Reading Art: Writing Exhibitions and Exhibiting Literature (original) (raw)

Literature, Exhibitions and Communication: A Conversation

Gfrereis, Heike, et al. “Literature, Exhibitions and Communication: A Conversation”. Nordisk Museologi 28.1 (2020): 91-102., 2020

Informed by her competence in literature and the theory and practice of exhibitions, Heike Gfrereis is Head of the Museum Department at the Archive of German Literature in Marbach, and curator of many literary exhibitions. Helmut Neundlinger, curator of the W. H. Auden Memorial Museum in Kirchstetten, is a writer, researcher and critic working at the Center for Museum Collections Management at the Danube University Krems and the literary collection of Lower Austria. The following “exchange of knowledge” between them and two researchers in the TRAUM– Transforming Author Museums project took place in Oslo in 2019. We discuss the desire to exhibit literature and not only biography, how one can free oneself from objects and how objects can create freedom, how to unlearn received notions of literature, the importance of interaction and play, what can make authors difficult to exhibit, and the economic realities of exhibiting literature.

On display : the poetics, politics and interpretation of exhibitions

2003

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Manifesto: Towards a Historical Critique of Exhibitions

2015

Introduction Literary critics write book reviews about new novels. Art critics review works of art and the exhibitions they are presented in. Exhibition critiques, however, seem to be much less developed. 1 In most popular reviews, most attention is usually paid to the shape, architecture and function of the building, rather than to the actual contents of the exhibition (a notable example being the reviews on the new Dutch Military Museum 2 ). In other instances, reviews are echoes of the press releases of the organising institutions, or evaluations of the accompanying marketing message. If they do go beyond that, they tend rely on specific disciplines such as art history. One might expect academic reviews to provide some much needed in-depth criticism. However, museums and exhibitions rarely receive substantial coverage in academic journals. Although we do find theoretical reflection on museum exhibitions, especially in the case of ethnographic museums and exhibitions, it often sto...

call for applications : Literature at the Museum. The Musealization and Exposition of Literature

Special issue edited by Marie-Clémence RégnieR (Université Paris-Sorbonne) Because of its nature and its customary modes of diffusion, literature has traditionally developed in the margins of museum spaces, which were tied in historical and institutional terms to different practices, artistic (painting, photography) and scientific (history, natural science) ones in particular. Nevertheless, the worlds of literature and the museum have interacted in various ways, be that through the representation of museum space in literary texts or written contributions to artistic life (via criticism and reviewing especially) or, conversely, through the exposition of literary works, spaces and attributes in the museum.

INTRODUCTION Exhibitions as research

Exhibitions As Research: Experimental Methods in Museums, 2020

This volume argues that museum exhibitions can eff ectively work as a particular way of doing research, a way of exploring the world around us rather than mirroring it. More than that, while this may not at fi rst glance seem to be a particularly revolutionary statement, we contend that, if taken seriously, it does shake a number of the basic pillars of museum practice. If the exhibition is research and not merely a way of communicating research, a number of questions arise: Can we exhibit something, which we do not know the end result of, which is still in the making? Which concepts of "knowledge" apply to such a format? How do we conceive of the roles between the partakers in an exhibition process if this is not a matter of giving shape to a given content? How do we conceive of the role of audiences in exhibitions if research is extended into the exhibition itself? Why, indeed, should we even think of exhibitions as research rather than as a platform to communicate the results of research to a wider audience? These are all questions that we will touch upon in the volume. The idea of exhibitions as research Museums and exhibitions have increasingly been referred to as "laboratories" (MOMA, 2014 ; Heller, Scholz and Wegner, 2015 ; Treimo, this volume; J ø rgensen, this volume) or "experiments", respectively (Healy and Witcomb, 2006 ; Macdonald and Basu, 2007). These terms point to a move away from understanding the museum as a site for representing the world to perceiving the museum, instead, as an agent that produces its own particular eff ects. The museum does not simply mirror the world, but constructs new perspectives and ideas that are generated through the particular mechanisms and qualities of the very institution (Bjerregaard and Willerslev, 2016 , pp. 226-235; Thomas, 2016 , p. 9). One eff ect of this approach to museums has been a focus on the capacity of exhibitions to generate research in and through themselves (Macdonald and Basu, 2007 ; Lehman-Brauns, Sichau and Trischler, 2010 ; Herle, 2013 ; O'Neill and Wilson, 2015). Working intensely with collections, testing ideas out in a physical environment, and relating more or less directly to a lay audience does not only tell us something new about how to make exhibitions, but may also provide us with more insight into the subject matter of the exhibition. That is, the exhibition has the potential to create a research surplus ; through the making of exhibitions we are liable to learn more about the topic of the exhibition. But, as we will explore further 9781138646063_pi-194.indd 1 9781138646063_pi-194.indd 1

UCL - MA Dissertation in Digital Humanities: The Challenge of Library Exhibitions

The main barrier for library exhibitions is that the communication system used in literature is completely different from the one of the visual arts. Consequently, major challenges arise when books and manuscripts become items displayed inside cases. Therefore, it is necessary to find alternative ways (to reading) in which the public can experience such material. But how can this be done? For conservation reasons, visitors cannot be allowed to freely handle valuable objects. So, what can be built around them to provide an immersive experience, while both preserving their natural function of literary material and protecting them from deterioration? This study identifies three main areas to improve visitor experience, each one connected to the other: a sense of Narrative, illustrated through different levels of Interpretation, facilitated by Interaction (physical, digital, social) both with objects and other people (i.e. other visitors, or staff members). Acknowledging the fact that exhibitions are complex systems and therefore it is not possible to define one model for all, this work focuses on a specific case study, the Treasures of the British Library permanent exhibition. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the needs of the visitors of library exhibitions. Data on visitors’ profiles, behaviour, and experience, were collected through tracking and post-visit interviews, and then analysed in order to address visitors’ needs and expectations. The main needs identified involve: a sense of narrative, which should address different levels of knowledge and perspectives; characterisation of the space, to be manifestly relevant to the material exhibited; sensorial experiences and information about the stories of the objects, to preserve the ‘hands-on’ nature of literary materials.