Good on yer, David. I DO like your universal cautionary notice!!! I'm doing
a workshop on signage and labels for a national association os museums this
summer and think I will recommend your suggestion. But, damme, is it really
politically correct to want people to think? or even to think about
thinking?

Have a good weekend.

Harry
Harry Needham
Special Advisor - Programme Development
Canadian War Museum
330 Sussex Drive,
Ottawa, Canada
K1A 0M8
Voice: (819) 776-8612  Fax (819) 776-8623
Email: [log in to unmask]

> ----------
> From:         David Hupert[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Museum discussion list
> Sent:         Friday, April 23, 1999 12:31 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Nude Youths
>
> At 03:52 PM 4/20/1999 -0600, you wrote:
> >The Denver Museum of Natural History will have a fall exhibition about
> Amazonia.  ( Actually from the Canadian Museum of  Civilization  in Hull).
> In this exhibition there are some life-size photgraphs of naked children.
> Should we anticipate trouble and post a sign at the entrance - thus giving
> parents a choice?  Or does doing so turn it into a bigger deal than it
> really is?  Our inclination is too simply ignore it.
> >
>
> This posting raises so many issues of American culture it is hard to know
> where to begin the discussion.
>
>         * What is an exhibition about the people of the Amazon doing in a
> Natural
> History museum?  Do they really belong with the gorillas and dinosaurs?
> Note the change in museological ambiance as the exhibition migrates to the
> US.
>
>         * Many years ago I asked my fifth grade teacher how come the only
> naked
> women in National Geographic Magazine and the Museum of Natural History
> have dark skin.  I will never forget how embarrassed and incoherent she
> became.  Has anything changed?
>
>         * In good Christian countries like Italy and France all beaches
> are
> "topless" with many naked children running around.  Has this ever been the
> subject of a museum diorama or life-size photograph?  American society has
> a peculiar fear of nakedness.  Has there ever been a museum exhibition on
> this subject?
>
>         * If there is a cautionary notice should it warn of the
> voyeuristic
> pleasures of seeing people just like us, or people very different from us?
> Or do we focus on their nudity because the impending extinction of their
> culture if not their lives just another facet of the process of making the
> world safe for the expansion of Gap Kids?
>
> Please do not take these ruminations as a condemnation of the exhibition
> or
> the question of posting a cautionary notice.  I happen to think all
> museums
> should have cautionary notices at the entry:  Caution! Anything Here May
> Induce Thinking.
>
> David Hupert
>