Many people learn about history through museum exhibitions. Although not a substitute for scholarly monographs, these exhibits communicate information, research results, socio-political messages, and other historical content to audiences of diverse interests and backgrounds. Because they are so short-lived, however, exhibitions require a unique process of development and evaluation that involves not only academic historians but also curators, museum educators, museum directors, gallery managers, designers, and other museum professionals. This is especially true of histolircal exhibits, which often rely on a dazzling variety of media to convey history.
The ephemerality of exhibitions makes them particularly valuable to scholars who can use them as windows into the dense historical research that is used to compose them. Reviews of exhibitions, in addition to providing a record of the intellectual underpinnings of historical presentations, also help assure that critical assessments of both their content and form outlive the show itself. In addition, the publication of exhibition reviews helps to establish a literature on this type of work and a standard vocabulary for its review.
Every year museums mount hundreds of historical exhibitions. They span a broad range of topics, including the history of art, science, industry, social and political change, and cultural identity. Exhibits can celebrate and memorialize, reveal triumphs and tragedies, challenge or support prevailing viewpoints, and raise questions of historical significance.
As historiography evolves, so must the museum exhibition. A successful history exhibition is an adroit combination of research, interpretation, and visual images that communicate complex ideas in accessible, human terms. Such exhibitions must appeal to and engage visitors, but they must also delve into the fundamental issues of history that are rooted in people’s daily lives.
Museum exhibitions, more than any other medium, give vent to the public’s need to view and connect with the past through objects that resonate with their personal experiences and emotions. Historical objects can bring to life stories of home, family, freedom, faith, equality, and mobility. Themes focusing on rites of passage-birth, death, marriage/joining, and coming of age also make good exhibition subjects.
While this column will examine notable accomplishments and innovative programs, it will focus primarily on exhibitions that challenge or stretch the established parameters of historical presentation and interpretation. These could include a series of exhibits that explore new ways to improve collaboration between the academy and museums; an exhibition that suggests fresh ways to engage communities through historical collections and their creative interjection into re-created spaces and interactive devices; or an exhibit that demonstrates the power of new methods of interpretive design to reach non-traditional or underserved audiences. All of these are worthy of public attention, and this column aims to contribute to their dissemination.