Current Issues Of Museums And Galleries Journal

Never before have I seen a museum as grand as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From its architecture to its massive art collection, The Met has a little bit of everything and one is sure to find something that captures his or her interest. Considering that The Met is the United States' largest art museum, it is easy to get lost within its many corridors and wings. My visit to The Met took place during the last week of July. Despite the almost unbearable heat and humidity that hung in the air, visiting museums under these climate conditions is a welcome respite from a suffocating, yet bright summer afternoon.

Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.

What defines a memorial museum as a category of museum? While symbolizing the event and forming public perspectives on it, “the ethics in memorial museums, ethics morality and human deeds occupy the very heart of the topics on display, and correspondingly involve especially careful consideration of representation and reception” (Williams, Memorial museums, 220). Memorial mMuseums should be responsible at when choosing the objects they display, narrating the event and establishing visitors’ memories.

Positioned alongside Central Park in the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museum, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a certain set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within the museum. Brent Plate in Religion, Art, and Visual Culture argues that “objects obtain different meanings in different locations and historical settings.”An object placed on display behind a glass case inside a museum would hold a vastly different meaning if it was put on sale by a street vendor, like the ones who set up their tables in close proximity to the Met. The different meanings that objects are able to obtain is attributed to the relationships that are established between the object itself and the environment that surrounds it. These relationships often involve the kind of audience that a museum attracts, where the work is exhibited, and how the exhibits within a museum is planned out. Museums subsequently have the ability to control how these relationships are established which influences the way a viewer is able to construct meaning. When a visitor observes an object on display at the Met, they instinctively construct a certain set of

Within such assemblage museums and their unsettled artifacts can be situated as affect- image (83). They are not fixed and static places which contain unsettled objects. They can depart from the common sense world and organize systems that control appearance and relationships and suggest the future. Museums select what they represent and; consequently, excludes parts of history according to their interests. This resembles the white policy which stresses and enlarges a specific trait in the colonized and excludes any implication of positive traits.

Another aspect that I found to be very interesting was the way in which each of the museums offered different multimedia formats to facilitate the visitor’s experience with the artwork in display. I noticed that both museums offered applications for smartphones and tablets, free of charge, to assist the visitors with getting the most possible out of the museum. Visiting a museum can be a very distracting task because there is so much to see and without a plan or a navigating system that helps you make your way towards the museum, it can be hard to gain something from your visit. Both apps are accessible to most people and very easy to navigate through. These apps included audio guides, exhibition information, calendars, events and so on. However, I noticed

I hope to see museums make more concerted efforts to educate the public. Too many exhibits are of the “passive, didactic looking” than like the engaging Object Stories program (Dartt, Murawski). Exhibits should seek to tell untold narratives, and programs should be places of communication and cross-cultural encounters. For too long, difficult confrontations have been avoided, both inside the museum, and by dominant communities

The Dallas Museum is a renowned art museum established in 1903 and is located in Dallas, Texas (Neumann et al. 19). The Dallas Museum of art is one of the largest art museums in the United States of America containing more than 24,000 collections of art ranging from the ancient to the modern ones (MacDonald & Brettell 112). There are numerous things inside the museum, such as the pieces of art, museum visitors, and the architecture, that relate to the understanding of the world outside the museum in terms of the day to day life and the human society. My goal in this essay is to think outside the box and describe the observations I made inside the museum and explain how they relate to my everyday life, the wider world, or the human society.

In the Robyn Autry article, it mainly focuses on the national conflict of museums mainly focusing towards African American. The author travel to 15 museums around the United States that focuses towards African American. She mainly talks about how the African American were facing numerous hardships in the U.S and how the museum represents those issues to the general public. She believes the way to tell the hardship of African Americans is by exhibiting through a museum. When traveling through these museums she focused towards “centered on three traumatic episodes: capture and displacement from Africa, enslavement, and racial segregation” (Autry 64). The author of the articles wants to show that over time that museums meanings has changed over

In Steven Lubar’s book, Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present, the recurring idea that museums are “more than the sum of their parts” plays a critical role in the overall argument (329). Lubar notes many aspects that make up a museum, the collection, for example is an essential part of any museum, but the community, as well as the experiences of the patrons create a lasting museum experience. Additionally, Lubar aptly utilizes real-world examples, contemporary and historical, highlighting the work of individuals in museums and establishing a connection between past and current events. Central to this narrative is the example of the lost Jenks Museum. Lubar uses this museum to argue that museums of the past can educate museum goers

The woman who I spoke to at the front desk was very kind and considerate. She was very friendly and trusting and I made me very excited to see the gallery. I was also very encouraged at how many children were present and enjoying their learning experience. I believe that the majority of archaeology’s worth comes from how the public benefits, even if it is only some joy at learning an interesting fact. Seeing children introduced to history and archaeology so young and enjoying the encounter is one that will always bring me a great amount of joy. So, although I wish adults could also benefit from this museum, I truly appreciate its ability to engage childrens’

While some may view museums as homes of the dusty, decrypt, and decaying, I think back fondly to the memories I've made in them. When I was four and living in a small apartment in Shaker Heights, Ohio, my father would take me to the Cleveland Museum of Rock and Roll on the weekends when he wasn’t busy working on his MBA at Case Western Reserve University. Every time we visited, I would tell my father that I would grow up to be just like Elvis, to which he would laugh and scoff affectionately. When we moved to Glen Allen, Virginia when I was six, we would occasionally drive up to Washington, D.C. to the Smithsonian Museums. On some Saturdays, we would walk for hours through the halls of art I didn't understand (and still don’t really understand) at the Museum of American Art. On other Saturdays, we would go to the Library of Congress, where I would press my forehead against the glass of the observation deck—much to the dismay of security guards. But perhaps the most significant "museum" I've been in is just a short three-minute drive or seven-minute walk from my suburban home: the Twin Hickory Public Library.

The technology this museum provides plays a very important role in this section because it understands the learning needs on children. Studio Play allows children to make art and it also permits that parents frame their kid’s art and hang it in the Museum. Children can discover and learn about art while reinforcing sight-words. Opponents might focus more on the consequences of so much technology due to today’s innovations such as video games that kids play. This can affect their sight, their environment, and behavior due to spending long hours interacting with these video games. Also, opponents may focus on the fact that museums are known for displaying ancient art, allowing people to go back in time, not to make art. In reality, the truth is that these technology is comfortable and safe. Kids find it easy to get engaged and focused. Imagination has been lost throughout the years and it’s very important that kids are able to explore their

‘Imagine you were in charge of a museum’s collecting policy. What would you chose to collect and how would you justify these decisions?’

The information contained in museums is meant to represent changing and new ideas that are present within a given society. Whether museums contain historic artifacts, modern art, or other pieces, they are meant to represent people living in the past, present, and sometimes future. As such, they also act as educational modalities to help students and adults understand more about the world around them. An important component of museums in many instances is the extent to which they are able to engage their community, and the extent to which the community is able to contribute to the success of the museums. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, community is defined as “a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society” and “a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests” (“Community”). These institutions work to understand the needs, assets, and concerns of communities. Therefore, museums are tied into the cultures of the neighborhoods and regions that contain them, and this contributes to the unique nature of each individual organizations.