Two interesting publications on this topic come to mind: in the current issue
of Harper's, Lawrence Wechsler has written a fascinating piece on David
Wilson's "Museum of Jurassic Technology" in L.A. It is titled "Inhaling the
Spore," and is very much about artifacts and the way we construct skeins of
meaning around them--Wilson's museum is a Borgesian fantasy mixed with actual
3-D exhibitry come to life.  (The Calvino of "Invisible Cities" would have
loved it, too.)  Also, on a more psychological front, try Jerome Bruner's
"Actual Minds, Possible Worlds," which, along with Howard Gardner's work,
says a lot about how we construct meaning from the world.
 
For myself, I feel there is an important difference between interpretation
and contextualization.  The latter is not so unlike some of those early
labels on cabinets that situated an object in space and time, but goes a few
steps further in making that place and time real to us again--and this is
where digital technologies can be helpful.  It frames the work in an
educated, informed context of creation.  It does not give a single,
authoritative "spin" that overdetermines what it "means" and replaces direct
experience by the viewer.  Rather, it ideally sends the viewer back to
re-encounter the object, with new ways of connecting to its mysteries.
 Interpretation, at its worst, is the "master narrative" that quashes inquiry
and replaces direct experience with a definitive verbal equivalent delivered
with great weight and authority.
 
As for Maurice D. Smith's observation that "In a gallery the art often
imparts its own message as opposed to museums where we place three
dimensional artifacts and re-contextualize them after they have been removed
from their natural environment," this is an opinion that some of us in art
museums have come to question over time.  Modern and contemporary artworks
are, for many visitors, just as de-contextualized as works from a foreign or
ancient culture.  (Would that it were not so!)  The "white cube" approach to
modern gallery design ensures that a) those who are initiated to the artist's
vocabulary or the dominant aesthetic issues of the day can have an otherwise
pristine and unmediated experience and b) those without this aesthetic ease
often leave feeling befuddled, bewildered, and bitter, feeling ripped off.
 ("My kid could do that.")  So, we in art museums must tread the line between
invading the sacrosanct gallery space where the art encounter takes place and
giving enough contextual back-up so that the uninitiated can go back in and
feel something other than frustration in the presence of the work.
-Peter Samis
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
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