Monthly Archive for September, 2010

Fourth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Published on September 30, 2010 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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www.Museum-Conference.com

Inclusive Museum Conference
30 June-3 July 2011
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Plenary Speakers

  • Dr Hans-Martin Hinz, President of the International Council of Museums, Deputy Director, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin and Deputy Minister of Culture for Berlin, 2000-2001
  • Lonnie G. Bunch, III, Historian, author, curator and educator, Founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, USA
  • Julien Anfruns, Director General, International Council of Museums and President of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS), Institute of of Political Sciences of Paris, Paris, France
  • Alissandra Cummins, Immediate Past President of ICOM; Director, Barbados Museums and Historical Society, Barbados
  • Somadoda Fikeni, Iziko Museums and South African Heritage Resources Agency, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Advocate Sonwabile Mancotywa, Chief Executive Officer, National Heritage Council of South Africa, Lynnwood Glen, South Africa
  • Meltem Parlak, Culture Oriented Strategic Planning, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Mirjam Shatanawi, Curator, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • Carol Van Wyk, National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office, Pretoria, South Africa

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins by submitting a paper proposal. More information on proposals, presentation types, and other options available here. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal. Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. 2011 Museum Conference registration options.

Themes

The Thrill of Science, Tamed by Agendas

Published on September 24, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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From Edward Rothstein at The New York Times…

A science museum is a kind of experiment. It demands the most elaborate equipment: Imax theaters, NASA space vehicles, collections of living creatures, digital planetarium projectors, fossilized bones. Into this mix are thrust tens of thousands of living human beings: children on holiday, weary or eager parents, devoted teachers, passionate aficionados and casual passers-by. And the experimenters watch, test, change, hoping…

Hoping for what? What are the goals of these experiments, and when do they succeed? Whenever I’m near one of these museological laboratories, I eagerly submit to their probes, trying to find out. The results can be discouraging since some experiments seem so purposeless; their only goal might be to see if subjects can be persuaded to return for future amusement.

Many science museums, for example, now feature prepackaged touring shows about hit movies to draw in the crowds. (I saw costumes from the “Chronicles of Narnia” films and the stage sets from “Star Trek” films on two separate visits to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.) Otherwise sober institutions present filmic extravaganzas with only the flimsiest relationship to science (an upbeat promotional travelogue about Saudi Arabia is now getting the Imax treatment at Boston’s Museum of Science). More…

Reopening of Palazzo Grimani Revives Memory of Creator

Published on September 10, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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From Roderick Conway Morris at The New York Times…

The Renaissance rediscovery of ancient art and architecture also led to the revival of another Greek and Roman concept — the museum.

That Venice was a leader in the refounding of these institutions was primarily thanks to two patrician Venetian collectors, Domenico Grimani and his nephew Giovanni, who in the 16th century gave the city two pioneering museums.

In 1596, Domenico and Giovanni’s legacies of Greek and Roman antiquities inaugurated the Public Statuary in the vestibule of the Library in Piazza San Marco, designed by the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino. Enriched by further donations over the centuries, the Public Statuary later became the Archeological Museum.

Less well known is that Giovanni Grimani was also the founder of a private museum at Palazzo Grimani off Campo Santa Maria Formosa, a few minutes’ walk from Piazza San Marco. Palazzo Grimani was once one of the most famous residence-museums in Europe. Early visitors, who came as much to marvel at its astonishing marbled, stuccoed, gilded and frescoed interiors as at its numerous treasures, included King Henry III of France in 1573. It became an essential landmark on the Grand Tour between the 17th and 19th centuries. More…

Groundbreaking Partnership Unites Decades of Research

Published on September 4, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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By Robin Pogrebin at The New York Times…

Most people associate museums with art and artifacts, not research libraries. But many of New York’s most prestigious museums have extensive collections of books and papers. Four of them — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Frick Collection — have combined forces to share resources, save money and make their holdings more accessible to the public.

Together these institutions make up the New York Art Resources Consortium, an integrated library system formed in 2007 that is supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Its Web site, nyarc.org, just went on line in February. Last year, three of the museums united their collections in one catalog, called Arcade (the Met has kept its catalog separate).

“This allows us to do some things collaboratively that we weren’t able to do individually,” said Milan R. Hughston, the chief of library and museum archives at MoMA. “Together we aggregate close to a million books, articles, periodicals and special collections that document art history.” More…