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Abstract

The museum exhibition, a medium in a state of change.

The aim of the article is to present an overview of the museum exhibition as a medium in the 20th century with the emphasis on its form. Three museological models for the exhibition’s visual communication have emerged, viz. a reflexive model centering on the neutral presentation of objects and pictures; a transitive model centering on the transfer of knowledge represented in the object; an inclusive model focusing on the reception of the visitors. Over time all the models have changed, influenced by new technology often introduced at world fairs and by the entertainment industry which have both used the electronic media revolution to offer the audience a parallel virtual dreamworld; by the questioning of established truths in science, history and art effected by the paradigmatic shift from positivism to a hermeneutic and relativistic approach that has shaken the very foundation of official cultural institutions; and by the exhibitions of avantgarde and installation art. The author pays special attention to the transforming power of the art exhibitions. He discerns a connecting line from the 1902 Beethoven exhibition in Vienna to the Futurist exhibitions in the 1910s, the Dada and Surrealist exhibitions of the 1920s and ’30s revolting aggressively against the conventions set by bourgeoisie institutions. The ideas were expressed in radically new exhibitions created by key personalities such as Pavel Janák and Marcel Duchamp. It is shown how they influenced contemporary museums, not only museums of art but also museums of history, ethnology and science, especially those which embraced the transitive and inclusive models of communication. Such people as Georges Henri Rivière in France, Alexander Dorner in Germany, and – later – Franco Russoli in Italy were important intermediaries. After WW2 pop- art and installation artists continued the exploration of the exhibition as a medium. The pioneering significance of Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein is specifically pointed out. Thus the history of the temporary art ex- hibitions should be seen as representing consecutive steps in the liberation of the museum exhibition from being merely the precipitate disperser of rapidly out- dated truths to becoming the stage for subjective reports on the state of the world and the continuous re-interpretation of our memories of the past. Once the view of the museum exhibition as an art form in its own right has become accepted so has the role of the curator as an artist. However, the author argues, it is once again necessary, in fact a museological duty, to refocus on the reflexive model as it emphasizes the essential mission of the museum as custodian of authentic objects and their aura and as the transmitter of a carefully researched historical memory without concealing its complexity, as an antidote to the simplifications of the entertainment industry. A museum visitor must be offered the instruments that will allow him/ her to construct a better understanding of the world outside the walls of the museum. He argues forcefully against the alliance between museums and commercial entertainers: the museum must recapture its central role as a common ground for our encounter with past human experiences, i.e. that which is the foundation for our sense of historical belonging and understanding.