Taking a look back in time, within the era of the French Revolution, museums were regarded as a testimony to the political state of a nation 'art museums could demonstrate the goodness of a state or municipality or show the civic-mindedness of it's leading citizens.' (Carol Duncan, 1991: Pg88) It was understood that museums are accessories of a well rounded culture, signalling to other cultures that the state was stable or civilized. But this could also lead to political propaganda and the creation of a facade in order to be strategic; favoring achievements within the countries history and suppressing other elements that would diminish the public image.
So therefore the art museum cannot be an accurate depiction of a communities history or values, but a vision of how the institution wants to portray to the world and how it wants us to be, and this aspect is still very true today.
Immediately after this lecture we visited the Tate Britain and it's recent opening of it's British art walk through. Bearing in mind what we had just discussed it really changed the way in which I approached the exhibition. Thinking about what stories the Tate curators are trying to tell with it's 2% of art that is on show and becoming more aware of how methods of display has changed over time and that this is related to developments within art and history.
We also trundled over to Tate Modern to view it's permanent collection and below is a small clip of a piece that really intrigued me by Cory Archangel Colors (2005) within the Structure and Clarity gallery. The piece breaks down the cinematic film Colors by Dennis Hopper into stripes of shifting dynamic abstraction. The original soundtrack, and narrative can still be heard alluding to chaos going on behind the hallucinatory bands of color.
Tomorrow I will be discussing the roles of the artist and the curator and visiting a few smaller galleries in the East End!
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