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 >