Museum tried a similar experiment with its ‘Conservation in Focus’ display in 2008 (interestingly in a room dedicated to objects in focus), when it put members of the conservation team on display working on objects. This put the staff in a more obviously performative environment, but for a short concentrated period of time.

An analogous, and hugely popular, example in the art world has been Anthony Gormley’s One and Other project for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2009. This allowed 2,400 people to each spend an hour on the plinth for 100 days. The Wellcome Trust also conducted an oral history project around the participants. I was lucky enough to take part, and you can see me as an object on a plinth in the photo stream. Gormley’s work revolves almost exclusively around his own body as an object, so this was a new departure for him in putting other people’s bodies on display as art, and under their own control. The idea to create a portrait of the nation on the Plinth, and also insert an observer of the nation as it flows through Trafalgar Square was an interesting one. But, I felt this again ran into the problem of performance. As I understood it, Gormley’s idea was that participants would just ‘be themselves’ on the Plinth for an hour, but it rapidly became a space for performance, from which people protested, sang, taught dance classes, painted, preached and so on. I once heard an observer of someone who was ‘just’ sitting on the Plinth tell them to ‘Get on and do something.’ So, Gormley essentially created a stage.

This, I think, is the problem with displaying living people as objects in museums, that we are expecting them to perform. But then we also expect our objects to perform do we not?

The Museum of Innocence

2011-05-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

After many months, I have finally finished reading The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, which I picked for fairly obvious reasons. My Name is Red is one of my favourite novels, as you can see from the book roll to the right, and helped form how I think about art, history and objects, so I had high hopes of this novel.

It is the first person narrative of a man living in 1970s-80s Istanbul, and Pamuk is at his best describing the social, cultural, and political atmosphere in which the rich, westernized Kemal Basmaci moves. After a whirlwind affair, Kemal spends the next twenty-five years grieving over and pursuing his lost love, Füsun, and obsessively collecting objects related to her, from which he gains solace. After her tragic death, he decides to turn this haphazard collection into a museum – the Museum of Innocence – and to do so he visits over 5,000 small, personal museums worldwide.

I found the book, overall, disappointing. The central character is not sympathetic, and I found myself getting irritated with his constant tragic whining. Where it gets compelling, however, is when the narrative reaches the establishment of the museum. Kemal’s visits to, and descriptions of, a wealth of personal collections (from Paris to Hangzhou) show a real feeling for the passions of the collector and the wonder that the visitor experiences in such small museums. At one point, he even discusses how objects in his ‘Museum of Innocence’ should be displayed, how visitors should experience the collection, and how the guards should interact with them. He starts to collect (you might even say meta-collect) ‘trinkets’ and signage from the museums he most likes.

The claimed conceit of the novel is, in fact, to act as a catalogue and narrative guide for all the objects in the museum, to show visitors the devotion and history behind each one. Ironically, then, most of the novel does not evoke these objects convincingly enough, but this sentiment does conjure up all that is best about small, personal museums. Supposedly, the museum actually exists, and the book will give the visitor entry to it, both physically and mentally. Pamuk gains his own voice in the final chapters explaining how he came to write the book as Kemal put the museum together.

Pamuk apparently has such a collection of his own, evoking Istanbul, which is to go on display this year in the very house he assigns to the fictional museum. I wait with baited breath for this collection to allow the Museum of Innocence truly to shine.

Thinking Scientifically

2011-05-22T16:22:00.001-07:00

Interest in science museums and scientific collections seems to be increasing at the moment. Recent issues of the Museums Journal have featured two title articles discussing how science collections can best be made engaging to a non-specialist public. Hot topics like climate change, communications and design are particularly popular. But, how can these collections be best exploited?

Most British readers, and many foreign visitors, will remember fondly trips to the Science Museum’s ‘Launch Pad’ gallery in their younger days, but for many this will be more for its fun, interactive nature, than for any scientific knowledge there gained. The essential problem is how to utilise historic scientific collections, often characterised by objects both strange and fragile, which bear little resemblance to the objects of modern day science, without turning these displays into playgrounds? The Natural History Museum have approached this by putting their scientific practice itself on display in the new Darwin Centre (I will, in a future post, consider separately this question of turning people into museum objects), but I feel this is still kept strangely separate from their established collections, both in the physical space of the museum, and in the separate interpretative practices therein. The Science Museum has new high-tech galleries considering science in the news and climate science. Yet, likewise, I feel these are not integrated into the historic collections. The Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, has a more integrated idea, with exhibitions like the recent ‘Ethometric’ (discussed previously) and ‘Steampunk’ in 2009-10. These relate directly into the historic collections, while encouraging visitors to think differently about the practice of science and its objects.

I have been to two conferences recently which also considered such issues. Kingston University’s ‘Curating Science’ hosted at the Wellcome Collection in early May 2011 considered the question, I felt, from far too conceptual an idea of curation, and not from a concern with public engagement. There was also too great a focus on design as a scientific practice. What this did raise, for me, however was the importance of thinking about science as a visual practice, a question which was considered intensively at the 'European Spring School on History of Science and Popularization' last week. From the many discussions about pictures in, of and about scientific practice, I left with the strong conviction that this is how we should be seeking to engage visitors with scientific collections. As a historian, and historian of art, who now practices in a history of science department, I am often frustrated by the boundaries that are drawn between these parts of the discipline. Museums, I think, create similarly unnecessary boundaries. Science collections, need to be made, not more interactive, but more visual, such that visitors appreciate the visual nature of scientific practice and scientific results, and that these are interpretable and contestable in the same ways as the objects and practices that they elsewhere see as ‘art.’ Scientific collections are visual entities, this should be exploited not apologised for.

Drawing things together

2011-05-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

It’s good to see drawings back in the temporary exhibition scene this year, following on from the British Museum’s wonderful ‘Italian Renaissance Drawings’ show in 2010. The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has an exhibition of ‘Highlights from the Collection,’ showcasing the stars of their drawings collection, including new acquisitions. The drawings are nicely displayed and interpreted, and manage to give a whistle-stop tour of art history while also show casing some beautiful pieces. Their Raphaels are all out and looking impressive, but I was particularly struck by the simple charm of Tiepolo’s drawings of buildings and donkeys, used normally to his expansive church paintings. These stood out especially as I visited on one of the Fitz’s new late night initiatives – ‘Shadows and Lights’ evenings – when they open late, and at which they lit the Medieval painting gallery by candle light. This gave a wonderful sense of the dark, brooding sense in which the paintings would have been seen, but also made a visually stimulating contrast to the light, expressive drawings.

The Royal Academy in London is, similarly, showcasing an exhibition of Watteau drawings in their Sackler Rooms. I am rarely disappointed by an RA exhibition, particularly ones in this their smaller display space, which seems to encourage particularly tight and effective curatorial practice. The Watteau show is no exception. Focusing on his prolific output of chalk drawings they give the viewer a real sense of the materiality of the drawings, and of the skill behind his fresh and engaging scenes. I left with a real sense of his flair, but also of the drawings as fragile but exquisite objects. As seemingly with every gallery the drawings that caught my imagination were not reproduced as postcards, but it may be that this allows them to feed into my memory more effectively.

Planting the Seed

2011-05-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Last month, the British Museum opened its Australia landscape for the summer. You’ll see a photo of it in the stream. This is the third year that they have run this collaboration with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, following the South African landscape last year, and the Indian one in 2009. These are always timed to coincide with more ‘traditional’ exhibits in the museum, so the Australia Landscape complements the ‘Out of Australia’ prints and drawings and the ‘Baskets and belonging’ show.

These landscapes are always popular, and make a welcome addition to the rather bare front of the British Museum. In fact, every year the area looks sad at the end of the landscape season and I think the British Museum would benefit from permanently re-landscaping this area much like the V&A have done with their John Madejski garden – a favourite spot in the summer.

But, these landscapes always raise interesting questions about what is an object. The British Museum and Kew both hold national collections, and these landscapes are essentially collaborative exhibitions between the two. Most people would rarely think of a plant as an object in the same way as say an aboriginal basket, but this is something that interests me, and you’ll see a number of plants in the object photo stream, as well as buildings.

The early collectors behind our museums, like Hans Sloane at the British Museum or Henry Wellcome at the Wellcome Collection, collected plants as well as objects, and they were very important sites of knowledge creation and transfer in the eighteenth century. The British Museum and Kew are recreating these sorts of relationships in fascinating ways.

National collections of plants, and the gardens in which they are displayed, are also spectacular spaces for reverse collaborations. The photo stream features pictures from the Chihuly exhibition at Kew in 2005-6 (which also features in my exhibition list to the right), and the Henry Moore show in 2007-8. These were not just outside art displays like those becoming popular with stately homes (such as 'Beyond Limits' the annual collaboration between Chatsworth and Christies), but thought-provoking exhibits which make relationships between the plants and the sculptures as objects of beauty. The Chihuly show is one of the most visually stimulating shows I have ever seen. Juxtaposing glass with flesh plant forms invested both with greater power, and showcased the plants as objects of beauty and knowledge.

Objects in Oxford

2011-04-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Oxford was a riot of object-based activity when I visited last week, with a stimulating conference and at least two unusual and challenging installations.

The conference was the annual one for the Museum Ethnographers' Group (MEG) and was on the theme of 'Writing on, around, and about things.' This came out of last year's conference and was designed to get participants thinking about the ways in which we record, label, and discuss collections. It led to a stimulating series of papers ranging from South African rock art, to Greek textiles, to Tahitian ritual objects, to coins, to 'toas,' to artefacts from the Northern Ireland troubles, to coins, to musical instruments. But, the labels and documents that accompany these objects were also considered in their own right. We saw hand-written and typed labels, letters, reports, acquisition forms, museum databases, books and more. It really made me think about the wealth of ways in which collectors and curators have thought about their objects.

But, the main thing that I brought away from the conference was how crucial it is for the museum world to engage with new digital media. Even the good old museum database seemed to be seen as constricting creativity rather than a new tool to think through, and there seemed to be a slight general fear of the computer's role in the museum. This blog, I suppose, is one small example of the ways in which I think museums must start to engage more widely with their audiences, something which has, incidentally, also been discussed in the latest Museum Journal ...

And, in the vein of engaging more widely, two of the Oxford University Museums are staging unusual shows at the moment. Photos of both feature in the stream. The grass to the front of the University Museum of Natural History is currently home to 'Ghost Forest' by Angela Palmer: a set of monolithic tree root structures from Ghana which lie on plinths, looking strangely vulnerable yet powerful. This is an impressive and thought-provoking show, but I felt was much less successful in Oxford than it had been in Trafalgar Square last year. This is no doubt due to a combination of the starkly contrasted urban environment, dramatic lighting, and taller plinths in Trafalgar Square, bought I also felt the trees were not as engaged with by visitors as they had been in London. They seemed to who have lost some of their power, while gaining vulnerability.

Around the corner, the Museum of the History of Science, has just opened its new show 'Ethometric.' Shows at the MHS are always intelligent and creative and lead you to new ideas about science and its history. Ethometric is no exception. Staged, unusually, in the basement gallery, it features a series of invented instruments by sound artist Ray Lee, which create a sonic installation at specific 'show' times. The instruments are odd and intriguing, and work beautifully among the real instruments in the gallery. It would be hard to tell the 'real' and the 'imagined' apart in a museum store. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend one of the shows so missed the aural side of this experience, but enjoyed the objects in their own right nonetheless, and saw many other visitors doing the same: certainly interacting with this museum in new and exciting ways.

How Curious!

2011-04-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a colleague for sending me this link to an education project in Aberdeen: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/details-7951.php

It made me think of a really fascinating show I went to see last summer at Kensington Palace, which continues until August 2011. While the palace is being refurbished they have transformed it into an 'Enchanted Palace' with rooms connected to the princesses who have lived there, that visitors wander through on a sort of quest. One of my favourite rooms was for the much maligned Queen Caroline, wife of George II, who was, nonetheless, an interesting collector. The room includes a wonderful 'cabinet of curiosities.'

There is likewise a fascinating small, historic cabinet at Peckover House in Wisbech (National Trust), and a beautiful Renaissance study filled with curiosities in the V&A's new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. Sir John Soane's Museum, 2 Willow Road (National Trust) and Brighton Pavilion are houses rather than cabinets for the curious. One day I would like to create an exhibition on this theme ...

We are locked in History

2011-04-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

My title is one of the particularly memorable lines from Werner Herzog’s new film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which I went to see last week. I was overwhelmed by the cave paintings that are the films focus. The caves in question are the Chauvet caves in Southern France. They contain the oldest cave paintings known to man – started at least 32,000 years ago – and have been sealed from the world, first by a rock slide, and latterly by a metal door put there to preserve them from tourists. This means that Herzog’s film is probably the only opportunity most of us will have ever to see these marvels (you can see a poor photo of one of the posters in the 'Object' photo stream).

The film is shot in 3D with an evocative soundtrack, and a voice over from Herzog, which is often bizarre but largely thought provoking. In the cinema you get a real sense of the caves: the cathedral-like quality of the strange rock formations, stalagmites and stalactites which have developed over centuries; the incredible stillness within the caves contrasted with the sense of movement in the paintings. The horses, rhinos and lions featured look incredibly fresh and the colours and marks are vibrant. This makes the impact of the industrial, steel walkway placed there to protect the cave floor all the more stark, and makes it the more surprising that Herzog doesn’t comment on this juxtaposition of materials. He instead draws comparisons between the paintings and ‘proto-cinema’ (an interesting but dubious comment), between the people who painted them and the scientists studying the cave, between art and science more generally, and most disjointedly comparisons with a group of albino crocodiles that live in a nearby wildlife centre.

It is, however, the quiet beauty of these ancient paintings which I took away from the film. 32,000 years is a time span I can only begin to comprehend, and yet they are as recognisable and appealing to us in the twenty-first century as they would have been then. Herzog’s slightly whimsical statement couldn’t be more apt for these paintings and how we see them: we are locked in history, history is locked in them, and the paintings themselves are now locked away with their history.

Space and Place

2011-03-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

A change of scene, today. I went out to One Church Street, a small commercial gallery in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, to see ‘The Edge of Change.’ This exhibition has come out of a collaboration between the artists Polly Binns and Rod Bugg and the curator Barbara Dougan.

In the exhibition, you can see the conversations between these three in action. A short discussion filmed in the gallery among the work – hung by the artists through seeing the work in conversation in the gallery – pulls together the ‘threads’ that connect Binns’ and Bugg’s work – space, place, time, sensitivity, edge, and change. To me, this says everything about the interaction between curation, creativity and conversation which underlines this exhibition. The works relate visually so well across the gallery precisely because of these relationships. Looking at each artist’s previous catalogues you can see how their work is developing in conversation with each other.

‘The Edge of Change’ seems an eminently appropriate title, in terms not only of the journey that Binns, Bugg and Dougan have taken to the show, but also in the sense of anticipation that the show seems to embody. It is a liminal event in its own right. I look forward to seeing what comes next out of this partnership.

So much more than a Basket

2011-03-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at UEA (University of East Anglia) is always a delight. The subtle juxtaposition of Norman Foster's architecture with the collections of ethnographic and modern art is both aesthetically and intellectually exciting. It is a serene yet stimulating space.

Their latest show is a further triumph on all of these fronts. Basketry: Making Human Nature explores the making and use of baskets across different human cultures, drawing contemporary artwork together with more traditionally 'functional' pieces to create a powerful thematic argument about the importance of basketry to human ways of thinking. The pieces are beautifully displayed and lit, and the interpretation is simple but sophisticated.

I loved the discussion of the way forms and patterns in basketry have crossed into other forms, with the most spectacular example being a Hellenistic glass bowl, on loan from the British Museum, that resembles a woven basket in the patterns applied to the glass rods. And, for me, this particularly struck a chord with the 'Nests and Webs' section which looked at basket patterns in nature, from the scale of nests to moulds.

The long case of materials and tools put together by artist Mary Butcher gave a powerful sense of the material practice behind the artwork and served to introduce her specially commissioned 'Wall Drawing' which encapsulates everything that this show weaves together so successfully.

Madness and High Society

2011-03-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

This blog really started over on another blog - h-madness - for which I wrote a review of the 'High Society' show at the Wellcome Collection in London. You can read that review here.

The Wellcome Collection is one of my favourite museums. I think both the permanent displays and the special exhibitions are always beautifully displayed and conceptualised. The first book on my list is also by their Head of Public Programmes, Ken Arnold. It changed the way I think about so many things.