How Can Museum Professionals Redefine the Field?

Take a look at this article posted on the website for the American Association of Museums:
http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/a-well-balanced-field.cfm

It's an interesting look at how graduate students in the museum field can prepare themselves for the future...

You Can't Find it on a Map: The Museum of Arts and Design’s Global Africa Project

The words “African Art” are often thrown around as convenient catch all for what is actually a complex topic. However underlying those words are some rather large issues and one big question – what is African Art? Is African Art a cultural or historical designation? Is it geographical, as the most literal reading would imply? Or, due to the melanin in a person’s skin, is the art he or she makes always going to be designated as “African”? This is the hefty mountain which the Museum of Arts and Design attempts to climb with its exhibit, The Global Africa Project. The Museum of Arts and Design takes a new approach by inviting its visitors to ask “Where is Africa?”

Occupying three of the Museum’s five floors, The Global Africa Project covers a broad range of art and design media, including sculpture, installation pieces, posters, photography, fashion, furniture, textile work, basketry, lamps, architecture, two cars and even a book. These are organized, not by geographical region or artist but instead are loosely sectioned off into themes such as Transforming Traditions, Sourcing Locally, or Branding Content–where the art moves from a display of the Wu-Wear gear by the Wu Tang Clan to Keith Harring’s 1985 print Free South Africa.

It quickly becomes obvious that it is through the creation of their works that these artists explore the questions of what and where African Art is as well as what it means to be an African Artist. By juxtaposing different styles of art and t artists from around the world, the exhibit shows us just how many answers there are to the question of where Africa is. For instance, about his artistic journey Heath Nash has this to say, “I was informed that [my art] didn’t look African or South African enough. This led me to try and figure out what a South African product is and how to represent my feelings for South Africa through design.” The result is a set of four hanging lamps, vibrantly colored and covered in flowers made from recycled detergent bottles. His lights are featured in the Sourcing Locally section which explores contemporary African Art and its grounding in “amalgamation and recycling,” and although it is supposed to be the prominent theme of the section, this kind of creation process can be seen in art from other sections as well.

The only downside to the Global Africa Project is that its size really does live up to the vast implications of its name. The exhibit sets out to tackle what it considers a large amount of “psychic and physical space.” Due to the amount of art there is to see, the exhibit can very quickly become overwhelming. Luckily there is always a different piece of artwork to rescue the viewer from his or her fatigue and recapture interest every time the whole threatens to overpower its parts. Occasionally, this part is played by pieces not placed in the center stage of the gallery.

On the fourth floor, after a slightly redundant parade of furniture falling under the theme Competing Globally, Fred Wilson’s two pieces are a breath of fresh air. My particular favorite, tucked away in a corner and not immediately noticeable, is titled Iago’s mirror. Produced in a glass studio on the island of Murano near Venice, the mirror is multi-layered, ornately done – referencing the 18^th century style of Venetian design – and completely black. About the piece Wilson says, “I am interested in all the western cultural meaning of the color black. Be it race or mourning, the complexity of the semantics reach back to Shakespeare’s time and are still relevant today.” Suddenly, with these pieces in the exhibit, our question of “where is Africa?” expands to include “when?” “African Art” can reference a fixed point in time, such as 18^th century Venice, or it can be transcendent in time as Shakespeare’s characters of Othello and Iago evoke modern day issues of race.

Around the corner, Sheila Bridges plays with the concept of time and history as well with her textile, glass and plate designs. Here she takes the French Toile de Jouy pastoral fabric from the 1700’s and creates Harlem Toile de Jouy in which the white gentry are replaced with Africans as a satire on the African American experience.

The third floor is perhaps the weakest aspect of the exhibit, where the problem of exhibit fatigue is highlighted . Though it has stand out pieces such as a large Aunt Jemima bottle made entirely of beads, it shares half of the gallery with another exhibit; therefore, the space does not have the feeling of completeness found on the fourth and fifth floors. In fact, it feels slightly superfluous - which is dangerous considering the exhibit’s tendency to overwhelm. Unfortunately, the exhibit brochure only emphasizes this problem as it instructs the visitor that the exhibit can be found on the 4^th and 5^th floors and neglects to mention the 3^rd floor. Because the exhibit has no clear ending or beginning and has an introductory panel on every floor, there is a risk that the third floor either becomes a not so spectacular end to what was a great exhibit or a slow beginning that doesn’t quite do justice to what is to follow.

And it is ironic that for the amount of material in the exhibit that it does just as Roberta Smith points out in her review of the show, leave out much of what is north of the Sahara. What she neglects to address is that by ignoring the countries which are largely influenced by the Muslim religion, in affect the exhibit explores more the concept of blackness as equating the concept of being African. Is not a Muslim woman in Egypt African too? Where I do agree with her is that the project should be ongoing, or recurring. Smith suggests that every four or five year the exhibit should be re-done to take a trans-media look at Africa. This would allow the chance to constantly reassess the change in what African Art and African influence on art and design is, and of course to work out the kinks and improve the exhibit.

In spite of these issues, the exhibit is a good one and definitely worth the time it takes to see it. With The Global Africa Project, the Museum of Arts and Design asks its viewers and participating artists a question which has no definitive answer and, as one explores the exhibit, only gets more complicated. Yet it seems to this viewer that this was their point: to remind us that, there is so much more in African Art, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your art history textbook.

The Global Africa Project, is on display at the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle until May 15, 2011. Lowery Stokes Sims, curator of the Museum of Arts and Design, and Leslie King Hammond of the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art are the Curators. The exhibit is sponsored by Robert Sterling Clark Foundation as a part of its International Cultural Engagement Initiative. For tickets and other information call the MAD at 212.299.777 or go online at www.madmuseum.org

Review: The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City

Adorning the dimly-lit, vitrine-lined, gray-walled gallery spaces for Chinese Painting and Calligraphy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are approximately ninety stunningly preserved objects from the garden sanctuary constructed by Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) of China’s Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The traveling exhibition, “The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City,” organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts in partnership with the Palace Museum in Beijing, presents museum-goers with a visual feast. The confining, rectilinear gallery spaces at the Met are figuratively bursting with impressive items inspired by materials found in nature, many objects which abruptly halt the viewer and inspire awe – in many cases, due to the sheer size of the items. Massive carved cabinetry, beautifully lacquered panels and jade inlaid screens, and gnarled rootwood furniture, in particular, an eye-catching throne with root-like tendrils that sprawl organically across the floor – as if the throne is alive – fill the interconnecting gallery spaces surrounding, quite fittingly, the Met’s own constructed indoor garden sanctuary, Astor Court.

The art objects on display at the Met once filled the Palace of Tranquility and Longevity in the northwest corner of the Forbidden City, a potential retirement home for Emperor Qianlong. Qianlong designed the interior of the sanctuary to reflect his adventurous and unconventional tastes – now sometimes compared to modern-day perceptions of Victoriana. The walls of Qianlong’s sanctuary were covered with trompe l’oeil paintings (or illusion paintings), European clocks and other Western novelties adorned the walls, and false doors and see-through partitions separated each room. These Western-influenced items were directly contrasted by more traditional items, such as miniature Buddhist shrines and elaborate mandalas, as well as naturalistic works inspired by Daoism.

Qianlong never retired to his garden sanctuary. In fact, despite dedicating time and effort to prepare his retirement quarters, he spent little time there. For many years after his death, the sanctuary remained empty, unused, and eventually fell into disrepair. The Chinese government did not have the funds – or the desire – to conserve Qing culture. The Forbidden City has since become a tourist destination, and the building exteriors have been maintained to uphold the outward appearance of historic preservation. The interior of the sanctuary, however, has been left untouched – providing a time capsule of past curiosities, if you will.

Rather than attempting to mimetically recreate the palace architecture with the items in situ, as the PEM had previously attempted, the Met uses its existing gallery vitrines and places objects in close proximity to one another in effort to pose tensions between the traditional and non-traditional, the man-made and the natural, the real and surreal. Such a decision honors the sanctity of the Forbidden City and creates an entirely new experience for the viewer, one that is starkly different in comparison to an excursion to the authentic site in Beijing. And, this is precisely the beauty of an exhibition such as this one. The display at the Met does not attempt to simulate the authentic place or genuine use of these objects, but rather the exhibition presents a new narrative – one of contradictions, contrasts, and visual play.

The New York Times art critic, Holland Cotter, explicates the possible intentions for developing a traveling exhibition with objects from Qinglong’s garden sanctuary in the Forbidden City in his raving art review (February 3, 2011), “A Man of Contradictions, With a Collection to Match.” According to Cotter, through the development and display of this fantastic, previously unseen collection, the organizers of the exhibition aim to bolster international partnerships, enhance conservation efforts, and increase tourism to mainland China. Visitors are enticed to witness the massiveness of Forbidden City and the restoration projects that are currently underway on site, such as the work on the Qianlong Garden Sanctuary, which will open to the public in 2019.

The conservation efforts have indeed been affected, and in many ways prompted, by the development and momentum of this exhibition. To provide an example, positioned in the center of one of the gallery enclaves is a case with conservation images and narratives explaining the painstaking efforts involved in preparing these objects for view. In some ways, this information detracts from the awe one feels while viewing these “authentic” objects – a nagging feeling prods the viewer suggesting that these objects have been tampered with. Yet, in other ways, the inclusion of these images provides the visitor with a greater appreciation for the work that is being conducted at the Palace Museum and garners support for the larger nationalist project. Cotter is correct in this regard. Like most museum exhibitions, the intentions for developing “The Emperor’s Private Paradise” are much more complex than simply appreciating the aesthetic value of these eighteenth century objects.

Throughout his review, Cotter expresses his appreciation of the visual illusions and posed contrasts present throughout the exhibition. Many of the murals in Qianlong’s garden sanctuary trick the eye and present three-dimensionality. The play between objects and illusion animate the gallery space. The Met has set one of the gallery enclaves aside for a large screen projection a digital tour of a Qianlong Garden building that was fully restored in 2008. Although Cotter values this addition to the exhibition, one must question the necessity of such an intrusion of twenty-first century technology, which detracts from the stimulating interplay between authentic objects and images, as well as trivializes the experience of traveling to the Forbidden City by creating unnecessary simulacra. One must question: are the authentic objects not enough in the modern-day world?

In addition to promoting tourism and conservation efforts, Cotter contends that the exhibition additionally provides China with “an agreeable self-image to sell.” Although he states the need for “an agreeable self-image,” the content of the exhibition is anything but agreeable, coherent, or comprehensive – in the best possible way. Cotter himself concurs that the exhibition’s strengths are in the surprising contrasts, opposites, and contradictions. He states “contradiction is also the animating dynamic of the art in the Met show created to adorn the various buildings – reception halls, studios, libraries, Buddhist shrines – in the Qianlong Garden.” And, later in his review, Cotter further argues that “this kind of interplay between opposites – the unnatural and the natural, the grotesque and the spiritual – powers the show.” Proposing, then, an agreeable self-image to sell to the world has not been accomplished by this exhibition; rather, this show has effectively nuanced Western perceptions of Chinese art and culture prompting further curiosity and wonder.

WHAT: “The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City.”

WHEN: February 1 - May 1, 2011

WHERE: Metropolitan Museum of Art; (212) 535-7710, www.metmuseum.org

Cotter, Holland. “A Man of Contradictions, With a Collection to Match.” The New York Times 3 Feb. 2011.