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Curators discuss "Public Hanging
At a conference hosted by Binghamton's Department of Art History and organized by Professor Karen-edis Barzman, topics presented by visiting curators ranged from how art has been selected and presented in the past to contemporary philosophies of what belongs in a museum, what museums are for and what the curator's role is. Discussions were as lively and provocative as the title of the conference, "Public Hanging: The Politics of Curating in the 21st Century," held in April and attended by art history faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. Several alumni who are curators spoke at the conference, including Alison Ferris, MA '90, curator at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art; Patrick McGrady, MM '80, PhD '89, Charles V. Hallman Curator, Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University; and Shawn Parker, MA '93, program manager for Exhibit Interpretation at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut. Following are some of the views and guiding principles they expressed regarding the challenges and responsibilities they face as curators in the 21st century. A college curator's role Alison Ferris said she enjoys the intellectual freedom of working at a small college museum in her presentation, "Exhibiting Contemporary Art at a Small Museum in Maine." "We don't have to answer to the Ôbox office,' as larger institutions do," she said. "Our job is to nurture curiosity." Addressing the needs of her college community is foremost in her mind in selecting exhibitions for the Bowdoin College Museum. She's proud of the fact that space for faculty-curated exhibitions is always in demand. Current issues on campus and ongoing scholarship in the art world are important factors that inform her decisions. For example, she recently chose an exhibition of artwork by William Kentridge, a contemporary South African artist of international renown. "It was perfect for campus," she said. "You can see his work in most metropolitan areas, but not in Maine." Also, she noted, not only did his work challenge art students to consider different ways of thinking about drawing; since the nature of his work is very political, it was a great catalyst for discussions of history, government and other social sciences as well. Ferris acknowledged that curators' choices are restricted by local politics and culture, and that they have to take into account "the academic and intellectual temperature" of their institutions in selecting exhibitions. But that doesn't mean she shies away from challenging people's preconceptions or sensibilities. "Museums are about making meaning of the artworks themselves," Ferris said. Not only do we draw on history and on our own culture to inform our interpretation of a work of art, she noted, we also contribute to the way our culture and future generations view that art. "By putting artwork out and making it available for people to view, that dialog happens," she said. Understanding how challenging some exhibitions can be for viewers, Ferris takes a proactive approach to dealing with viewers who may be offended by the artwork in an exhibition. She instructs her staff to listen to them respectfully, first and foremost, and to respond kindly and effectively without being patronizing. Native Americans reclaim their art Shawn Parker told the story of the radical change that has occurred regarding the stewardship, display and interpretation of Native American artwork and artifacts in New England in the past 12 years in his presentation, "First Voices: Reclaiming Native Interpretation in Southern New England." This change was brought about by Native Americans who actively sought to reclaim their past and present these objects, as well as the history that goes with them, from a Native American point of view. Two decades ago, said Parker, New England's Native American artifacts were held by local history museums, anthropological museums and living history museums, all of which largely promoted the idea that the region's Native Americans had died out long ago. Thanks to the activism of Native Americans and the resulting dialog between them and these museums, that has changed. Parker referred to Plimoth (Plymouth) Plantation, the living museum on the site of the first permanent European settlement in southern New England, to illustrate this point: "Prior to the 1970s, the Native American village at Plymouth was dusty and deserted," he said. "It's now staffed by Native Americans building dugout canoes and gardening." The passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990 was a catalyst in bringing about this change. The new law provided legal means for Native American human remains, burial goods and other cultural objects to be returned to tribal communities from museums and government agencies. "In many cases, museums hosted public, ceremonial returns," said Parker, who is of Native American ancestry himself (his family hails from the Abenaki tribe of Vermont). This process, in turn, created dialogs between museums and specific tribes that are ongoing and continue to inform interpretive efforts at these museums. In the case of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, a 308,000-square-foot, $193.4 million state-of-the-art complex, the executive director and assistant executive director are both tribal members who have played integral roles in rebuilding the Mashantucket-Pequot nation. Most of the other executive staff positions are held by scholars of Native American history, arts, affairs and archaeology. The largest Native American-owned and -operated museum, the Mashantucket Pequot brings tribal history to life through multi-sensory dioramas and exhibits of eastern woodland and Mashantucket Pequot life and serves as a resource center for Native American history and natural history. Exposing the Eurocentricity of museums Patrick McGrady asked the provocative, rhetorical question: "Should museums divest themselves of all but European art?" in his presentation, "Curatorial Formality in an Age of Entelechal Awareness." Far from being a judgment on all but European art, his question was intended as a call to curators to examine their preconceptions. "Curators often don't have or take the time to reflect what others think about what they do," he said. What McGrady particularly wants curators to consider is that art history, and also the very concept of the museum itself, is Eurocentric in origin. An inherent problem, as he points out, is that many museums display African, Native American or Egyptian art objects and artifacts outside of their original context. Because of that, these objects may be viewed by visitors -- often because of a subconscious or even unconscious Eurocentric bias -- as being inferior to European art. stitution, holds non-Western objects, how can it justify displaying those objects within the confines of a Eurocentric concept? Because the European model is held as primary, does this mean that objects from other cultures are necessarily -- by their very identification, because they're more distant -- held as secondary, less important, significant or accomplished?" he asked rhetorically. "These are the kinds of questions we need to continue to explore." McGrady raised these and other related questions to urge curators to be cognizant of the paradigm in which they are working, and was successful in igniting a lively discussion. In a later conversation, one idea he proposed for dealing with indigenous collections is to enlist input from individuals who are knowledgeable about materials from specific non-European cultures so that they may help define what's in a collection and how to interpret and display it. he said. "Large museums have specialists on staff as keepers of their respective materials," he said. "But smaller museums, such as the Palmer Museum, which cannot afford to have non- European specialists on staff, need to enlist such specialists in managing their non-European collections." |
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