Once a month, someone in Indieweb hosts the "Indieweb carnival", a monthly theme which a bunch of bloggers all write about the same theme, and the links to posts are collected in a page together. This month's theme: Museum Memories click for info.
Like many people, I have many fond memories of museums. Here are some recollections.
He Really Is Not Spock
When I was in about fourth grade, my school's front hall posted photos of various working people posing for portraits: cleaners, carpenters, etc. Mrs. Himmelstein, my art teacher, who let us play records in art class, told us they weren't photos of people... they were ultra-realistic sculptures by Duane Hanson, and if we liked them, there was a whole exhibit at the Whitney Museum. I guess my folks looked into it, and it turned out there was an Alexander Calder exhibit at the Whitney too... it was pretty much a perfect museum double-bill for an 8 year old.
Hanson's hyper-realistic sculptures were uncanny. The museum had sprinkled them throughout the building: a tired-looking waitress leaning against a pole in the cafe, a security guard standing by the payphones. More than once my dad got me to go talk to one, thinking it was a person. ("Go ask that waitress where the bathrooms are.") At one point, we looked at one that had a crowd of people gathering around it, an old woman sitting crosslegged on the floor, reading a folded up newspaper. Suddenly, she exhaled, and laughed. She admitted she'd been waiting for someone, and sat down to read the paper, and a crowd had started to gather around her, so she held her break as long as she could, and fooled everybody! Anyway, that's how realistic Hanson's sculptures were... a person sitting still long enough looked like just another sculpture.
And then, of course, there was the Calder exhibit. If you're familiar with Calder, not much needs be said, and this was my first exposure to him. I've loved his work from then to now.
Anyway, after a day of checking out very cool and unusual art, my folks pointed excitedly across the room in the gallery at a man I didn't recognize at all. "Look, Mike!", they said. "It's Mr. Spock!" Now, I was a huge Star Trek fan, and had probably already seen the entire series (you do know there was only one Star Trek series, right?) several times over even by that age, as it ran every night at 6PM, 5 days a week. I said, "That's not Mr. Spock." And then I saw somebody go up and ask for his autograph, and realized, yes, it was him!
I went up and asked for his autograph. I said, "I see you on Star Trek every night". I don't recall him saying a word, but he signed the margin of my museum program or some other piece of paper I had convenient. He seemed a little dour in retrospect, truth be told. Mr dad told me, "You know, Star Trek wasn't long ago." But I don't recall even realizing he'd been perhaps a little grumpy. And I know now, as an adult, he was only 2 or 3 years past publishing "I Am Not Spock", perhaps still kind of in that phase.
And I don't care. Leonard Nimoy gave me an autograph. At an Alexander Calder exhibit. It's a prized childhood memory.
Funny thing, Hanson and Calder and the Whitney all have comprehensive exhibition histories online now. I can't find a single date when both Hanson and Calder were on display at the Whitney. But it happened. For a long time I thought Calder made both his fanciful mobiles and sculptures and ultra-realistic human sculptures, it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned the real reason I'd gone to the Whitney at all was Hanson.
The Franklin Institute
I grew up on Long Island, but being right outside of New York City, it was only about a two-hour drive to Philadelphia. One thing we did many times when I was a kid was visit a place that I consider sacred ground: The Franklin Institute. This was a participatory kid's science museum that felt more like an amusement park to me.
The thing I remember most clearly is the giant walk-through model of the human heart.
I don't really have a cool story to tell about the Franklin Institute. It was just a fun place to visit. I didn't even realize it was educational.
Speaking of Philadelphia...
The Mütter Museum
As an adult, I learned of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum from a beautiful essay by Teller, of Penn & Teller, in their book "How To Play In Traffic". The Mütter, owned by the Philadelpha College of Physicians, preserving a 19th century doctor's collection of "extremes in human morphology". I imagined something like a university library, but with skeletons in cases.
In "How To Play In Traffic", Teller has a beautiful essay on the Mütter.
At one point, the late Gretchen Worden, director of the Mütter, came to City Lights Books in San Francisco and gave a talk and slideshow about the place. I attended with rapt attention.
H
I still have a copy in
Finally, in 2012 a business trip took me to Philadelphia and left me some
The Boston Science Museum
Honorable mention: Long Wires in Dark Museums by Alastair Galbraith
This isn't a museum, it's a music album by Kiwi avant-folk artist Alastair Galbraith, but it was recorded in a museum, and I can't end without mentioning it. They strung wires across museum galleries, turned down the lights, and played them with bows.
That's it. It's just what it sounds like. Long Wires in Dark Museums.
