Museums

A recent presentation to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the publishers Thames and Hudson, held at the London School of Economics, saw discussion on recent exciting developments in the function of museums. Here, Ian Stewart tells us something about it.

The views expressed in the discussion affirm the realignment of these venerable institutions around principles broadly identified in an address by Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association board member Adam Knowles, at GALHA’s thirtieth-anniversary event.

Nicolas Serota at the Tate and Neil MacGregor at the British Museum have both been national museum directors since 1988. They see museums as a crucible for new ideas. Speaking of the colossal numbers who come, both noted the “sense of perspective of time” their collections give.

They say UK museums sit in different locations within society from their counterparts abroad, with their boards’ direction here far more fuelled through connection with the museum’s public than elsewhere. The fact that British museums are free to enter, and their civic ownership, have transformed their relationship with the collections.

Serota drew attention to the fact that artists are on the board of the Tate, apparently rarely heard of in America. Over time, he says, the use of the collections has changed, as they have become more an element of civic cohesion. Visitors use the collection to think about the world and their place in it. A mix of all elements of the population makes this use, which effects a nineteenth-century language around the role of museums.

Young public

In particular, where collections were thin on contemporary material in the 1980s, now, to draw in a young public, there’s a greater need for these artefacts.

They commented on huge changes in London: “a city of diasporas”, “a city where the world lives”. Both concur it’s not a melting pot or blend, but an allowance of coexisting, valued cultural traditions living alongside one another, together. Their institutions’ collections reflect that precisely.

Nowadays, divisions between “home and abroad” no longer stand, so no other city has such trusteeship: collections held in trust for the whole world, with a worldwide usage, building an international community that can reach millions across the planet. These large UK museums are today funded to operate across the world, as “there is no abroad”.

Until 2000, the Tate had mostly northwestern European art, since when they’ve been collecting far more widely, changing the complexion of the institution. Partnerships are undertaken with establishments around the world. “It’s necessary today to look outwards, rather than look inwards.” MacGregor spoke of the recent British Museum Shah 'Abbas exhibition (19 February to 14 June 2009), with materials loaned from Tehran, as a further example.

“We’re working with a shared human culture and inheritance” – no longer a world of simple national identities. On the problem of the “politicisation of culture”, regarding such exhibits as the Elgin Marbles, the British Museum director noted his institution’s separation from government, and that the museum works in a depoliticised cultural realm, on principles whereby the world is unavoidably a poorer place without the culture of other regions being seen outside of the creating nation.

Both directors make their exhibitions out of a conviction that the objects deserve to be seen, with a nationwide touring exhibition becoming an important new development.

2012 Cultural Olympiad

They say the forthcoming Cultural Olympiad in 2012 requires good ideas more than money: ideas building upon what’s going on in museums now. Dependency on grants requires a constant evaluation of their publics and users.

MacGregor said the British Museum was “the first Open University, always involved in teaching. How to use electronic methods is the real challenge for the next 20 years. People are using the museums as founts of knowledge worldwide: the greater number of users never actually enter the galleries.”

To this end, all UK public collections are available free online with high-definition images. In conjunction with an overseas university the British Museum set up a “virtual visit” facility, where users might walk through an exhibition via the Internet, without making the trip to London. The authority of the institution plays a role in these uses.

To what extent are museums authors? The two directors ask: to what degree are they publishers/broadcasters? MacGregor believes future hiring through the field will be for people taken on as “commissioning editors”, rather than curators arranging gallery displays of objects. Future “sharing” of objects that fill gaps in collections will take the place of actually acquiring them. A related example is the British Museum “joint acquisition” programme with the National Museum in Ghana: two samples of the distinctive dyed cloth that records current events in the African nation are bought there, with one sent to London, as a collaborative acquisition.

Also, a better understanding of audiences will be a key objective of the future, with more direct forms of communication upcoming. Moving away from European languages is a pressing requirement too, as well as reconfiguring information about the collection to make sense to those without a European background. Addressing audiences across the world gains the museum authority.

MacGregor also spoke on the “revolution” in the transport of objects, whereby lots of the collection in the future will be “on the road” around the world at any given time, which it is now safe to do.

A podcast and video of the discussion are available on the LSE events web page (scroll down to “The Museum of the 21st Century”).

Ian Stewart is a gay trustee of London’s Museum of Soho, and an appointee of the International Lesbian and Gay Cultural Network, where he is ILGCN Secretary General for Literature.

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