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MUSEUMS OF THE “BIG APPLE”: A curatorial visit to New York City!!by Thiery Ruddel!!!Abstract!!An analysis of a limited number of exhibitions in New York City museums. In some instances they are compared to displays in other countries. The article deals with thematics regarding museum display including the socio-cultural attitudes of professionals in those institutions, and the construction and representation of national identity, class, gender, sexuality and cultural communities.!!!Citation!!Ruddel, David-Thiery. “MUSEUMS OF THE ‘BIG APPLE’: A Curatorial Visit to New York City.” Ottawa, Canada, December 23, 2014.!

This article is copyright 2014 Thiery Ruddel. Please use freely with proper attribution.

MUSEUMS OF THE “BIG APPLE”: A curatorial visit to New York City!Thiery Ruddel!!As a model of modernity, NYC is considered the pen ultimate megalopolis, the most magnetic city in the world: bustling, brass, complex, confusing, exciting, amusing, inspiring and rewarding. Although a great deal of hype promotes the city’s reputation, expectations concerning the City’s exhibitions are not always met.!!Home to indigenous peoples for more than thousands of years, the region was claimed by the Dutch in the early 1600s, conquered by the English in 1674 and populated by a flood of immigrants in the 1800s. The pace of growth surpassed most other urban centres. Between 1820 and 1920, the population grew from 124,000 to 5,620,000. Ten years later, metropolitan New York included almost 11 million inhabitants. !!Famous institutions include those fostering music, theatre, the arts and education. The Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim rival the best known museums in Europe. As cultural communities gain social and economic status they create museums representing their presence:-the Harlem Museum of Jazz, the Museum of Chinese and El Museo de Barrito. Whereas the big, prestigious museums herald the country’s mastery of the world, the smaller ones depict the price cultural communities pay for American domination.! !Of the 150 existing museums I suggest ones providing insight into the creativity and complexity of NYC and the modern world ( bold text identifies museums ). My choice neglects the well-known art museums and my comments do not include all the exhibitions found in an institution. I sent an earlier draft of this text to friends visiting NYC in 2012. Although exhibitions change, my comments suggest how museums represent history and culture. !!Many tourists travel the Museum Mile, an impressive stretch along Fifth Avenue bordering!Central Park. The latter is an example of enlightened urban planning. The Museum of Natural History is next to the park. Below, the statue of indigenous warriors, a large North West coast war canoe and a display depicting an enactment of a myth illustrate antiquated ways of representing American First Peoples in museums of nature. Although the exhibit about supernatural spirits has been removed and this area is being refurbished, the indigenous displays have changed little in over 50 years. In traditional dioramas and glass cases, we see beautiful examples of silent collections:the people, their land and culture appear to have disappeared. Maybe it is time that the Museum’s aboriginal collections be transferred to First Nations communities, history and anthropology museums or to specialized institutions like the City’s National Museum of the American Indian (see below). !

!For visitors willing to spend the better part of a day outdoors, a good place to start is the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island and the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island. For an outing around the port, however, I suggest the busy South Street Seaport Museum area which includes

ships and tugs. The Peking, shown here, was launched in 1911 in Hamburg, Germany.!!Many other heritage institutions are found in Lower Manhattan. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian includes more contemporary exhibitions about indigenous culture than those found at the Museum of Nature, mentioned above. Close at hand are the Tenement Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Skyscraper Museum, the Police Museum, the Fraunces Tavern Museum and the Finance Museum.!! !Americans visiting this area are drawn to the site of 9-11, including the Memorial “Voices of witness & remembrance”. The patriotic nature of this early version of the Memorial distracts visitors from the meaning of the 9/11 tragedy. Next to it is St. Paul’s Church, a rather special, almost spiritual place. This oldest NYC church includes some moving

memorials to the support, grief, peace and recovery of fire fighters, police and volunteers.!

For insight into sexual practices, I suggest the Museum of Sex. Here texts are superior to those in its counterpart in Copenhagen, but both institutions show different attitudes towards social & sexual behaviour. A label in the former’s exhibition on burlesque states that: “The difference between a stripper and a burlesque performer is a stripper will get upset if she doesn’t get money, a burlesque performer will get upset if she doesn’t get applause”.!

!!Relationships are also a central part of the exhibition “Radioactivity: Marie & Pierre Currie: A tale of love and fallout” at the splendid New York Public Library. The reading rooms and this

building are in themselves worth the time spent there. The murals by Laning on the third floor depict the evolution of the written and printed word, including !Gutenberg seen here showing his!proof to the Elector of Mainz.!!!!!!!!!!

When I visited the Museum of the City of NY, I found little information concerning the City’s urban history. Informative exhibitions, however, reveal issues facing people in their daily lives,

such as race relations and healthy food for people who don’t eat many vegetables. The c. 1840

Watercolour by Nicolino Calyo depicts a lemon and orange stand.!! Almost next door to the Museum of NYC is an institution that considers itself a school. At El Museo del Barrio “the artist learns to communicate, the public learns to make connections”.!

The art seen above is from a class room project in which students express future hopes and current realities. !Here we also get a glimpse of a Latin American perspective, including a humorous and socially critical exhibition of Luis Camnitzer who writes:!

! If I draw a dot on one sheet of paper, I am a doodler!! If I draw a dot on 100 sheets of paper, I am a philosopher!! If I draw a dot on 1000 sheets of paper, I am a mystic!If I draw a dot on 100,000 sheets of paper, !I am a modern conceptual artist and may become rich and famous.!

Child’s watercolour at El Museo

!!The story of another minority group is found in the admirable Museum of Chinese in America.!

They seek us to fear. They seek us to fancy!

They seek fantastic…So, we create Chinatown!For them a diversion, for us a refuge.!

The visit can be enhanced by shopping and dining in some of the markets, retail outlets and restaurants in the neighbourhood, including Little Italy which is next to Chinatown.!!!A bit further out of Manhattan, is the National Jazz Museum, a safe place to visit during the day. Don’t we all owe a debt to the early jazz musicians?! !

Hello Central, give me Doctor Jazz!! He’s got what I need, I’ll say he has.!! When the world goes wrong!! And I get the blues,!! He’s the man who makes me !! Get out my dancing shoes!!! ! ! King Oliver, c.1927!!!!

Similar to the use of classical recordings in Bonn’s Beethoven museum, the Harlem institution encourages visitors to listen to rare jazz music from the 1930s and 1940s.!!What about the renown art museums? Given a limited amount of time, I would leave the Met, the MOMA, the Whitney and the Cooper Hewitt for another visit, but take the time to visit the Guggenheim, a remarkable building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A curator’s label

suggests that visitors will discover “a discursive field in which the terms of identity-class, race, religion, sexuality-are negotiated, and meaning is generated”. !!

!A similar institution, the Museum of Modern Art is located next to the National Museum of Folk Art. Both museums present art by affixing art and description of it to walls. The objects are what distinguish the two institutions. Whereas art museums appeal to visitors seeking intellectual and aesthetic experiences, folk art ones emphasize artefacts of a practical and personal nature. Both evoke passionate reactions. Wouldn’t it be interesting if these two institutions mounted collaborative projects? Although a challenging project, curators of both institutions could work together to compare and contrast the messages and people involved in the production and sale of their respective collections. !! Exhibitions at the National Museum of Folk Art include exceptional examples of folk art.!

“Freedom” quilt and the “Devil Bank”, a ceramic piggy bank by P.D.Hussey, 1986

The quilts reveal examples of social behaviour. For example, Jessie B. Telfair’s 1983 quilt shown here is said to have been done to capture her feeling of having lost her job after trying to register to vote in the 1960s, a period marked by a struggle for civil rights.!!How significant are the exhibitions mentioned above? The Museum of Nature’s indigenous exhibitions depict civilizations that cease to exist. Little information or artifacts are displayed that show the evolution of these peoples. The City Museum includes pertinent topics, but neglects the rich story of New York. Similar municipal exhibits in Copenhagen and Amsterdam are more informative and educational. It is perhaps not surprising that two of the more interesting stories are found in the Museo del Barrio and the Museum of Chinese. The Guggenheim building remains remarkable in its design, but the art is displayed in a classical art historical way.!!Most exhibitions are static, passive and lacking interactive elements, and only a few are innovative, stimulating and entertaining.