Friday, March 8, 2013

Newark Museum "Tour" with Pat


Newark Experience:

            This trip I was really excited for the simple fact I had never been to the Newark Museum before and living a train ride away I should I visited this place a million times. However, this was my first rendezvous with this initiation so I went in with fresh set of new eyes and ears to learn about the whole museum aspect of exhibiting and curating.
            Pat was our tour guide a sweet elderly woman who really knew the facts of the museum. She started us off with a brief history of the museum John Dana who was an entrepreneur of the arts so he decided to contribute to the community and to create a learning experience. The museum was established for the sole purpose of educating the community and that it was not exclusive to a particular group that everyone can enjoy the art and learn.  The museum has many galleries with it that have a theme Early Art (Egyptian, Mesoamerica etc.)  The institution has a chronically order of the displayed pieces. The curators acquire pieces that have a chronically order, have a core theme to the exhibit and pieces that have an educational value. Newark Museum relies on their guides and labels that allow the viewer to do further research.
            Pat informed us that Newark has been hit hard recently and had to make a lot of cuts and the funding is suffering a little, but their core funding comes from collections, memberships, foundations and supporters.  The exhibits on display like the Woman behind Lens the institution was trying something new so the curator pretty much had to work their “ass” off to pitch this idea and integrate a new idea and contemporary idea to the institution, like the MOMA curators work hard here as well not big at the scale of MOMA but in equal respect of gathering work, constructing a theme and executing it.

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