Back to the future?: A refresher course in the basics of exhibit development could save your museum's next project

Photo by Brian Forrest of MOCA, via LA Times
 Culture Monster  blog

Continuing the tradition of putting in my two cents about the latest happenings in the museum world, I offer a few observations on the enormous mural gaffe committed by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles late last week. For those of you unfamiliar with MOCA LA's blunder, here is a brief synopsis.

MOCA commissioned an Italian street artist named Blu to paint a mural on the external wall of their Geffen Contemporary building as part of a larger street art exhibition set to open next April. The museum's Director, Jeffrey Deitch (who comes from the art gallery world, but has no real museum experience), signed off on the project and left town for an international art fair in Miami. Blu proceeded to paint giant rows of military-style coffins draped in dollar bills, an obvious commentary on the war and capitalism. Upon Deitch's return, Blu's mural was determined to be "inappropriate" and was completely whitewashed. Now, some are crying censorship since MOCA sits adjacent to a monument honoring Japanese-American soldiers and near a Veterans Affairs building.

One cannot help but wonder at what point things went wrong in planning this project. Was anyone asking good questions? In addition to writing this blog, I teach in the Museum Studies department at Walsh University, and it occurs to me that if MOCA had followed a few basic rules of exhibit development they might have avoided this entire mess. Let us lay out a couple of key issues to discuss before planning and mounting your next exhibition.

1. Be sure you know exactly what you are exhibiting. This is as true with artists as it is with artifacts. Many  are culturally significant, others are worthless imitations. Some objects and subjects are provocative, while others are openly offensive. Some things are worth saying, showing, installing, and risking, while others are just a public relations nightmare not worth the effort. Unfortunately, in MOCA's case it seems no one did enough homework to be sure where on the avant-garde spectrum their new mural would fall. Oops.

2. Know thine audience. Remember, your core constituency may be different from your general audience. For example, your programs may cater to connoisseurs of high art, hipsters, and artists, but if your museum resides in a neighborhood frequented by active military service men and women, veterans, their families, as well as others working closely with them, and you are planning an outdoor mural, these folks are members of your audience as well. Consider carefully the message you will convey, and of course it is not only what you say, but how you say it that matters in the end.

3. Make sure you have a clear contract. If your contract is vague on several points, do not be surprised  when the exhibition you envisioned is not the one you end up mounting. Institutions lending artifacts or traveling exhibits may be free to pull high profile artifacts from the show without warning, and artists may assume they have a blank canvas and a blank check unless your contract clearly states otherwise.

4. Collaboration builds community. Some museums do a great job of reaching out to neighboring organizations and the surrounding community, others seem to think they bring something so special to the neighborhood that they do not need local input. I have no idea how often MOCA LA collaborates with its neighbors, but I know that asking the community for ideas about a mural specifically mounted as part of a project meant to inject street art into the community makes a lot of sense. Obviously, there was a disconnect with the community somewhere in this initiative.

Jessica shows off the exhibit design concept board, which
highlights the ways she plans to engage her audience. 

Each of these four concepts was integral to the Exhibition Development and Design course I taught this past semester. My students learned that serving your mission, audience, and community at-large are keys to a successful exhibition. Whether you are a small historical society, or an eminent art museum, the basic tenets apply. If museums strive for more than just headlines and shock-value, if they want to be valued, respected, and relevant, then projects and programs need to be carefully conceived and even more carefully carried out.

As museum professionals, we are responsible for the future legacy of our organizations. In a political environment where the application of public funding must be justified and measured against a greater economic good, we must balance risk and reward with an eye towards that shared future. Going back to school on some basic program development guidelines seems like a simple way to keep chaos at bay, and ensure that our impact is both memorable and positive.

MOCA's unfortunate mural episode serves as a cautionary tale for all museums. What on the surface looks innovative and engaging, may end up doing more harm than good if best practices and important details are overlooked. Be sure your team has covered all the bases before the paintbrush hits the wall.

Here is a link to the LA TImes' story on MOCA's mural blunder.
Museum of Contemporary Art commissions, then paints over, artwork - latimes.com

Walsh University Museum Studies student blogs feature observations on museums, exhibit development projects

Megan, Anita, Jessica, and Monica show off their space
station modules made of candy, pretzels, and peanut butter.

Incredibly, next Monday I will distribute a midterm exam to my Exhibition Development and Design class at Walsh University, and the following week is fall break, officially marking the halfway point of this semester already!

Last May, I was asked by the head of the Walsh University Museum Studies Program to teach a new class in exhibit design. Although developing this class-- researching, planning, and writing it all from scratch-- has been a persistent challenge for me, it has also been a valuable learning experience and a very rewarding opportunity to work with young people just entering the museum field.  

In the second half of this semester, my students will be writing guest posts on MuseoBlogger, sharing their own perspectives on exhibit-related topics of interest to them. While I look forward to featuring their posts here on my blog, I encourage you to follow my students' museum blogs. Each of these young women has her own blog updated weekly with observations on the topics presented in our class lectures and readings, and notes on her progress toward developing an exhibit concept, visitor experience, and design story for the term project. You can find my students' blogs using the following links.

Megan's Blog

Anita's Blog

Jessica's Blog

Monica's Blog

Can we crowdsource a museum studies course? Of course!

Who's ready to crowdsource a class for next fall? Raise your hand!

Crowdsource. Yes, it's a buzzword these days, but it is also a truly great idea. For those of you who need a working definition, here is mine.

Crowdsourcing: outsourcing a problem or set of challenging tasks generally assigned to one person to a large group or segment of the population in order to gain multiple perspectives, capitalize on group experience, and engage new audiences.

This is not the official definition, but it acknowledges the main concept and practical applications of the idea. Given the current interest in all things related to the concept of crowdsourcing, including its application in museum practice, could we apply these principles to the generation of a brand new college course in exhibition development and design?

The photo above was obviously taken at the University of Michigan, my alma mater, outside of the "Big House", home to one of the largest regularly-assembled crowds. The course in question is being offered in the Museum Studies program at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio, home to a much smaller crowd, but fortunately here is a situation where size really doesn't matter. Ideally, the concept of crowdsourcing does not discriminate based on the relative size or status of the organization posing the question, but merely offers up the wisdom, experience, and panorama of viewpoints held within the larger group.

Today, we have an opportunity to prove the concept to young people preparing to enter the museum field. Beginning in August I will be teaching a new course in exhibition development and design at Walsh University. I am currently compiling my ideas for lectures, projects, texts, and specific content to present throughout the semester. As part of my effort to highlight fresh and relevant theories and approaches to museum exhibition, I intend to address the need for greater audience engagement and participatory experience within museum environments. One of the texts I intend to use is Nina Simon's The Participatory Museum, which brilliantly describes the process for creating these intentional spaces.

Pushing the participatory envelope just a bit further, I thought I would engage my own audience for ideas and input. What topics and/or experiences would you include in this course were it yours to develop? So far, the Department Chair has only given me a course title (which I immediately, if unofficially, altered to broaden the scope of the class) and a time slot. Other than these two basic parameters, I am free to construct the course as I choose, designing a curriculum that prepares college juniors and seniors to plan, prepare, produce, and install compelling museum exhibits for our 21st Century visitors.

Putting to work the theory that many minds are better at solving a problem than just one, I am asking for your help. Post your top 5 topics not to be missed in an exhibit development course. Help me help you! Together we can design a course that adequately prepares the next generation of museum professionals for service in your institutions.

Museums, please take my temporary/traveling exhibit survey

I am currently helping the Pro Football Hall of Fame develop a traveling exhibit program to integrate into their ongoing temporary exhibit development schedule. In advance of planning and producing the next exhibit, I am hoping to gather some information about what museums look for today in traveling exhibits and what they expect in the way of content, design, and facility considerations.

As a means of reaching a wide array of museums, I have developed a very simple, 10 question survey, which should take no more than 3 or 4 minutes to complete. Please follow the link below to access the survey on SurveyMonkey.com and help me provide you with high-quality exhibits in the future. Thanks for your participation!

Click here to be redirected to the survey. If you cannot use the link, simply copy and paste the following URL into your browser: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4vZXKhz2ydsa21ULtlEVdQ_3d_3d

If a museum program falls in the woods...

I snapped this picture yesterday as I was picking up dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant. The store next door had these two signs in the front window, and it struck me as a little bit funny. Here is a great free service being offered to the public-- free hearing tests, but perhaps in a place not many people would expect to find that service-- at an optical center.

How often do we, in the museum world do the very same thing? How many times have you developed a great program designed to meet a specific and important need in your community, only to find that it was underutilized, and more often than not, ultimately set aside in favor of some more popular program?

Perhaps we are a bit like Shoregate Optical here. Our hearts are in the right place, but we are not seen by our target audience as the logical place to look for the programs or services they need. So, this begs the obvious question that so many museums I know are struggling with, "How do we get our community to see us as a resource, not simply a destination?" How do we let the public beyond our own members, in on the wealth of educational programs and services we provide day in and day out? After all, even the very best, grant-funded, well-staffed, strategic-planned program is only as good as the impact it has in the hearts, minds and lives of its participants. How do we reach the masses to let them know what we offer and moreover, how do we remain relevant in this age of virtual experience?

I am not sure that anyone has a silver bullet answer to all of these difficult questions, but I can offer my own simple, if somewhat obvious, suggestion. You must find your audience and then go to them. I am not a big believer in the "if-you-build-it-they-will-come" theory. Maybe it works for baseball ghosts, but if you would like to reach actual people, I believe you must reach out to them where they are. Senior centers, libraries, churches, and the YMCA all frequently host guest speakers for their special programs, offering potential opportunities to connect with new segments of the community you are attempting to serve. Don't just leave a stack of flyers on a desk somewhere either. Make a personal connection to your audience by meeting them on their turf and telling them yourself why they should come to your museum.

Perhaps you are already reaching out to folks at the places I just mentioned, and instead you say you want more people between the ages of 18 and 28 to take an interest in your museum and ultimately visit? OK, does your museum have a Facebook page? Are you on Twitter? Do you post a blog chronicling your latest programs, collections, exhibits, and other news? If not, did you know that you can do all of these things for free and reach millions of tech-savvy folks young and old who troll the internet looking for little nuggets of news just like yours?

One of the toughest things for any of us to do is to look at ourselves through someone else's eyes. However, if we are going to spend valuable time, energy, and funds producing a new program or exhibit, perhaps the most important thing we can do is take a good a look at what we are planning and determine whether or not we might be offering free hearing exams at a vision center. If so, but it seems justifiable to meet a community need with the program, exhibit, or service you are planning to provide, then decide how you will get the word out to those who could benefit most. After all, if a museum program is planned and no one hears about it, does actually make an impact?