Phantasmagoria Experience...

In this response paper, I will highlight perspectives of contemporary museology in regards to ethnographic art, authenticity, and authority. Authors Ivan Karp, Corinne A. Katz, and Curtis M. Hinsley discussed in this response contribute to the contemporary theories that explore the collection, exhibition, and demand within the contemporary museums for introducing exotic art into museology. This response paper more specifically explores the various connections between artistic development, audience acceptance, and curator empowerment by analyzing a collection of narrative essays, and research from various curators, museum directors, and scholars. The conclusion set forth in this reading response values the cultural and educational experiences of the 21st century museums in a bridge between cultures that introduces contemporary exotic art globally; however, the cost of developing, and establishing an exotic art piece generally results in the item losing its’ true identity and purpose whilst exhibited within the 21st century museums.

According to Karp and Kratz (2000) in Reflections on the fate of Tippoo’s Tiger: Defining cultures through public displays, museums, art historians, and curators have contextualized and recontextualized exotic artifacts, objects, and materials found throughout various periods of time in non-western cultures. “The actual distribution of exotic objects amongst various…museums reflects the history of their collection , reception, and classification” (Karp & Kratz, 2000, p. 198). Rather, museums become a collection of non-western and primitive items in which curators and musuem directors redefine space, recontextualize objects, and deem what to authenticate.

As discussed by Karp and Kratz (2000), ethnographic and primitive exhibits are categorized by elements such as: (1) encylcopaedic project to explain everything; (2) known and collected in museums; (3) representing the Other itself; (4) exhibiting exotic cultures in various contexts (p. 199). Thus, ethnographic displays can be found in almost every form of museum context. “Ethnographic displays are not confined to natural history museums, ethnographic museums or culture history museums. They are part of almost all cultural displays, including displays of the ethnographic, the folk, and the Other in art museums and outside museums contexts altogether” (Karp & Katz, 2000, p. 199).

Through the museum effect, visitors develop a sense of belief in an undebated sense of authenticity. Thus, “every exhibition context and display technique embodies particular claims to authority, though all draw on culturally shared evaluations and assumptions about truth, reality, representation, and differences among cultures” (Karp & Katz, 2000, p. 202). There is a distinct transformation of the ethnographic object through various features of an exhibition’s boutique lighting, pedestals, etc. that illustrates a sense of aura for the museum visitor. Thus, the museum itself displays a sense of cultural authority on all the exhibitions and the items found within each exhibition. “Cultural authority is a fundamental resource the museums use to produce and reproduce themselves, precisely because it motivates audiences to attend museums and legislatures and donors to support them” (Karp & Kratz, 2000, p. 207). Museums synthesize an existence of cultural authority on the items collected, researched, and exhibited.

Hinsley’s (1987) article The World as Marketplace: Commodification of the Exotic at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, describes the organization, exhibition, and commentary of the exotic art in the ephemeral exhibitions that travelled globally. “Virtually all subsequent fairs embodied these two aspects: displays of industrial achievement and promise for the regional or national metropolis, and exhibits of primitive others collected from peripheral territories or colonies” (Hinsley, 1987, p. 345). The travelling fairs came into existence as part of a design to tame, but yet invigorate a hunger for commodities—during a time when commodities were being manufactured at an all-time record pace. The fairs were viewed by the creators and art historians as an educational experience of globally disparate civilizations. However, according to Hinsley (1987), the “effect is a linear parity, as successive image-experiences move like a film past the stroller. The observer does not stop to learn; rather, he or she strolls, window-shopping in the department store of exotic cultures” (p.355).

The articles highlighted in this reading response approach the source of exhibiting exotic artifacts, objects, and artwork in various ways. Curtis M. Hinsley touches on the various travelling fairs in which motivation for presenting various artifacts were for the pure phantasmagoria experience that was designed as a sense of entertainment through the manipulation of exotic artifacts for the sole purpose of monetary accumulation. On the other hand, Elizabeth Hallam and Brian V. Street represent the more permanent existence of exotic pieces within the 21st century world of museology. The solution for Hallam and Street in regards to appropriation and recontextualization of exoticised objects is not to deny or redefine the world of museology, but rather to acknowledge the existence of diverse cultures, appreciate, and celebrate the uniqueness of others. Both of the articles for this module contradict the articles amounted through the University of Florida’s Global Diversity course in regards to the approach and understanding of the needs for a establishing truthful, non-fragmental, decolonized, and globally-conscious museum experiences for the 21st century spectator.

21st century museology strives to connect geographically incongruent populations of various time periods to provide a holistic museum experience with the instantaneous ability to communicate, collect, disseminate information through exhibition, and be transformed to another time, and place through the world of museology. However, the averse implications that providing experiential museum experience has both a cultural and social impact on the audience that may not be worth the experience at the risk of creating a falsified experience. 21st century museums need to put an emphasis on decontextualizing the viewers experience and giving them a truthful experience—not one manipulated by cultural authority.

References

Karp, I. & Kratz, C.A. (2000). Reflections on the Fate of Tippoo’s Tiger: defining cultures through public display. In E. Hallam, and B.V. Street, (Eds.), Cultural Encounters, Representing ‘otherness’, (pp. 194-227). Routledge.

Minsley, C.M. (1987). The World as Marketplace: Commodification of the Exotic at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. In I. Karp, and S.D. Lavine, (Eds.), Exhibiting Cultures, (pp. 344-365). Smithsonian Institution.