Do We Need More Museum Teams or More Museum Auteurs?

I recently visited the excellent John Waters exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and as I was walking around the rest of the BMA, admiring site-specific pieces like Tomas Saraceno's "Entangled Orbits" (pictured at the top of this post) I started thinking about how exhibitions (and entire museums) get put together.

One thing I've noticed about truly unique and ground-breaking museums (like AVAM, City Museum, The Exploratorium, and Museum of Old and New Art) is that many of the most interesting things inside are the products of strong-minded individuals, not teams.  Which begs the question:

Do we need more museum teams or more museum auteurs?

It seems a lot more straightforward, if less democratic, to pursue one person's design vision than to sit through endless meetings trying to come to agreement among staff and advisors on the direction of an exhibition, or a set of exhibitions, in the case of a new museum.

Most granting agencies have essentially mandated an approach that makes all sorts of consensus-building techniques an essential part of the "creative" process --- but has this approach resulted in more interesting exhibitions and museums?

Art Museums seem more willing to turn over their galleries to individual artists for installations, usually with very good results. How can less "auteur" minded institutions like Science, History, and Children's Museums take advantage of a strong-minded individual driving the exhibit process forward, rather than the oft-venerated "Exhibits Team"? (I'd love to see Olafur Eliasson put together an exhibition at a Science Center!)

The "Creative Team" Conundrum also rears its ugly head when thinking about visitor studies and that Web 2.0 favorite, "crowdsourcing".

In the case of visitor studies, most visitors are only able to come up with variations of exhibits and exhibit themes they are already familiar with. Every museum stocked according to audience surveys would likely include a rocket ship or train, a dinosaur skeleton, and a mummy --- not bad, necessarily, but not exactly moving the exhibits field forward either.

Crowds and focus groups are notoriously bad at choosing innovations, which is why companies like Apple don't use them. Apple’s attitude is that sometimes, to truly innovate, you’ve got to go beyond giving people what they say they want. Building consensus often builds mediocre, and "safe" (rather than interesting) design decisions.

Maybe we need to bring in more "trouble makers" like Fred Wilson to shake up our staid exhibition development models. As Kathy McLean said in a previous ExhibiTricks interview, "I don't really need a lot of money or time to do my dream exhibitions ... I need organizations that are interested in presenting unusual, thought-provoking experiences."

What do you think? More museum teams or more museum auteurs? Let us know in the Comments Section below. (If you don't see the word "comment" at the very end of the post just click on the link that shows the posting time.)

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A Look Back at 2017: Worldwide Workshops, Making Museums Better, and Creative Inspiration!

As I reflect on 2017 through the lens of the ExhibiTricks blog, three broad categories stand out: Worldwide Workshops (and the International Museum Community), Making Museums Better (especially in terms of museum workers' pay), and Creative Inspiration (drawing on work from outside the museum field).

Worldwide Workshops

Despite the fact that Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) primarily develops exhibits and museums, I also do a fair number of workshops for museums (and companies that work with museums.)  In 2017, I was fortunate to travel to Germany, Tunisia, and China to give exhibit development and prototyping workshops. (You can find out more about each of these experiences by clicking the link on the country name.) 

Every time I have the opportunity to work with creative partners outside the U.S. I'm reminded of how small the world of museums really is, and the challenges in serving museum visitors that we all share.

Visiting museum colleagues outside of North America also helps me put my own museum work into perspective by learning how often museum workers outside the United States do things a bit differently --- whether it is a twist on a "familiar" exhibit or a new approach to an education or outreach program.

Making Museums Better

The most popular ExhibiTricks post in 2017 (by far) was Claire Mildrum's honest (and wrenching) account called "Why I Left The Museum Field."  There is something wrong with the museum field when many young, talented, and well-trained professionals feel they must pursue their career goals elsewhere.

Of course, one way to address the challenges of bringing (and keeping!) new people into museum jobs, has to do with the woeful pay scales of so many positions in cultural institutions.  I offered a quick way to address some of that in this post.  Short story --- don't allow museum positions without salary ranges listed or "unpaid internships" to be advertised.  If you see this happening online or in a publication you subscribe to, email them and tell them to change!

Museums are great at jumping on to bandwagons, which may be why the post "Does Your Makerspace Really Need a 3D Printer?" got such a big response.  "You mean we don't need to automatically buy some 3D  printers if we are creating a Makerspace in our museum?" 

Another way we can improve museums is by looking for lessons from outside the field.  I was especially taken by Trevor Noah's memoir of growing up in South Africa during apartheid called "Born a Crime."   I wrote a post listing 4 things I thought cultural institutions like museums could take away from some of Noah's experiences described in his book.

Creative Inspiration

I always like to share creative inspiration(s) I come across on my blog, and 2017 was no exception.

"Where Can You Find Fake Dirt?" highlighted the Great Big Exhibit Resource List, a compendium of resources for exhibit makers and educators.

Over the years, one of my favorite questions for people I've interviewed on ExhibiTricks is "If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?"  and this post shares some of the most inspiring answers to that question.

Although much of our creative design work happens inside buildings, there are often many opportunities to create unique visitor experiences outside our buildings.  This popular post shared some outdoor creative design inspiration.

One of my favorite things about collaborating on exhibition or museum projects is finding new creative partners to work with.  I was delighted to have the opportunity to work with the artist James Kuether on a recent children's museum exhibition about dinosaurs and write a post about his work.  The artwork that James produced for the dinosaur exhibition made it so much better than I ever imagined it could be.  (Check out James' book, "The Amazing World of Dinosaurs" if you'd like to see some amazing images of prehistoric worlds!)

And allow me to close the Old Year with a pitch --- if you are looking for an excellent creative partner for your 2018 dream projects, feel free to contact me.   

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)