Earlier today, one of our Facebook friends drew our attention to this amazing little video about museums and it’s been watched and rewatched by our staff who think it’s both hilariously funny, and painfully close to the mark.
(Thanks to Carolyn Posynick for drawing this video and this blog post to our attention!)
Much of what Kim the cat says in her report is fair criticism for museums; it’s almost like we have an inferiority complex and so we take ourselves too seriously sometimes.
A few of our favourite quotes:
- “Chances are, the museum people who decide what gets to be put in the museum probably don’t have anything in common with you.”
- “Nothing is allowed to get old and fall apart, which is impossible, and goes against the laws of nature. Museum people fight nature every day…” (our emphasis)
- “The valuable things will get into the museum where the public will be allowed to worship it.”
In the interests of gaining legitimacy and authority, museums have worked hard to be seen as institutions in their communities; maybe videos like the one above are an unfortunate side effect of us taking ourselves too seriously.
What do you think? Do you see museums in general as an accessible place of ideas, or graveyards for objects? How do you feel *we’re* doing in comparison?
1 response so far ↓
“Chances are, the museum people who decide what gets to be put in the museum probably don’t have anything in common with you.”
Yes, and exactly THAT is for the most part, a very good thing in light of the general ignorance. I am sure that painting in question is in that particular museum for a reason. And if the curators know what they are doing, they will explain that reason to the public.
If not, they need to hire educators who specialize in conveying reasoning and meaning to the general(generally ignorant) public.
Who is the person behind this video? Accusing museums to be elitist? Well, if you look at the meaning of the word and forget for a moment that it’s recently being used as an insult, yes, of course, educated people are elitist in the sense that they have the brains and means to get an education. Considering the vast majority of people on earth who don’t even know where to get the next piece of food, that surely is elitist. But so is making an obscure video about the alleged shortcomings of museums.
So, was this made by somebody who got kicked out of a museum for having “subversive ideas” — then I’m sure there is a museum exactly for those thoughts somewhere else. I don’t get it. I love museums and I don’t think they are too restrictive or in their selections. The two “catagonists” claim to have visited museums in Europe and North America, but I doubt they looked behind the machinations of every institution, as they don’t all function the same way.
As for the Vancouver Police Museum — I’m looking forward to visiting you!