Period Rooms at the Met
(Image of Met’s Period Rooms via Diana: Muse )
Today I headed to the Metropolitan Museum’s symposium of the “Past, Present and Future” of the Period Room, which was an amazing day of lectures. I enjoy period rooms for their romance and human scale — they are often a respite from museum fatigue. However, I’ve also wondered how museums will handle the continuing addition of “period” rooms. I mean, in a hundred years, what rooms will people want to see? Uber modernist rooms? 1950s playrooms? Bomb shelters? Ina Garten’s kitchen? The last lecture of the day was the best in many ways as it addressed this very question of the future of the period room. The lecture was given by Julius Bryant who has the delicious title of “Keeper of Word and Image” at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He mentioned the artist Mark Dion, whose work, focused on the processes of collecting and discovery is fascinating. I did a little google research and found that Dion is playing with the aesthetic and fantastic qualities that attract us to these displays. Here are two samples:
(image via nature network )
(image via )
One quote from Dion that I loved (since I’m a student of the decorative arts) is this: “I am very excited by the decorative arts. To study the history of the decorative arts, one must follow developments in science and technology, political economy and aesthetics and iconography.” Yes! Yes! Yes!
Full text of the interview here.
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February 21st, 2008 00:02
This is great! Thanks for giving all of us an insight into your education.
February 25th, 2008 13:27
Wow - - what a great blog! Thanks drawing attention to this symposium on period rooms and, in general, offering such a great collection of images. I’m inspired!