Page 27 - Expotime10_11_2017

Museums of the Mediterranean Museums of the Mediterranean

A religious collection without ethics? Vatican Museums will not be taken seriously by visitors
in the upcoming decades of the 21st cent. Since many
Museums should be participants of informal education of the Vatican rooms themselves are listed art works, it
afters everyone’s schooldays, with interfaces to the ed- would be wise to empty them, furnish them with histor-
ucation shall in schools. Attractive exhibitions should be ical furniture and tapestries and market them as „the
adressed to many different target groups. Furthermore Vatican tour“. The movable collections should be sepa-
modern museums should offer a social space for commu- rated from these rooms and a selection of them should
nication and discussion as core elements of civil society be shown in a modern exhibition space somewhere else
and democracy. – probably in an exclave of the Vatican like Castel Gan-
dolfo or on the property of emptied monastery. On-
The purpose of the Vatican Museums was not to enlight- ly that can be the solution; everything else will remain
en citizens but to demonstrate the superior power of half-hearted.
the popes and to glorify each current pope, to magni-
fy the members of the clergy and to apotheosize the Notes
promulgated dogmas of the Catholic Church. Such kind
of propaganda is contradictionary to the multiperspec- 1 https://www.britannica.com/place/Vatican-City.
tive view which is essential and typical for communica- Accessed Sept 25, 2017
2
Information on tablets inside the Vatican City State.
tion between museum curators and visitors in modern 3 http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/
museums. The Vatican museums fulfil the usual muse- de.html. Accessed Sept 25, 2017
um tasks with the restriction that research is defined by 4 http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/
the teaching office of the church and communication is collezioni/musei/la-pinacoteca.html. Accessed Sept 25,
understood as a missionary task. Classified visitors with 2017
an interest in classical Antiquity have to make their ob- 5 http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/
servations and research mainly by themselves. Laymen collezioni/musei/stanze-di-raffaello.html. Accessed Sept
do not find information, for example, that the objects in 25, 2017
the Egyptian museum have nothing to do with a histor- 6 http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/
ical perspective. Catholic ideology, archaeological and collezioni/musei/museo-gregoriano-egizio.html.
historical facts and art perspectives are mixed together, Accessed Sept, 15, 2017
http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/de/
7
and the visitors are forced to find the differences be- monumenti/musei-vaticani/museo-pio---clementino.pag-
tween belief and facts by themselves. inate.1.html. Accessed Sept 25, 2017
8 http://www.catholicnews.com/services/english-
Any modern museum today plays an active part in its news/2014/vatican-preserving-ethnological-arti-
civil society. This means for the administration of the facts-helping-others-do-the-same.cfm. Accessed Sept,
Vatican museums a paradox ‒ even with an honest good- 25, 2017
will. The papal institution and the ecclesiastic hierarchy 9 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sistine-Chapel.
is exactly the opposite of an enlightened civil society. Accessed Sept, 15, 2017
Thus, the Vatican Museums document a self-image of the 10 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/
church which does not fit to the realities of the late 20th italy/rome/articles/Romes-Sistine-Chapel-50-fascinating-
and early 21st centuries. They try to turn back time. facts/ Accessed Sept 22, 2017
11 http://www.italianrenaissance.org/a-closer-look-michel-
angelos-painting-of-the-sistine-chg/apel-ceilin. Accessed
A Herculian task Sept 18, 2017
12 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jona-
If the new directress is allowed to transform the Vati- thanjonesblog/2016/dec/22/vatican-museums-fe-
can Museums into a modern institution, is not known. male-head-barbara-jatta. Accessed Sept 20, 2017
What rests in the depositories for good or for bad, is not
known either. It will be not enough to reduce the im-
mense mass of objects, and to separate high class world
heritage objects from minor items. A critical view to the
history of the Catholic Church inside the Vatican muse-
ums sounds like a nuisance to many ears because the
Vatican developed the persecution of “heretics” to per-
fection and gave the pattern for all totalitarian systems
of the 20th cent. Therefore, the transformation of the
Vatican Museums to a center of critical research, a social
space for communication and interactive display will be
a Herculian task for generations. It is a challenge against
many centuries of declaring “absolute truth“, promising
hell even to moderate critics and burning dissidents on
the stake. But without mastering this Herculian task, the

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EXPOTIME!, issue October / November 2017