olivermoss | (Reply)

Museums can have a lot of benefit, but there is a lot to why we have them and why they are like that. Even why entrance fees are the way they are.

I saw a number of people there seeing stuff from their own cultures and that was interesting. For Chinese Americans, for example, that can be important. But it struck me that if I am seeing stuff from my heritage, it's in spaces controlled by my demographic. The New York banker set / trends of the art world / etc isn't interested in Norwegian art, they often don't consider it art. When I see exhibits on art, craft, artifacts, etc from Norway it's in Norwegian heritage centers.

The Met has stuff from The Netherlands and Denmark, because of porcelain, Dutch Blue, Danish Modern and all that. But Norway and Sweden? The one painting these museums might even want is in an Oslo museum (The Scream, Edvard Munch)

I did one museum studies course in college, but also I've always been interested in this sort of stuff, even if most museums don't necessarily interest me.