Museums standing their ground
Street in the museum – museum in the street
MúzeumCafé 29.
The interaction between museums and public spaces, filling the ‘world of the street’ with a museum and making ‘outside’ a museum are old phenomena, although the different approaches have changed over time. If we examine how urban space (and its art) appears in museums, or how the urban environment functions as an exhibition space, or how museums integrate into the fabric of towns and cities, we can encounter many inspiring experiences. The museum presentation of the street, ‘the street in the museum’, is by no means a recent, postmodern concept. A permanent element of local history exhibitions presenting everyday urban life has been the appearance of scenes in the locality with the evocation of street details and atmosphere. Installations present authentic objects, strengthening the atmosphere of an exhibition. Open-air museums presenting the physical spaces of towns and villages are constructed with quite different conceptions and modes of presentation, where the ‘world of the street’ with its buildings, streets, natural and man-made environment is turned into a museum. They transfer entire ‘worlds’ and then these are filled with alleged or actual history and experiences. Visitors ‘use’ these spaces differently as they enter the ‘authentic’ space of buildings, streets, gardens and shops. The history and analytical presentation of an urban setting or district can be achieved not only with written text but also in a museum space. An exhibition analysing the phenomena and the places is not based on formal similarities, since people can call on their own experiences in connection with such spaces. More important is that for the museum, archive or library – collection-based research centres and exhibition spaces using resources where local history and the street is a relevant theme – experiences are brought together with such understanding that only in these places is it possible. The institutes have the resources and knowledge necessary for this and conduct the required research for analysis. It’s good if apparently familiar objects are treated as unknown in the course of arrangement, consistently representing as interesting the individuality of each object and its uniqueness. Thus it’s possible that in an exhibition the street is not presented ‘in general’ but in terms of events, concrete places, changes, characteristics and true stories, which can be observed, read about, listened to and considered. Such a combined museological and methodological approach enables a museum (collection or archive) to analytically formulate detailed questions, answers and observations about apparently simple but nevertheless immensely complicated and changing spaces. I call such space the street. On the other hand, the street is not ‘purely’ an outside space, but a place of constant activity, movement and experiences, with a past and a present. The expression ‘street in the museum’ is meant as an approach to the present – not so much as a local history exhibition. It represents an alternative urban scene rather than a historical/museological approach to a part of a city. Yet in order to consider the social museum presentation of alternative urban manifestation analytically, critically and comprehensively, we cannot separate it entirely from local and social history. Graffiti and street art are characteristic features of today’s large cities. Some artists only work in the street, while there are others for whom the street has become a field of creation. The works can be categorised and defined in terms of creative terminology or technique, but the question is whether we understand anything about these works, about the fabric of the city and its streets. Those artists who have become iconic (for example, Bansky) and consider the street a space of critique and opposition, employ quite a different creative attitude than, for example, those who are known much rather in terms of artistic expression, the creative filling of large, empty surfaces (such as Blu). Consider what can happen when street creations, symbols and installations become part of a museum medium. From this perspective Bansky is interesting since he doesn’t simply take his works into a museum space, but once he’s actually working in a museum he reacts in detail to the space and concept, to the past and legacy, to reinterpretation, to the museum itself. He doesn’t hide his work in the wings, but plays with the space. He uses the walls of the exhibition space similarly to the street (he paints them, sticks things on them and puts pictures on them), but at the same time he constantly reminds the viewer that he’s in a museum. He produces today’s versions of Renaissance mechanical machines with contemporary critique, with the ‘transformation’ of classical works (paintings, statues) found in museums. He turns icons of consumer culture into museum pieces, but he also ‘integrates’ his own earlier creations into the museum exhibition. Contemporary museology, and within that ethnography dealing with everyday life, can apply the so far employed means and methods in the course of research, documentation and exhibition. Ethnography is in a fortunate position in that it can freely choose among both scientific and artistic means for capturing today’s everyday complexities and for museum/exhibition interpretation. This is complemented by personal experience, the subjective recording of the lived situation using objects and pictures, as well as analysis. The Museum of Ethnography’s EtnoMobil project of 2009 was launched within this context. In terms of content it related to everyday urban movement, travel and transport. Methodologically, however, the collecting work was an experiment in terms of expanding the boundaries of archiving and the museum integration of personal and self-documentational genres, both textual and pictorial. Is there a connection between the ‘street in the museum’ and ‘museum in the street’? Is there a relation between exhibiting street themes and the move of museums to the street? Yes and no. Nevertheless, the conceptual and physical crossover between the two is interesting. We can see cases where the street has become a museum, more correctly an exhibition space, in which expert eyes help us, the viewers, to find our bearings. The opening of museums towards the street, the analysis of everyday street manifestations, the museum occupation of the street is an endless theme. But what can a museum learn and take from these experiences, be it artistic or social? That the street is not simply an atmosphere, but an immensely complicated and composite manifestation? That very many genres, pictures, sounds, objects and texts are woven together, involving users, creators, viewers and researchers? That not only its past but also its present is interesting, and that the layers of time produce strange images? That street guerrilla techniques – for example, hacking, insertion and re-drawing – can play a role in a museum context, like the means of criticism and irony? Museums are neither unchangeable nor untouchable, and they stand their ground if they engage in dialogue with other spaces and genres – assuming we as researchers and museologists are open towards this process, and, of course, the street.