博物馆:我们共有文化精神的前沿实验室

当代公共博物馆在经历了250余年的发展演变之后,其发展的社会、文化、专业甚至经济环境,都在发生着重要变化。新的趋势无疑为博物馆带来新机遇、新可能,同时也伴随新挑战。在今天博物馆需要回答的诸多问题中,有一个始终处于核心位置:我们的博物馆机构是否对社会很重要？无论是眼下还是长远的未来。围绕于此的相关讨论,让当代博物馆新的文化观逐渐清晰起来,让博物馆为适应新形势而进行的战略选择有了新的坐标,并最终引导出关于博物馆价值体系可能的重构以及新的运行规则。     

Using 3D Printing to Enhance Understanding and Engagement with Young Audiences: Lessons from Workshops in a Museum

This paper details findings from a collaborative research project that studied children learning to 3D print in a museum, and provides an overview of the study design to improve related future programs. We assessed young visitors’ capacity to grasp the technical specificities of 3D printing, as well as their engagement with the cultural history of shoemaking through the museum's collection. Combining the museum's existing pedagogical resources with hands‐on technology experiences designed by Semaphore researchers, this study enabled both researchers and museum education staff to evaluate the use of 3D‐driven curriculum and engagement materials designed for children visiting cultural heritage museums. This study raises critical questions regarding the practicality of deploying 3D media to engage young learners in museums, and this paper illuminates the challenges in developing models for children to put historical and contextual information into practice.     

Stay Behind the Yellow Line: Young Children Constructing Knowledge from an Art Exhibition

Studies exploring very young children visiting museums and art galleries are few. The majority of research about museum and gallery visitors explores family group interactions. This paper examines the findings of a study involving three‐ and four‐year‐old children visiting an art exhibition in a national museum on more than one occasion. The children's construction of knowledge about being a museum visitor and exhibitor indicates their ability to develop an appreciation of art and an understanding of the purposes of museums and art galleries.     

Bringing Leonardo to Life: Introducing Students to the Codex Leicester

As natural history museums are becoming more state-of-the-art, integrating computer technology and other interactive components into their exhibits, challenges arise as to how best incorporate these elements into the learning that occurs in a traditional museum setting. In October of 1996, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) hosted the exhibition Leonardo's Codex Leicester: A Masterpiece of Science, which included interactive computer stations as well as ten working models designed specifically for the exhibition. This article explores the museum's approach to making use of these interactives in planning and implementing a school program for this exhibition. The program was experimental in its format, given the short run of this exhibition, as well as limited planning time. The purpose of this article is to determine what a museum can do to offer quality programs that reach as many students as possible when working under time constraints.     

The Uneasy Relationship of Self‐Critique in the Public Art Institution

Reacting to the gradual neoliberalization of the European public art institutional landscape, actors within a number of critical art museums and galleries have attempted to reform their institutions from within through a process that is largely commensurate with Chantal Mouffe's radical political strategy of ‘critique as hegemonic engagement‐with’. This article focuses on Manuel J. Borja‐Villel's attempt to implement such a strategy at the Museu D'Art Contemporani, Barcelona (MACBA) in the early 2000s. Through an examination of two key projects – Las Agencias (The Agencies) (2001) and Com Volem ser Governats? (How do we want to be governed) (2003‐2004) – it considers the efficacy of such an approach. In so doing, it calls into question the public art institution's ability to perform a self‐critique when embedded within the hegemony of the neoliberal order and constrained by bureaucratic institutional limitations. It concludes by noting that Mouffe's strategy of engagement does not give sufficient consideration to the dependence critical public art institutions have on local and national political support and its funding channels, making them extremely susceptible to instrumentalization. In response to this constraint, it makes the recommendation that, rather than curbing their experimentation, these critical actors should embrace the potentially temporary status of their institutions, and intentionally push them to and even beyond their bureaucratic limitations.     

The Museum Profession: Protecting and Promoting Professional Commitments

Throughout their history, museums have performed diverse public services: from preservation, collection, and exhibition, to interpretation, education, and civic engagement. As Stephen E. Weil ( 2002 ) explains, since the mid‐twentieth century, museums have experienced two major revolutions. First, a revolution in focus from collection‐oriented to visitor‐oriented practices, and second, a revolution in public expectations as museums secured a position within the nonprofit sector (81–82). With competition for public, private, and philanthropic support resting upon measurable results, the evaluation of museums depends upon its ability to “accomplish its purpose” (5). However, the question remains: what is the museum's purpose? Which is the more important: collection and artifact preservation, or public engagement and education? An overview of museum practices reveals a multiplicity of professional tasks distributed among three imperatives: preservation, scholarship, and programming (Weil 2002 , 11). The competition for resources devoted to each of these imperatives can spark controversy—particularly if museum professionals answer the question of the purpose of museums differently. Organizational communication scholar, Janie M. Harden Fritz, developed a theoretical framework that seeks to respond to such controversies in Professional Civility: Communicating Virtue at Work. This essay considers Fritz's “professional civility” in the context of the American museum sector, lending insight to the question of museum purpose and function.     

Learning From Kids: Connecting the Exhibition Process to the Audience

Abstract When the Chicago History Museum re‐opened its doors on September 30, 2006 after a 21‐month‐long renovation, the debut included a new interactive history gallery for families. The exhibition, Sensing Chicago, was designed primarily to appeal to and communicate effectively with eight‐ and nine‐year‐old children. Since this was a new target audience for the museum's exhibition program, the team followed a course for this project that departed from the museum's typical exhibition development. The process was informed by audience research that has broadened our understanding of how a collections‐based history museum that traditionally caters to adult audiences can create meaningful and memorable experiences for children. This article focuses on one aspect of the research, a three‐month concept‐testing phase conducted by in‐house staff, which provided the team with useful information that, in turn, impacted the development and design of the gallery.     

The Museum Maturity Framework: A Path to Purpose,Meaning, and Values

Abstract In this paper we synthesize elements of the modern philosophy and practice of organization management and leadership and illustrate their application to museums. The elements of our synthetic theory are a museum's inventory of processes (system of work), the role of its leader/director, and the social structures of the museum. These theoretical elements are placed in a conceptual context called the museum maturity framework, a five‐level developmental sequence in which are organized the paradigms and behaviors of a museum as it matures. The museum maturity framework can help the internal and external analysis and assessment of museums.     

艺术创作在科技馆展览展品设计中的重要作用

科技馆展览展品设计通过科学和艺术的完美融合,不断突破常规、激发想象的跨界表达,成为了现阶段中国科学文化语境中亟需研究的课题,更是科技馆展览展品研究工作的一项任务。本文从艺术创作在科技馆展览展品设计中的必要性与现实意义入手,对展览展品策划、环境艺术设计、展品造型设计三个方面来解读具体的实践方法。科技馆为了避免枯燥的教化式科学传播,其作为传播美学和艺术的载体作用将会受到广泛重视,艺术创作的融入能够切实提高展览的艺术性、原创性和生动性,赋予科普展览更多可能,也为科技馆自身发展带来更大的上升空间。     

Measuring Infinity: José de Rivera's Smithsonian Sculpture on the National Mall

Abstract Large works of public sculpture outside our museum doors reveal aspects of a museum's self‐image. They beckon, reassure, or confront visitors with new ideas about what might lurk inside. Whether off‐the‐shelf or commissions by well‐known sculptors, these pieces matter. They are the noses on our museum faces. In this essay, one museum curator reflects on the layered meanings of his museum's entry art — meanings that, he argues, have the potential to evolve over time.     

从科技藏品的收藏、研究与传播，看自然历史博物馆的传承与转变——以美国自然历史博物馆为例

2019年是美国自然历史博物馆建立150周年。在150年的发展历程中,随着博物馆功能逐渐明确为教育、研究与收藏,藏品在该博物馆中的作用也逐渐发生转变。藏品在收藏、研究与传播中所发挥的作用,是自然历史博物馆历史传承与新时代转变的体现。美国自然历史博物馆正在经历一系列的创新与转型,对于自然历史博物馆的未来发展有很大的启示意义,也有助于我们在当代背景下去理解自然历史博物馆的本质与价值。     

The Topical Museum of Natural History: A Walking Paper

Abstract As museums enter a new century, they are challenged to demonstrate their relevance to society. Increasingly, institutions have recognized that in order to thrive, they must ensure that mission‐related activities—exhibits and programs, collections and research—are meaningful to the public they rely on for support. Numerous deeply‐ingrained habits of practice and of thought have prevented object‐based exhibits from responding effectively to visitor interests. For museums to be truly relevant to their audiences, this paper argues for a fundamental shift in how they think about and organize exhibits. Exhibits need to become more topical and issue‐oriented, rather than generalized and systematic. Furthermore, a successful topical exhibit program needs to operate on two separate, yet integrated, levels: long‐term exhibits providing context on broadly relevant, interdisciplinary themes shorter‐term exhibits on specific, current issues embedded within the longterm exhibits, linking that broad content to visitors' lives Beyond the crucial role of increasing the museum's relevance to its audience, such an exhibits program would have numerous ancillary benefits, including more evenly distributed costs, greater creativity, lessened job burnout, and new funding opportunities. Though specifically addressing natural history museums, aspects of this paper should be relevant to museums of all kinds.     

John Dewey and Museum Education

Abstract Although John Dewey's educational concepts have been discussed previously in relation to museums, his own writing about museums has received little attention. Dewey, who visited museums frequently throughout his life, recognized the powerful educational value of museums. He assigned a central role to museums as integrative components of raw experiences in his educational theory, and he made extensive use of student visits to museums at the Chicago Laboratory School. Early twentieth‐century museum educators and directors applied Dewey's ideas, and advocated a museum education philosophy, based on the progressive education movement, that has significance for current exhibition and educational practice.     

Museums,Public Service,and Funding: Today's Conundrum,Tomorrow's Partnership?

Abstract Museums have become adept at working with giving allies in foundations, corporations and government agencies who prefer to make grants for specific projects. This works well for discreet activities such as planning an exhibition, cataloguing a collection, or setting up a new store designed to eventually strengthen earned income. It even worked well as museums began to experiment with creating new products such as curriculum kits that would “reach out” to specialized audiences. However, truly providing museum‐wide public service for a broad audience and creating social capital in our communities is not a discreet project, therefore the project‐funding model can thwart the mutual goals museums and institutional funders are trying to achieve. This article explores the problem and suggests that museums work with philanthropic allies to find better ways to create and sustain true public service.     

The Laboratory on 53rd Street: Victor D’Amico and the Museum of Modern Art, 1937–1969

Abstract This essay addresses the pioneering work of Victor D’Amico, the first director of education at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and an influential art educator. During his tenure at MoMA, D’Amico explored the role of museums in developing creativity through direct aesthetic experience and the larger social implications of art museum education. Victor D’Amico led the Education Project at MoMA, which began as a part‐time school partnership program in 1937. By the time he retired in 1969, he had become an internationally recognized leader in the field of art museum education. Yet today his influence is little known and seldom discussed. This essay focuses on two important programs he developed at MoMA: his most widely acclaimed and influential program, the Children’s Art Carnival (1942‐1969), and the groundbreaking art education television series Through the Enchanted Gate (1952‐1953).     

Child‐centered Practice in Museums: Experiential Learning through Creative Play at the Ipswich Art Gallery

Over the past two decades, museums and galleries have significantly expanded the scope and diversity of programs and exhibitions offered to children, families and schools. Parents and teachers are increasingly interested in curated public play spaces for children in the early years (from birth to eight years old), and they actively search for accessibility, affordability and quality when planning young children's excursions. In 2013, the Ipswich Art Gallery (in Queensland, Australia) developed and presented Light Play, an interactive exhibition designed especially for children up to the age of eight. Light Play promoted the use of light as a creative material for making ephemeral art through collaborative play, experimentation and discovery‐based learning. As part of the exhibition, a formal research project was run as an integral component of Light Play. Our research documented the qualities that lead to successful creative play experiences for young children in art museums by examining three key aspects of the exhibition: the participants, the environment, and the program. This paper discusses the findings of that research, in relation to making financial and human resource investments in interactive and immersive exhibitions and play spaces for children in the early years.     

Developing a Research Agenda Aimed at Understanding the Teaching and Learning of Science at a Natural History Museum

Over the past two decades, cultural institutions such as museums are beginning to develop their capacity for engaging in long‐term research on teaching and learning (Rennie et al. 2003; see also Crowley 2014). In this article, we describe one museum's efforts to develop an educational research agenda in relationship to these broader efforts. We explain how we got started; share steps taken; describe the agenda itself; and give examples of some of our current research studies. We end with insights into some of the challenges we've faced in developing this work and how we've addressed them and our next steps.     

将博物馆展览策划做成一项文化创意活动 ——《博物馆展览策划:理念与实务》书评

展览是博物馆的核心工作之一,也是博物馆服务社会最普遍和最直接的途径。《博物馆展览策划:理念与实务》一书作者结合多年的博物馆理论研究和博物馆展览策划实践经验,直击当下我国博物馆展览策划的核心问题,对现代博物馆陈列展览策划所应遵循的理念、工作流程和工作规范进行了详细阐述,为当前及未来一段时期内我国博物馆的展览策划工作提出了极为具象的实践指南。     

The Artist Initiative at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The Artist Initiative at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is piloting models for increased collaboration between conservators and curators through joint work with artists. We seek a more integrated, holistic approach to the care and research of our collection. The project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, comprises five robust research engagements that serve the curatorial collecting departments of the museum (Photography, Painting and Sculpture, Media Art, and Architecture and Design). Three of the projects are monographic studies, examining the work of Ellsworth Kelly, Vija Celmins, and Julia Scher in depth, while two more are thematic, exploring modes of displaying digitally-driven design objects, and developing strategies for addressing the problem of color shift common to photographic prints made with experimental materials during the 1970s and 1980s. The Artist Initiative is also charged with developing hybrid working spaces to advance collaborative approaches to collections research at the museum's new downtown campus and at SFMOMA's new Collections Center in South San Francisco. These spaces include the Collections Workroom, a 56?sq?m (600?sq?ft) space that functions as a studio for visiting artists, a conservation laboratory, an interview suite, and a classroom at SFMOMA's downtown campus. At the Collections Center, a 121?sq?m (1300?sq?ft) Mock-Up Gallery has been built as a working model of one of the museum's new galleries. A functional exhibition space, the Mock-Up Gallery is also a venue for interviewing artists, prototyping exhibition formats, and meeting with students, scholars, museum staff, and community members. With the goal of contributing to critical discourses in contemporary art history, art conservation, and public engagement, each of the Artist Initiative projects includes a colloquium that will bring experts from multiple fields together with the featured artists. Thereafter we aim to share our findings widely through public programs and a range of publications, both digitally and in print.     

Everyday Encounters with Art: Comparing Expert and Novice Experiences

The study reported here looked at how two groups of people – one with art expertise and one without – made sense of their encounters with an exhibition of a single artist, the late Paul‐Henri Bourguignon. The study builds on previous research using Dervin's Sense‐Making Methodology to study how people interpret their arts experiences within the contexts of their everyday lives. Informants were asked to rank‐order their selections among the pieces on display according to which had the most impact for them (however they defined impact). Each informant then did a structured qualitative interview focusing on the work he or she chose as most impactful. The researchers looked at thematic elements and other patterns of similarity and difference that arose in the interviews and offer thoughts on how the results of this study may provide insight to those who work in museums.