Museum Storage and Meaning: Tales from the Crypt

ISBN-13: 9781138065970 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 300 str.

Kavita Singh; Mirjam Brusius

Opis

Beyond their often beautiful exhibition halls, many museums contain vast, hidden spaces in which objects may be stored, conserved, or processed. Museums can also include unseen archives, study rooms, and libraries which are inaccessible to the public. This collection of essays focuses on this domain, an area that has hitherto received little attention. Divided into four sections, the book critically examines the physical space of museum storage areas, the fluctuating historical fortunes of exhibits, the growing phenomenon of publicly visible storage, and the politics of objects deemed worthy of collection but unsuitable for display. In doing so, it explores issues including the relationship between storage and canonization, the politics of collecting, the use of museum storage as a form of censorship, the architectural character of storage space, and the economic and epistemic value of museum objects. Essay contributions come from a broad combination of museum directors, curators, archaeologists, historians, and other academics.

Spis treści

1. Introduction  2. Performances of Museum Storage  3. Visible storage, visible labour?  4. Serendipity, Transparency, and Wonder: The Value of Visitable Storage  5. Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, in conversation with Mirjam Brusius  6. To Store is to Save: Kenneth C. Murray and the founding of the Nigerian Museum, Lagos  7. “Essential Cure for Dying Museums”: Clarence S. Stein and Study-storage  8. ‘Storage’ and ‘Display’: Local Museum Practices in India  9. Home from Homes: The Movement of Things from Families to Museums  10. Home Storage: The Reception and Treatment of Domestic Collections of Aeronautica by the Science Museum and the National Air and Space Museum  11. Preserving Preservation. Maintaining Meaning in Museum Storage  12. Hidden Histories: Museum Taxidermy Rediscovered  13. The Animals went in Two by Two: Shifts in the Classification and Display of Taxidermy in the Seen and Unseen Spaces of Public Museums  14. Storage and Sharing: A Suggestion for the Future of Collections of forgeries'  15. Upstairs, Downstairs. The National Gallery's dual collections  16. The double life of ‘Oriental’ textiles at the Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens: interpreting storage and displayability of Ottoman silks in 20th century Greece  17. Lying in wait: inertia and latency in the collection  18. Clothing, Care and Compromise: A Case Study of the Storage of the Hodson Shop Collection, 1983-2015  19. Loose Bodies: Reserve Collections, Curatorial Reservations, and the Ancient Egyptian Dead  20. The Secret Art of the Bambui Royal Treasury, Western Grassfield, Cameroon  21. Remnants of past lives – storing archaeological stuff