Stephanie Pearson
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Cinema as Gallery: Goya Exhibition on the Big Screen

2/21/2016

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The recent release of a film about paintings by Goya highlights the increasing trend of using cinema as a complement to—not to say substitute for?—actually visiting museum galleries. For this film is not about Goya, nor about his paintings per se, but about an exhibition of his paintings in the National Gallery in London. This, as far as I know, is a new genre of filmmaking (although pointers to the contrary would be greatly appreciated!). It emphasizes the experiential aspect of an exhibition, somewhat like the Van Gogh Alive show that immerses its viewers in floor-to-ceiling projections of excerpted details from Van Gogh paintings—creating a surreal landscape in which experience, not the stuff of traditional exhibitions, takes center stage. The Goya film, like the others by Exhibition on Screen, does not go so far as this, but still does focus on a luscious experience of the exhibited material and its historical context (see the period reconstructions in the trailer) more than, say, Frederick Wiseman's film National Gallery, which centered on life in the museum itself. It seems a wonderful way to inspire audiences to visit museums (I'm in the camp that believes that people will mostly use resources like this as an impetus, not a substitute, for going to museums themselves). I wonder what the partnership looks like between the museums and the filmmakers, and what the audience numbers are for these films.
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See the Writing on the Wall: Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin

2/9/2016

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Way-finding signage in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. Photo collage: German Design Council (website linked through photo).
Well-designed signage is a rare and precious gem. In a museum, signage can set the tone for a visitor's entire visit: because if she starts by buying a ticket, checking her coat, using the bathroom, and then finally entering the gallery she most wants to see, she's already had to locate at least four separate areas of the museum, probably by following signs. And if that process was easy—i.e., well-signed—she'll ideally be in a fine mood; but if it was difficult, she may enter the galleries feeling grumpy or frazzled, and that will color her experience of the whole museum.
So kudos to Berlin's Kunstgewerbemuseum (the museum of decorative arts and design) for putting writing on the wall that no one can miss, and winning a design prize along the way. The eye-catching size and color of the signage creates a certain aesthetic effect that not all museums would want, but it accords well with the all-parts-visible idea behind Rolf Gutbrod's 1960s building.
Even award-winning signage has two potential weak points, however. First, it has to be wriiten in a certain language—here German, which some visitors may not understand. Second, there is a compelling argument (nicely presented in an airport example in the addictive design podcast 99% Invisible) that the architecture itself, not just signage, should help guide the people in it. But since purpose-built buildings are not in the cards for most museums (and even if they are, wayfinding is only part of their mission), it's worth taking signage seriously.
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Conservation Made Visible: Alte Nationalgalerie

2/6/2016

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Who doesn't love a peek behind the curtains? At least when the venue is a museum, a look behind the scenes (or curtains, in the German idiom) is always thrilling. Making visible all the work that goes into readying objects for display is not only a highlight for visitors but a well-deserved kudos to the conservation teams whose hard work is rarely recognized by the public—because ideally, their work is invisible! The conservators at Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie are now earning appreciation in a special exhibition about their three years of work restoring Caspar David Friedrich's two most famous paintings, Monk by the Sea and The Abbey in the Oakwood. Numerous series of photographs in the exhibition show the progression from yellowed, cracked, poorly-restored pieces to the radiant paintings now finally back on show. A few of the photographs even showed the conservators' coded markings and notes for planning the restoration, as well as the X-ray images they used to better understand the underdrawings and primer layers. Two full-size photographs of the unrestored paintings (seen above) allow viewers to compare the earlier with the present state (much clearer and less jaundiced!). It is an exciting story to see laid out like this—and today, at least, many people were there to enjoy it.
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Better Together: Eastern mediterranean in the Louvre Museum

2/2/2016

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View into the galleries "East Mediterranean in the Roman Empire." Photo: http://www.louvre.fr/en/hours-admission/schedule-room-closures
A catalog published by the Louvre, L'Orient romain et byzantin au Louvre, underscores the power of perhaps the most fundamental matter of display: which objects are next to which. The catalog accompanied the opening of a new set of galleries featuring objects from three different departments—Greek, Etruscan, and Roman; Egyptian; and Near Eastern—now displayed together in a permanent exhibition space. The goal, the Louvre said, was that "these long-dispersed items could at last be assembled in a single space, and thereby placed in their geographical, cultural, and artistic context." It's a poweful example of how simply juxtaposing certain objects allows them to communicate in ways that they cannot individually or in other groupings.
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You can read the full press release here, including the museological mission statement and a room-by-room description, while this document offers more detail, photos, and spotlights on a few objects.
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    Ideas on Display
    A humble space to reflect on concepts of museum display as enacted across a wide range of subjects, countries, and approaches.

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Stephanie Pearson
steph [at] stephpearson.com