Fly Into the Mystery » museums and art

Trade School NYC

Emily — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:17:03 +0000

I signed up for a bartered class on understanding perfume and having confidence in your opinions at a temporary classroom space in Manhattan. The group that runs Trade School has been presenting events and classes at a variety of city museums and cultural organizations. Among other things, the group is trying to create “economic practices that reinforce values of mutualism, cooperation, social justice, democracy, and ecological sustainability.” Unlike the library model, (free and open to anyone) participants must bring something to barter in payment for the class, and different things are requested by each instructor. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Socrates Sculpture Park in Winter

Emily — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:50:27 +0000

Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens NY

Emily — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:03:04 +0000

How Do We Want Our Public Spaces to Be Used?

Emily — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:15:01 +0000

Check out this video about street art vs. illegal billboards in NYC. (thanks N for sharing)

Museum Club/ Three Girl Birthday

Emily — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:44:46 +0000

Remembering fondly last year’s awesome keg/gun party in the hills, this year I chose a more refined way to celebrate my birthday. Museum Club style. That’s me, Nick, Aunt Margery (also her birthday), Grandma Jean (her birthday observed), and my brother Greg waiting to hear the illustrious Jules Feiffer, cartoonist and children’s book author, speak at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. We are a cute and happy bunch thanks to Rebecca’s photography and instruction. It was a great day.

Mergel brings contemporary vision to MFA from ICA – The Boston Globe

Emily — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:05:29 +0000

Mergel brings contemporary vision to MFA from ICA – The Boston Globe

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Museum Club NYC 2010 Inaugural Meeting

Emily — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:04:17 +0000

Dear Friends,

Please join me at the New York Transit Museum Saturday January 2nd, 2010 at 2 PM. Immediately following our visit to the Museum, we will walk over to Henry Public for drinks and snacks.

Get a start on your New Year’s Resolution to, uh, do more stuff. If you are allergic to old trains, meet us at the bar.

Comments? Questions?

Museum Clubbing

Emily — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:25:18 +0000

I’m updating the museum club sections of my site. With special assistance from Ms. Miranda I have been thinking about what I want to be next and I am convinced that the next step will involve working with museums, exhibition design, and writing about history and art. This is what I love love love. But I do not think a(nother) graduate degree is necessarily in order. My dream career would involve public speaking and writing, daily contact with physical objects of beauty and meaning, and significantly less time spent on the computer. Intellectually challenging and with a lot of flexibility, this career would offer projects that have a naturally shortish lifespan- like an exhibition or event.

I haven’t had much success getting people to join my free museum clubs- do you all have any suggestions that would get people out of the house on a weekend afternoon to explore their regions and support cultural institutions? Do you think people would be willing to pay someone to design experiences for them that would be social and fun but intellectually stimulating? Perhaps an institution would hire someone who can reach out to a younger demographic in a rigorous way- if there aren’t enough individuals who can afford that.

What do you think?

Darwin’s Camera by Phillip Prodger

Emily — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:05:11 +0000

Last night it was my pleasure to attend the monthly meeting of the Essex County Ornithological Club held at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. After narrowly avoiding being elected president of the gathered group, as I was an unfamiliar face, and hearing some notes on bird behavior, it was time for the featured presentation. The guest speaker was Mr. Phillip Prodger, the museum’s curator of photography who has just published a book on Darwin’s use of and influence on photography.

The image at left was the focus of the talk. Darwin was very interested in capturing and studying human and animal emotion. He commissioned a prominent London photographer, Oscar Rejlander, to illustrate his book on the subject. But, as this was 1871 and there was no good flash photography, he had to fake it.

Rejlander started with a picture of a crying baby, then he blew it up and redrew it in chalk and rephotographed it. It fooled everyone. The book sold 10000 copies, but this weird photo sold 300000. People were desperate for instantaneous images and it also caught the zeitgeist of the time: people mistook it for a picture of a popular dreadful Victorian novel about a miserable baby.

Popular culture at the time took the image and ran with it, mostly into the maudlin gutter. People wanted this image of a crying baby the way they want today, I guess, Demi Lovato. Prodger’s analogy was to Pokemon cards, but very few adults collect those. What people collect most- i think- are images of their own babies and pets and selves on their websites and gadgets. Perhaps in the 1870s this lifelike baby picture was as close as they could get?

In college, I was fascinated with this image from 1840 by Hippolyte Bayard:
This is a political self portrait from less than ten years after the invention of photography. The post modern sensibility found in Cindy Sherman’s contemporary self portraits emerged as soon as there were cameras.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Emily — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:33:37 +0000

The Peabody Essex Museum reminded me of the New-York Historical Society. I wrote my grad school thesis of the N-YHS and its changing mission statement over the centuries from its founding in 1804. It has a collection of a billion items. Like a separate Smithsonian, it has tried to be something to everyone over the years, with limited success.
The PEM is an amalgamation of local history museums and institutes including the Essex Historical Society, Essex Natural History Society, and the East India Marine Society. Like N-YHS, much of the collection does not have a strict historical focus. There is natural history included (fossils and other things picked up on boats) and so very much imported china.
At the same time, the museum and its curators are trying to stay current and attract visitors with special exhibits. Currently there are some gorgeous contemporary tintypes of surfers by Joni Sternbach. And I especially liked the contemporary Indian art exhibit, ReVisions. These sit uneasily beside rooms and rooms of china and boat models. The building is huge and exhausting. I would have been happy with one room of local history, two rooms of Asian art, zero rooms of china and one room of special exhibits. But the attempt to be a “world class” museum worth $20 a visit, and the accommodation of the vast collections gifted by worthy locals and their families, makes this museum too much of everything. I will return to see the Chinese house and special exhibits, but I’ll skip the other halls.