Objects

I have a foreign professor who refers to everything in the class as an ‘object’. She talks about space as object, architecture as object, gardens as object, fresco as object, drawing as object. I noticed it early on and I couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate move in the engagement of critical theory, or a slightly mis-translated Italian colloquialism. Either way, there is a bare truth recognized about objecthood.

Homi Bhabha, in an essay “Double Vision,” points out that a museum experience is one of visual schizophrenia, of trying simultaneously to take in the spectrum of objects, while trying to convince the eye that objects retain individuality. (The eye becomes jaded in a short amount of time, which says what regarding lengthy museum visits?) In our attempts to ascribe significance to every thing we encounter, sometimes, significance cancels out. They are again reduced to objects in a sequence. Especially in the field of art history in an academic form where textbooks take the appearance of catalogues, the ground is so leveled that one eventually becomes disillusioned with significance, and the individual as unique genius, entirely. Aren’t we studying just objects after all?

In art history, and museums, it seems reductive, or politically incorrect, to call our objects of study just ‘objects,’ as if inscribed in this word, there a self-isolation, or an otherness that we in our global society can no longer feel comfortable admitting to. Something in the terminology must be changed to suggest that these art-objects/specimens/artifacts/works bear distinction and significance. If we take away these designations from what we see, the entire foundations of art museum and art history collapse; they need objects to be more than just stuff.

On Museums, 1

A great part of the reason for starting this space was to experiment in my own writing in the fields of art and museum theory. I am still trying to find my own footing as I continue in my academic studies on the subject, and early on, I recognized that my eventual stance will probably not find much of a sympathetic audience.

My premise is mostly this: museums are social sites which perpetuate and moralize cultural values through its collection and presentation of “cultured” objects.

The book I’m studying mostly from is Donald Preziosi’s anthology, Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum. (A volume I will formally review as I near the end of it.) This week, I’ve been preparing a short write-up on an introduction and short essays under a section titled “Building Shared Imaginaries/Effacing Otherness.” I am posting my most general text in the cut. The format might read a bit awkwardly because it was intended for my advisor to easily find my place in the text.

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