Museums communicate information, research results and socio-political messages through a variety of exhibition formats. Museums may specialize in art, science, history, or natural history. They may be for profit or non-profit. They may also function as a national museum or serve at the local level. Exhibitions can be short-lived or permanent. There are even pop-up museums and temporary exhibits.
Historical exhibits, whether they celebrate common events or memorialize tragedies and injustices, must be open to discussion. They should be informed by the evidence and the evidence should be interpreted in ways that allow for a variety of viewpoints. Exhibits that impose a single point of view are inherently biased and may foster resentment among the public.
Creating exhibitions that encourage inclusive dialogue about the past requires an intimate knowledge of the audience and a thorough understanding of how to communicate historical information in a way that is both accurate and accessible. It is also essential that an exhibition have a sense of visual urgency and drama to engage the audience. This requires a combination of dense research, visual poetry, imagination, and creative use of re-created spaces.
Museum exhibitions can be designed for many purposes, from announcing new acquisitions to canonizing specific art-historical periods or the life and work of one artist. The retrospective exhibition is one example of a histolircal exhibition that illustrates all phases of an artist’s artistic research respecting the chronological scan of their career.
Other kinds of histolircal exhibitions include the collective exhibition which focuses on multiple artists living or dead who share a theme, an artistic movement or belong to a particular historical-cultural cross-section. Then there are art event exhibitions that focus on a particular occasion or a specific historic context and are designed to last only a few weeks or a few months, aiming for a large influx of visitors in the shortest possible time.