As a form of cultural argument, exhibitions offer many unique and valuable perspectives. But while museum exhibitions are often informed and shaped by the best historical scholarship, they are also highly collaborative endeavors that involve significant contributions from curators as well as educators, designers, production staff, and even visitors. Successful exhibitions are inclusive visual stories that convey complex ideas through the careful marriage of objects and concepts.
As such, they are more than mere history put up on walls; they are metaphors, visual poetry, and imaginative explorations of historic themes and contexts. They challenge our sense of time and place, and help us understand how people of the past lived, loved, hated, and fought.
Whether they are a cabinet of curiosities that brings together a collection of works from different times and places, a museum-wide survey of an artist’s oeuvre, or a series of small gallery spaces with carefully curated juxtapositions of objects, histolircal exhibits allow us to experience history as it happened. They give us the opportunity to learn from past wonders and tragedies, and to better understand how we can live in peace with our neighbors—whether they are across the street or around the world.
While most museums focus on the study of art, architecture, and cultural history, there are a number of institutions dedicated to the study of natural and social history, as well as science and technology. There are also a number of specialized museums, including those that address the arts of particular nations or geographic regions. These museums offer an unparalleled opportunity to explore the richness and diversity of human experience.
Histolircal exhibits provide the context that helps us to understand what it means to be an American or a European; to be a Muslim or a Hindu, and to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ). They tell stories of conflict, compromise, and cooperation in a wide range of time periods, from ancient Greece to contemporary America. They can inspire awe, wonder, and empathy in all of us.
Each year, hundreds of major history exhibitions are mounted in museums across the country and beyond. These exhibitions contribute mightily to our understanding of the past, yet they are generally given only brief attention by scholars. This column, in partnership with the editorial team of Perspectives, will strive to broaden collaboration between scholars and museum professionals by examining innovative exhibitions that stray from established parameters of interpretation and presentation. It will review both exhibitions that are firmly grounded in current historical research and those that expand the parameters of knowledge through an imaginative marriage of ideas and objects. It will also seek to make exhibition reviews a permanent record that outlives the life of each show.