Postmodern Concepts’ Influence on Museology Essay Example
Postmodern Concepts’ Influence on Museology Essay Example

Postmodern Concepts’ Influence on Museology Essay Example

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  • Pages: 4 (918 words)
  • Published: May 28, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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Postmodern concepts have influenced curation and exhibitions, under the effect of museum classifications which determine the audiences’ perspectives on exhibitions. Postmodernism is highly influential and appealing because it is avant-garde (challenging past traditions). People appreciate new concepts, especially those that challenge the concept of art. The process of curation not only considers the organisation of the exhibition but is highly influenced by conceptual frameworks, postmodernism being part of the world agency.Museum classifications affect different audience perspectives because, while letting them explore the different meanings of art, they must be able to fully communicate to artists and understand their audience to let their work reach the public.

Postmodernism, in its eclectic nature, challenges originality which curators have to cater for. Postmodernism is a movement continuing since the mid-1980s to the present.It is chara

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cterized by “the critical questioning, and often outright rejection, of ethnocentric rationalism championed by Modernism” quoted by Robert Cooper and Gibson Burrell, 1988. Because postmodernism is still a relatively new concept, curators must continue to intrigue the audience so that they will attend the exhibitions and appreciate current art movements.

Marcus Westbury, a festival director and arts writer/presenter, says: “Connect audiences with work that will excite, inspire or amaze them.The role is less to be a curator but instead to be a catalyst. ” During the process of curation, a museum curator must account for the context of the artworks, consider organisation of artwork placement and their arrangement and have expertise in the curated artists and their styles when making a selection which affects the audience. The conceptual framework surrounding each work is key to how the audience will respond.

If artworks conflicted with

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art movements and styles of the time, it may be dismissed as being inappropriate.If the organisation of the museum is spontaneous, or there isn’t coherent understanding between the curator and the artist, it may detract the viewer on the overall theme and meaning which the curator sought to communicate. The concept of postmodernism influences both curating, and exhibited artworks due to the audience’s perspectives on its art style. Everyone views art differently, postmodernism even more so, due to its eclecticism.There is an increase in interactive art styles in exhibitions like installation arts and interactions to let the audience gain their own interpretation of the artwork.

Mark Haworth-Booth said: “Curators serve the practitioners in their field, but they also serve the public at large… The must look both ways, be sympathetic in two directions, be loyal to the artist but also to the visitor. ” Haworth-Booth is saying that curators have to compromise and incorporate the artists’ needs, while making the exhibition appeal to the audience.Postmodernism critics have views as various as the art they’re critiquing, making it a greater challenge for curators to choose contemporary artworks. Since the first modern museum, in the end of the 18th century to the early 19th century, a variety of audiences have attended seeking innovation and inspiration and this influences the choice of museum classification.

Museum classifications meet the needs of the public, giving them originality and exploring different meanings of art.Curators achieve this by exploring different museum classifications such as: installation art, lighting displays (like Vivid in Sydney, 2013), digital media, audience interactions, and the use of other technologies. When curators introduce anything into an exhibition or a

museum, it is instantly given a sense of elevated importance, as Horne says in 1984: “an authenticity that our society worships with reverence. ” The audience believes that since it was chosen to be exhibited, it must have aesthetic value in some sense.

Museums were established for the recognition and preservation of historical artefacts. With this in mind, when the audience views an object in a museum, they may recognise it as being historically important and other works not exhibited, especially by female artists, fail to reach recognition due to the exclusion of curators and art collectors’ prejudiced opinions. This ignorance of acknowledging female artists was very common among galleries in the 19th century, and even today.In 1985, the feminist activist group, Guerilla Girls, set out to highlight the injustice shown to female artists. In 1989, At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they compared female nudes and artists with male nudes and artists and found that, in the Modern Art sections, there were less than 5% of female artists, but 85% nude females. In 2011, 22 years later, they conducted the same comparison and found that 4% of artists were women but 76% were nude.

The National Gallery of London, which contains more than 2,300 works, revealed to have only 11 artists as women.It is this sexist and racial discrimination that many artworks are undermined for its value. We look at historical artefacts as works that were deemed worthy of collecting, but if the opinions were biased, we would not be able to know about other important values for women in past eras. Through this, many historical features of past societies is lost because it was

not collected and preserved. In conclusion, postmodernism has shaped the meaning of art as we view it today.

In its unfamiliarity and originality, it challenges curators, art critics, art historians and audiences in the aesthetic value and conventions of art. Curators must be open-minded and fair to all groups of people and willingly explore different meanings of art in order to preserve cultural and historical heritage. When exhibited, museum classifications determine which artworks are deemed valuable at the time, since it gives it a sense of authority, influencing the way audiences view exhibitions today.

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