Where Do Museums Derive Their Authority?
Museums are considered to be the primary way in which a society is able to represent itself to both its own members and the larger scope of the world. As such, the exhibitions placed in museums for the purpose of viewing tend to be able to solidify the aspects of identity, history, culture, science, and world views. Therefore, it is evident that the topic of any associations with a museum tends to show that a great deal is at stake, to say the least. Museums have been known to be the go-to place for real and authentic artifacts, objects, and not forgetting art. Through this authenticity, there is the weight of ideas and thoughts being embroidered into the exhibition which moves the viewer and allows him or her to focus on the areas that the painter or artists intended to be of more focus and importance.[1]
With the above being considered, it has been noted that museums have become more democratic. This is to mean that the public population has been educated on the usefulness of having an exhibition space in a prominent museum and so forth. In line with this, therefore, museums have been subjected to more oversight and some public authorities have even gone ahead to challenge the museum authority. With this, it is evident that some museums have been politicized and through this, the spaces have become playing grounds for all types of dramas. This being considered, there has been the establishment of stakeholders in museums who determine the path the museum is to take during any moment in time and as such, the need for funding sources has emerged and entangled museums in a web that they are not likely to escape any time soon. As such, it is clear that museums have a number of conflicts of interest and constraints which tend to prevent some crucial events and head-ways from taking place.
As exhibitions are the main focus of any museum while not considering other minor responsibilities, they have been seen to shift from being object-oriented to being idea-driven. For example, the stories that are portrayed and told on various exhibitions or materials, tend to not be the actual facts that took place. This is because of the idea-driven form of the path that the museums are seen to take. The story is written with the aim of delivering a certain idea associated with the material or exhibition. Through this, the museum can be able to pass across the agenda of the stakeholders and all those in administration and management. In this case, we see that the material or exhibition is given less attention which to some people removes any form of fun or excitement of visiting a museum altogether.
Based on the above discussion, it is evident that the exhibition is a crucial part of a museum even though in some cases some various entities in history have managed to prove that the government and institutional authority is where the museum tends to derive its authority.[2] In my opinion, and through various examples, I will argue how the community that supports the museum and which the museum tends to serve, is where the authority of the museum is derived from. So as to prove this fact, we will show how museums need collections and connections for them to stay afloat and survive in society. In a layman’s language, this is the description of authority. The ability to be able to inform the society on what took place based on various materials and exhibitions without the need of narrating false stories so as to suit a certain agenda or idea. As it is commonly portrayed, original beats fake any time any day and in this case, the original is the true story of the materials and exhibitions which are mostly passed from one generation to another in form of folk tales. Through this, there is some assurance that the story has some form of credibility. However, there is the risk of getting the narration wrong from the first instance which definitely means that this will take place throughout the whole generation. To make sure that this is not the case, which rarely happens because of the nature of narrations from one generation to another, there is the presence of various caves whereby these narrations have been carved into the walls never to be erased or forgotten. Therefore, through the presence of technology, various museums have been able to store these narrations for future reference.
To begin with, we have the collections. As stated earlier collections or in other words exhibitions (materials) are what make museums unique. With this fact, therefore, they are described to be more than mere objects as they are carefully picked from a huge collection, which is a product of a “curatorial way of knowing.” After being chosen, they are maintained by trained curators who have the necessary curatorial expertise. For example, the curators are able to distinctively understand the objects, thereafter, they can make arguments with them and finally tell stories with them. Through this, the stories being narrated can be accurately verified by the curators in such a way that most people see it as magic. During this process of understanding the objects, some curators have been known to engage in poetry as a way of vividly explaining the narrations.[3] According to some people, they refer to this act as the aspect of curators having a “special endowment”…..”the museum sense”….”object-feel” or just “a good eye.” All these are words describing the top-notch skills portrayed by a few curators in their process of understanding objects and explaining their revelations to the masses through stories displayed in museums. Despite the fact that the expertise of curators can be termed as magic, the aspect of having a museum sense is majorly acquired when the person works with collections and objects. As such, it is considered to be more than the actual academic knowledge from books and encyclopedias. Additionally, it is also more than the collector’s expertise. Therefore, working with objects and collections generally means the hands-on work with collections, whereby there is the aspect of building them, handling them properly, the slow and long process of making a sense of the art, history and even the nature in which they come from and thereafter using this knowledge to connect them and all the above to the larger world.[4]
With every collection and curator, comes a museum storeroom. This is the place where the curators get the chance to engage with the materials in a direct manner. In the same vein, they think through the challenges of exhibitions or the research to be done for material in an effective manner. As such, in a layman’s language, we can refer to the storeroom as some kind of a memory place whereby it acts as the extension of the curator’s brain whereby more information from the artifacts can be retrieved for proper cataloging thereafter. As mentioned above, we were going to focus on various connections. In this aspect, we have been focusing on the connection between the curator and the collections.[5]
Secondly, we are going to focus on the aspect of reconnecting with communities. In this regard, therefore, bearing in mind that the collection of objects and materials requires some level of context comprehension, the good and proper use of these collections requires the same understanding. Therefore, the use of these collected objects requires the knowledge of what was collected together with what wasn’t collected. Additionally, there is a need to know what is missing and why it is missing. Therefore, the only way this can be achieved is through understanding the context associated with collecting together with the history of the various collections in the museum storeroom which is cataloged effectively. The collection’s history plays a crucial part in shaping the manner in which these collections are used together with the stories that we tell with them. As such, there is the need for any curator to understand the collection’s connections- this is to mean, those that ended up breaking, those that managed to survive, those that might be reknit. Through this, there is a possibility that curators are able to reconnect collections with their communities.[6]
It should be noted that objects come with them, the history and the community connections are embedded altogether and in most cases, these connections are somehow lost or in other times, just ignored. In the same vein, numerous museum objects are accompanied by the legacies of colonialism, domination, violence and with this, they are seen to be defined through the effective curation process which tends to exclude some people while turning others into objects. In line with this, therefore, there is evidence that some museums have turned away from the same objects. However, rather than turning away from objects, museums should come up with renewed models that will be able to help them understand the objects much better and also use them effectively. According to some scientists, they propose that we should engage physically with our collected objects but give a stern warning that some people can look at the whole scenario with a different eye and feel. While some might see this difference in opinion as a challenge, it presents an opportunity whereby new voices can be introduced into the mix. And with these efforts, objects can serve as the fulcrum in museums’ engagement and association with various communities.[7]
In conclusion, it is evident that the existence of collections (exhibitions), curators, the government, institutions, and the community play a crucial role in the existence and growth of museums. From the start of the discussion, we managed to showcase the situation where the museum derives its authority from various institutions and the government. In this aspect, we managed to show how the museums have turned out to be a democratic form of entity whereby they have been politicized and have become the playground for numerous dramas. In this vein, their authority has been challenged while the public has been viewing the spaces so as to showcase idea-driven exhibitions rather than object-driven exhibitions. Through this, stakeholders have been implemented into museums whereby funding sources have become the agenda of every meeting within the board who tend to determine which type of ideas the audience (viewers of the exhibition) need to see. Through this, the required ideas are propelled to the forefront while leaving the “boring” and somehow original narrations of objects on the table never to be told to the masses. On the other hand, the second part of the discussion was more of campaigning for object-driven exhibitions rather than idea-driven exhibitions. In this case, we were able to showcase the process of collecting objections and what the job of the curator entails. In the discussion, it was discovered that the curator is an important pillar in the collection and connection process and this is by understanding the collections in a way that they can be able to tell and feel the story being told by the collection. Through this, they can determine the history of the collection which will prove useful in connecting it to the right community, and thus the correct and original story will be told to the masses. With this evidences, we go back to our question which read: “Where do museums derive their authority?” Based on the fact that we defined authority to mean the aspect of being able to inform the society on what took place based on various materials and exhibitions without the need of narrating false stories so as to suit a certain agenda or idea. Therefore, this points to the fact that the museum authority needs to be object-driven rather than idea-driven. As such, museums are seen to derive their authority from the communities in which they serve and in which they are supported. This in a layman’s language entails that there needs to be an effective and efficient reconnection of the collections to their communities.
Bibliography
Andrew McClellan, The Art of Museum from Boullée to Bilbao (Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: University of California Press, 2008)
Atwater, Deborah F., and Sandra L. Herndon. “The use of public space as cultural communicator: How museums reconstruct and reconnect cultural memory.” Understanding African American rhetoric: Classical origins to contemporary innovations (2003): 69.
Conn, Steven. Do museums still need objects?. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Dudley, Sandra, ed. Museum materialities: Objects, engagements, interpretations. Routledge, 2013.
Geoghegan, Hilary, and Alison Hess. “Object-love at the Science Museum: cultural geographies of museum storerooms.” cultural geographies 22, no. 3 (2015): 445-465.
Pearce, Susan. Museums, objects, and collections: A cultural study. Smithsonian Institution, 2017.
[1] Andrew McClellan, The Art of Museum from Boullée to Bilbao (Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: University of California Press, 2008)
[2] Andrew McClellan, The Art of Museum from Boullée to Bilbao (Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: University of California Press, 2008)
[3] Dudley, Sandra, ed. Museum materialities: Objects, engagements, interpretations. Routledge, 2013.
[4] Pearce, Susan. Museums, objects, and collections: A cultural study. Smithsonian Institution, 2017.
[5] Geoghegan, Hilary, and Alison Hess. “Object-love at the Science Museum: cultural geographies of museum storerooms.” cultural geographies 22, no. 3 (2015): 445-465.
[6] Atwater, Deborah F., and Sandra L. Herndon. “The use of public space as a cultural communicator: How museums reconstruct and reconnect cultural memory.” Understanding African American rhetoric: classical origins to contemporary innovations (2003): 69.
[7] Conn, Steven. Do museums still need objects?. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.