This week the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that they will be closing their doors for four months later this year to complete their ongoing renovation and completely rehang their collection. When the museum reopens in the fall, they will rotate their collection more …
This week I will be exploring the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town, South Africa and the Museum’s attempt at decolonizing a controversial and culturally damaging exhibit space in the post-apartheid period. The Iziko South African Museum (SAM) is one of an amalgamation of …
According to the American Alliance of Museums’ Characteristics of Excellence, a museum should, “guided by its mission, provide public access to its collections while ensuring their preservation.” Although museums protect over a billion objects, did you know that on average, less than five percent of a museum’s collection is on view for the public to enjoy? To make up for this, many museums have turned to the “visible storage” display strategy, in which collections not on exhibit are stored in open cases for the public to still see and enjoy. While certainly effective, albeit overwhelming (and sometimes confusing, with little-to-no interpretive wall texts), more museums are instead embracing the digital age and implementing a completely accessible collection online.
For instance, last week, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) announced its “Open Access” system, providing the public with free access to thousands of images from the Museum’s collection to learn from and even download to use for commercial purposes. With a simple click to the Museum’s collection page, users can now select an artwork, zoom in, and observe close details that are difficult to notice when the same object is placed behind a glass vitrine or on the wall in a gallery space. Moreover, it is now permissible to even download a high quality JPEG of the image, to use in any capacity one can imagine.
According to the Cleveland Museum’s website:
“Open Access means the public now has the ability to share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of many as 30,000 public- domain artworks from the CMA’s world-renowned collection of art for commercial and non-commercial purposes. In addition, portions of collections information (metadata) for more than 61,000 artworks, both in the public domain and those works with copyright or other restrictions, works are now available.”
The Cleveland Museum joins a growing list of institutions that have prioritized an accessible online database – open to students, scholars, and the general public to use without any restrictions. Other museums include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, LACMA, the Getty, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
In a recent study by Ian Gill, a graduate of San Francisco State University’s M.A. Museum Studies Program, it was found that museums with Open Access “benefit the public, promote scholarship, and align with the museum’s mission;” however, it is an expensive system to initiate without help from outstanding grants or other sources of funding. As an art historian who can easily spend hours searching through Google Images’ archives in search of a high quality photo of a specific artwork, I am excited to learn that the Cleveland Museum of Art has shared its diverse collection online, providing me with a new go-to source for finding JPEG images that are free under Creative Commons Zero.
What are your thoughts on Open Access?
When we think about the people that comprise a museum’s community, sometimes we overlook the very core of that group: the staff. Like all non-profits and cultural organizations, museums often have a small but dedicated crew of people giving 110% toward accomplishing the museum’s mission. And they …
As an emerging museum professional I find it very important to visit museums whenever I am traveling. This allows me the opportunity to see common trends and innovative ideas within the museum field. I find this additionally valuable when traveling internationally to see how museums …
Twenty three days and counting.
On December 22, the U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in funding to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Democrats (and some GOP members) refuse to approve the funding, calling the wall immoral, unnecessary, and “a giant symbol” of racism and xenophobia. Although the House of Representatives passed several spending bills aimed at reopening certain sections of the government as soon as possible, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the legislation.
Now, for twenty-three days, the government has been in a political standstill (and as of yesterday, this has become the longest shutdown ever). According to Trump, the shutdown will continue until his funding is passed, and has even considered calling a national emergency to build the wall without congress approval.
As a result of this impasse, all federal institutions, departments, and agencies are closed. Over 800,000 federal workers remain furloughed, or continue to work without pay.
How does this seemingly endless shutdown affect museums and other cultural institutions?
While the Smithsonian Institution had funding through the first day of January, on January 2nd, all nineteen of its museums and galleries, including the Cooper Hewitt, National Air and Space Museum, National Zoo, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, closed. With no federal budget, upcoming public programs, lectures, and related arts and culture events were also canceled.
For special traveling exhibitions with an upcoming closing date, visitors will unfortunately miss the opportunity to enjoy the art on view. Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes, for example, the new special exhibition at the (currently inaccessible) Hirshhorn Museum, will not be extended past its closing date of January 27th.
In response to the government shutdown, some artists and art critics are using social media to present their work through a different light. For instance, for each day the government has been closed, the New York City- based writer Phyllis Tuchman has used Instagram to post a painting from the National Gallery of Art’s collection.
Until an agreement is reached for federal funding, Smithsonian Museums and other National Mall institutions will remain closed, and tourist visits will most likely continue to decrease.
Have you been personally affected by the government shutdown? Leave a comment with your story below.