Historically, museums and galleries have excluded too many people. I want to eradicate the pervasive assumption that “certain people just don’t visit museums.” In a modern era of public discourse characterized by instantaneous updating and dynamic participation, a savvy public shares knowledge and relays experience with the click of a mouse. The Internet, digital media, video games, and social networking offer new approaches to learning and understanding others. Regrettably, many museums – the giants of knowledge – have fallen behind in regard to inclusiveness, technological innovation, and representation of diverse experiences. Museums and galleries shape nationwide educational curricula and discourse. If they fail to resonate with wide audiences, then the public will go elsewhere to learn, despite these institutions’ long-established reputations. Particularly now, when most sentences are prefaced with “In this economy,” I believe that museums and galleries risk obsolescence without fundamental change and a renaissance of innovation. Growing up gay in rural Western Maryland, I learned about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) history from Wikipedia. Exhibitions or educational curricula on gay civil rights struggles seemed nonexistent. Today, my experiences and education will contribute to a more complete understanding and affirming representation of diverse groups in the halls of America’s museums. To that end, I intern with the Associate Director for Operations at the National Portrait Gallery. Trained as a visual artist, I never imagined myself contributing to the dialogue on the future of a national museum entering a remarkable (and uncertain) era of hyper-accelerated change. Throughout my internship I developed co... ... middle of paper ... ...often less costly. A state-of-the-art website may be less romantic than archetypical museum hall, but online galleries reverberate with and reach wide audiences. I want to be a part of a two-fronted museum and gallery renaissance that embraces both technology and inclusiveness. My unique experiences as a gay man, as an artist, and as young person in the sphere of museum administration, make me a unique candidate for the Arts Administration program. While studying at George Mason, I also look forward to enriching my cultural awareness by collaborating and volunteering with local LGBT organizations; I also hope to take continuing education courses with University of Maryland’s LGBT program. The George Mason academic environment and opportunities for practical experience support my career goal: working for the future National Museum of American LGBT History & Culture.
In Stephen Weil’s essay, he argues “the museum’s role has transformed from one of mastery to one of service” (Weil, 196). According to him, museums have changed their mission from one that cultures the public to one that serves
There is arguably no group that has faced more discrimination in modern society than queer people of color. Although often pushed together into a single minority category, these individuals actually embrace multiple racial and sexual identities. However, they suffer from oppression for being a part of both the ethnic minority and queer communities. As a result, members are abused, harassed, and deprived of equal civil rights in social and economic conditions (Gossett). In response to the multiple levels of discrimination they face in today’s society, queer people of color have turned to the establishment and active participation of support organizations, resources, and policies to advocate for overall equality.
There are certainly various points in history that can be construed as trailblazing for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. One event in particular, however, sparked awareness and a call to action that previously could never have been conceptualized in the United States. This unforgettable incident, the Stonewall riots of 1969, altered the public’s view of the gay community and arguably jumpstarted the next revolution in an entirely new civil rights movement.
“Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship.” in Exhibiting Cultures. Eds. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Print.
...n Duberman, and Martha Vicinus, eds. Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian past. New York: Penguin Group, 1990.
...ything as it should be, the right pieces of art in the right places, making sure information is correct upon publication and of course the galleries main purpose, selling art and also making available to the public for viewing, all of this now being done online as well as on site. The appeal of the online gallery vs. the real life gallery is it is almost a simpler way to display work and project to audience because you are more than projecting to a small group of people, online it is the whole world, for everyone that cannot go to The Museum of Modern Art you can see its collection online. And it is open for anyone to use, the restrictions of getting the right space and art and cost is not feasible online, anyone can start a collection for an audience to view and it is the collecting and curating of what you find into a selection is what makes it an online gallery.
Through verbatim theater’s ability to represent reality, The Laramie Project was able to shift people’s views of the LGBTQ+ community in America. The Lamarie Project and “My Tocaya” explore the themes of society’s capacity for both apathy and empathy. The apathy of the people of Laramie toward Matthew Shepard shows the tendency to turn the deaths of minorities into a simplified conversation about whether to tolerate the minority or
NC State published a flyer of events scheduled for Gay History Month. Event consisted of workshops for students and faculty, a network luncheon, celebrate National Coming Out Day, and a free screening of the documentary Al Nisa: Black Muslim Women in Atlanta’s Gay Mecca, followed by a discussion with the film’s director. Not every event was open to the public, most where specifically for faculty and students of NC State. I selected to attend the Forgotten Queer History Lecture, conducted in the Talley Student Union, on October 6, 2015.
In this semester, we have visited three public art agencies of NYC, which are the Percent for Art Program, the MTA’s Arts for Transit program, and Creative Time. These public art organizations commission public art to the public. They integrate and apply arts to sites through process and research based on artists’ practices. Public art agencies have similar goal that is to put artworks in appropriate sites and to get response from audiences. In this paper, I will discuss the three agencies we visited vary in rules of agency and patronage practices.
We use art as a means of touching that part of us we cannot reach with physical, social science or any of the humanities. The arts allow us to be abstract or accurate as we please. We develop closer to ourselves and others around us. Though there is uncertainty as to what the true meaning of “good art” is, we manage to show others what is happening in our minds. Our inner souls cannot be judged, ranked, evaluated, criticized or revised by anyone other than ourselves. In conclusion, my trips to the museums were spent with my son, it promoted a diversity of learning environments, a means of thinking and definitely an understanding and appreciation to art and nature.
Youngs, I. (2011). Museums enjoy 10 years of freedom. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15927593. Last accessed 4th Nov 2013.
In the face of a homophobic society we need creative and critical processes that draw out the complexity of lesbian lives and same sex choices, not a retreat into the comforting myths of heroines and unfractured, impeachable identities
For instance, in the 19th century, Arnoldian thinkers put forward a philosophy of intellectual and cultural excellence, which involved a rigorous study of what they regarded to be best products of human thought and creativity. It could take on a democratic form, in the sense that it held that anyone could theoretically attain intellectual excellence, if they committed themselves to intensive study. Though Arnoldian thinking was also complicated by its tendency to presume the superiority of works produced by elite European men. Another instance can be seen with the group of progressive museum figures who reformed The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. They attempted to promote museum attendance among a broader segment of the population and made attempts to expand their contents into craft arts in an effort to engage more working-class residents of the city. Though it is uncertain how many people they succeeded in drawing into museum art engagement and the change in content didn’t necessarily entail an expansion of those who were granted formal recognition among official intellectual discourses over the operation of museums. Each, in their own ways, acted to advance intellectual democratization in some manner, and were involved in the broader contestations over the intellectual condition of
Nothing can substantiate my argument better, than what I saw at the Beneski Natural History museum in Amherst College. This was my first visit to a museum in the United States of America but, I was confident that this museum would give me a story. A museum, no matter how big or small, popular or not so popular, will always help the visitor understand the art of seeing. As I walked through the museum, it seemed like I was in a dialogue with every single exhibit in the museum, they ...
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.