Friederike Landau, book review: Nora Sternfeld, Das radikaldemokratische Museum » (original) (raw)
In this essay I analyse the 'ideas ', 'philosophies', 'contexts' and 'companions' of several recent museum studies anthologies, and examine whether they respond to key issues facing museums today. I am particularly interested in how effectively these anthologies represent social inclusion and diversity discourses, how they account for outreach programs that aim to link museums and communities, and how they engage with the more general work, experience, and critical analysis of museums and museum contexts globally.
in Moritz Baumstark and Robert Forkel (eds.), Historisierung. Begriff - Methode - Praxis, Stuttgart/Weimar : J.B. Metzler, forthcoming May 2016. This essay examines an important transformation in public history in relation to two institutions, the British Museum in London and the Neue Museum in Berlin and their identity as collections and monuments in their own right . In an analysis of the crisis of the commemorative monument in contemporary Germany James E. Young recognizes the continued desire for a form of monumentality, observing a general move from the heroic to the ironic as “the need for a unified vision of the past, as found in the traditional monument, necessarily collides with the modern conviction that neither the past nor its meanings are ever just one thing.” To what extent can a similar shift be observed as these museums construct institutional memory and how does this contribute to “institutional survival” , to renewing their mandate to preserve and to be themselves preserved and transmitted for the benefit of future generations? When we consider the British Museum and the Neue Museum as representative models of the ‘universal museums’ of the first museum age , it follows that it is significant to see how, in today’s ‘second museum age’, both of these museums have incorporated specific representations of their institutional past into the partial or full renovation of their houses . The Enlightenment gallery at the British Museum reveals how artefacts relating to a former ‘order of things’ have been used to produce an overarching vision of the museum’s initial encyclopaedic project. The case of the Neue Museum, whose newly renovated building can be seen as an exhibit in itself , is considered from the point of view of the remains of the historicist murals created in the 1850s and 1860s and the meaning of their role in a ‘new’ (2009) museum narrative.
Museum Island on Show? Berlin's New James Simon Gallery and the Politics of Museum Space.
Conference "The Museum on Show," Ecole du Louvre and Louvre, Paris, 14-15 June 2021 (virtual event).
ABSTRACT: Museums have been interpreted as contact zones (Clifford) and conflict zones (Singh) within the context of post-colonial, post-imperialist and increasingly diverse societies. Taking Berlin's Museum Island as a case study, this paper reconsiders museums as public zones of contact and potential conflict among various stakeholders—including visitors—whose interests, expectations and interpretations intersect in the museum. Drawing on recent literature on narrative environments (Austin), participative museum architecture (MacLeod), exhibitionary complexes (Bennett) and visitor experience (Davidson), I examine how the historically shifting conceptual infrastructure of Museum Island has generated displays and produced knowledge, and explore how visitors might experience such a complex conceptual space. In order to re-assess the 21st-century infrastructure of Museum Island, I look at how the so-called Masterplan has re-united collections, and restored and reconceptualized Museum Island post-1990, by particularly focussing on the conceptual significance of the Masterplan's most recent project, the James Simon Gallery. This newly built central entrance hall, that "welcomes the world", is "of crucial importance for the infrastructure of the museum complex," as the website claims. Apart from housing a ticketing area, cafeteria, museum shop, etc, the new building presents a permanent exhibition on the history of Museum Island and provides access to the adjoining Pergamon and Neues Museum and the Archaeological Promenade that connects all museums but one. By exploring the multi-layered intersections of the infrastructural and conceptual as well as public and commercial areas, I take the James Simon Gallery as an example to discuss the interdisciplinary challenges and constraints that museums face in the 21st century. While I assess the building's functionality in terms of crowd control and guiding system, I especially explore to what extent the new entrance building engages visitors and provides an introductory conceptual framework for the museum visit. How does the public-commercial overlap define space that is assumed as public? How does the exhibition in the new entrance hall frame the history of Museum Island, while the (historical) displays of contested cultural heritage, e.g. in the Pergamon and Egyptian Museum, remain unchanged and unchallenged? By critically examining the James Simon Gallery, I explore how to unlock the potential of museum entrance areas to serve as conceptual space for engaging visitors, especially in regards to pressing debates about contested cultural heritage and the museum's role as (self-)critical public institution in the super-diverse societies of the 21st century.
2022
On the occasion of the 20-year anniversary of the /ecm Master Program in Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna Thursday, May 5, 2022, 10am–9pm The museum is dead. Long live the museum. This, or something similar, could be the brief summary of numerous conferences, debates, and publications in the field of curating and museum studies over the past 20 years. The critique of the museum has been widely discussed. We have heard a lot about crisis and departure, we have heard about “tired museums” and the “end of the museum,” only to debate in that same breath untapped possibilities for thinking about the museum in new and different ways – as a space of assembly and as a contact zone, as a place of criticism, polyphony, and negotiation. Something seems to be on the move, and so it is not surprising that talk of the “museum of the future” is booming. Claims of diversification, digitalization, and democratization have become ubiquitous, while at the same time institutions are more than ever focused on privatization, economization, competition, and precarization. How can we as critical curators and museologists think and act within these contradictions? And how can critical theory become critical practice?
The Critical Museum Debate Continues
Horizontal Art History and Beyond, 2022
The concept of the critical museum, which had been launched by Piotr Piotrowski during his directorship of the National Museum in Warsaw between August 2009 and October 2010, proved not only the most daring of his projects but also his most far-sighted intervention into the contemporary cultural field. 1 What Piotrowski had proposed was an entirely new model of an art museum which, questioning its time-sanctioned celebratory formula, would use its collections, space and institutional authority to engage, consciously and unreservedly, in struggles for social justice and for a new art geography, marginalizing the established centres of art while empowering the peripheries. 2 The critical museum principles formed part and parcel of Piotrowski's campaign against the universalist discourses of mainstream art history, and it was devised specifically for, although not reducible to, art museums in post-communist East-Central Europe. In spite of an unprecedented international resonance of the project's flagship exhibition Ars Homo Erotica, the critical museum strategy was rejected by both the museum's curators and the Board of Trustees, to be hastily buried by a prominent section of the Polish art world as an academic reverie, motivated by ideology. 3 Almost exactly ten years later, however, the very notion of the museum as the agent of democracy has become the basis of a new definition of the generic museum institution which, proposed by the ICOM's steering committee, emphasized precisely inclusivity and a critical dialogue. 4 This chapter argues that the critical museum was the product of both Piotrowski's conceptualization of the critical art geography and his curatorial practice, but it also provides an extended reflection on its continuing significance after Piotr's untimely death in 2015, especially at the time of the decolonization movement. What follows is written from the position of the participant observer since my own biography is inextricably tied to the National Museum in Warsaw. I had grown up there as an art historian, and I returned there from my university post in London for the duration of the critical museum battle, invited by Piotr to act as his deputy. The tug of war between art history as a 'positive' and as a 'critical' discipline, as well as that between West and East, has been part of my professional makeup. 5 From Museum Exhibitions to the Critical Art History of East-Central Europe Deemed as utopian, as built on theory rather than practice, the critical museum project had been, in fact, grounded in Piotrowski's extensive curatorial experience, gained both in Poland and at diverse art institutions of the world. The museum was for him
Identitarian museums: From visibility to recognition
ICOM - International Council of Museums, 2023
This paper aims to discuss the phenomenon of ‹identitarian› museums as spaces of memory and counterpublics. It examines their role in producing a counter-discourse and offering a space to suppressed narratives and identities. By focusing on the Schwules Museum in Berlin (SMU), I explore the metaphor of the ‹museum closet› and its role in public spaces. Using Nancy Fraser›s concept of counterpublics, I argue that these museums not only make suppressed narratives visible but also challenge the foundations of dominant discourses and symbolize a call for recognition rather than just visibility.
Take a Deap Breath In. "Museum as Praxis” inaugurated in October 2035
Institution as Praxis, 2020
What would happen if one day we were to not only occupy this museum, but also direct it? Ever since we occupied the small museum in Vienna, from the year 2025 onwards and after the authoritarian turn, we have discussed this question time and time again in working groups. However, we decided to back down from the idea, because we did not want to or, rather, could not bring ourselves to take part in the turn and perhaps because we did not have enough courage to fight against it. Nonetheless, we were agreed that our occupation of the museum should not simply be about constantly reacting to news about which we despaired. So we set up our working groups and ensured that they addressed speculative questions that we wanted to answer—not exclusively, but primarily on the basis of historical research. One of these questions was simply: what would happen if one day we were to not only occupy this museum, but also direct it? in: Carolina Rito and Bill Balaskas (Eds.), Institution as Practice. New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research, Berlin 2020
Museum Studies Course: Shaping an Educational Landscape: Museum Island (Berlin).
New York University (NYU) Berlin (2015-2021).
A mixture of classroom discussions and field trips, this course focuses on the five major museum buildings on Museum Island built over a period of 100 years (1830–1930). We also talk about the newest addition to Museum Island, the Humboldt Forum housing the ethnological and Asian art collections. Discussions focus on the nature and social function of museums as well as their role as places where the image of the state and its civil society are constantly reshaped. We will particularly focus on the role of museums in times of decolonial museum practice, gender fluidity, digitization, and the socio-cultural implications of climate action. The course is structured in six thematic, intersecting clusters: I Museum Politics and Soft Power II Un/EnGendering the Art Museum III Colonial-Imperial Legacies IV Post-Digital Museology – The Politics of Code V Post-/Decolonial Museum Practice VI Museum Climate Action. During the course of the semester, we will explore how to rethink museums politically and reshape museum spaces as educational landscapes. Key research questions centre around historical as well as current socio-cultural implications of museum politics. How might feminist and queer perspectives reshape museums narratives? What do we mean by 'the politics of display' and 'the politics of code'? How might decolonial museum practices, participatory approaches and outreach programs reshape Berlin museums in today's super-diverse, hyper-connected and post-migrant society? This course employs a student-centred approach to teaching and learning. In order to deepen our respect for each others' varied experiences and approaches to learning and problem-solving, you are expected to collaborate in small teams. In order to challenge existing narratives and generate more inclusive approaches to problem-solving, we draw on a wide range of experiences and imaginative, multi-faceted approaches to reconceptualizing museum work. You are required to balance your analytical as well as creative and imaginative skills in order to integrate your learning in this course with your academic interests and varied expertise. CO-CURRICULAR SESSIONS: Exhibition Design for Contested Cultural Heritage and ‘Difficult’ Heritage Issues. Guest speaker: Tom Duncan, Exhibition Designer, Co-Director Duncan McCauley, Berlin. We explore how topics of contested cultural heritage and difficult, challenging issues might be reconsidered by new ways of curating and designing exhibitions. We examine notions of 'epistemic violence' (Gayatri Spivak), the 'poetics and politics of ethnography' (James Clifford), the 'politics of display' (Sharon Macdonald) or the 'disobedient museum' (Kylie Message), and work in small groups to test a range of exhibition models. How might exhibition design and various curatorial approaches cater to the needs and expectations of diverse audiences? Augmenting the Pergamon: Interactive Media Arts & the Museum. Co-organized with Dr Stephanie Pearson. Guest speaker: Pierre Depaz, NYU Berlin lecturer of Interactive Media Arts. Fall term 2019. Pierre Depaz will join us for a creative workshop session about exploring how “augmented” museum displays might enhance the visitor experience. After an introduction to the politics of code, we discuss how to examine the virtual space as a socio-political space and explore games as creative tools in informal learning environments. In what way might coding and digital tools be biased? What might be the “rhetoric of video games”? And what is the “narrative architecture of video design”? Drawing on our field trips to the Pergamon Museum and Panorama, we work in small groups to explore how digital technologies might either reinforce or critically and creatively address existing bias in museum displays and narratives about contested cultural heritage. Decolonize Mitte! Humboldt Forum, Museum Island, and the Palace. Panel discussion, co-organized with Dr Ares Kalandides and Dr Stephanie Pearson, NYU Berlin. Guest speakers: Wayne Modest, Director Research Centre for Material Culture, Dutch World Culture Museum; Iris Rajanayagam, xart splitta and Alice Salomon University, Berlin. Fall term 2018. This session is a public panel discussion about contested cultural heritage and controversial narratives with regard to the museums on Museum Island, the reconstructed former royal palace and the planned Humboldt Forum in the palace, due to house the ethnological and Asian art collections of the National Museums in Berlin. Whose global? Whose heritage? Decolonizing the museum. Co-organized with Dr Stephanie Pearson. Guest speaker: Prof Dr Arjun Appadurai, NYU and Humboldt University. Fall term 2018. A joint session with Stephanie Pearson's class is planned to address challenging questions such as, What (or when) is a museum, collection, display? What kind of context(s) does a museum provide? How do museums address issues of provenance, acquisition and appropriation? How can we describe an object's 'journey'? What is the difference between the terms 'object' and 'exhibit'? Arjun Appadurai will lead a discussion about how questions such as these relate to controversial debates about the universal museum, the production of a global cultural heritage, and notions of shared heritage. We explore how museum narratives about memory and identity-building might include or reject issues of diversity and equity, and ask who has been producing what kind of narratives, who has been silenced. Whose heritage indeed have museums produced and keep (re-)producing through their narratives? What can be done? Difficult heritage: Displaying the disputes and conflict zones behind museum objects. Co-organized with Dr Stephanie Pearson, NYU Berlin. Guest speaker: Dr Christian Greco, Director Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy. Spring term 2018. This workshop is a joint project between two NYUB courses. A joint session is planned to address the theme of 'difficult heritage'—that is, material culture with contested ownership or deriving from conflict zones. Dr Christian Greco will lead a discussion with students about current curatorial theories, practices and challenges around this theme. Provenance and object biographies. Co-organized with Dr Ingrid Laube, NYU Berlin. Spring term 2017. In this workshop we connect with the course on art history/archaeology to focus on information about the provenance of certain objects, their finding conditions or purchase on the art market. We will analyze how and if the museums make this a subject of discussion and how this could be communicated to the public. Egyptianizing: Exhibition strategies in Berlin's Egyptian Museum from the 19th to the 21st century. Co-organized with Dr Stephanie Pearson. Guest speakers: Olivia Zorn, Vice-Director Egyptian Museum, Berlin; Mirjam Shatanawi, World Culture Museum, Amsterdam. Spring term 2016. Together with invited museum experts we will explore the multi-layered displays and narratives of 'Egypt' from the 19th to the 21st centuries as presented at the Egyptian Museum. The following key issues will be addressed: the museum's restoration by architect David Chipperfield, 'Egyptianized' ancient Roman objects in the antiquities collection, the multi-layered presentation of various (historical) notions of 'Egypt' in the Egyptian Museum and the meta-presentation of these historical exhibition concepts. Students will work in groups to develop concepts for improving the presentation of the complex multi-layered narratives to visitors, both onsite as well as on the museum's website and social media. Looking for the Pergamon Altar: Visitor orientation and public engagement at the Pergamon Museum. Co-organized with Dr Stephanie Pearson. Guest speakers: Prof Dr Sharon Macdonald, CARMaH, Humboldt University in Berlin, Prof Dr Katharina Lorenz, University of Nottingham, Dr Jane Masséglia, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Prof Dr Andreas Scholl, Director Antiquities Collection, National Museums in Berlin. Fall term 2015. Having been planned as an imperial institution to display large-scale architectural elements unearthed during various excavations by German archaeologists, the Pergamon Museum proved to be a burden to the young Republic’s self-image in the aftermath of a lost war. We will look closely at the way monumental architecture has been exhibited up until today, and explore the effects of the arrangement on the visitor. Since there have been claims for restitution, we will take into account the controversial debates on the concept of the “universal” museum and its colonial and imperialistic past. To sharpen the students’ plans for optimizing visitor orientation in the Pergamon Museum, the session comprises a three-part workshop program with talks by invited specialists: “Challenges for Museums in Berlin and Abroad” by Sharon Macdonald; “Social Media Strategies in Museums” by Jane Masséglia and “Effectively Communicating with Groups of Museum Visitors” by Katharina Lorenz.