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RSS icon Comments on The Mona Lisa Problem and Other Notes on Display

1

i was at the louvre a year ago - i went into the mona lisa room, and didn't even bother trying to SEE the painting. 25 years ago i was able to walk up to it & actually LOOK at it without being mobbed. now, it's not really art anymore.

Posted by max solomon | October 9, 2008 12:51 PM
2

"Grade said that along the way of collecting video about some of the objects, he once unknowingly referred to a garment as “it”—when in fact this garment has its own gender, its own history, its own very distinct life story. The Salish woman who wears the garment had to perform a ritual song with it in order to restore the situation.

"Another problem with a museum exhibition of objects not made for public display is that some are too sacred to be shown at all. For those, Grade and Schweder, working with curator Brotherton, came up with a solution: Some of the cases in the show will simply be empty. They will have sound components that refer to what’s missing, but the exhibition lights will fall on blank space instead of objects."

Ha ha ha ha ha. Maroons! It's time to let superstition go, people. It's a garment, not a person. You either show an object, or you do not. You can explain all day how some delusional people once or currently attribute magic powers or impossible qualities to a piece, but to actually go so far as to assign a gender to a shirt or leave a display case empty is asinine. Leave that trivia to the exhibit program. A museum's function is to inform and edify the public, not to perpetuate petty superstitious beliefs. Imagine a display of Christian relics that no one was allowed to view due to the "graven images" commandment. Bullshit!

Posted by Matthew | October 9, 2008 12:55 PM
3

oh #2. the national musuem of the american indian had some of the same issues when it opened up. the more traditional types thought it was all wrong, objects should be displayed according to traditional european museology (no mumbo jumbo, no cultural informant control). however, as jen says they are translating culture into a european space. to that end it is entirely about context. everything has a relationship to everything else. this is an important concept in many native (indian and alaska native) cultures. to present it out of context is to orphan it. which makes it a very poor object since the greatest poverty is to have no family.

i'm really excited about the cases showing only the context. context is the most relevant part about a lot of native art and artifacts. its reduced to the essence of what it is. by the form around the object you get an idea of what it is.

Posted by Jiberish | October 9, 2008 1:18 PM
4

The thought that SAM will have any art worth ogling by masses of pilgrims is highly unlikely. They don't have the budget or the institutional cachet to duplicate the impact of a Guernica, Mona Lisa, Nightwatch, Gold Marilyn, American Gothic or other iconic work.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | October 9, 2008 1:19 PM
5

Mafioso: No, I want the Mona Lisa.
Phantom Limb: Look, the Mona Lisa's not a better painting, it's merely a more famous one, and it was made more famous because it was stolen. And this was stolen, so...
Mafioso: What about her, ah, famous smile?
Phantom Limb: Whatever. She looks like a horse! It's - it's tiny, you know? Th-the thing is like this big.
Mafioso: Really?
Phantom Limb: Yes, really. So this is cheaper. By the... by the foot.

Posted by Greg | October 9, 2008 1:32 PM
6

The saddest part is that the Louvre is just so jammed with treasures. There's so much more to see. More room for the rest, I guess?

@2: Actually, I was in Fort Worth, earlier this year to see an exhibition of early Christian objects, and a gold cross on display at the Kimbell Museum had parts of it concealed because they were too sacred to be shown on any grounds outside the Vatican. Art is about culture, not science. We're beginning to recognize that museums often destroy an object by sterilizing it. You can't understand an object in a vacuum.

Posted by Gloria | October 9, 2008 1:33 PM
7

I fell compelled to vandalize the blank space by placing a bottle of MD 20/20 in it - every indians idea of a sacred object.

Posted by kinaidos | October 9, 2008 1:34 PM
8

@1:

It was exactly the same way when I went to the Louvre in 2000 - a veritable United Nations of tourists pushing and shoving their way to the front of a writhing mass to get an up-close snap of the Mona Lisa, while literally scores of other gorgeous works by the likes of Titian, Bassano, Tintoretto and other Italian masters go literally unnoticed.

Posted by COMTE | October 9, 2008 1:37 PM
9

"Some of the cases in the show will simply be empty. They will have sound components that refer to what’s missing, but the exhibition lights will fall on blank space instead of objects."


Ludicrous.

Posted by tabletop_joe | October 9, 2008 1:39 PM
10

i think there's something beautiful and poetic about the empty cases.

Posted by joey | October 9, 2008 1:56 PM
11

It's not ludicrous, it's culture. These same issues come up with Australian Aboriginal art all the time; there are men secrets and women secrets that can't be revealed to the other, moiety or skin groups whose secrets can't be revealed to the other, and of course all kinds of cultural secrets that can't be revealed to any outsider. All Aboriginal art must negotiate these restrictions, and what can and cannot be revealed about various Dreamings is a frequent topic of discussion among conclaves of elders.

This isn't even really about "sacred" as Westerners understand that word; just "secret" is enough.

We do the same thing with, say, financial and medical records. We hide them and reveal them after careful discussion and thought and regulations. Culture is culture, baby. Don't be a bigot. Go and see the exhibit and see if you can learn something about whose these people are. You're walking on their ancestors' heads, you know.

Posted by Fnarf | October 9, 2008 2:00 PM
12

I managed to skip the Louvre entirely, and got all the Picasso I wanted at the Picasso Museum, which is amazing and wonderful. The Pompidou, though very large, was quite manageable. I didn't miss the pushing crowds at all.

I think they should take the Mona babe out of the Louvre entirely and put it in its own separate museum somewhere, just the one thing, tickets $50. The painting needs to have its power sapped.

Posted by Fnarf | October 9, 2008 2:05 PM
13

Where is John Grade's studio and how do I get invited?

Posted by molly | October 9, 2008 2:25 PM
14

The problem with the Mona Lisa in that room is that it's a really small painting that everyone wants to see.

I didn't stay long, but managed to wander into one of the following rooms to find an amazing Titian portrait that really blew me away.

Posted by Mike Friedman | October 9, 2008 2:49 PM
15

@12:

That probably makes sense, but I doubt the Louvre would to do that for the simple reason that SOME museum-goers actually DO want to see the piece in a cultural-historical context, surrounded by other works by D' Vinci and his contemporaries.

And presumably the mission of the Louvre, like any cultural institution, is to get the people in the door first, and THEN hopefully broaden their exposure to things above-and-beyond just what they WANT to see.

Removing the "Mona Lisa" from the Louvre would result in a LOT of people going to see just that - and nothing else.

Posted by COMTE | October 9, 2008 4:23 PM
16

I went to the Louve in 2004 and peaked into the room housing the Mona Lisa and said "I see it, it's postage stamp size too, lets move on." Too packed and I did not want to push through/wait forever to see it.

Posted by Simon | October 9, 2008 4:46 PM

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