Generally speaking, I am not one to attend seminars, talks, or museums on my spare time, simply for the betterment of my knowledge, or myself but on Wednesday, April 21st I did just that. Initially I was not very enthusiastic about my assignment to attend an event or exhibit at the university concerning Brown vs. Board of Education, but eventually I sucked it up and decided to attend an art exhibit at the Krannert Art Museum called, “Social Studies: Eight Artists Address Brown vs. Board of Education.
April 21st was a beautiful afternoon, and as I approached the art museum with one of my friends all I could think about were all the things I could be doing instead of going to a museum. Moments later, my mood did not improve as I observed 4 elderly looking people entering the museum about 20 yards in front of me, dressed in suits and formal looking dresses. “Great,” I thought to myself, as I looked down at my jeans and t-shirt, “not only am I about to go into a museum, but everyone there is going to think I am a total scrub too.” Upon entering the museum, I promptly asked the woman at the front desk where the exhibit was. She directed me to it and as my friend and I walked away, a large guard yelled at my friend that he couldn’t bring his backpack with him. The guard offered no alternative location for the bag, so my friend walked around aimlessly until the woman at the front desk allowed him to leave the bag under her desk. Now, the mood was set. The museum screamed dullness and tightness at me as I strolled through two large, metal double doors into the exhibit we were there to see.
As I entered the room that contained our exhibit, I discovered that there was not one other soul at the entire exhibit. I didn’t expect to encounter many other individuals, but none? I was not prepared to be one of only two people at the entire exhibit, but I had to make do with what I got. My first impression as I walked in was not a good one.
In Stephen Weil’s essay, he argues “the museum’s role has transformed from one of mastery to one of service” (Weil, 196). According to him, museums have changed their mission from one that cultures the public to one that serves
1954's Brown vs. Board of Education case court ruling marked the dawn of desegregation in America. A short time after the sentence, South Carolina replaced their state flag with the Confederate flag, raising it above their statehouse, the Georgia and Mississippi state flags were changed to incorporate the Confederate flag, and Confederate monuments were suddenly built. The brief time period between the two events led many to believe the gesture to be the state of South Carolina's reaction and response to desegregation in public areas. Many were offended by the exhibit and confused as to whether the flag responded to desegregation or honored the state membership in the confederacy. The erection of the Confederate flag was a reaction preponderantly to desegregation and has become a contributing factor to the pain of racism; it should be lowered as soon as possible.
Walking into a lecture hall in Gregory Hall, I really didn’t know what to expect. I dressed as I would any other day; an Abercrombie shirt, a pair of frayed shorts and some casual sandals. I sat towards the front of the room and arrived slightly early to ensure a good seat. The name of this Brown v. Board education discussion was entitled, "Rethinking Slavery: 1800-1861,” and was arranged by the Mellon initiative.
I never go anywhere alone. After a depressive Saturday morning I finally crawled out of bed and went to the Cummer Museum. Art is one thing that I don’t understand. How people can find deeper meanings from paint on a canvas is Japanese to me. When I look at a painting I see exactly what is being shown and nothing more. There is no deeper meaning evident. Being at this museum cranky and solo trying to find a picture I felt connected to was almost impossible. It took me about ten minutes to go through the whole museum. But in one of the last sections I went in there was finally something that my eyes were drawn to. An image that made me want to find the deeper meaning. Thomas Hart Benton’s June Morning.
In “Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space,” Joan R. Branham argues about the experiences art viewers have in museums based on their surroundings. Her points include how a person is to completely understand and feel a ritual object if it is taken out of its natural context or how someone is able to fully appreciate of work of art if they can’t see it where it truly belongs.
Last summer, my then twelve year old son was asked to participate in the National Junior Leaders Conference in Washington, DC. So, I packed our stuff and we headed for our nation's capital. While there, we visited the Supreme Court and my son, never having been there before, was simply awed. A short time later, we went to the Library of Congress. At the time (I don't know whether or not it's still there), there was a display -- three or four rooms big dedicated to the Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. While the case was something that Nicholas (my son) and I had talked about on a few occasions, it was interesting to watch him as he navigated through the rooms that had photographs, court documents, newspaper articles, and other memorabilia of the case and the people involved with it. About thirty minutes into our time there, he started to cry softly, but he continued making his way through the display. He went to every single display in those several rooms; he didn't want to leave until he had seen everything and read everything. When we finally left (almost four hours after we arrived), he said to me, "It's disgraceful the way our country treated black people; there was no honor in any of it."
The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident visual cues.
As we reach the museum, the exterior was very beautiful. The first things I saw were the bronze statues in the front. We took a couple of pictures in front of them and in front of the Norton Simon. The entrance where the glass doors had sat was very unique and elegant. The glass walls that the glass doors were attached to, added to the elegance and beauty. When I had first walked in, I was very shy, timid, and unwilling to go on, this was due to the more mature audience that I had seen when I had first entered the museum. I was still unsure on how to act in a museum, being this my first time, so I was very calm, cool and reserved, but as time went on I saw college students my age probably doing the same thing I was doing. So I then I felt more at ease. Plus my girlfriend was with me so I was not alone.
The Brown vs Board of Education as a major turning point in African American. Brown vs Board of Education was arguably the most important cases that impacted the African Americans and the white society because it brought a whole new perspective on whether “separate but equal” was really equal. The Brown vs Board of Education was made up of five different cases regarding school segregation. “While the facts of each case are different, the main issue in each was the constitutionality of state-sponsored segregation in public schools ("HISTORY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION") .”
In the essay, “At the Buffalo Bill Museum, June 1988”, by Jane Tompkins, the author describes her trip to the museum and her perspective on the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. In her essay, she expresses her thought of the museum as, “the most disturbing places I have ever visited. It is also a wonderful place” (588). In the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, she admires the beauty, details, and veracity of paintings. However, she feels arts are not respected in there, for their meanings are altered. As Tompkins claims, “someone had taken the trouble to ferret out Remington’s statement of horror” (588). Moreover, she perceived, “Remington’s paintings and statues … are imperialist and racist” (590). In the Buffalo Bill Museum, there is no sign
This project made me understand that enjoying art and appreciating a building’s architecture are not contradictory purposes but complementary aspects of a museum visit. After we leave a museum we don’t only leave with knowledge about art but also with different states of mind that can only be shaped by the environment. The museum experience is a whole package of stimulants such as colour, space, light and movement.
Historically, museums and galleries have excluded too many people. I want to eradicate the pervasive assumption that “certain people just don’t visit museums.” In a modern era of public discourse characterized by instantaneous updating and dynamic participation, a savvy public shares knowledge and relays experience with the click of a mouse. The Internet, digital media, video games, and social networking offer new approaches to learning and understanding others. Regrettably, many museums – the giants of knowledge – have fallen behind in regard to inclusiveness, technological innovation, and representation of diverse experiences. Museums and galleries shape nationwide educational curricula and discourse. If they fail to resonate with wide audiences, then the public will go elsewhere to learn, despite these institutions’ long-established reputations. Particularly now, when most sentences are prefaced with “In this economy,” I believe that museums and galleries risk obsolescence without fundamental change and a renaissance of innovation.
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
My trip to the Getty museum was filled with anticipation and an unknowing of what Iwas actually searching to write about. I went on a Friday at about eleven but the museum was still full. It took about twenty minutes to find parking, the wait in line was long, and the tram had so many people it felt even hotter then it actually was. But overall the experience was fun. I enjoyed checking out the works of art and watching the classes of elementary students learn about the history and culture in the room. On one occasion I was very surprised because a mother asked her daughter, who could not have been more than six, about a painting was which she correctly identified as Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises, which was great because I never knew about Van Gogh at her age.
MacDonald, George F. “The Journal of Museum Education, Vol. 16, No. 1” Current Issues in Museum Learning (1991): 9-12. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.