Title: The object in view: Aborigines, Melanesians, and museums
Abstract: There is a cartoon by the New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti that shows a man in
a suit and tie standing before a glass display case, looking with respectful awe at the
single small pot within it. The caption reads, ‘The wonder of it all’ (Figure 2.1). This
cartoon sums up something that I greatly value about museums: the way in which objects
can open horizons of knowledge and imagination that are rich and moving. Throughthe practices of collection and public exhibition, museums have developed a discipline
of looking – a way of retrieving meaning from objects. This meaning is comprehended
imaginatively by each viewer and often depends on the object as a conceptual opening
through which the viewer can pass to apprehend another time or another place.
Museums, in this sense, are about the pleasure of eye and mind, and as Barsotti suggests,
such seeing and imagining often incorporate awe and wonder at the object, at other
times and other places.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-06-28
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 15
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