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Dezember / 2019
EXPOTIME! Double Issue Sept-Dec. 2019
The editors intro
Museums worldwide are not in need, again,
of an updated museum definition.
But after decades, the scientific museum definition. The world is constantly changing and the media is living off it. No question, sometimes in a good, sometimes in a bad direction. Also museums are changing, getting more attractive, one or the other task is coming to the fore.
But wait: How much museum has really changed? Are all museums really changing? No. And certainly not worldwide. An infinite number of museums everywhere do not even create the simplest aesthetic, digital and technical modernisations, because they are fighting for survival, working with volonteering enthusiasts and suffering from any sound financial basis. It is a fact that only a few museums around the world are perceptibly changing, and most museums are struggling to put the well-known ICOM basic functions (collecting, researching, preserving and communicating) into professional practice.
However, not only the contemporary, fresh presentation, but also social concepts, inclusion, participation and decolonization are part of changes.
But what is really understood by these terms? Inclusion means to some people only to consider wheelchair access or childrens step ladders in front of showcases, but many museums still offer architectural features like extremely steep stairs, wide show-stairs, spiral staircases, narrow corridors, humpback paving, dark exhibition rooms etc., causing panic to the elderly with shaky legs or low vision. Changing these dangerous or prohibitive features is too expensive for most museums, or monument preservation does not allow it. On closer inspection, access for children, the elderly and all disabled is by no means a global standard. For example, many museums are situated in historic buildings (towers, castles, etc.), causing difficult access also to the young and fittest. For the blind, less is done worldwide, and some Braille explanations of the past were already dismantled.
And still, guided tours for persons with mental dementia are offered only by a few museums. Participation is handled as cooperation since quite a
while, but there are also ICOM representatives who arrange exhibitions on modern art without even contacting the artists. True participation of the exhibited cultures sometimes becomes difficult business because museum professionals have developed concepts different to the those of politicians or activists. And in some cases, museum professionals are struggling with conflicting representatives with opposing interests. And finally, not every museum has to decolonize because it has always respected human dignity or does not possess any unethically acquired object.
What, then, is the talk that museums have changed so drastically in recent decades that a new museum definition is needed? Even large new museums in Africa and elsewhere are conceived as typical museums of the past. Neither have museums around the world changed that much that the term must be urgently redefined, nor have new occasional conceptual and / or technical
approaches become widespread on a global scale.
The majority of museums are small institutions which will continue to exist as a charming, occasionally visited destinations without any changes in structure, goals and approach.
Nevertheless, we are still in need of a true and valid definition of museum including evolutional changes, not only at ICOM. Otherwise our museum representations run the risk to stultify themselves. Just have a look at
official museum lists which include institutions without specialists, virtual collections, institutions with opening hours on request, childrens educational institutions without originals, monuments or excavations without an exhibition building, exhibition halls without
own inventory, gardens and parks, national park centers without original artefacts etc. Additionally, ICOM has declared botanical gardens and zoos to be museums, while, for decades, these institutions have established
their own associations that do a good job, while ICOM, on the other hand, is actually unaffected by the interests of botanical gardens and zoos. Interestingly, botanical gardens and zoos are therefore not included in
many official museum lists which means: these official museum lists reject the traditional ICOM claims.
The constant tinkering with the so-called museum definition is unnecessary and embarrassing. What we need is a generous and descriptive 21st cent. real definition (Realdefinition) of museum that meets scientific and logical requirements. Important ethical obligations as inclusion, participation, environmental protection or decolonization should not have a place in such definition. Their place are the respective visions or mission statements of each museum.
Christian Mueller-Straten, PhD
Editor of EXPOTIME! and member of ICOM Germany
Contents
Top stories
6-11 Utz Anhalt
Byzantium, lost in Istanbul. The concealed history of a glorious civilization, part 1
New exhibitions
12-13 Team of LWL Museum Münster, Germany
Turner. Horror and Delight. Until January 26, 2020 at LWL Museum Münster
14-22 Bruno J. Richtsfeld
Philipp Franz von Siebold and the exhibition Collecting Japan at Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich
23-28 Judith Anna Schwarz-Jungmann and team of MAK Vienna
KUNIYOSHI +: Design and Entertainment in Japanese Woodblock Prints and UKIYOE NOW. Tradition and experiment. Until February 16, 2020 at MAK, Vienna
29-34 Team of Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Tiepolo: The best painter of Venice. Until February 2, 2020 at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
35-38 Team of Swiss National Museum
Indiennes. Fabrics for 1000 fairy tales. Until January 19, 2020 at
Swiss National Museum, Zurich
39-46 Nicole Hofmann; Julia Quandt
Art Treasures of the Tsars: Masterpieces from the Peterhof Palace.
At Schaezlerpalais, Augsburg, till March 15, 2020
From the newsdesk I
47-56 New museums
58-63 Repair your network!
64-69 A schedule for activists
New museum technologies
71-71 Jill Entwistle
Shetting light on The Shed, New York
From the newsdesk II
72-75 Discussed in the web: In clouds we trust; reloaded: Moving from fiber light to LEDs; conduct of children and parents; attaching aluminum panels on guardrails; off-gassing from laser-printed labels
Conservational projects
77-79 Katrina Schulz
Never Apart. Frames and Paintings by Brücke Artists
The dark side
81-88 Christian Mueller-Straten
How a painting under fake suspicion turned into an important original of the Renaissance
89-91 Malware warning: Ransomware is now ante portas of the museum world
Front page: Art Treasures of the Tsars ‒ Masterpieces from Peterhof Palace. The exhibition runs until March 15, 2020 at
Schaezler Palace, Maximilianstrasse 46, 86150 Augsburg, Germany. It shows for the first time around 100 objects from the Peterhof Palace collection. The exhibition can only be seen in Augsburg. You can find more information on the extensive management program at www.kmaugsburg.de. Tuesday to Sunday 10-17 h. Catalog 29.90. T +49 (0) 821 324 4102.
EXPOTIME! is media partner of the Art collections and museums of the city of Augsburg. Advert |
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