Grassi museum pictures

[Tim Simmons]

Visited last February. The lighting is not good for snap photographs. Also there are these rather odd display cases, which I shall show first. What do you make of them? do you think they are thought provoking. Then I will follow on with replies adding pictures. There should be something for everyone. Many more lovely thing were to blurry to use sadly.

[Tim Simmons]

weapons

[Tim Simmons]

more

[Tim Simmons]

and more

[Tim Simmons]

lastly

[colin henshaw]

Looks a good collection of old material. Thanks for posting...

[Rick]

Not sure what's up with the editorializing on the cases in the first few pictures ; but I'll take one order of item #18.

[Tim Simmons]

Thanks Rick. I have to admit I cannot work out what the slogans on the display cases are trying put forward. To be honest I was really surprised such an institute would do this. I just see it as some kind of muddled right on,ness and as so somewhat disrespectful. Curiously just aimed at Africa. Surely being able to see another cultures material artifacts is a form of education and some way of understanding the environment that the artifacts were made in.

[A. G. Maisey]

The comments on the display cases are in the same spirit as Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi".

I see more and more of this packaging of the things that we did not realise were valuable to us until they were no longer there.

In Sydney we have a state owned museum called the Power House Museum, it is museum of technology, or at least that's what it was supposed to be when it was set up to replace the venerable Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences. Over the years since the Power House was opened it has deteriorated into nothing much more than a child minding facility.

Yes, it does have some quite good examples of technology, but it fails miserably as a museum.

We cannot blame the successive managers and administrators for this, it is a product of changes in community expectations and attitudes, combined with restriction of funds.

I believe the Grassi comments are saying:-

"there is more to education than simply looking at things in glass cases"

one could take the attitude that it is an encouragement to expand the mind and commence to learn.

[Rick]

Well, I guess we should be glad that in this era and PC mindset that we can see them at all when in many other venues they would be quietly rusting away in the cellar.

[A. G. Maisey]

In the cellar but not quite rusting was the fate of the old Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences collection of weaponry.

They had a very, very good reference collection of early firearms, a solid collection of edged weapons, including keris and other Asian weaponry.

All this has now been hidden from sight:- it is no longer socially acceptable to display things that are used to kill people.

The paradigm for display in this museum, and I guess many other "enlightened" museums is contrary to the supposed objective, which is intended to demonstrate technological development.

Technology has its greatest leaps forward because of the human need and desire to kill other humans, and this happens on its most grand scale in times of war and other conflict.

Regrettably the people who dictate display criteria for the Power House and similar institutions seem to believe that by looking at the world through rose coloured glasses it will naturally follow that the world will become rose coloured --- and probably smell as one.

[VANDOO]

UNFORTUNATELY THERE IS A GROUP WHOSE HOBBY SEEMS TO BE FINDING SOMETHING PEOPLE HAVE ENJOYED FOR GENERATIONS AND MAKING IT POLITICALLY INCORRECT. THEY ARE A SMALL GROUP BUT VERY LOUD AND SEEM TO BE ABLE TO RAISE PLENTY OF MONEY TO BOMBARD THE REST OF US WITH THEIR RANTS AND PROPAGANDA. THEY HAVE HAD RECENT SUCCESSES CLOSING DOWN ZOOS, AND MARINE ATTRACTIONS AS WELL AS FORCING CIRCUSES TO CONFORM TO SOME OF THEIR DEMANDS. PERHAPS NOW THEY WANT TO REGULATE MUSEUMS AND DECIDE WHAT THEY CAN HAVE ON DISPLAY. IF THEY SUCCEED MUSEUMS WILL NO LONGER BE WORTH THE VISIT IN MANY CASES. THEY HAVE TRIED TO REGULATE COLLECTORS THRU VARIOUS LAWS FOR QUITE SOME TIME BUT ARE NEVER SATISFIED.

THANKS FOR THE PICTURES AND EXCUSE MY RANT BUT THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR YEARS BUT IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN EXHIBITS IN A MUSEUM DEFACED WITH WHAT I VIEW AS PROPAGANDA.
THE LONG GLASS SPEAR POINT IS REMARKABLE WHERE IS IT FROM. THEY HAVE SOME VERY NICE CLUBS AND EDGED WEAPONS AS WELL, I HOPE THEY CAN CONTINUE TO EXHIBIT THEIR COLLECTIONS AS WELL IN FUTURE.

[Bob A]

Originally Posted by VANDOO

UNFORTUNATELY THERE IS A GROUP WHOSE HOBBY SEEMS TO BE FINDING SOMETHING PEOPLE HAVE ENJOYED FOR GENERATIONS AND MAKING IT POLITICALLY INCORRECT. THEY ARE A SMALL GROUP BUT VERY LOUD AND SEEM TO BE ABLE TO RAISE PLENTY OF MONEY TO BOMBARD THE REST OF US WITH THEIR RANTS AND PROPAGANDA. THEY HAVE HAD RECENT SUCCESSES CLOSING DOWN ZOOS, AND MARINE ATTRACTIONS AS WELL AS FORCING CIRCUSES TO CONFORM TO SOME OF THEIR DEMANDS. PERHAPS NOW THEY WANT TO REGULATE MUSEUMS AND DECIDE WHAT THEY CAN HAVE ON DISPLAY. IF THEY SUCCEED MUSEUMS WILL NO LONGER BE WORTH THE VISIT IN MANY CASES. THEY HAVE TRIED TO REGULATE COLLECTORS THRU VARIOUS LAWS FOR QUITE SOME TIME BUT ARE NEVER SATISFIED.

THANKS FOR THE PICTURES AND EXCUSE MY RANT BUT THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR YEARS BUT IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN EXHIBITS IN A MUSEUM DEFACED WITH WHAT I VIEW AS PROPAGANDA.
THE LONG GLASS SPEAR POINT IS REMARKABLE WHERE IS IT FROM. THEY HAVE SOME VERY NICE CLUBS AND EDGED WEAPONS AS WELL, I HOPE THEY CAN CONTINUE TO EXHIBIT THEIR COLLECTIONS AS WELL IN FUTURE.

Not the first time a museum exhibit had been defaced; the controversy over the Smithsonian's display of the Enola Gay, the Hiroshima nuclear bomber, was loud and longstanding, and the exhibit was in face subjected to some damage. Some people seem to feel that awkward or unpleasant history must needs be eliminated, whether a museum exhibit or a Bamiyan Buddha, or any number of such reminders of concepts which some find disturbing.

Enola Gay link; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay

I prefer my history with as little editing as possible, but of course it's written by the winners, or cleansed by the Pure.

[stekemest]

What can be seen in the first few photographs is part of an art project called "fremd" (foreign). For the German speaking among us, here is more information: http://www.taz.de/!5275607/

Unfortunately, political correctness has become a dogma that spreads into all kinds of cultural institutions. To display foreign cultures is being understood as an instrument of white supremacy and it is often countered by the sort of "irony" as on these display cases. Ethnological museums nowadays struggle to distance themselves from the allegation of being a sort of "human zoo", and in many cases, it is the exhibits that suffer from this anticipatory obedience. It is hard, for example, to find tsantsas (shrunken heads) in German language museums nowadays. Everything that could evoke wonder, exitement and exoticism is somehow dubious. The director of grassi, Nanette Jacomijn Snoep, said that it is the goal of a museum to dismantle exoticism ("Eigentlich ist es Ziel eines Museums, Fremdheit abzubauen"). But why? It is the feeling of wonder and strangeness that creates science!

[Tim Simmons]

Perhaps the Grassi is being rather clever in having these slogans on the first display cases you come across. To pacifiy those who do not see the pure wonder and education? My next venture to German collection will be Stuttgart and train to Heidelberg.