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Summary Of Silent Message Of The Museum By Fred Wilson

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In his essay, “the Silent Message of the Museum”, Fred Wilson discusses in depth his own projects that involves exhibition making. In particular, I want to focus on his seminal exhibition at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992, known as Mining the Museum. By rearranging and re-contextualizing the museum collections, Wilson is able to offer an entirely new perspective on these objects at odds with the previous bias and limitations, and thus make the invisible visible. Wilson starts off with his explanation of the exhibition title. The word “mining” could be interpreted in three layers: First, as in gold mine, it means excavating and digging through the collection. Second, as in land mine, it refers to reclaiming certain objects and exploding …show more content…

But Wilson, whose mother is Anglo-Amerindian, finds these sculptures problematic. Their appearances have no connection with a Native American physiognomy, so Wilson suggests, “these Indians represent the society’s idea of what an Indian is” (Wilson, 154). This inaccurate stereotype exemplifies Alpers’s term the “museum effect”. Since the viewers are always eager to accept “the historical truth” provided by the museum, the mere action of exhibiting grants these statues importance and validity. Rather, Wilson turns the backs of the cigar-store Indians to the audience, and has them facing a wall of photographs of actual Native Americans in Maryland (Ironically, he was told by the staff, “There are no Indians in Maryland”) (Wilson, 154). In this way, he challenges the cultural norm and underlines the distinction between the portrayal and the …show more content…

As Wilson mentions, many 19th century paintings were actually titled by the collector or the curator (Wilson, 155). Therefore, the way they titled a work illustrates their concerns. In Haraway’s essay, she writes, “the Great Halls of the American Museum of Natural History simply would not exist without the labor of Africans” (Haraway, 49), but their contribution have often been overlooked. Similarly, slave’s experience was not counted as a part of official history of Maryland, but Wilson gives credit to their

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