Understanding Museum Exhibitions

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the ways in which museum exhibition styles influence the way a object is viewed and interpreted by patrons. It looks at the most common tools used in creating an exhibition - the labeling, lighting and assemblage context, and how they may be manipulated either intentionally, or unintentionally, to convey a certain message about an object. It also examines the way display context may hinder effective communication with the viewer. Three example exhibitions are used to illustrate how various display modes can be used to communicate; the 1876 Paris Exposition of Louis Napoleon, the Herbert Ward exhibition of Africana and the 1988 exhibition 'Art/Artifact' at the center for African Art in New York. This paper also examines how the display context in each of these examples is used to convey a political message, represent a culture, and to challenge people's notions about aesthetic objects and cultural artifacts.

From the Paper:

"Exhibitions are most commonly seen in the everyday appearance of shop windows. Retailers use the exhibition of their goods to communicate to the customer something about the object. Through their use of the display case, lighting and the orientation of their goods they are telling the consumer the object is valuable and desirable. Exhibitors in museums also have this power to communicate through exhibition design. Unlike the shop displays though, the messages conveyed through museum exhibition are varied and complicated and far more reaching. An exhibitor has the power to affect how we will view an object. "The mode of installation, the subtle messages communicated through design, arrangement and assemblage can either aid or impede our appreciation and understanding of the visual, cultural, social and political interest of the objects and stories exhibited in museums." (Ivan Karp, 1991 pp. 13-14) Museum exhibitors not only have the power to communicate through their displays, but they also have the ability to direct the patron's perception of that object. Just as many believe a photograph is an accurate representation of reality, many patrons take what they are given in an exhibit as fact, even though both the photograph and the exhibit are subjects of the creators' interpretation."

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