The universal survey museum is seen as an elaborate and richly decorated building, housing pieces of art significant to history. However, it is much more than this; Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach relay that a visitor’s journey through a museum is an aesthetic and social experience. The museum is ceremonial, as rooms of art are deliberately placed, and the structure of the building itself is reminiscent to Roman architecture similar to that of a palace or religious monument. The pieces that lie in a city or town’s public museum are a reflection of historical achievements. Overall, the museum is intended to be an “experience of art” for every person that walks through.
The term ‘ritual’ is used throughout the article to describe the way in which visitors view the artwork in a museum. Duncan and Wallach state that the visitor is “prompted to enact and thereby to internalize the values and beliefs written into the architectural script” (451). Different types of museums adhere to their own “characteristic iconic programme,” meaning that the artwork and unifying collections within the museum shape the history the viewer is learning about. A museum belonging to a smaller city might contain collections significant to the development of that location or it might include artwork from a specific era. Large, well-known museums house breathtaking pieces from masters such as Da Vinci. This artwork allows for the general public to have a firsthand, memorable encounter with a significant piece of history.
The public art museum has evolved from a private, political experience into a more public, historical visit. A trip to the princely art gallery was essentially a visit to the prince, as it was a royal art gallery dedicated to the monarch rather than a dedication to history itself. The public museum is not for the king but for the people. Originally, artwork was meant to impress and had more of an underlying political influence, sometimes meant to glorify the ruler. Upon the Louvre’s transformation into a historical building, most other museums were also arranged as such. Even now, museums illustrate important events in history with artifacts and works of those considered skilled or even masterful at creating artwork. Once museums became more public, they were relatable to the middle class. As stated in the text, “..art could speak only of individual genius and achievement” (456). Visitors weren’t being convinced of a leader’s greatness but could simply admire the accomplishments of fellow mankind on both a national and individual level.
Since the Louvre, many great universal survey museums have been instituted; in America, the Metropolitan and the National Gallery serve as such. Presently, the museum is a shared social experience between viewers, as we’re allowed to reflect on local, national, and world history in the same direct manner. A visit to the museum is a historical experience that immerses viewers in the purposeful arrangement of magnificent artwork and the architecture surrounding these pieces.
Our Origins represents conditions of life as we know it today, developed from the origin of our species back in primal times. The exhibit featured art reflecting the relation of human to primates, as well as our scientific attempts to find answers about our past. Upon walking into the exhibit, Allison Ruttan’s work was a significant portrayal of basic human behavior. Her photographs, arranged in clusters, served as a storyboard narrating scenes of humans interacting with one another as chimps. Based on Jane Goodall’s accounts of chimps, Ruttan shows that these “chimps” were calculated and aggressive but also that the drive of human behavior is by basic instinct. She uses snapshot lighting to capture a moment in a cinematic way, creating a distance between the viewer and characters. In her other work, she humanizes a colorful array of chimp portraits with drawn on hairstyles. As chimps only pull their hair in captivity, Ruttan uses different hairstyles to give the chimps a form of identity, emphasizing the similarities between humans and primates.
Throughout the rest of the exhibit, a more scientific approach was taken to many of the pieces. Aspen Mays, who has collaborated with scientists, shows the ethereal qualities of space and the unknown in her work. She displayed the one percent of cosmic radiation found in television static (using photo paper) to produce colorful, shapely results. Jenny Akerlund’s highly rendered drawings of photocopies of the moon show that the moon is intimate and spiritual; humans can’t ever quite get a close look. Her inclusion of the photocopied area represents this distancing of information. Mark Ruwedel’s photographs of dinosaur tracks bring these ancient species to life to the viewer. He parallels this with human tracks, suggesting that we’ve taken a similar path. These black and white photographs are timeless and create a sense of unity in that layers of creatures existed on the planet simultaneously. Other scientific replicas and photographs were included in the exhibit. Our Origins is a representation of the unity of the human species and other life forms, as well as our attempts to truly understand how we came to be.
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