NON-MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

Special Feature | Selin Kahramanoglu

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Welcome back, our holiday hiatus is over! The third part of my “alternative conservation” series will be completed in the following two articles of Conservation Tips & Tricks. However, this month, we will briefly turn our attention to a special feature about non-museum exhibitions!

Gucci store front window reminds of a museum display. Photo courtesy of Selin Kahramanoglu.

Let’s consider the “non-museum” exhibition, which is a type of exhibition that is outside the realm of the museum. This does not mean outdoor installations, or art gallery exhibitions, because those are still museum-context exhibitions. I am talking about exhibitions that are on display for public viewing, which have no association to any cultural institution (meaning, they have nothing related to museums and galleries of art, history, or science).

What are you talking about Selin? Has your brain stopped working from eating too many chocolate chip cookies over the holiday break? That may be true, but I’m also very interested in this topic! Whether you’ve noticed it or not, you’ve probably come across these special kinds of exhibitions.

Hermes' store front window resembling an art display. Photo courtesy of Selin Kahramanoglu.

If it’s outside of the museum world, then what do I mean by an “exhibition”? Based on my own knowledge, I’ve generated some criteria that is necessary to define exhibitions...
To me, an exhibition would:

• Present a “big idea” or main topic
• Display a select number of objects from a larger collection, which interprets the main topic
• Be curated for a particular public audience
• Correlate with the larger organization’s mission and/or vision
• Seem aesthetically and/or intellectually stimulating
• Likely have an explanatory panel, or curatorial statement

Sounds like a museum exhibition, doesn’t it? Except, we can apply these criteria to non-museum displays. Think about these two cases:

1) The department store window. 

Have you ever passed Swarovski, Louis Vuitton, or Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street and thought, “Wow, that’s some display they’ve got” and then sigh because you can't afford such extravagances? Is that just me, then? In any case, these clothing displays are an example of a non-museum exhibition! 

Source.

Some stores even have a statement by the store’s artistic director about the collection on display: If it is an especially expensive brand, there can be an easel mounted in the store’s entrance, where a poster can explain the reasons behind the mannequins’ poses, colour palette, and quality of items selected in the window display. Have a look at Amy's article about Muji, the Japanese retail store, for an example of in-store curatorial statements!

When it comes to the department stores, the goal is to inspire upper-middle purchases, by advertising the store’s products in the window. The displays catch the attention of a passerby, and draws their interest for the items being sold. Here, the department store’s motivation is commercial, which is also frequently seen in museum gift shops. To add, the display is a direct reflection of the store’s vision of their own brand, and the type of customer that would purchase their merchandise.

Source.

2) The trade show or fair.

There’s a reason why the Exhibition Place in Toronto is given that name. Consider the motorcycle and boat shows, or a fair with food stalls. How many times have you passed by a poutine stand and thought, “Ohh, that looks good,” before you bought two orders? Recall the world fairs, where people from all over the world would have their own booth to present their newest innovations. These scenarios also present non-museum exhibitions.

Source.

Again, a select number of items are being displayed in the hope that the audience finds it interesting, appealing, and worth seeing. There are even pamphlets and maps being handed out to provide more information, similar to museum guides. All the items for sale at these shows and fairs, are set up in a way that is easily seen and accessible for visitors. Sometimes, there may be labels describing the items and wayfinding signs to help navigate the space.

There are “tour guides” that exist, providing you with context for the items on display: Think about the farmer at the food fair who is eager to tell you about his best produce, and how much care and effort it took to make his famous peach jam. These people have a target audience, and a pitch, as they try to draw in a customer to look at the items on display.

Source.

Non-museum exhibitions are mimicking the cultural institution's approach to attracting customers, through their displays of objects. I hope you take a good look around the next time you go shopping, or when you visit a fair. Think about which items are on display and how they are organized in a way to attract your attention. Do the objects reflect the organization’s brand or their mission? Are there any contextual guides that help you understand the items better? 

Keep an eye out for other non-museum exhibitions, because there are many all around us!

PUSHING THE LIMITS

BEYOND TRADITION

BY: HANNAH MONKMAN

Hello and welcome to round two of Beyond Tradition! In our last episode, Emily grappled with defining what exactly constitutes a museum. She concluded with her definition focusing on the educational aspect of museums—an aspect I agree with. But from the visitor’s perspective, is the potential for informal learning a motivation (or even an outcome) in their experience at the museum?

With this question in mind, I want to push the boundaries even further and look at some museum practices that we can find outside of places we might usually consider to be centres of informal learning: specifically, department stores.

Now you might be thinking: “Hannah, department stores definitely aren’t museums. So why are you comparing them?”

To which I might respond, “Why aren’t they considered museums?”

No two museums are the same, so how can we define what a museum isn't? Source.  

If you look at stores like IKEA, the layout (and the customer experience) looks pretty similar to a typical visitor experience in a museum. The customer explores through carefully curated exhibits, can stop at an in-house restaurant if they get hungry, and pass through a store on the way out that features items related to the exhibits they just experienced.

In other ways, IKEA could also be compared to the Ontario Science Centre, notorious for  being difficult to navigate for first-time visitors. Source.

While it can be argued that this is not “educational,” we should then be asking, “educational for whom?” 

An interior decorator may find inspiration from an IKEA exhibit just as an artist may be illuminated by a trip to the AGO. A fashion designer may explore Nordstrom just as a historian travels through the ROM. Although the content in museums is typically subjected to interpretation, the question of audience is always a driving factor in interpretive decisions on both sides – from lighting choices to paint colours, from considering how people move in the space to how the overall aesthetic will impact the experience, the visitor is typically first and foremost (perhaps only second to the safety of the more delicate artifacts – or more expensive merchandise). 

Department stores can be further compared to commercial art galleries with regards to their "collections." After all, is fashion not a subset of contemporary art? Museums with textile collections will display garments spanning all of history, and art galleries may sell pieces displayed in their show – both the practices of selling the art and displaying it for aesthetic purposes are found in department stores. Does the act of selling the collection itself deny the institution the right to call itself a museum? But then, in some ways, a department store might be more similar to a gift shop in an art museum than a commercial art gallery in that it sells reproductions of the pieces rather than the originals.

In addition to all of this, there has been movement within museums to focus less on the inherent value of the objects and more on the visitor experience. Conducting visitor research has helped museum professionals to identify why people come to museums and how they behave once they’re there. Analogous to this has been a trend in some retail stores, notably Nordstrom, to focus their efforts on creating memorable customer experiences with exceptional service rather than purely advertising their products.

Every visitor will have a unique experience – what one person walks past might have a huge impact on someone else. Source.

While I don't truly think that department stores are museums (or should be defined as such), I believe that we can strengthen our understanding of what a museum can be by looking at what a museum is not. If we look beyond the limits of what we understand a museum to be, we can find cases that mirror our own practices and may benefit the field of museum studies as we consider a more multidisciplinary approach.