24 IVAN KARP 1986). One of the al ofthis value sco extend the sigh of this lira wo forms eer tha the writen fet for representing caltures {6 Mashll Sali, Hioricot Myths and Mythical Reais (An Aebo: Univesity of Michigan Pres, 1981), 9. 7. anand, Penns and Esperence. 8, The history of diferent installaionsf he sme exibition raiscs interes ing ssues we mere unable to cover in this conference and volume. In out téscusion we have tended to colar the curator and diane 10 one ‘stegory the nilerenated“exhbitor” Ye confcs between people on ‘Soned wth contort and thse responsible for eee ae notorious the ‘meseum wrl, Ver fon lan are ae represent morta orestsin These dps wach a artic opty, the vews ofthe ance, the wales ofthe clare ta be represented, the get of 2 separ pac of view, nd soon, Those disputes ae moments when the alia ermaare that inte ferent pone of scum on sought ico play and mach hr rn curtors about "sete vals” hea seu, “athenti iy" the history moseum) or scene” (the natural hry or scene an technology mceum), How tafe the acl nso of exons 1 history yet to be wet. James Clifford ass avery important and ne tected dimension n bis contbution otis volume, “Four Northwest Cust ‘Museums: Travel Reflection,” The gee he diver ae maprity and mi rorty maseuns ype that ct Acren the asontext dtincion (hough ee Iisenveat about he tem minority) He exe a diference the val mare tives of thve ope acon Major asitions ll» sty that end 0 Universi while ipo and vomit sation end personalized ‘expres ther narrative tems of oppntional cere Chord pats his is tinction forward aes ore than hypothe, bot he as Brough fsa fone of the fet that the eltonship between mubeum and omy <0 fave on exibiing practices 9 ten Kaop and Martha Kel "Renny in Fedor CHAPTER | The Museum as a Way of Seeing ne of the clearest memories from museum visits of my child ond is of crab, It was 2 pane crab, to he precise, which was in a glass ease, a quite hardtofind case, in the Peabody Museum (actualy im the Museum of Comparative Zoology) in Cambridge. As member, i was the scale that ws so astonishing. Hhad never seen a cra that size and had therefore aot imagine! hat vas possible. fe ‘was not only the size ofthe whole bot ofeach of ts individaal parts. (One could see the way t was made: huge claws, bulging eyes, lees raised bumps of sel, knobly oims, hairs thar extended out around therm. Ie was placed atthe corner of 2 case so that one could walle aroun rom the font tothe se an ake tn from another view: a nash main body delicately supported an improbably lon ees, like the tines of some huge fork oF rake. 1 could attend co crab in this way because it was stil, exposed vo view, dead Its habitat and habits of rest, eating, and moving were absent. Thad no idea how isd been caught. Lam describing looking, ait as an artact and in dat sense like a work of art, The muse had sraneformed the crab—had he hd encouraged one to look a it th red, by seating, hese aspects, ‘way. The maseum had made ita abject of visual mere. The muascuns26 SYETLANA ALPERS teition to objets crabs incladed, as wise craft. This was good part Of the rationale of the early museuns, those encyclopedic collections bf Renannunce princes. Mach hasbeen said ofthe iology of power, political and inellctul, engaged in oth te collecting of objets and hetasonomic manner of ordering them. Bu I want ro tes that what tras collected was jdged to be of visual itercst (and even was em hanced by early museolical concern that cases be in appropriate calor} Spaces were set aside for the display of examples of nacural Sind human artifice feom around the work. Rare sorts of fal were dlaplayed side by side with human oddities (reo-headed or haityy {Chinese porcelains and antique busts! In a special class were objets that tested the border between the raft of narace and that of elke, hhaturalacifce and man's—goblet fashioned out of shel for «x ple, or worked coral. Indeed, painters took up the challenge in their ‘wn media: Diier's watercolor crabs or the pained flowers and shells [rJamBrcgel compete with what nature has made, The vsua increst “evorded a flower or shell n natures challenge by the visual inset Gf ehe art's representational craft. Peoviding pamtings of rate ow ‘Gro and shells for attentive looking in encycloptic collections was one shay dha aists were involved with the muscu fom the stat, Some Gpocalyptic account of the madera museum's usurpation ofthe artist ml his or her art are misleading, From Bracge’s time to that of ‘Ceranne and Picaso, museums have heen a School for eaftsmen and The taste for Wolating this kid of attentive looking at erated object is as peculiar vo ot cate 35 the museum a8 the space oF Toatiztion where the actiity takes place. (A separate space For images ‘Ro course not totally exceptional among humans—prehstorc pit digs were in eaves Egyptian paintings were im combs, and already in the Renaisance Eutopems had turned a chapel, Gioto’s Arena ‘Chapel ino 4 viewing box where the ritual of atentive looking and thedaplay of sill eat hand in hand with rigious sual) Ifthe era Seams an eceentic example, we ght consider instead Greck tae, Temoved from its sanctuary o stadium, eyes gone, coloe worn to a7 ‘overall pallor The auscum eflect—eurning al objets into works of Sree operats here, too, Though as an sue of national property some Greek rates may be returned to thir place of origin, none would tleny-—and think no one ha thought to protest—the mos eet, through which Grek sept Bas asumed such a lasting place in our ‘ata cultire. By contrast in the exibiing of she mate eutare of AWy of Secng U7 other pooples, in particular what used co be called “primitive” ar it is the museum effct—the tendeney 10 isolate something from its ‘world, to oer it up for atten looking and thus to wapsform i into ft like owe own-—that has heen dhe subject of heated debate, ‘Themncum cfc, Iwant to argue, a way of seing, And rather than ering to overcome it, ane might a6 well wy to work with it Kis ‘ery posible that it only when, or insofar as, an object as been ‘made with conscious tention o raed visibility that museum exhi biti scully inframing:in short, when the cultural aspests of an object are amenable to what museums ate best at encouraging. Ro- ‘manesqie capitals or Renaissance akarpieses are appropriately looked at in muscums (pace Malraux) even if not made for them. When ‘objects ike these ae severed from the ritual sit, the invitation to Look Atentvey remains and in certain resposts may even be enhance. ‘Bat objects are not always exhibited in such a way 3810 bing this ‘out, Museums can make ithard to sec, shall begin with Dutch art and caltues, the ease I kaow best (the crustaceans of my grovemup days). ‘recent, highly acclaimed exhibition was entiled Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Landscape Psnting The organization of the exhibition was chronological by loosely described types and the ‘catalogue was alphabetical by artist—both established aet-historical ‘categories of mind, But there was no visual evidence offered that the ‘aegoris or the change overtime was pat of the enterprise of those ‘making the pictures. OF course we know that any onder we place on ‘mavcrilis urs and not nesesaily this. Bu in this instance there ‘vas contrary visual evidence, from the layout ofthe great maplike panoramic views of Koninck wo the extraordinary backlit elowds and ‘ows of Cuypy that Date artists had other things on their minds than these proposed types and thet sequence This not that a chronological arrangement can nover make cul sual as wll 3s pictorial sense. Unt dhe tchanging of London's Na ‘ional Gallery in texentyearsone could walkthrough rooms of Kalan painting rom the fourteenth through the sisteeneh centuries and dis ‘over through looking thatthe sequence of those paiings—in erms ‘f media colorsand handlingand arrangement of Spares and seting— resulted from 2 sll-conscious experimental practice. It was not by ‘hance thatthe model of art as history, a distinguished from other Linde of aosounts of making at # provided by: Vasari writing on Tlian Renansance works sich as these. The persistent adjustment un! calibeation of elements construed 3 problems and taken up sic20 SVETLANA ALFERS cesively by cevtin artists a distinctive aspect of sis visual culture ‘To walk dough the rooms was to se that for atleast three hundred years those objects themselves consid a history. To offer another example in which the historical construing of visual caluce i sted: Some ofthe most suceesfal exhibitions of ‘Western art in recent years have been mapographic. The work of an individual artist sa characteristic oom out culture takes. Therefore, seating out the lifetime production of one individual makes sense as vrnual culture It makes sense to Took even ifthe order that emerges from viewing sems to he obsessional (as Fragonard looked ro me) rather than developmental in nature ‘But the visual cure of Dutch pictures is differen wants to offer i for viewing one might suggest exhibit Song with drawn or printed maps, which share both a pictorial for nat and a notion of knowledge. Or one might hang Cayp's backlit Cover and elouds with works in other genes (interiors, for example) that share his fascination wih the problems ofthe representation of Tight, one might ako try co show were ele in the culture (in the ppuntit of naucal knowledge, fr example) this optical interest can be eed Dutch painters have not been renowned for thee history pat ings that major European genre dealing with significant bum fon a9 narrated in cea vexts ofthe tradition. Nor did they make picttes of important public events: a map of a bacleground or & portrait ofa general with is fail takes the place of whae in another County might Bethe depiction in paint of 2 heroic bale or a sure dee, What happens, then, when an exhibiion is mounted that focuses fom a major historical event? In 1979 the Central Maseum of Urcecht ommemorated the 1579 Union of Utrecht, the Dutch declaration of independence from Spain.” But the dedaeation of union itself was fverwhelmed and lost amidst feas fr the eyes—documents, deco tated plates, cons, engraving, llusteated journal enries, maps, and Grassings of land holdings. One came to understand Dutch culture eter but pethaps ina way contrary toe intention ofthe exhibition. (The catalogue tile, which begins with a. proverb posed as {question —"De kogel door de kerk?" or The Die is Cast?"—and the ecision to focus not om the event but on 1559-1603, the fityyeacs surrounding i, already reveal a curious difence about an even as the occasion fn celebration, owas as fhe Dutch were so committed to recording ane understaning in pictures that they’ could nox fous tina sgle event or feng, he msc plays! ts pare ete: che on nizers obviously tied to collet material of visual imterest o tha the ‘exhibition would be mascum-vable and the museum in its turn made ‘such objets of visual imtees stand Out. But nowhere in the exbibcion ‘or its catalogue was the probieration of images itself eecognized ot assessed. This not a case of pictures illustrating history, such as we ‘can find in certain types oF illustrated history books, but eather pic tures themacves constituting a socal ft, The most famous revet attempt to consciously transform the ‘exhibition of European arin the dcetion ofthe broader culture ithe Musée d'Orsay in Pacis, Both inthe media displayed furniture and decorative arts photographs, and sculpture mixed in with painting) land in the choie of artists exhibited, this muscam disputes the ae ‘xpted canon-—by which is meant ewentieth-entary aotions of sil, ambition, and che achievement of arin the second half of teenth century in Francs. The Orsay, paradoxically, makes seing al most impossible, it ofall dhe way the pictures are sited and lighted and the presence of dineacting hardware make the pictures hard 0 dee, Secondly, works of leer visual interest (ie Couture) are beter placed for looking at than those of greater visual incest (e4 Cou bet), and ehe paintings of leser visual interest are not visually im proved by this exposure. One ertic has defended the Orsay by saying thatthe soil history of artis noe about what is visible But about hat 'sinsisble. All well and good, but chen one might ask: how, o¢ why, exhibit stim a museum? {stared with the hypothesis that everything in @ muscu is put under the pressure of 2 way ofseing. A seval dspay, bei of paint tings or masks, stools or pitchforks (I have in mind here the Musée Orsay, the Musée National d'Art Populaire in Paris, and any older ‘thnographic moscum), establishes certain parameters of visual inter ‘st, whather those parameter ate known t have heen intended by the ‘objects prodacers or not, This might ako he accomplished in 3 em scum by the exhibition of one simple of a elase—3 Couture in Japan, pechaps, or a baled fish et, 380 the cover of the catalogue for the Aeisetifct exhibition mounted by the Center for African Artin New York * Each of my examples iss work exhibited outside its place of origin: difference from shat is customarily seen is « spur to vival attention, while extending 2 sense of erate. But as the Orsay hugely demonstrates, when esibited together certain objects im any class ‘might repay atentive looking more than athers. When the works of antsts were sc amid the pictures and even inthe Kinds of spaces and lighting t» which the arias themselves apie —Courbet Beside30 SVETLANA ALPERS Géxicavlt and Delacroix in the huge nineteeah-century room at the louvre the Lapresionists in the imate, quailomestic rooms of the Jeo de Paume—this was acknowledged and visual atenion was possible The distinction a museum brings out berween a Coutbet and (Couture is comparable to that which it brings ut Between a highly dewrated African stool (Lam thinking bere ofthe Bale word agin") land another plainer ne. But—paticularly ifthe object was noe made for such atemtive ooking—ehis distinction need not have beet a sul tural yalue forthe maker and users, nor need the object be what we ‘would calla work a art, What the museum registers visual dstine- tion, nor necessarily clea significance, ‘sonly recently that peoples o groups nations and even cites have fl that to be represent in. muscu was to he given FsoR" ition as culture, thertore giving rs, I suppose to questions about how to doi ight I may not be politically or institutionally possible to muggest tha justice ro people should not be dependent on their represmation, or their cepresenabiity, in a museum. Some cultures Taek arifacs of visual interest, And politic aside, museums ae pee= haps not the best means offering general education about cleares, eis not only that cultures are not the sum of their materia bat abo that books andlor fim might do dhe lb much beter. remain puzzled tito how James Clifford would make a museum display inthe manner ff the anthropologial text he praises, which describes the “inauthen ti,” heterogeneous living tradition ofa Zani Shalako ceremony.” the Fhome setting of tribal” at fe. photograph ofthe interior of Chiet Shake's house, Wrangel, Alaska, 1909) that Gliford offers 25 an ab remmative to the Museum of Modern Art's mc -dscused “Primi ism in Twentith-Century Art show would Took suspiciously hike a Rauschenberg (sn oo dimensions) ora Kienbolz (iam thee) i it ‘were exhibited in a. museum, Que way of seeing can open its #0 ferent things buts remains inscapably ous ‘One measure of a museun’s siccess would sem to be the fee dom and interest with which people wander through and look without the intimidating mediation berween viewer and objet that something ‘sch as the ubiguitous exephones provides. Considered in dese terms, the Museum of Modern Arc in New York is a signal sucess. When MOMA applied some years back for sopport from the National Es dowment fr the Homanites (NEH) to pur om an exhibition,» ques fiom way fased about ceadence of educational content. Hanging ptt in a wertin way om the wall was all right for art (forthe AWay ofSeviog 3 National Endowment for she Art) bu no for education (which she province of NEH). MOMA came up with the device of a separate normational room, with much documertarion on the wall and 50 forth, through which one passed on the way to the pictures that were there for the looking. Itsecms to me a practice worth imitating, though ‘one might even dare to put che documentation ater the pictues, not before. Or one could like the National Gallery of Actin Washingron, DiC, offer take-home sheets that do not interrupt and discourage looking while in dhe moseum. Peshaps more attention could be paid to the edueational poss bili of installing objects rather than communicating ideas about them. Free viewer in other wordsy and make them les intimidated about looking. One way of doing this isto pay a5 much attention 10 the possibilities of intlltion as to the information about what is beng instled, OF cours, the wo are not separste—though one might argue thatthe collecting and eataloguing factions of a museum can uontinue behind the scenes wile installations do more in the way of fcouraging ving amd soggening ways co ae. Recent monoraphic shows in which the detailed documentation is putin a catalogue sep- ated from dhe evidence offered by the works themselves provide one ‘model for this, In the face of the American enthusiasm these days for turning museums ito major educational institutions, ia matter of redressing the balance. The way a picture or object is hung o placed — its frame or suppor, ts postion eelative to the viewer (i it igh, low, ‘or om a level? Can tbe walked around or not? Can it be touched? Can fone sit and view it oF must one stand?) the light oni (does one want ‘onstant light? Focused oF dfs? Should one let natural ight and dark play on it and let the light change throughout the day and with the seasons?), and the ocher objects its placed with ad so compared to-all ofthese aect how we Took and what wes. The history of exhibiting practice makes clear that this idea is hardly new, A visit to museum sch a the Pt Palace in Florence oF the Musée de Pomme in Pais, which retain outdated modes of ex hibition, suggests less that they were wrong and we ea get it ight than thatthe mascum-—as a way of scing—iuclf keeps changing and that inwllation has 2 major eect om what one sce A constant, however, is the ise of seeing. And the question to atk i, why and ‘vith what vial interest in view do we devise this or that display for particular objects? My conchision about the representation of cular in museum x abit troubling: Museums t cultural materials into aet abject, The22 SVETLANA ALPERS products of ober cultures ate mde into something that we can took tr iis to ourselves, then that oe are eepesenting things in meus Thue maseuis provide a place where ovr eyes are exercised andl where wwe are invited to find both unexpected 35 well ay expected crafted bjects co be of visual inerest tous. The mixture of distance, om the fone hand, with a sene of human affinity and common capacities, on the other, is as mush pare ofthe experience of looking at a Dutch Tandcape painting ofthe seventeenth cencury a5 ii of looking ata tarved Baul hed pulley of the twentieth. This it scems to me, is ‘vay of seeing that muscums can encourage 1, Foratudy and catalogue ofa partly eonsitted collin of his kind ‘Som Ames Innsbruck ee Die Katia lonsbrock Verlag Stale Tyla 1977 2 Peer C, Sato ea, Mater of Seventeonth-Cotary Dutch Lamdscspe Painting (anon: ser of Fie Ars 1987 13.5. Groeneld etl De kage! door de kerk? De stand in de Nederlanden “oe de rol ton de Une van Uneht, 1559-1609 (Used: De Wala Pe, Ww) 4, Sec Lins Noclin, “Suess and Fares at the Orsay Mase oF What ver Happened wth Sal Hicy of Ar?” Are i Amora 76, 0. ¥ (ah 198), #8 5. Antaift: Aico Art Atropogy Collections (New York Cater for Afcan Ar 1988). 6 Discs in Susan Vogl’ itrictony esy to Bale atin especies Shasles on Ac At (New Yorks Cente toe African Ant 1987), 147, 7 James Chir “Historie of he Taba and the Mornin The Pedi: ment of Cre (Cabeidge: Haraed University Prey 1988), 204,213 CHAPTER 2 Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of the Visual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects 1 order 10 get a minimal specificity of focus on the problem, I think I must be- ain by positing both a certain sont of ex Iibition and a certain sor of viewer, The sor of exibition Ihave in mind is, broadly speaking, tradition, by which mean that consists ofthe display of oizcs fr examination The objets aze presented in vtrines, on stands, of om walls and are accompanied by label, leaflets, of 2 catalogue. Theze may be adi ional elements—svideo displays or ls, theatrical or masical perfor mance, pethaps even cusine—but the center of the exhibition con sists of ebjects offered for inspection and to some extent expounded. This may seem a very conservative sort of exhibition, but ie seems likely, particalarly in the case of permanent displays as opposed 10 temporary exhibitions, shat an aray of objects and artifacts offered for inspection will emai the cenval clement AAs for the viewer, he oF she isan adult member of a developed society. He (let us say) has the “museum see: he has a sense of the Imusetim as treasure house, cucationalinsiroment, secular temple, and the rest. However, icisto two particular aspect of him that | want ro point. First, he has come tothe exhibition party ta look a visually imceresting objects: He expects things to Took at and he expects a large port of his activity in the exhibition o consis of looking. If this were hot so he woul! have stayed at home and read a book about the