Monthly Archives: April 2015

What I’ve Learned

When I first enrolled in this course, I had very little knowledge in regards to Museums. I only had an understanding of them from the audience perspective and how they are perceived by the public. I did not know how they functioned or about all the roles that play a large part in sustaining how a museum is run. My undergraduate studies have been filled with art classes, so looking at art from a different perspective has been very beneficial.

My Museum Knowledge

Prior to taking this class this semester, I had a minimal working knowledge of how museum’s truly function and what their role was in both society and education institutions. I had conducted two internships prior to this course working with museums. The first, was with a History Museum that had a low budget and minimal staffing. The second was with the Palmer Museum of art that had, in comparison, a much higher budget and aura of prestige. Culminating my two past experiences with the knowledge gained from this class, it was interesting to contrast how these two separate institutions function, and how they each are viewed by their target markets.

I know realize that each type of museum serves its community through a different role. The history museum, whose collection centered around military memorabilia and weaponry, often catered to a much older demographic and thus its outreach and educational programming was structure heavily on integration with a much older demographic along with trying to target a very young demographic with education programs. The fine art museum seemed to have held a much more prestigious role in its community being that its targeted demographic was much wider. The politics and criteria surrounding funding was quite fascinating. How this funding effected the way the museum operated, along with its ability to staff, was a integral indicator of the future success of the museum itself.

Overall, my knowledge about museum function on a larger socioeconomic scale has vastly increased. With this new knowledge the fight for education and outreach through the platform of the museum seems more important now than ever. Whether the museum is large or small, history or fine arts, its value to the community it stands in is vital to our evolution as a society. Museums are progressive and are an excellent extension of experiential learning for all ages, demographics, and interests.

End of the Semester Thoughts

Before coming to this class I thought I had a general understanding of museums and how a museum functions as an institution. In hindsight, this course has transformed the way I viewed museums and showed me how intricate operating a museum really is. The class taught me how rigorous the process of lending and accepting art work is. Something I had learned that museums don’t always accept art work, whether it be by donors or other intitutions interested in exchanging art; there are multiple background checks and paper work determining other institutions credibility.

I also learned that the Palmer was a more intricate museum than I had ever thought. Before this class, my view of the Palmer was so small. This class taught me how lucrative a good operation is. And how the less you notice, the more work that had to be done to make it so seamless.  I had no idea how much efforts were made towards artwork exhibition and how lighting affects the work. The museum goes through strenuous efforts to pay attention to such fine detail.

I also enjoyed learning about about funding and asking people to join the team. What struck me the most was encouraging others to love the idea rather than to just get money.

 

What I’ve learned

Looking back on this semester, the biggest and most memorable piece of information I’ve learned has been about the politics both within and between museums. I enjoyed learning about the different roles that museum workers play–what a registrar does, what an educator does, what the docents do, and so on.

In terms of leaning about the politics and relationships museums share with each other, I was very interested in learning about how they pass along works and send around exhibitions. It was neat to learn that not all museums are created equal–some aren’t properly equipped for certain works and exhibitions, and there are absolutely cases where a museum’s request for an exhibition can be denied. And this principle can also be reversed; museums have the right to turn down exhibitions if they’re too expensive, don’t fit with the mission and content of the museum, and so on. I also liked learning about the shipping methods, specifically internationally. I feel this is a section of museum work that isn’t really thought about for students, but proper shipping is instrumental in the conservation of the material and the sharing of knowledge and culture.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about the inner workings of museums and their relationships with each other. Museums are intricate operations with huge cultural significance, and I liked learning about how important each small component and role is to the success of the industry.

What I Know Now

Before this class, I had a general understanding of how art museums run. Through a few internships, I became familiar with some day-to-day operations (though mostly in marketing/PR) and an overview of the jobs offered at museums. But this class went into much more detail about the functions of museums, the various roles of museum jobs and how they all work together.

It’s been so interesting to learn how museums have changed over time and what that means for the future. I really enjoyed our readings and discussions about modern visitor experience efforts and how new technologies like social media play into the museum world.  I think museums are at a really interesting point in history where they’re seeing contrasts between traditional practices and new strategies and innovations.

Since the beginning of the semester, I’ve started to notice a lot of these new visitor experience strategies at museums and galleries I’ve visited. It’s been interesting to see how what we’ve talked about in class plays out in the real world, and to be able to evaluate if something is effective or not.

Post-Semester Perspective Alteration

When I first started this class, I had a little of a background regarding the architecture and exhibition spaces of art museums. However, I had no knowledge about how a museum operates neither about any of the museological or managerial activities that take place in a museum setting. Every class, new information was added to my knowledge regarding the specificities and generalities of art museums. Now, I know details about how a museum operates. The parts that interest me the most were the ones we were discussing exhibition layouts and designs. I really enjoyed when we were introduced to the preparator and the senior preparator as they talked about how they prepare for new exhibitions. I gained great knowledge about packaging and handling two-dimensional and three-dimensional art objects with Bev. Conservation and preservation was also a niche that was interesting to explore specially paper conservations and prints. More specific details about museological practices such as loans, registration, and special exhibitions procedures were also very useful to discern. In the more general topics, I benefitted from our conversations regarding museums’ mission statements, and interpretation of material culture, as well as publicity and outreach of museums in the 21st century. Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to comprehend the various staff members that exist in museums and their roles. The structure of the museum personnel became clear to me as it ranges from directors, public relations coordinators, registrars, curators, conservators, and preparators. I believe it was a great opportunity to meet these people and hear them talk about their experiences. I always find it beneficial to hear stories from people working in the field rather than reading the general role of each position through a book. However, the readings were insightful in terms of familiarizing me with the progression and development of art museums through history as well as the path museums will most likely be heading taking in the future. I enjoyed the readings about specific objects such as the Caveat Emptor’s reading. Overall, I have gained extensive knowledge about both the general as well as the specific regarding art museums.

My understanding of an art museum has changed quite a bit. I knew there was an underlining structure but I was unfamiliar of how sophisticated and complex operating a museum really was. The things that seem to just fall in line like the installation of the works take a very certain attention to detail and lighting knowledge. The intense records and categorization the registrar takes on seems overwhelming but Bev seems to love it. I think the wide spread paper trail and documentation took me a little by surprise. Over all I think I have a new clarity over all. Museums are very complex but breaking it down departments by department really helped me gain an understanding of how each area works separately and as a cohesive organization.

Has My Perspective of Museum’s Changed?

When I first entered this class, the amount of knowledge I had about how museums worked was minimal. I thought that an Art museum could display any form of art, according to the specific exhibit. I already knew the idea that a museum needed a purpose on what to display to the public, and a motivation. I also knew about the idea of special exhibits that move from one museum to another. What I didn’t know about was that an exhibit can be denied to a museum depending on its funding and its size. Certain exhibitions call for large museums not just because of the size of the exhibit, but also because of the size of the artifacts. Not all museums can accommodate for the sizes of some artwork.

What I also didn’t know about was the politics involved. This was the most mysterious aspect to grasp about running a museum. The connections between people that make a museum actually work is astounding. It actually extends on an international level sometimes, depending on the museum’s stature. As a person pursuing a career for historic preservation, I’m also surprised how running a museum and historic preservation are connected. For example, the restoration projects on certain art pieces to have them prepared for display. After everything, I can honestly say that my perspective of how museum’s are run has changed greatly. I had an idea about some points, but there was still whole lot more to the picture. It was truly worth finding out about!

Looking Back

My understandings of museums have changed a lot over the course of the semester. I learned a lot more than I expected to through readings and lectures by the Palmer Museum staff.

From my internships, I had a cursory understanding of the inner workings of a museum from curating, to packing and shipping. This course allowed me to learn about all aspects of the museum more in depth.

I particularly enjoyed getting to know about Registration and the process by which museums lend out their objects. I knew about various aspects like art handlers traveling with objects and the different modes of transport used. I was surprised by the checklist of aspects of the process that Bev showed us. I didn’t realize that things like pest control can be such huge issues for art handlers.

I always knew that museums have problems with funding, is is pretty consistent even for larger institutions. However, I never thought about how that can put a lot of pressure on individuals. I was really impressed by how Jennifer Feehan managed to take care of membership and PR.

One of the things that I liked most about this course was getting to see how much the people at the Palmer love their jobs. It was really encouraging to see how happy they are!