“Goddess Related Special Exhibitions at State-Supported European Museums in 2022” by Krista Rodin (original) (raw)
Related papers
The 'Goddess' and the Museum: Museum Attitudes
Royal Ontario Museum Research Blog, 2013
For the first three installments I have been combing the museum records and archives to unravel the complicated history of the figure in the ROM over the last 80 years, from the moment it was acquired to the present, and to examine the rollercoaster of its reputation from star attraction to an object of dubious authenticity consigned to the storeroom.
The 'Goddess' and the Museum: The Early Years
Royal Ontario Museum Research Blog, 2013
This is the first of a series of articles that Julia Fenn and I will be writing over the next months as part of the research project about a ROM icon: the ‘Minoan’ Ivory Goddess. For the first three installments I have been combing the museum records and archives to unravel the complicated history of the figure in the ROM over the last 80 years, from the moment it was acquired to the present, and to examine the rollercoaster of its reputation from star attraction to an object of dubious authenticity consigned to the storeroom.
Hidden in Plain Sight: In Quest of Women and their Stories in Greek Museums
Museum International, 2020
The National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Byzantine and Christian Museum, the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture and the Museum of Cycladic Art are among the finest museums in Greece. Their permanent collections include splendid, important works of art and rare everyday objects that, arranged chronologically, represent the evolution of life and history in the Greek peninsula from prehistory to the 20th century. While these museums display artefacts from different eras and communities, they fail to shed light on gender issues and to tell inclusive stories. Even though many of the objects within their permanent collections belonged to women, were made by or for women, and depict women, very little is said of their lives and social roles within their respective societies. This paper examines how and whether the four aforementioned museums tell stories of women by examining different elements within their exhibitions (objects, thematic sections, texts, images, etc.), then suggesting new, feminist perspectives and approaches for considering them. By drawing attention to history’s overlooked women and celebrating their lives, we suggest how treasuries of Greek civilisation might also become sites of social inclusion, diversity, and equity.
ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN FEMALE ART AND MUSEUMS
Sonia Chabbi, 2015
This thesis analyzes the role that women's art plays in the museum and could play in a woman's valorization process as an artist, curator or director of an exhibition. Through the analysis of the cultural context in which the female art is developed and borned, it will focus first on the perception that it had in the historical and artistic context and the various forms of thought. From here there will highlight a paradigm: “Are feminism and the museum as we know it compatible at any level?”. It will follow, at this point, the analysis of three case studies in the European reference museum context: the Frauenmuseeum in Bonn, the Museo della Donna of Merano and Microstories Women: Analysis of art exhibitions in the panorama of Bosnia and Herzegovina local area. By analyzing the different relationships between museums and feminine art and the role played by women, it will try to answer a question, namely relational between the museum and the female art as such. Finally, it highlight the relationships among the three different museums and women's art, the possible contributions that education and gender training processes can offer to the museum and back again, especially for the "thought reform" needed to change. The ultimate aim is to ensure a useful analysis for a rapprochement between art and revaluation of women in museums. Keywords: museums, female art, curating, displaying art, cultural background, local.
Women’s museums today: their creation, objectives and contribution to history
Arenal, 26:1; enero-junio 2019, 275-297, 2019
This paper provides an overview of the main women’s museums existing worldwide, taking as its source the International Association of Women’s Museums. It also explores the history of their creation and problematises their relationship with women’s history and the concept of gender museology. It examines the principal vectors, missions and strategic lines of this category of museum and the structural themes of their respective permanent exhibitions, assessing the main approaches that have been identified for applying gender concepts to museum space.
Call for papers "Museums through gender lenses", special issue of Culture & musées
Research on women artists, collectors and art critics has become a well-established tradition in art history. Rarer, at least in France, is work examining the place, role and participation of women in administrating and organizing museums, museology and museography, or museum mediation and transmission. However a small body of research dating from the 1990s to the present has reread the history of museums through gender lenses, meaning it has examined the cultural and social construction of masculine and feminine identities in their "multifacetedness" (intersecting social, sexual, racial identities). Whether their approach is historical or contemporary, whether case studies, personal accounts or global analyses, these works have adjusted the focus of museology, bringing a fresh look to what has long been an androcentric and heteronormative field. First to mind are the groundbreaking scholarship of Jane R. Glaser and Artemis Zenetou (Glaser and Zenetou, 1994), Amy Levin's envisioning of museum and curating practices from a gendered perspective (Levin, 2010), and Gail Lee Dubrow and Jennifer Goodman's examination of the American women who shaped the conservation, restoration and visibility of the material and immaterial heritage (museums, libraries, natural sites, etc.) of their country (Dubrow, Goodman, 2003). Closer to home, Bernadette Dufrêne's article "La place des femmes dans le patrimoine" [Women's place in heritage] followed up on an alarming report published by the French Senate drawing attention to a profound paradox: women are overrepresented in educational programs in heritage, but underrepresented in management-level positions once they enter the workforce in the field (Dufrêne, 2014).
2012
For the purposes of EUNAMUS/Work Package 3, three cases studies from Greece were examined in order to illuminate various aspects pertinent to the broader theme of the project: i.e. how national identity is built and reinforced through reference to the past as well as the use of this past in national museum exhibitions. The three cases considered were: the first exhibition hosted at the National Historical Museum of Athens in 1884. The full title was ‘Exhibition of the Monuments of the Holy Struggle’ curated by the historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. The second case study was the exhibition hosted at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens in 1964. The exhibition is commonly referred to as the ‘Sculptures Collection’, the curatorial work for this project was done by Christos Karouzos and his wife, Semni Karouzos. The ‘Neolithic Exhibition’ hosted at the Archaeological Museum of Volos, in Thessaly, Central Greece was also examined in detail. The exhibition opened in 1975 and ...
Novecento Transnazionale. Letterature, Arti E Culture, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the pre-existing crisis of the blockbuster exhibition model. On their search of alternatives, many of the world’s major art galleries have turned their gaze towards a critical reassessment of their collections from a gender perspective. The exhibition Invitadas (Prado Museum, Madrid, October 2020-March 2021) is a good case study of these attempts. However, its reception has not been what the Prado expected: the exhibition has provoked anger and disappointment, and feminist art historians have been extremely critical with it. This article analyses the reception of Invitadas, extracting lessons for other museums willing to explore the gender perspective as an alternative to the blockbuster exhibition model.
Museology and the Sacred. Materials for a discussion. (Ed. François Mairesse), 2018
Religion in Museums: Euthanized Sacredness, in the Beholder’s Eye, or a Multi-Tool for Shifting Needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness (2018) MUSEOLOGY AND THE SACRED - MATERIALS FOR A DISCUSSION Papers from the ICOFOM 41th symposium held in Tehran (Iran), 15-19 October 2018, 145-148. Ed. François Mairesse Religion in museums: Euthanized sacredness, in the beholder’s eye, or a multi-tool for shifting needs? Three suggested models to discuss how museums affect sacredness. Abstract for paper for the ICOFOM 41st symposium Museology and the sacred Tehran, 15-19 October 2018. Aimed for the analysis plan Museality-heritage-sacred. by Helena Wangefelt Ström, PhD candidate in Museology, Umeå University (Sweden). helena.wangefelt.strom@umu.se What happens when religion in the shape of objects imbued with religious meaning is transformed into cultural heritage? What values are added, what are lost, and who is the performing agent? These questions concern what museums do to objects connected to religion, calling for a meditated use of terms such as holy, sacred, religious, and spiritual (all employed in recent research and policy documents by, for example, UNESCO, while in many cases as interchangeable). This paper suggests three models to understand the processes of heritagisation of religion and the factors and agents involved, starting from a historical background in European, in particular Italian, Early Modernity. A frequently used scholarly model depicts the museum as a killing of previous identities, and the objects as provided with entirely new identities, and lives, as museum objects. This view brings on dramatic effects for sacred objects, how they are handled and narrated in the museum, and possibly on how they are viewed by the visitors. The use or not of information signs before sacred objects in museums is an aspect on this matter. The second model is the hybrid identity, where a museum object can be said to possess two authentic identities simultaneously, depending on the views and beliefs of the beholder: authentic sacredness, or authentic art object and evidence of history. This view may fit well with the focus on the individual in our time. The third model presented is based on the two previous ones, and suggests a hybridity not only in identities or living/dead, but defined by the uses of the objects. Even musealized objects can, as in the cases of religious treasuries or of certain religious images in museums, shift identity between museum object, object of devotion (to be carried in processions or used in rituals), legitimization symbol (bishops’ ordinations etc), and, historically, as a monetary reserve to be sold if needed. The identity of the object shifts, also in practice of being looked at behind glass or being used and touched, depending on the use currently applied to it. A distinction between cultual use and cultural use is relevant for this model. I argue that these different approaches to sacred objects in museum pose different museological challenges and possibilities, and also ascribes different agencies to museum staff as well as to the visitors.