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Fri, 23 Apr 1999 13:19:16 -0400 |
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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
>
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