Historical collection

Historical CollectionRM

#essay, #challengethemuseumcollection, #beauty

Pristine marble shelves support dusted treasures, untouched, proud, significant. They accompany human history, evidencing a consecutive tale of progress. A linear perception of time is useful. It is consequent. However, it leaves an echoing empty room of the untold; the once unspeakable.

Historical collections are part of a testimony of the common ground, of that which builds an identity throughout communities, or nations. They are the voice however not of an absolute universal consensus but of an exclusionary authority confined in the enclosure of her times. The attempt to establish a collection that speaks with a global voice is hopeless. Instead, a museum could shape its collection to speak from singular voices who were once muted and subdued.

Immediate assumptions of what an art object represents can potentially be used to the museum’s advantage. Re-locating the familiar association as a complement instead of as protagonist may be a good strategy to induce a new reading of history, supported by other art works and documentation. It is however fundamental to acknowledge that historical collections have a limited potential, restricted not by the amount of works they contain but by the subjectivity of their reading. The power, influence, and public presence among the largest museums in the world—despite their close resemblance to capitalism—are a good starting point of experimentation in how objects can be displayed to a public, thirsty for consumption. Ideally, the viewer should be presented with a challenge and be incited to begin an internal debate. What do

I agree with in this space? Do I see my life pictured in that history? What is missing in this spectrum? Sadly, reflection is not easily induced. The museum competes against the digital feeds and endless threads. Novelty in our times has a redundant definition.

While art institutions have a crucial responsibility to take a political stand, contemporary artists should be permitted to explore their imagination, obsessions, and dreams. Yes, art should inspire change, expand possibilities, propose alternative presents and futures, change adults’ minds and repurpose youth’s ambitions, but also: shouldn’t art be an escape from the mundane of daily life and from horrific world speculations? Is it negligent to reintroduce beauty into our artistic language to escort politics into the museum?

Savage Beauty, a retrospective exhibition of artist and fashion designer Alexander McQueen, presented his iconic silhouettes, his ingenious use of craftsmanship, and the fantasy world he created around his work. He made the industry rethink the purpose of fashion and made the public aware of its interconnections not only between art, craft, technology, and business, but also between raw human emotions and desires. The fact that the exhibition was housed in the Met Museum gave the work a heavier weight, accompanied by centuries of antiquity.

Beauty in McQueen’s work is indeed savage, palpable, primordial, but also desirable. As former director of the Victoria & Albert museum Elizabeth Esteve-Coll asked: Could contemporary art become more popular—as McQueen’s name did—without trivializing? Isn’t beauty a good strategy to attract more audiences to the museum?

Beauty as an evolutionary factor is hardly part of the art vocabulary today. It seems that politics has colonized the art dictionary. As art critic Avelina Lesper repeatedly states, artists are now closer to an NGO than they are to art. The muses have left the building. Therefore, I wonder: could art potentially re-explore beauty without losing contextual judgment? Is it frivolous to pursue a contemporary art that is beautiful? And what if it is? Is thinking about beauty in contemporary art wayward or backward?