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On this trip we saw a lot of European art, but we also discussed how African art was displayed in European institutions. The British Museum stuffed all the African art in the basement with a label saying “Africa” and an arrow pointing down to it. No other place was displayed like that. In contrast, the Bode Museum in Berlin compared African art to European art and showed they are on the same level. The Bode handled the display of this other culture in a much better way.

African Art from the British Museum.

A sign from the Bode Museum comparing European art to African art showing the similarities of the pieces. While this exhibit still wasn’t perfect, it was a lot better at displaying this different art.

A sketch of mine of an African ancestral figure in the Bode Museum.

It was a bit hard to find information on the Urban Nation Museum for Contemporary Art. A lot of the websites I found were in German. However, I was able to find that the project was started in 2016 with the museum opening in 2017. The architecture of the building plays into the exhibit itself with the exterior walls painted with full murals. One website said the museum is unique because the art is displayed on the architecture. This goes with the theme McClellan and Lindaur talked about with how architecture is a factor of museum visits and it affects the visitors perspective on the items in the museum. The surrounding neighbourhood also appears to be part of the museum as the area became a safe haven for street artists. The One Wall Project from the museum also can be seen on the surrounding buildings. The interior of the building is also unique. It was a house that had most of its separating walls removed. This way art can be displayed in a mostly unobstructed way. It feels like a modern space and the open walkways invite visitors to look up and look at art from different perspectives.

This institution also calls itself a museum, not a gallery, which was some language our group discussed. It feels like a modern art museum with pieces displayed all over, but it has some elements of a traditional museum; it has security guards and wall text explaining larger movements of urban art. The space reminds me a bit of the East Side Gallery. A lot of the art is commissioned like that gallery and it has a similar urban feel. This answered my own question that I asked the group: is the Urban Gallery more like Shoreditch or the East Side Gallery?

While there, I was interested in how gender played into the exhibits. This was due to one of the first pieces I looked at being by a female artist and a commentary on gender. The one that sparked my interest in this subject was by Miss Van showing two women in masks. The text about that piece ended with the quote, “empowering women in a society and an art world dominated by men.” That’s what drew my attention to look for female art. One of the texts in the museum also said that urban art has mostly been a male art form. I tried to pay special attention to how women were shown after that. There were more portrayals of women both by female and male artists. Many of the pieces by female artists were about the portrayal of women or trying to empower them, however most of the art in the museum was still done by male artists.

One other type of “museum” we got to see was historical sites. Some museums were set up in the original place they were collected, like the Soane museum, but the historical sites like Hampton Court have the benefit of original structures, furniture, and history. Hampton Court was one of my favorite places because they made the castle so immersive. The kitchens really had food cooking and there was ambient noises and conversations from Henry VIII’s time period. I wish more museums had more immersive elements like these.

Real food in the kitchen. We arrived right before their cooking demonstration.

Original stained glass with coats of arms from different English royalty. Different parts of the castle were designed by Henry’s different wives so the castle has many different influences.

To me street art was only street art if the artist was making a statement about something. We saw some bigger street artists making statements and some unknown people making their own statements. Some artists had to get permission for the larger work, but it was still a statement about their town or something else in society.

Street art in Shoreditch.

A Paste-Up in Berlin.

Altered Street Art in Berlin.

Sculpture in Berlin.

I learned that museums have fake objects in them. The objects are sometimes made up of original parts, but the sum is something new that was created with the intent to sell. However, the museum does not advertise this fact, they let visitors believe the objects are real artifacts from the time period. The times I saw it the objects were Ancient Greek or Roman in style. They were created by the artist Piranesi using some original parts. However, I think museums have a responsibility to tell their audience these objects were manufactured and not original to the period.

A “Greek” Piranesi Sculpture.

A close up detail of the statue where you can see a line on the muzzle where the ram has either been changed or repaired before it was added to the rest of the sculpture.

One thing on this trip that we had to define for ourselves was street art. For me I decided street art is reliant on the street and is the artists making a personal statement. I do not feel commissioned art fits into that definition so personally I made the distinction between street art and urban art.

Street art from Berlin.

Commissioned urban art from the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin.

My sketch  of some of the commissioned art from the Urban Nation Museum.

One exhibit on this trip I did not like was the dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum in London. While I was not the intended audience (it was meant for families with little kids), I still think it was not laid out well. There were too many times where people would crowd around certain spots (usually around the robotic dinosaurs - see video below) and they wouldn’t even notice the real dinosaur bones above our heads. Which is another complaint, the catwalk to see the bones was closed, so the best look you could get at real dinosaur bones was from a strange angle below them. While the exhibit did keep the interests of the kids with models and robotics, I was ready to leave shortly after I entered.

Some of the real dinosaur bones, above all the visitors.

A model in the exhibit, that interested the families and kids.

https://youtu.be/rUsMn9i-Q74?t=76

Video is not mine - but it shows the t-Rex everyone was crowded around in this exhibit.