Understanding Museums: How Design and Hanging Affect the Viewer

Abstract

A popular mythology exists which claims the museum as a neutral, objective place for viewing art. Contrary to that myth, however, the museum is, by its very nature, anything but objective. It tells stories. Museum staff make decisions everyday as to what those stories will be. They decide what facts to include, what facts to exclude, just as they decide what paintings to hang and what paintings to leave in storage. No museum could give a comprehensive presentation of all its holdings. Choices have to be made. The museum also cannot provide a neutral viewing of its objects. Every choice of what to display, how to display it, and what to put next to what tells a story about what is important, what is worthy of presentation, and how it connects to art history. Faced with this inevitable situation, the late twentieth century museum staff accepts the fact that it can tell certain stories, but not all of them. They accept the fact that no hanging or presentation of art is absolutely objective. The gallery space itself is not neutral, even its shape and color can influence how an object is viewed. All of these factors come together to determine which stories will be told. [From Introduction]