Day Six.

How authentic is a museum, really?

Before thinking about that, what does “authentic” mean?

It’s always someone’s point of view. It could be the curator’s point of view, it could be the way a particular cultre views something, or it could be how a particular culture wants to be viewed. All the information that the museum holds has gone through certain filters.

So that means that it’s never possible to get the whole picture. Nobody can ever really knows what that is, which Vogel did conclude with.

I agree with her, and I do think there is always something missing, but that doesn’t need to mean that we don’t try to cover as much as possible.

The whole idea of censoring information doesn’t appeal to me. In the case of a biographical museum, where it’s about the life of a person, what is the need to hide parts of the person’s life? If there is a museum made for someone, he or she has obviously done someone quite incredible in their lives that people want to keep them alive permanently.

It’s established that they are brilliant, why not be open to aspects of their lives that may not have been that brilliant. The basic notion of the person is already there. But that is a view that has been instilled in accordance with the majority. If all the available information is out there for people, then you can come a little closer to getting that whole picture, and a better understanding of what is to be understood.

I think a museum should be about information, remaining neutral and accurate. I don’t see the need for the inclusion of anybody’s point of view.Since there is a need to be selective due to limited space, one can decide what they want the focus to be and then cover only those aspects.

I found the exhibition, “Perspectives: Angles of African Art”,  mentioned in Vogel’s article, very interesting. The idea of the museum being about how things in such museums are perceived is what I liked.  It’s a completely different understanding of a subject.

The article talking about Rasas also stayed with me. I thought as I probably fell into  “the average listener, viewer, or reader in India” category, I should have, would have, could have, experienced a Rasa sometime in my life. While reading about it, I was quite confused about what “experiencing a Rasa” meant.

I was reminded of a poem I had studied in school, which I feel describes the feeling of that experience quite vividly. (Copy pasted below.)

After the discussion in class, I realized that I actually have experienced a rasa. There’s something about the national anthem, not just the patriotic feeling attached to it, but the song itself. There have been times that I just haven’t been able to stop the tears.

Flute Music

By Rabindranath Tagore

Kinu, the milkman's alley

A ground floored room in a two storeyed valley

Slap on the road, window barred.

Decaying walls, windows crumbling to dust in places

Or strained with damp.

Stuck on the floor,

A picture of Ganesha,Bringer of Success,

From the end of a bale of cloth.

Another creature apart from me lives in my room

For the same rent;

A lizard.

There's one difference between him and me:

He doesn't go hungry.

I get twenty five rupees a month

As junior clerk in a trading office.

I'm fed at the Dattas' house

For coaching their boy.

At dusk I go to Sealdah station.

Spend the evening there

To save the cost of light.

Engines chuffing,

Whistles shrieking,

Passengers scurrying,

Coolies shouting.

I stay till half past ten,

Then back to my dark,silent,lonely room.

A village on the Dhalesvari river, that's where my aunt's people live.

Her brother-in-law's daughter -

She was due to marry my unfortunate self, everything was fixed.

The moment was indeed auspicious for her, no doubt of that -

For I ran away.

The girl was saved from me,

And I from her.

She did not come to this room, but she's in and out of my mind all the time:

Dacca sari, vermilion on her forehead.

Pouring rain.

My tram costs go up,

But often as not my pay gets cut for lateness.

Along the alley,

Mango skins and stones, jack fruit pulp,

Fish-gills, dead kittens

And God knows what other rubbish

Pile up and rot.

My umbrella is like my depleted pay -

Full of holes.

My sopping office clothes ooze

Like a pious Vaisnava.

Monsoon darkness

sticks in my damp room

Like an animal caught in a dead trap,

Lifeless and numb.

day and night I feel strapped bodily

On to a half-dead world.

At the corner of the alley lives Kantababu -

Long hair, carefully parted,

Large eyes.

Cultivated tastes.

He fancies himself on the cornet:

The sound of it comes in gusts

On the foul breeze of the alley -

Sometimes in the middle of the night,

Sometimes in the early morning twilight,

Sometimes in the afternoon

When sun and shadows glitter.

Suddenly this evening

He starts to play runs in Sindhu-Baroya rag,

And the whole sky rings

With eternal pangs of separation.

At once the alley is a lie,

False and vile as the ravings of a drunkard,

And I feel that nothing distinguishes Haripada the clerk

From the Emperor Akbar.

Torn umbrella and royal parasol merge,

Rise on the sad music of a flute

Towards one heaven.

The music is true,

Where, in the everlasting twilight-hour of my wedding,

The Dhalesvari river flows,

Its banks deeply shaded by tamal-trees,

And she who waits in the courtyard

Is dressed in a dacca sari, vermillion on her forehead.

Day Three.

The reason we have museums, and the reason we have so many of the things we do, is because we collect, on instinct. We keep everything we can keep, and always have reasons for doing so. All greeting cards, after being displayed on shelves or tables or walls, are kept in a box, forever. We keep anythin there are memories with, bus or movie tickets of a really fun day, or the first rose you ever received, kept right in the middle of an old fat book.  We really do keep almost anything and everything– empty bottles of alcohol, feathers, receipts, hunted animal body parts, buttons, candles, you name it. And of course, clothes. And jewellery. Really, everything.

However, almost always, there’s a story. The who-what-why-where-when-how of that collection, and each object in that collection. The story makes all the difference, it is what adds value to these seemingly unimportant objects. The story is the part of the object that we cannot see. The part that we can see, which is the object itself, is treated very, very well. Everything that is done to is, is done so that it looks better. Whatever the invisible may be, the visible has to be impressive. There is so much effort put into maintaining collections.

Baudrillard wrote, “The collection is never really initiated in order to be collected.” It’s an endless quest. Actually, it’s not even a quest. It has no aim. We start with nothing, end up with something. Very vague. Then, when we die, materialistic pleasures like this, and others, are left behind on this planet, sometimes buried along with the dead. And then never seen again.

I feel photographs are a branch of collecting, on it’s own, and it’s the most widespread one.

Time is really confusing. It’s one of the things we are completely fascinated by because we don’t understand it at all, and it’s beyond our control completely. We have broken it up, categorized and tried to create a system to calculate and follow time, but it’s something that is impossible for us to hold on to. So much of sci-fi and fantasy stories involve the idea the time. One of the main points of focus is holding on to time, whether it’s in bottles where our memories can be stored and revisited, or traveling back and forth in that dimension. But, we haven’t figured it out… yet. For now, we take photographs, and videos, in an attempt to hold on to a few memories.

Day Two.

Museums are full of fancy things. Who get’s to choose which fancy things go where? And who’s to say what is fancy enough and what isn’t? Evidently, what is decided to be important by some, start to become important to everyone. They are “accepted” as being museum-worthy. Looking specifically as Art Museums, how do you decide what’s good and what’s not? I thought art was supposed to be for individual human expression. Everyone can do whatever they like, and because it holds value to the one who created it, it holds value. But, instinctively, we need approval. In class, Meghna said, “Art is so much like religion. It should be personal, but it isn’t.” I think we don’t let it be. Maybe that’s because we can’t comprehend a life without consumerism. It’s a cycle, and we’re in it. Everything has to have a price to it. And the most expensive of them all find place in museums.

But then you start thinking, why have a museum in the first place? It’s to create a sense of permanence for us, isn’t it? Isn’t that the point of a structure that we create? For us, and for our future generations. Something for them to remember us by.

So, the museums need to be a reflection of us, at that point of time. The medium used for this reflection is the use of objects, tangible things that say things about us as a society, as a civilization. For a museum to work, one of the most effective things would be to integrate oneself with the objects. You have to identify with these random-objects-that-have-been-given-importance, to understand why they have been given this importance.

The ever-changing audience of a museum has to be considered while making one. It is supposed to be for everyone, but everyone is so different from each other, that it gets very difficult. There are people who want things to be as complicated as possible, and there will be those who want it as uncomplicated as possible. To quote Aakansha, “There are people who don’t understand the concept behind concepts.” So should we have something completely concept-less? Is that even possible?

It’s difficult enough to cater to a large number of people in only one city. How do you create something that a much, much, much larger audience can connect with? I don’t know if it’s possible to do that. We are all too different, divided with culture, language, society, everything. If a museum has to become global, it has to become variations of it, adapting to each place that it will exist in.

But then again, you start thinking. Now, we have the Internet. Is there really a need for any of this? Why would you go somewhere, and see some things, that you could see in the comfort of your own home? The glass cases that objects in museums are put in make it very similar to looking at a screen.

I think the only reason to go to one if for the experience. 

When the discussion of a “Disney-esque” museum was brought into the class, I realized how for it I am. I think education should be fun. If it’s teaching you something, imparting any knowledge at all, it should be done in a fun, interactive and interesting way. To feel how it used to be, not just see. If it doesn’t give me something that I can’t get elsewhere, why would I go at all?

Day One.

Years and years later, after humanity ceases to exist, one look at a museum, and those of the future will know so much about us, as a species. Museums hold our history, our interests, our lifestyle. They contain collections of different aspects of our lives, and collections, as a whole, are a very human thing. It gives us a sense of identity, ownership and possession, individually and collectively. As humans, there are a number of things we don’t understand, like the larger picture, if there is one, and time. We have absolutely no clue about what time is, the beginning or the end, but we have this uncontrollable need to hold on to it. Collecting things, keeping proof of the past, is a core human trait that is displayed well in a museum.

How they started, as quoted by Alison, in class, is simple, “Rich people had cool stuff.” That seems like the most accurate way to describe it. To start a museum, you had to be in a financial position to do so.

When it comes to viewing museums, many believe that “we don’t know how to see”, and can’t distinguish between “looking” and “seeing”. We spoke about “crowds” in a museum, and how they are difficult to deal with, just because of the large numbers. What must be kept in mind is that these crowds aren’t really crowding  and, as Rohit mentioned, “You must cater to the learned and the unlearned”.

Museums and galleries for art are different from the others. It’s all about making the “works work”. “Unlike a concert, in a painting or a sculpture, it’s all there together”. It’s too difficult, the vastness of looking at a painting. We like being guided. So, should a museum tell you what the process behind an artwork is, or let you figure it out? We don’t know. I think it depends completely on the artist. If he or she wants their art to be open to interpretation, so be it.

The reason a lot of art is appreciated is because of the story behind it. As pointed out by Alison, people like Van Gogh, not only because of his sense of aesthetics, but also because his life story is so interesting.

Initially, working in the field of art wasn’t very fulfilling, but with the coming of galleries, it started to be. There were people like Jeff Koons who left investment banking to become an artist. “Taste” became more and more important, and on reaching post-modernism, everything is good, “everything matters, and we are overwhelmed with mattering”, said Alison.

 Thinking about the end of museums, I couldn’t help but think about the Internet. All the information that you could possibly need is already available. What’s there in a museum that you can’t find on the Internet? Yes, on your screens you see only pictures. In a museum, you see the real object, but the distance created with glass, or any other such boundary, takes that away. It’s the experience that makes a difference, so unless a museum gives you that experience that you can take away, it’s pointless.