Helena Gimeno Pascual, Javier del Hoyo Calleja, Virginia Salamanqués Pérez
En este trabajo se hace una revisión de la documentación histórica inédita que confirma la procedencia laciponense de un pedestal de Mercurio conservado en el Museo de San Roque; se presenta al mismo tiempo una nueva lectura e interpretación de parte del texto de esta inscripción.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
Andreza Pereira Batista, Gabriela Belmont de Farias
Resumo A gestão do conhecimento busca mecanismos para externalizar o conhecimento cognitivo dos indivíduos, mediante ao uso de estratégias e procedimentos que permitem os sujeitos transmitirem o que sabem, em prol do desenvolvimento organizacional. Destarte, a popularização da ciência diz respeito à ações que objetivam estabelecer diálogos entre os pesquisadores e a população em geral, com vista a possibilitar o uso e a apropriação das informações científicas e tecnológicas pelos cidadãos. Post isto, o artigo objetiva analisar as relações entre a gestão do conhecimento e a popularização da ciência, identificando elementos que as aproximam, contribuem e auxiliam na comunicação da ciência à sociedade. Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória de abordagem qualitativa que utiliza como método a pesquisa bibliográfica, associando elementos construtivos da gestão do conhecimento às práticas de popularização científica. Como resultado, apresenta a construção de um esquema abordando os componentes supracitados com as inter-relações entre os elementos e identificação das associações entre eles, vinculadas, especialmente, ao planejamento das ações. Ao fim, conclui que a gestão do conhecimento apresenta características necessárias para que a popularização da ciência possa ser realizada de forma sistemática e atinja os objetivos estabelecidos nas iniciativas dos pesquisadores em disseminar, de forma compreensível, os resultados de suas pesquisas, almejando motivar mudanças individuais e coletivas – que só são atingidas por meio da educação e do empoderamento social.
Museums. Collectors and collecting, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
O. B. Lower described, in 1911, the hesperiine skipper Telicota augias mesoptis Lower, 1911, but he neither stated the number of specimens before him nor designated a holotype. Our investigations indicate that Lower had at least 11 syntypes (7 males, 4 females), which are now registered in the Australian Museum, Sydney and South Australian Museum, Adelaide (SAMA). At least two authors (G. A. Waterhouse in 1933, and M. J. Parsons in 1998) attempted to resolve the taxonomy of mesoptis but neither of them made a valid lectotype designation in that the syntype they specified cannot be located and unambiguously identified to act as the unique type of the taxon. Thus, we designate a male specimen in SAMA (registration number: SAMA Database No. 31-001600) as the lectotype to become the unique bearer of the name mesoptis. This action does not affect the name or rank of the taxon, rather it constitutes a formal subsequent fixation since Lower’s name was introduced 110 years ago. With regard to nomenclature, the taxonomic status of mesoptis has changed several times, both in terms of rank and with the species or genus in which it has been combined. Currently, the correct nomenclature is Telicota paceka mesoptis Lower, 1911 and we recommend that this name be used to designate the Australian population rather than Telicota mesoptis mesoptis Lower, 1911 in which it has been known for the past 87 years (since 1934).
Nias headhunter (human head collectors) was once a feared and victorious warrior. The society is famous of its complex social structures, anti-earthquake architecture, detailed wooden and stone statuary, along with its vicious warriors. Since the independence of Indonesia, war costume production stopped. Moreover, the need to pay taxes and daily necessities causes the once great warriors into abandoning his identity completely. For tourism purposes, war costume is produced with cheap materials and less details, resulting in losing its fundamental meanings. This paper aims to analyze Nias unique war costume, specifically the armor and its fundamental values based on the armor’s structural design and materials. The data were obtained by ethnographic research in Nias Heritage Museum and the village of Bawomataluo. Literature research were done by collecting cultural and historical books, historical images, previous research article and journals related to Nias custom, history, and war issues. The data were then analyzed using the psychology of dress theory by creating a dialogue between the Nias armor and the self. The result shows that based on its structure, the armor shows ‘magnificence’ and according to its material, the armor signifies ‘power’. By identifying the fundamental meaning of Nias war costume’s fundamental values, the identity of the warriors can be an important heritage to Nias descendants and Indonesia society as a whole.
Thomas and Pitblado (2020: 1060) recognise that the interactions between professional archaeologists (and presumably also museum personnel) and collectors is wrought with ethical questions and concerns. The Society for American Archaeology, the professional organisation of which I am the current president, exhorts its members to refrain from “all activities that result in the loss of scientific knowledge and access to sites and artifacts, [such as] irresponsible excavation, collecting, hoarding, exchanging, buying, or selling archaeological materials” (SAA Bylaws, Article II: Objectives; https://www.saa.org/quick-nav/about-saa/society-bylaws). In addition, Principle 3 of the Society’s Principles of Archaeological Ethics—Commercialisation—asks archaeologists to “discourage, and should themselves avoid, activities that enhance the commercial value of archaeological objects, especially objects that are not curated in public institutions, or readily available for scientific study, public interpretation, and display” (https:// www.saa.org/career-practice/ethics-in-professional-archaeology). I agree with the authors that the stereotypical representation that all artefact collectors “practise their hobby illegally and unethically, and that they do so to make money, to launder money or to engage in other nefarious activities” (Thomas & Pitblado 2020: 1060) is overly broad and misrepresents a large group of people who are deeply aware of the scientific information contained within the material culture that they collect. Still, while money might not be the motivating factor behind some artefact collection, I continue to have concerns about the ongoing disturbance of archaeological sites, the loss of contextual information about artefacts, the misperception of the idea of ‘value’ and the indirect competition between archaeologists and collectors. Thomas and Pitblado (2020) are correct in calling out those who use hyperbole to imply that all who collect are somehow tied to money laundering, the art-theft black market or the most heinous aspects of these activities. I agree that by exaggerating such issues we run the risk of painting collectors with a broad and over-encompassing brush. As Thomas and Pitblado (2020) note, the SAA prohibits first publication of unprovenanced material as an attempt to prevent the ascription of academic (and therefore financial) ‘value’ to collections acquired under questionable circumstances. The authors cite as an example the work of LeBlanc on Mimbres pottery as a contribution to science, and I agree. I still, however, have concerns about using such unprovenanced material in archaeological and/or museological research. Without a known and recognised context, the materials have no ‘academic value’. There are too many forgers or artists who can produce authentic-looking materials that may confuse those who study such objects, and can therefore impact any validity that our discussion of the human past might have.
This paper presents research into exhibition-production practices at five national museums of four Baltic Sea region countries. The focus is the changes wrought by the expansion of exhibition teams, and how researchers in the curatorial role perceive their position, especially in relation to designers and project leaders. The analysis of semi-structured interviews with museum professionals showed exhibition production at museums comprise two models: A) curator-driven, and B) manager-driven. In Model A, the curator’s knowledge of museum collections is dominant. The curator creates the concept, and subsequently leads the exhibition project. The curator is the decision maker. In Model B, the field of communication is dominant. Managers are in charge of the design concept and fulfilling the exhibition. Managers are the decision makers. Curators feel their credibility as experts suffers and their competencies are underexploited, as they no longer have either authorship or leadership responsibilities.
A few years ago, I conducted a series of experiments focusing on wax tablets as drawing tools in antiquity (Vlavogilakis, in press. All references to my earlier experiments with wax tablets refer to this paper). When this was over, I decided to create a diptych as a present. The method of making was inspired from examples of tablets and diptychs from different periods: Bronze Age, 8th century BC and 10th-11th century AD.
The article deals with collections and collecting as a literary theme. Research on this issue should be undertaken by literary scholars, as collections support the features of literary characters and give protagonists their identity. The work analysed from this angle is “Money” by Andrzej Strug from 1914. It interprets and describes three different collections and three different collectors: the eccentric Lyttons and their museum of stones, Lucy Slazenger’s precious jewellery collection and the art collection of Osias Murway, an enthusiast of antiquities.
Contemporary independent galleries are among the most rampant, cashed up, bon viveurs of the global art scene, and, as the projects mostly of the super-rich, they surf the countervailing flows of cash from the same neoliberal policy levers that cause public arts funding to dry up. There’s no sense of crisis among them as a sector unless we factor in the much-anticipated crash in contemporary art prices and/or the demise of neoliberalism. Yet it’s difficult to see them as separable from the art world they operate in, and easy to see them as increasingly significant to it. Thus, it is possible to situate them in the relational and historical narrative of the extended exhibitionary complex (Smith, 2012) where they figure as present day manifestations of private collectors who have always been a mainstay of arts and museum collections, and whose collecting cultures and collections have recently been reconfigured around different art, different art markets and different relationships with artists, gallerists, curators and a proliferation of exhibitionary platforms – including public art museums everywhere. The key word here then is extension rather than tension between public and private. A question that interests me is how different private collectors are as exhibitors and whether their relative freedom from museological norms, public scrutiny and political control (in those places where it’s possible), combined with their emotional passion (as noted by Walter Benjamin [2007] in his essay on book collecting), can be or has been, marshalled to create new experiences of art in museums, and if so what value this might have. So, this is my basic approach here. My answer will be that mostly they have not, but there are signs that they can, or they could in collaboration with others. This chapter provides a sketch of this kind, based around two questions. As central philanthropic figures, how have private collectors’ contributions and values changed as they have shifted from silent partners to active museum builders? And how have they shaped the cultural ecology they found themselves in? I suggest that there are three important processes in play that guide how answers can be found to these questions. First, through the multiple ways in which they have become entangled in the spiralling growth and extension of contemporary art into more popular cultural forms of taste and consumption. Second, through
Information on the Manchester Museum holding of British butterflies is presented and access to it is made available. Almost all of the collection has been provided over a period of 200 years by donations from private collectors. We discuss the dates, the pattern of collecting and evidence the material holds of changing attitudes and perceived uses of private collections.
In 2015 Yawuru people began the slow and emotional journey to repatriate their ‘Old People’ whose skeletal remains had been taken from their Country by collectors working mostly for museums. One group of ancestors were young pearlshell divers who had been sold to the Dresden Museum in Saxony, Germany, in 1895 by pearlers. Their bodily traumas revealed the brutal treatment they endured before their untimely deaths. The journey brought the Yawuru and Karajarri elders and the curators of the Ethnographic Museums of Saxony together in their quest to find out what had happened to these people and to rehumanise our ancestors who had, for so long, been treated as objects in the museum collections. This article presents our reflections on the journey back to Germany to retrieve the ancestors, the development of our ‘Wanggajarli Burugun’ (‘We are coming home’) project and the findings from our research into the slavery of the early pearling days in and around Broome, Western Australia. It also reveals the emotional journey of our community as they delved into the trauma of this formerly unknown colonial practice of ‘bone-collecting’, and how, through the spirit of mabu liyan and a process of culturally informed engagement process we were able to address the dark deeds of the past to lead the journey to healing and reconciliation.
The dried plant specimens painstakingly acquired by the London apothecary James Petiver (ca 1663–1718) from around the world constitute a substantial, but underappreciated, component of the vast herbarium of Sir Hans Sloane, now housed at London's Natural History Museum. Petiver was an observant field biologist whose own collecting was focused in south-east England. However, he also obtained specimens from an astoundingly wide geographical area via numerous collectors, more than 160 of whose names are known. While many were wild-collected, gardens in Great Britain and abroad also played a role in facilitating the study of the many new and strange exotics that were arriving in Europe. A new estimate of the number of specimens present in Petiver's herbarium suggests a figure of ca 21 000 gatherings. In this article, the appearance of the bound volumes, and the arrangement of the specimens within them, is assessed and contrasted with those volumes assembled by Leonard Plukenet and Hans Sloane. Petiver's published species descriptions and illustrations are shown to be frequently associated with extant specimens, letters and other manuscripts, making the whole a rich archive for the study of early modern collecting of natural curiosities at a time of increasing ‘scientific’ purpose.
Luis Pericot será el prehistoriador español más influyente en el ámbito internacional durante el tercer cuarto del siglo XX. Una parte de su prestigio se estructuró a partir de asistir en enero de 1947 al Primer Congreso Panafricano de Prehistoria celebrado en Nairobi. Su presencia en el mismo fue el resultado del interés político del Gobierno español por proyectar la imagen de la neutralidad española durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial a las potencias aliadas, al tiempo que se potenciaba el africanismo y las relaciones con los países árabes, uno de los ejes principales de la política exterior del Gobierno de Franco. Pericot dejará de su viaje algunas impresiones publicadas y, especialmente, unas notas inéditas en las que analiza no solo la investigación prehistórica en la zona, sino también la estructura social de las colonias británicas en África.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
The assessment of the status of contemporary art is theoretically justified in the context of institutional theory, developed in the works of George Dickie and Arthur C. Danto. Museums are pillars of the institutional theory, as they mainly provide art with an undisputed status. The phenomenon of the museum boom of the present day, as the phenomenon of the emergence of the concept of “imaginary museums” in the second half of the 20th century, is associated with longing for “true” art, which ultimately leads to museums, or to the idea of museum. If in a classical museum a viewer expected to see “authentic”, as in “not fake”, works of the old masters, in a museum of contemporary art they expect to see at least “true” art, i.e. works “with the status of art.” Museums give art the quality of “authenticity”, hence the interest in museums and museum projects nowadays, despite the abundance of publicized images of museum artefacts in the media. Instead of these “simulacrums”, museums offer “real” artworks, and the idea of museum attracts a considerable attention, reflected in numerous curatorial projects dedicated to the image and the idea of museum. Among such projects were, for example, the exhibition Voices of Andre Malraux’s Imaginary Museum at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the exhibition The Keeper at the New Museum in New York.
‘Panstereomachia. This title, as long as a man’s arm, belongs to an exhibition of a novel kind, which was opened on Monday, 19th June, 1826.’ Devised by Charles Bullock, the exhibit featured a large model of the ‘memorable battle of Poictiers’ where the English hero, Edward the Black Prince, defeated French forces in 1356.[1] The exhibit spoke to a burgeoning market for historically-themed exhibitions and a growing fascination with the Middle Ages in the nineteenth century. A key selling point of the exhibit was its mysterious name which alluded to a new type of exhibition experience. Yet the Panstereomachia was only one of many ‘educational’ exhibits which employed old and new technology to bring the past to life in order to edify and entertain new consumer audiences.
This essay will trace three exhibitions across the nineteenth century to assess how exhibitors drew on science and technology to offer competing visions of the medieval past. Moving from the Panstereomachia model, it will look at the introduction of medieval-themed figures and tableaux at Madame Tussaud’s from the mid nineteenth century before exploring the 1894 Heraldic Exhibition and the debate over the preservation of medieval artefacts. Underpinning this discussion are two key questions: What role did technology play in the ways in which people exhibited and accessed the past historically? How can visual and material culture inform our understanding of shifting notions of the Middle Ages?
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Museums. Collectors and collecting
Motivado a contribuir para a consolidação das Licitações Sustentáveis na administração pública alinhadas ao Desenvolvimento Sustentável e à imposição legal, este artigo pesquisou critérios para redução do consumo de energia elétrica em processos licitatórios de obras de engenharia utilizados por Universidades Públicas Federais do nordeste brasileiro no tocante às Contratações Públicas Sustentáveis. A metodologia utilizada foi a teórica e aplicada quanto à natureza exploratória e descritiva quanto ao objetivo e bibliográfica e documental quanto aos procedimentos. As fontes para coleta de dados foram o portal de compras do governo federal (Comprasnet) e uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental que envolveu os Planos de Gestão de Logística Sustentável das universidades estudadas. A abordagem da pesquisa é quali-quanti porque envolveu tratamento de dados com base em categorias definidas previamente, bem como coleta de dados segundo parâmetros previamente estabelecidos. As considerações finais mostram que as universidades estudadas precisam superar alguns obstáculos, tais como pouca capacitação dos gestores públicos e cultura organizacional para que suas Contratações Públicas Sustentáveis se tornem políticas públicas eficazes alinhadas ao Desenvolvimento Sustentável.
Museums. Collectors and collecting, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources