2.7.06
Kimmelman on the Musée de Quai Branly...
Michael Kimmelman today gives a biting critique of France's new museum of non-western cultures (A Heart of Darkness in the City of Light, NYT, 7/2/06, p. AR-23). Designed by renowned architect Jean Nouvel, he claims the museum succeeds in the areas of "novelty and theatrics" only: "Quai Branly's story is the spectacle of its own environment. Spectacle becomes its attraction."
Among the many criticisms levelled are the poor organization; the over-stated jungle theme of the design (dark rooms where objects emerge out of the gloom, tree-branch motifs filtering light from windows, meandering paths); and the scant interpretation. The criticisms are in many ways familiar: like many of the museums built today, there is a danger in the design of the vessel variously overwhelming, out-performing or out-shouting the contents. This in a sense points to why the discussion between scholars, curatorial and design is so important ... failures stem when a balance between these realms has not been achieved. The example cited -- the ignoring of the advice of a collections' long-time curator to show the B-52 bomber painted on the back of a Vietnamese scarecrow by installing a mirror -- does not cast a good light on the situation at the Quai de Branly.
I would offer one codicil. Designers seek inspiration from all sorts of sources and it is likely that the viewer will not always understand the association. And that's sometimes okay. In this, the jungle motif might have functioned merely as a springboard; were it to do otherwise (and be too literally quoted), then one is in danger of wandering into the Tiki Room at Disneyland. The danger in using this motif with this museum is (1) the geographies represented include areas with no tropical rainforests and, more importantly, (2) the jungle is perhaps "chaotic" and "dark" only to those who are not familiar with it. Perhaps it might have been more instructive to consider the jungle from the insiders' point of view. In other words, as a designer or architect (even one as talented as Jean Nouvel) seeks an underlying concept to support a design, it is even there necessary to go beyond the cliché (meaning unconsidered and conventional).
Kimmelman also raises the issue of the need to find balance between ethnography (I read this as contextualization or interpretaiton) and aesthetics. Elsewhere I have questioned the use of pseudo-scientific language to ascribe meaning or paste definitions onto a "people" as a discrete uni-vocal entity. And indeed Kimmelman also mentions the sorts of conflicts that arise when deciding whose voice should determine the interpretive approach (e.g. in discussing Polynesian work, would it be the political ethnonationalists, the religious fundamentalists, etc.).
But I think this issue needs to be pushed further: I am not entirely sure of the purpose of ethnographic museums as such, unless we begin to include aspects of our own culture within them. We need to apply the same lens to ourselves to test its validity. There is still a fear that that which is broached too close to home is too "dangerous" perhaps. Thus it is better to impute meanings on foreign groups -- the idea of bridging cultures or understandings on some level a mask for our need to explain or own "foreigness" and barbarity.
Kimmelman also raises the question as to why African, Oceanic and Native American works should be grouped together at all. I am reminded of a bronze monument in Paris (perhaps the Luxembourg gardens?) comprised of the "four corners" or four idealized nudes representing Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe all holding up the world. I like to think in Chirac's view, they would rather all hold up France (the center of the world afterall). Kimmelman is right to ask why the work should be separated from its western counterparts. We tend to forget that our "art" museums hold works deemed sacred and profane, fantastic and mandane ... begging the question as to whether a Jackson Pollock stimulates the seem degree of reverie as a totem from some other culture and the hidden desire of most western artists in any event to inspire the sublime.
On the facing page of the arts section in which Kimmelman's article appeared, there was a series of photographs (by William Christenberry) taken of a simple wooden structure and its radical evolution over time (from store to bar to shack to small town museum). In a sense these photographs function as a pure form of ethnography in the sense that we witness a kind of cultural/historic transformation without over-contextualization (reams of dry bits of data paraded by as if they have some kind of overarching significance) and paternal condescension (or variously paternal glorification) found in too some anthropological displays.
...
Among the many criticisms levelled are the poor organization; the over-stated jungle theme of the design (dark rooms where objects emerge out of the gloom, tree-branch motifs filtering light from windows, meandering paths); and the scant interpretation. The criticisms are in many ways familiar: like many of the museums built today, there is a danger in the design of the vessel variously overwhelming, out-performing or out-shouting the contents. This in a sense points to why the discussion between scholars, curatorial and design is so important ... failures stem when a balance between these realms has not been achieved. The example cited -- the ignoring of the advice of a collections' long-time curator to show the B-52 bomber painted on the back of a Vietnamese scarecrow by installing a mirror -- does not cast a good light on the situation at the Quai de Branly.
I would offer one codicil. Designers seek inspiration from all sorts of sources and it is likely that the viewer will not always understand the association. And that's sometimes okay. In this, the jungle motif might have functioned merely as a springboard; were it to do otherwise (and be too literally quoted), then one is in danger of wandering into the Tiki Room at Disneyland. The danger in using this motif with this museum is (1) the geographies represented include areas with no tropical rainforests and, more importantly, (2) the jungle is perhaps "chaotic" and "dark" only to those who are not familiar with it. Perhaps it might have been more instructive to consider the jungle from the insiders' point of view. In other words, as a designer or architect (even one as talented as Jean Nouvel) seeks an underlying concept to support a design, it is even there necessary to go beyond the cliché (meaning unconsidered and conventional).
Kimmelman also raises the issue of the need to find balance between ethnography (I read this as contextualization or interpretaiton) and aesthetics. Elsewhere I have questioned the use of pseudo-scientific language to ascribe meaning or paste definitions onto a "people" as a discrete uni-vocal entity. And indeed Kimmelman also mentions the sorts of conflicts that arise when deciding whose voice should determine the interpretive approach (e.g. in discussing Polynesian work, would it be the political ethnonationalists, the religious fundamentalists, etc.).
But I think this issue needs to be pushed further: I am not entirely sure of the purpose of ethnographic museums as such, unless we begin to include aspects of our own culture within them. We need to apply the same lens to ourselves to test its validity. There is still a fear that that which is broached too close to home is too "dangerous" perhaps. Thus it is better to impute meanings on foreign groups -- the idea of bridging cultures or understandings on some level a mask for our need to explain or own "foreigness" and barbarity.
Kimmelman also raises the question as to why African, Oceanic and Native American works should be grouped together at all. I am reminded of a bronze monument in Paris (perhaps the Luxembourg gardens?) comprised of the "four corners" or four idealized nudes representing Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe all holding up the world. I like to think in Chirac's view, they would rather all hold up France (the center of the world afterall). Kimmelman is right to ask why the work should be separated from its western counterparts. We tend to forget that our "art" museums hold works deemed sacred and profane, fantastic and mandane ... begging the question as to whether a Jackson Pollock stimulates the seem degree of reverie as a totem from some other culture and the hidden desire of most western artists in any event to inspire the sublime.
On the facing page of the arts section in which Kimmelman's article appeared, there was a series of photographs (by William Christenberry) taken of a simple wooden structure and its radical evolution over time (from store to bar to shack to small town museum). In a sense these photographs function as a pure form of ethnography in the sense that we witness a kind of cultural/historic transformation without over-contextualization (reams of dry bits of data paraded by as if they have some kind of overarching significance) and paternal condescension (or variously paternal glorification) found in too some anthropological displays.
...
