The Museum Curator's Guide

Understanding, Managing and Presenting Objects

Nicola Pickering

• Editorial: Lund Humphries
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781848224131
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Arte
• Categoría: Arte generale

A practical reference book for emerging arts and heritage professionals working with a wide range of objects, including fine art, decorative arts, social history, ethnographic, and archaeological collections. The Museum Curator's Guide explores the core work of the curator within a gallery or museum setting. Commencing with a clear overview of and introduction to current material culture and museum studies theories, Nicola Pickering then discusses their practical application with collections. Illustrated with specific case studies, she considers the role of the curator, their duties, day to day work, interaction with and care or preservation of objects, and the myriad ways objects can be catalogued, displayed, moved, arranged, stored, interpreted, and explained in a present-day museum. The Museum Curator's Guide represents an essential and lasting resource for all those working with the collection, preservation, and presentation of objects, including students of collections management and curatorship; current gallery and museum professionals; and private collectors.

PART ONE

MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS

1

What are museums?

ICOM, the International Council of Museums, was formed in 1946 as an international non-governmental organisation. It maintains formal relations with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, a specialised agency of the United Nations), and has a consultative status with the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council.¹ ICOM supports a network of museum professionals all around the world and is ‘committed to the conservation, continuation and communication to society of the world’s natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible.’² When thinking about what a museum is, we might begin with ICOM’s current definition:

A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.³

This definition contains a number of points that are worth further exploration. First, that according to ICOM, a museum is an ‘institution’, thus an organisation that is somehow formally governed. Furthermore, that it should be a ‘non-profit’ organisation, so one that is not actively attempting to make a profit and is instead investing any extra income back into the work of the organisation (in contrast to a theme park or popular entertainment venue). Being ‘open to the public’ seems today to be an obvious requirement of a museum (though it was not always so), and that museums should ‘acquire’ and ‘conserve’ heritage also seems an important requisite: this implies that a museum is an organisation that acquires objects because they will assist in fulfilling its purpose, and it will retain and maintain them.⁴ Furthermore, being able to ‘communicate and exhibit’ the heritage of both ‘humanity and its environment’ is naturally equally essential: such a phrase asserts that a museum should allow visitors to see the objects it holds, and that they should be interpreted. Finally, the inclusion of a reference to both ‘tangible and intangible’ heritage is revealing, reflecting a change in our attitudes towards the nature of heritage, and recognising that it can be both physical (for example, objects and buildings) or non-physical (for example, folk law, dance, oral traditions, memories).

Several things about this ICOM definition may be called into question. For example, it is suggested that museums should be ‘permanent’, and that they ought to have longevity and the ability to develop over time. This criterion thus excludes the idea of ‘pop-up’ museums or one-off ephemeral endeavours. The inclusion of the phrase ‘in the service of society and its development’ is rather utopian, but we might ask what exactly a society is, and how such a society ought to develop. Finally, there are elements of the definition which invite further consideration: are ‘research’ and ‘education’ essential parts of a museum’s work, and what does it mean to ‘study’ humans and their environment? Furthermore, we might dwell on the idea of ‘enjoyment’ within museums: must our experiences in museum spaces necessarily be enjoyable? These questions are ones that are commonly debated in the museums sector and will be addressed in subsequent chapters of this book.⁵

The origins of museums

In order to explore what museums are today, what they do, and what they are good for, it is necessary to explore the origins of this institution in Europe. The collecting of objects that might have religious, magical, economic, aesthetic or historical value, or that might simply be curiosities, has been carried out all over the world by individuals and groups for thousands of years.⁶ The idea that collections of objects should be preserved and displayed to a public audience is a fundamental difference between some of the earliest museums and collections and museums of today.

Historians often wish to identify the first museum: a collection of objects preserved and on show to a public audience.⁷ Some attention in this regard has been given to the Ennigaldi-Nanna museum in Ur (present day Iraq): in 1925 archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered the oldest known curated collection of objects while excavating a Babylonian palace dating to c.530 BCE.⁸ These came from many different places and times, and were arranged and labelled as if they were intended to be viewed and studied.⁹ The curator of this ‘museum’ is thought to have been Princess Ennigaldi, the daughter of King Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.¹⁰ Yet it is difficult to ascertain how open this collection was to public audiences, being located within a palace complex.

Scholarship and the ‘museion’ in the classical world

The term ‘museion’, as used in the classical world (c.8th century BCE to 5th or 6th century CE in Europe), is said to be the source of the modern usage of the word ‘museum’.¹¹ In the classical Greek world a museion, or mouseion, was the name for a temple to (or under the protection of), the nine muses, ancient Greek goddesses, personifications of knowledge and the arts and daughters of Zeus. The Musaeum or Mouseion at Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the most famous examples, established in 280 BCE by Ptolemy I Soter (c.367–c.283 BCE).¹² Its origins owed much to the Lyceum founded by Aristotle in ancient Athens in the mid-340s BCE, a place in which a community of scholars and students could meet for systematic study, much like modern-day universities. It was at the Lyceum that the association of a ‘museum’ with collecting and studying objects began; here, Aristotle collected, examined, recorded and classified botanical material. Yet, while there may have been a library of sorts at the Lyceum and in the Mouseion at Alexandria, objects such as those we find in museums today were generally not housed here.

There were, however, other collections of objects in the classical Greek world: sometimes offerings in temples or treasuries that were open to the public included paintings, statues, exotic items and natural curiosities.¹³ The Greek ruler of Pergamon, Attalus I Soter (241–197 BCE) collected paintings and statues from the lands he conquered and installed them in outdoor spaces or indoor galleries.¹⁴ Similar use of statuary was evident in ancient Rome between 200 and 60 BCE: as the Roman empire expanded, Greek statuary was used to adorn the increasing number of new buildings and monuments, an advert for the power and reach of the state.¹⁵

Medieval Europe, the Renaissance and private collections

During the medieval period in Europe (broadly the 5th to the 15th centuries CE) the ownership of collections of culturally important, artistic, curious or valuable objects was generally restricted to those who were wealthy and powerful. Personal collections of art and sculpture, created by monarchs, church leaders or aristocrats, were intended to impress and also to represent piety, and they could also be of economic importance. Reflecting this activity, by the 1500s, two new words entered the Italian language: the galleria (a long, grand room with paintings and sculptures, lit from one side), and the gabinetto (a square-shaped room featuring natural history specimens, coins and curiosities). In Germany, the words Kammer or Kabinett began to be used for specially designated and secure rooms (specifically a Kunstkammer for art, Schatzkammer for high value religious or artistic ‘treasures’ and Rustkammer for collections of armour). In English, the word gallery now referred to a place where paintings and sculpture were shown. Yet these were overwhelmingly private spaces, accessed only by other privileged individuals or for private entertainment for a select audience.

The revival of classical learning and values which followed the medieval period was a significant time for the development of the private collection in Europe. The Renaissance period (broadly 1450 to 1700 CE) was an age of curiosity, exploration and invention, and travel and commercial activity flourished. Such an atmosphere, with a greater access to objects and specimens, encouraged wealthy and scholarly individuals to assemble collections of man-made objects such as coins, medals, paintings and statuary of intellectual, artistic or monetary importance (artificialia) alongside natural specimens or curiosities (naturalia).¹⁶ The accepted practice was to arrange and classify the objects in cabinets or cases, in designated spaces in the residence or workplace of the collector (‘cabinets of curiosity’ or ‘Wunderkammer’). Here, special guests and fellow collectors could be entertained, the collections exhibiting the owner’s power, refinement and education.¹⁷ A select few of these collections could be viewed by privileged members of the public, though usually on a restricted basis and requiring special permission.

Enlightenment thought and the museum

The Enlightenment period (broadly the late 17th and early 18th centuries) was a very important moment for the development of museums in Europe and saw the foundation of organisations that most closely resemble museums today. During this period of Enlightenment philosophy, world exploration and developing industrialisation, people once again attempted to make sense of the world through the collection and scientific categorisation of objects, especially those they felt were exotic, unusual or curious. Importantly, by the end of the 17th century several new institutions referred to as ‘museums’ had been founded in Europe, ones tasked with enabling access to cultural patrimony for the general public.

Britain’s oldest museum is often considered as the Royal Armouries in the Tower of London: from 1592, elite members of the public could apply for permission to view the collections, and in 1660, a wider public could pay to see certain staged displays. The first municipally owned public collection in the world is thought to be the Amerbach Cabinet of Basel, Switzerland: in 1661, the city purchased the collection of the wealthy lawyer, academic and collector, Basilius Amerbach (1533–91), which it placed on display to the public from 1671. Yet, it functioned primarily as a research library and had little place for exhibition space as museums do today.

Some historians regard the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, as the first public museum.¹⁸ The collections of natural history and ethnography that eventually formed the Ashmolean Museum were formed by John Tradescant the elder (1570–1638) and his son, John Tradescant the younger (1608–62), gardeners to King Charles I in the early 17th century.¹⁹ Their Musaeum Tradescantianum was displayed in a large house, ‘The Ark’, in Lambeth, London where it could be viewed by members of the public for sixpence.²⁰ Upon Tradescant’s death the collection passed to wealthy politician and antiquarian Elias Ashmole (1617–92), who gifted the collection to the University of Oxford on the condition that a suitable building was provided in which to show it to the public (duly opened in 1683).²¹ Admission fees varied: most visitors between 1683 and 1697 paid one shilling, although the fee was sometimes as low as sixpence.²²

Other historians will name the Capitoline Museums, Rome, as the world’s oldest collections of art intended to be shown to the public. The collection of classical statuary was initially begun by Pope Sixtus IV in the 1470s as the papal collection of art and was enlarged by subsequent gifts from later Popes. It eventually opened as a museum for the public in the 18th century. The origins of the famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence can also be traced to this period: the collections of Francesco de Medici, second Grand Duke of Tuscany (1541–87) and Ferdinando, third Grand Duke of Tuscany (1549–1609) were open for certain members of the public to visit from 1582, although only by special request.

Thus, while the Ashmolean may be the first permanent public exhibition founded for the benefit of academics, scholars and students, it is possible to argue that the foundations of the Capitoline Museums’ collections lie in the 15th centur...