Dr. Stephanie Pearson
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Labels without Walls: Ökowerk Berlin

10/31/2014

 
Botanical gardens are a special kind of museum. By their very nature they have certain restrictions and opportunities that are foreign to a "brick and mortar" museum — for instance, walls. Walls are both a restriction and an opportunity, really, and one that is rather lacking in at least the outdoor portion of any botanical garden. With walls come wall texts, as well as the ability to encourage certain directions of movement. Lacking walls, botanical gardens (again, speaking of the outside area; the greenhouses and possible visitor center or attached museum are a different story) miss these opportunities even as they gain others.

What potential repercussions a lack of walls might have on a plant display struck me at the Ökowerk Berlin, which includes several garden spaces on its extensive grounds. Labeling the display is tricky when there isn't a wall to support the labels; the solution here is to print small paper labels and slip them into metal and plastic holders staked into the ground. The stakes are well-conceived insofar as they can be placed anywhere, and presumably even moved as the plants grow, unfurl leaves that then cover the signage, or drop their leaves and retreat to a mere husk, requiring the signage to be set nearer in order to look relevant. Unlike larger signs too, they can be stuck right in the middle of a bed of plants, making very clear what they refer to. Conversely, the portable size restricts the amount of information that can be given: so in this case, QR codes have to do almost all of the legwork.
Plants with QR-code labels, Ökowerk Berlin
Plants with QR-code labels, Ökowerk Berlin

The Golden Thread: Saint Louis Art Museum

10/24/2014

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Picture
Overview panels can be underrated. In its recent renovation of the European Painting galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art shifted its "room labels" from the walls to plaques on knee-high metal stands. For space considerations, this makes sense. But if wall space is not at quite such a premium, a nice big wall panel does wonders for communicating the Big Idea. "What is this all about?" I can hear a visitor asking, making a sweeping gesture, stepping into a gallery for the first time. Individual object tags don't help answer this question, but an overview panel sure does. It is magical for its ability to unite a wide range of objects into a comprehensible narrative.

Everything I love about overview panels inheres in this example from the Saint Louis Art Museum. At the top is written the most general category, the designation of the collection: American Art. Below, the thematic title for the room: Nostalgia and the Gilded Age. But the best part? Look to either side and you immediately encounter something obviously gilded, perfectly illustrating the name. Moreover, both gilded pieces are quite large and lavish, as if lending some (literal) weight to the idea that an entire age could be gilded. And finally, the subjects of both pieces subtly underline the idea of nostalgia. The woman at right sinks into her chair, surrounded by precious items, speaking with a man (the artist) swallowed by shadows. At left, a golden winged figure in Classical robes embodies the glorification of a past age. Following the thread that connects the objects with each other and the text could hardly be easier.
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Cosmic Glowing Orbs: Pfefferberg Beer Garden

10/18/2014

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Glowing orbs on the Pfefferberg, Berlin
Glowing orbs on the Pfefferberg, Berlin
A recent exhibition idea came to me not from a museum but a beer garden. Yes! — and whyever not? As we see the boundaries break down between museums and other cultural institutions — museums are inviting in theater companies, yoga practitioners, and Michelin-star chefs for their restaurants, all in the name of innervating their public programs — ideas for exhibition design should come from non-museum institutions as well. This one struck me as I walked through the cultural hub atop the Pfefferberg in Berlin, with an outdoor tango stage to my left and this gravel-floored beer garden to my right. Above the tables were hung several dozen glowing orbs, dangling from the tree canopy. They ranged from about 50 cm to 150 cm in diameter, in varying shades of mottled yellow-orange. The effect stopped me in my tracks. Cosmic, certainly: it's like seeing the heavenly bodies descend to within touching distance (almost!). It made me think that such a mesmerizing display could just as well serve in an art museum gallery, simply as an accent to the exhibition down at ground level. Because the orbs are so eye-catching, they would have to be deployed thoughtfully in order that the art not be outshined; but carefully placed in a dimmed gallery with a few lit cases of sculpture, for instance, they would make magic. They would encourage lingering and looking, precisely what we aim for in museums. And they would use some of that tall vertical space at ceiling height that rarely gets used anyway. Pairing the orbs with beautiful visual material seems an obvious choice; pairing them with beer is optional.
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Planning a Pediment: Amazzonomachia, Palazzo dei Conservatori

10/12/2014

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Plan of Amazzonomachia exhibition
Plan of Amazzonomachia exhibition, Palazzo dei Conservatori, 1985
An exhibition based on a single object can be wonderfully pointed, but it can also hard to stage — especially when the single object is an enormous (albeit fragmentary) pediment from an ancient Greek temple. The Amazzonomachia exhibition that took place in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, in 1985 faced precisely this problem: how to exhibit a large set of sculptures lined up in a row, as they would have been in the original pediment, without producing a deadening effect? Marble statues standing in a row are not exactly an invigorating sight. Especially when fragmentary, they can appear painfully static and unengaging. To encourage a viewer to come closer and spend time with the objects, the Amazzonomachia design had to introduce an element of variety into the layout, lending a touch of movement to the ensemble.

The designers arrived at a very clever solution (shown in the plan above). They set the entire pediment (D) at an angle relative to the gallery, so that the sculptures do not simply line one side of the long space. This also presented the viewer with a more frontal view when she entered from the short side of the gallery, rather than an end-on view down the long sculptural lineup. Building on this idea, the pediment was set on a trapezoidal base (E) of which one long side parallels the gallery wall — thereby incorporating it seamlessly into the space, rather than allowing it to look arbitrarily, bizarrely skewed. The base itself is cunningly engineered to serve several purposes: it unifies the objects into their original grouping; it emphasizes the objects by elevating them above floor level; and the three steps leading up to the pedimental sculptures invite the viewer to approach, climb up, get closer. The cherry on top is that its trapezoidal shape echoes that of the ancient triangular pediment, as if projected here onto the ground. This final subtle touch would likely not be noticed by a visitor in the room, but may well have produced an unconscious kinesthetic impression that would reinforce the concept of the show.

(The catalogue for the show is here, while several photos of the sculptures can be seen here.)
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Award-Winning Design: Trier Landesmuseum

10/10/2014

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Trier Landesmuseum
Colorful half-recessed cases in the Trier Landesmuseum (photo by museum; see website below)
The Trier Landesmuseum came onto my radar recently, and in browsing their website I grew excited about the photos of their permanent collection display. The exhibition presents "a circular walking tour through the entire history of Trier and the Trier region – from the Stone Age to the Roman city, from the Franks to the last Trier Electoral Prince." Apparently it won an award for its design, and I can see why! From the band of purple backdrop for precious miniatures to the half-recessed cases (artworks in themselves), the design is truly beautiful. I hope for the chance to experience it in person to see how it works for the collection.

Note on the award (from the museum's website):

“red dot: best of the best” Award 2011 

The permanent exhibition of the Trier Landesmuseum was awarded one of the most prestigious international prizes for design, the “red dot: best of the best”, in the autumn of 2011. The exhibition received the prize in the category “communication design” for an especially bold, innovative, modern design.


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Extreme Verticals: Neues Museum 3

10/9/2014

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Vertical presentation of burial, Neues Museum, Berlin
Vertical presentation of burial, Neues Museum, Berlin
Verticality is a leitmotif of the Neues Museum's new exhibition of its collection of Prehistory and Early History. As discussed in the last two posts, the simple yet unusual tilting of the usual axis of display invigorates the objects: not only are they easier to see than if they stretched back into the recesses of a large horizontal case, but this visibility acts like a visitor magnet. The photo above is indicative: I couldn't manage to take a photo of this case without people in front of it! Of course, the morbid subject boosts the interest of this particular case (none of the other cases in this gallery enjoyed such a constant stream of viewers) — but in any case, I bet that it wouldn't see nearly the same traffic if it were laid out flat. I would love to see a study in which the same set of bones was displayed horizontally for one test group and vertically for another, with the aim of comparing the number and duration of visits to each.

Standing an archaeological quadrant on its head as above is more than a spectacular feat of conservation. It also makes plain a big question about displaying archaeological material: specifically, whether the display should represent artifacts in a context reminiscent of their original one, or rather in a highly aestheticized one. Neither possibility is right or wrong; they are simply two points on the spectrum of approaches. The Neues Museum has opted for the latter to stunning effect. The case below is one of the best examples: axe heads arrayed in a 14 x 11 grid make no claim to conveying use or find context but rather make an arresting visual package. Yet the pedagogical potential is in no way diminished. Quite to the contrary — the display perfectly underscores the thesis of the case. The text describes the value of metals in the Bronze Age, which is succinctly expressed by the sheer wealth of axe heads (and jewelry) placed on show. Disembodied as they are, with an emphasis on their number and physical form, the axe heads actually better represent the abstract idea of wealth than if they were displayed in a semblance of their archaeological context.
Vertical presentation of axe heads, Neues Museum, Berlin
Vertical presentation of axe heads, Neues Museum, Berlin
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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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steph [at] stephpearson.com