After effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York

In the article “Seaport Museum Works to Dry Out” by Robin Pogrebin of the New York Times, the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy are discussed. The South Street Seaport Museum, which is located in New York City, was flooded with water as a result of Hurricane Sandy. The Museums President, Susan Henshaw Jones pleaded to supporters of the museum to “send whatever you can!” Apparently the water rose to six feet at the lobby entrance and caused the buildings electrical systems to fail, not to mention the water caused severe damage to its café, admission desk, computer system and gift shop. In the article, the museum’s waterfront director, Capt. Jonathan Boulware stated that the water caused “debris and signs and barricades and pieces of timber and in some cases along.” This gives perfect insight into what kind of destruction occurred at the museum.

          

  The destruction of Hurricane Sandy caused severe damages to 57 nonprofit theaters and local museums, which added up to $800,000 dollars in damages. Specifically a gallery by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition lost its floor due to damages caused by Sandy. The destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy on the seaport museum was especially costly, considering the museum had just got back on its feet after being rescued by the Museum of the City of New York. The Seaport Museum is also under strict scrutiny from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which gave the museum a $2 million dollar grant to get the museum back on track. The museum only has 18 months to prove that it can be self-sufficient and the Hurricane has caused serious drawbacks.

A nifty idea at MoMa

I wanted a little taste of home this morning so I treated myself to a read of the Daily Telegraph (British newspaper) online whilst enjoying my mid-morning banana. (Yeah, it's an all-day party at my house)

I came across this;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/9711459/Hatching-new-plans-for-old-objects.html

I think the idea in the article is brill-o-pads. MoMa are asking contemporary artists to act as guest curators by giving them access to their stored collections and then giving them a room to display whatever they want, however they want.

This strikes me as a fun way to let visitors see things that are kept in storage indefinitely because they don't seem to fit with anything else. Also, allowing someone who is not a museum professional to curate an exhibition, while obviously not without risk seems like a great way to inject some innovation into an old institution.

I'd love to have the opportunity to root through a museum storage facility and just display whatever I thought was cool. I also think this would be a fun thing to do with random celebrities if a museum was brave enough. Imagine the kind of information boards Britney Spears would write. It would certainly be a way to entice a new demographic.

games in Museums

When I went to the Cincinnati Museum Center a while back, I found out they have a Detective Agency Program for kids.  The kids come in and get clues and they go around the History Museum searching for the answers.  Jason French, headed up the agency, told me that some of the answers he gets back he never thought of.  This Agency gets kids to look around and learn in a different way.  It causes the kids to think about the things they are seeing.  The kids earn coins for doing this and they can move up in the agency command.

I think this is a great tool for kids.  It gets them to pay attention to things in the exhibits and to ask questions about what they see.  They get to look at things and interpret them, and they come up with some great ideas.  Jason told me that this program is costly to run and it takes a lot of his time, but he enjoys doing it.  This program is his baby.

Doing something like this helps kids to learn in a different way, but they are learning by actually looking at things and thinking for themselves.  We are getting these kids to think critically but not so much that the task is not fun to do.  If we give kids these thinking skills while they are young think about what they can accomplish when they get older.  We get more programs out there like this and more students might become more interested in history before they get to high school or college.

History & Food & Fun with the Supersizers

Ok, so maybe it’s not a documentary, but the show The Supersizers Go is basically one of my favorite history TV shows. It helps that it’s an accumulation of everything I love: history, food, and old timey clothes. But seriously, this show, despite it’s somewhat craziness at times, does teach about history. Through eating like they did in the old days, Giles Coren and Sue Perkins helps to shed light on past cultures and society.

In this show, Giles and Sue take on the role of people from the past, I guess you could say they take a third person interpretation approach- haha, and eat the food that was popular from the time period for people of their social class. The Supersizers Go have done several different time periods throughout the show’s lifespan, from Roman times all the way up to the 1970s. Giles and Sue talk to traditional historians, social historians, food historians, and etc to gain insights into why these people at the food they did, the meanings and implications of the food they ate- and the volume of food they ate, and  they explore the larger historical context behind the times in which they are eating.

My one critique is that the two hosts mostly portray the upper class, so we don’t often get to see the food of ordinary people. But, overall I think this series does an interesting thing with history. It makes the past cultures seem tangible. Food is an essential part of life and The Supersizers use it to illuminate past society in a really cool way. If you get the chance you should watch, most of the episodes can be found on Youtube.

The Genius of Steven Spielberg

I love Steven Spielberg. I don't care about the criticism he gets for "selling out" or that he is run by the studios. The man understands history -- he reads it, researches it, and lives it through his films. He says some really profound things in this speech at the 149th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg College. He says some really great things about the profession we have all chosen, and I think it's a testament to the fact that historians are, and always will be, relevant.

History lights the path toward injustice, so without history there is no hope.

I believe it is the betrayal of the job of the historian to promise perfect and complete recall of the past and to promise memory that abolishes loss.

As much as we need memory to live, we need an awareness of death to live.

The search for the meaning of our lives and of our deaths is the highest function of our capacities to reason, to remember, to imagine, and to dream.

Nothing matters more than memory.

Living History: Your Opinion Matters Here

So, I gave my presentation and yakked about living history for a while in front of you. But, now it’s your turn. I would like to get your opinions on living history: yea, nay, your perceptions, your concerns... or if you just want to rave about it? I’d like to hear what you think.

Oh, and here's that video, just for a little inspiration- haha.

Do Art Museums Benefit More From Purchasing Collections Than Other Institutions?

In the article “Metropolitan Museum Buys a Jusepe de Ribera Painting” by Carol Vogel of the New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has decided to purchase a Spanish painting by Jusepe de Ribera called “The Penitent Saint Peter”.  The painting is from the early 1600’s and was painted in Spain. The Met wants to purchase the painting because it will expand their Spanish collection, which already has one painting by Jusepe de Ribera called “The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria”. The Metropolitan Museum bought the painting for $ 1.3 million from Madrid art dealer Coll & Cortés. The work by Ribera is important because the Met hopes it will establish a link in the story of early Spanish artwork between Velázquez and Ribera’s master, Caravaggio.

The article also mentions a famous art and film show called the Jack Goldstein Show. The show will feature various paintings by Jack Goldstein and will also feature some of his films, most notably, the film “Shane”. Goldstein has found support for his work in the younger generation, which caters to the young and wild artistic side. The article also mentioned the after effects of Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged homes and flooded New York City. The side paragraph of the article mentioned how the Hurricane left the 19^th century marble statue of Columbus untouched. The statue was going through renovations, which was interrupted by the effects of the hurricane.

After doing further work on the Columbus statue, the City of New York actually built a very tall construct to hold the statue up during the storm. The statue had been commissioned by the Public Art Fund, which had set the unveiling for December, 2^nd. The Art fund has sold tickets to people who wish to see the new statue unveiled.

Overall, the article is very informative and engaging. After reading about the decision of the Metropolitan Museum to purchase a panting, I began wondering if buying certain artifacts or antiques is more frowned upon than others. It seems that for art museums it is better in the eye of the public, to purchase works of art and collections than it would for another type of museum. I don’t know if that is the case, but it just seems that way. Another thing I noticed in the article is that the people who sold the art didn’t receive any controversy or complaints over selling the piece. This is extremely odd because most museums or collectors who sell their collections receive a good amount of controversy over the fact that they are selling the piece. The museum also refused to state how much it sold the piece for, which should further enrage the public because only the museum and the private collector know how much the piece sold for.

A footballing controversy

When I say football I mean association football not American football - just to stop this getting confusing!

So, I was reading my favourite football magazine online when I came across this article I had missed this, being out of the general loop of endless footballing news stories in the UK.

Some of you may have seen that I've been wearing a poppy throughout November. We wear these in the UK as a symbol of remembrance for those who have died in wars (chiefly the first and second world wars but I'll come back to that). You see these on the majority of people in the first few weeks of November until Remembrance day (which is the same day as Veterans day) and there is usually some kind of furore because someone in the public eye chooses not to wear one.

The poppy is now also seen as a symbol of support of British troops in current conflicts. This is something that some people are quite uncomfortable with as these soldiers are not conscripted, as those who fought in the First and Second World War were. (I won't get into my rant about how poverty and lack of hope are like modern day conscription because it is off the point).

The footballer in the article, James McClean grew up on the housing estate in Derry, Northern Ireland where Bloody Sunday happened in 1972. (The article is actually inaccurate on this as 13 people died and I think 26 were shot.) This was an incident where British soldiers fired at unarmed protesters at the height of the 'troubles' - which is our polite euphemism for civil war.

McClean's view of the British army is obviously going to be somewhat different to the view of an English person, even though this event occurred long before he was born, and as the article says, he has every right to choose not to wear something that he sees as a symbol of oppression. It is interesting how vitriolic people have become at what they see as him being disrespectful to those who serve in the armed forces, without giving his personal beliefs any consideration at all.

I think this shows the importance of showing as many facets of history as possible, especially when it comes to events that incite strong feelings. It is easy for different perspectives to get lost if one reading of an event is the accepted orthodoxy.

I feel strongly about wearing the poppy, which is why I got one sent all this way, because my great-grandad ended up mentally ill after spending four years in various trenches in northern France, and I think people who came back without physical injuries are often forgotten about. I still applaud James McClean for being brave enough to stand up for his own beliefs, though, even though he knew there would be a backlash.

Google Maps Floorplans

The AAM just shared an article from the New York Times on my Facebook page that grabbed my attention.  Google Maps has made floor plans of public buildings such as shopping malls and airports available online, but museums are also being included.  Floor plans can be available on the phones of those navigating in the museum itself and for those at home who are curious.  There are 30 museums in the US and a few others abroad already included in the program. 

Here’s a link to the article:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/updated-google-map-service-offers-museum-floor-plans/?ref=design

On a side note, the whole process involved that brought this article to my attention fascinates me.  First the New York Times posted the article, then the AAM shared it on Facebook, and then I saw it on Facebook.  And now I shared it in a blog.  Successful social media usage everywhere!