muse ethics readings august 4
TRANSCRIPT
OverviewConservation, Corporeal Ethics
Part III The Radical Potential of Museum Transparency
21. Sharing conservation ethics, practice, and decision-making with…visitors
Part IV Visual Culture and the Performance of Museum Ethics
22. The body in the (white) box: Corporeal ethics & museum representation
ConservationSharing Conservation Ethics, Practice, and Decision Making with Museum Visitors
Author’s purpose
To “enable conservators to demonstrate their unique contribution to
the making of meaning in museums and engage the public in a
deeper debate on the value and implications of conservation ethics
and decision-making.”
Public Perception
Importance of making the creativity
required in preservation accessible
Share the process of exploration and
learning.”
Reveal rather than conceal “the fact
that most displayed artifacts have
undergone treatment before they are
presented to the visitor.”
Technological
International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums
“Takes a technological view of conservation,
rather than seeing it
as a means of making and communicating
meaning”
Impact & Public Value“Activity to reflect the past, the diversity of world cultures and their living and material heritage”
“Body” Ethics22. The Body in the (White Box): Corporeal Ethics and Museum Representation
Artifact Piece (1987)
“Professional Savages”Saartje Baartman, South Africa (1789 – 1815)Ishi, Native North America (1864 – 1884)Tambo,Aboriginal Austraila (1860 – 1916)
“The Continuous Path”Poeh Museum of the Pueblo of Pojaqque near Santa Fe
“Opened in 2005, its 1,600 foot permanent exhibit Nah Poeh Meng (“The Continuous Path”) tells Pueblo history in small-scale Native-made dioramas.
Maori heads• 2008. Two heads on view in the Pacific Galleries at the Royal Museum of Art and
History in Brussels.• 2010. French parliament approves repatriation of Maori head from Musee
d’histoire naturelle de Rouen
Untitled/TowerCharles LeDray
(1999 – 2000)
Wadsworth Atheneum
Institute of Contemporary Arts
“After James Luna:
The Lives of Bodies
in Contemporary Art”
Authors’ purpose
The production of active audiencescapes in response
both to challenging, new forms of display for indigenous artifacts,
as well as the increasing presence of body and performance art in the museum,
ultimately energizes visitors and increases their awareness of their own bodies
within the building and among the artworks
as much as it situates the audience body in an art-making role.
This new way of conceiving the audience’s relationship to the contemporary museum
is living and embodied; it fully demands our ethical awareness.