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Posts Tagged ‘2011’

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International Museum of the Year 2011

In Museums, Awards on December 28, 2011 at 1:29 pm

While I might like to pretend that this instalment of my annual awards serves to highlight some museums you may want to look out for when on your travels, it is actually invented purely to allow me to show off where I’ve been on holiday in the last 12 months.

There were two runners up…

KGB Museum, Vilnius (Lithuania)
Housed in the former home of the KGB in Lithuania, this building has an ominous presence in the centre of Vilnius. The displays present a balanced (well, as balanced as you can get in a country occupied so many times) view of the nation’s experience of the Second World War and the political aftermath for eastern Europe. And the text is in English, which is great! There are some great objects from the Soviet era.

But perhaps most impressive – and certainly most chilling – are the basement cells where inmates were imprisoned, tortured and executed. If you’ve been to the House of Terror in Budapest, this is the next on the list for you.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Minsk (Belarus)
Minsk itself is a new experience for many people in so many ways – a Stalinist ideal of what a city looks like. Minsk has been described by various people as ‘where communist architecture works’ and you get a sense of this walking around the city. And this museum is no exception.

Inside the interpretation is all in Russian or Belorussian, so the interpretive layering of information was almost lost on me. But with some basic knowledge we managed to find our way around pretty well. There are some rather exciting dioramas and some great set pieces. Perhaps my favourite part is the orange stained glass window in – pure socialist-realist iconography at work.
It’s a little confusing, but well worth visiting if you’re in the city.

And when you’re done, get a hot (or boozy) drink at Моя английская бабушка (My English Granny) nearby, opposite the British Embassy.

And the winner is

Neues Museum, Berlin (Germany)
Wow, just wow.

I’ve seen some museum buildings in my time, and I’ve visited plenty of cultural institutions which have had architectural interventions breathe life into them (think British Museum, Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Royal Academy) but the renovations to the Neues Museum really are enormously impressive. I’m a good 6ft2in, but I felt utterly swamped by this building – like a tiny ant crawling up the side of a rock.

I don’t want to ruin the surprise for anyone who’s thinking of visiting, but the structural interventions into this historic building have been done with care and sensitivity. And the way the building has been thought out makes the objects it contains make sense.
I was working on a project about Amarna Egypt at the time I visited in October 2011, so I was pleased to see the objects relating to that period, but surely the star of the show has to be Nefertiti herself, presiding over a whole wing of the museum on one of the upper floors.

We didn’t really have enough time when we visited, so I’d say allow a good couple of hours if you want to take in both the amazing building and the world-class collection of Egyptian, classical antiquities and prehistoric German material.

Next year’s award in this category is likely to be even more exotic as I’ve just booked an incredibly exciting and geeky holiday, which makes our trip to Lithuania and Belarus look like a weekend in the Cotswolds! Come back in December 2012 for an update.

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Word of the Year 2011

In Awards on December 15, 2011 at 3:14 pm

As 2011 draws to a close I’m publishing, once again, my annual awards of the year. There’ll be a few prizes being given out over the next few weeks covering a range of topics. Regular followers of these awards will be familiar with the standard categories such as Museum Object of the Year and Sandwich of the Year. And there’ll be some new categories this year too. Turner Prize, this aint.

At a festive gathering of other freelancers this yuletide, I posed the regular question about Word of the Year.

What word or phrase sums up the last twelve months? In years to come when we look back at 2011, how will we sum it up, or describe it in one word?

Last year seemed to be a bit simpler. 2010 was defined by words like coalition, deficit, wikileaks and vuvuzela. But 2011 has been a bit more tricky.

Runners up in our incredibly scientific vote were RIOT, PHONE HACKING, ARAB SPRING and FENTON!

But the winner was UPRISING.

That’s a bit of a surprise to me – I mean it’s been a hugely important year in terms of people taking to the streets and making their voices heard (or not heard in some cases) but it seems a bit strong to say that 2011 is the most significant year in terms of uprisings.

I’d probably cite 1789, 1917, 1956 and 1989 as years of pretty impressive uprisings, if asked. I wonder if 2011 is really as impactful as those years?

Reflecting on this, I suppose that those four years stick out in our minds as individual instances of uprisings – be it in France, Russia, Hungary or East Germany. 2011 stands out from these years as a time when people felt the need to rise up and seek to overcome their oppressors – be it in Egypt, Libya, Syria or Wall Street. It’s been a year of amazing change across the Middle East and the wider world and the ways in which uprisings have been coordinated – using the Web, facebook and twitter – and the speed with which we have learned about them has been unprecedented.

So maybe UPRISING does sum up this year pretty well.

Strangely DOWNTON ABBEY didn’t get a vote. But PANDA did.

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Spring awakening

In Museums on April 11, 2011 at 7:58 am

The annual museum and gallery exhibition calendar is well established now. The summer blockbuster is a favourite set piece for the nationals and this year is no exception. As per norm the National Portrait Gallery will have the portrait award and the Natural History Museum is doing another massive exhibition about dinosaurs.

But for a long time I’ve been a fan on an exhibition in the Spring. Often, less bombastic or sensational than its summer counterpart, the Spring Exhibition tends to be more discursive. It asks questions or provokes debate. Exhibitions at this time of year are often simpler and more reflective than the showy shows of the summer and can be quite inspirational.

Some that have caught my eye right now are:

Women War Artists, which opened at the Imperial War Museum last week, looks to be an interesting reflection on female artists working in wartime.

Foundling Voices opens this week at the Foundling Museum. Based on their ongoing oral history research, this exhibition seeks to bring the actual voices of people who grew up in the Foundling Hospital to the public. There’s going to be a rap competition – can’t wait to see that.

I’ll probably make a visit to Manchester to the People’s History Museum to see On The March, an exhibition about banners used protests and marches. I imagine it will be full of intriguing objects with strong stories.

And, of course, I’m hugely looking forward to the next exhibition at the Museum in Docklands – Pirates: The Captain Kidd Story. You can even follow the captain on twitter!

In addition to the temporary exhibitions there are some new museums and galleries about to open for the first time as well. The Riverside Museum in Glasgow and the Hepworth Wakefield are both set to open this Spring. And tomorrow I’m off to the opening of the David Chipperfield-designed Turner Contemporary in Margate.

There’s so much going on, I might just take a month off work and go visit museums!

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Less than a year to go on Royal Museum, Edinburgh

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 12, 2010 at 7:16 pm

It’s all go in Edinburgh if you’re a supplier to the heritage sector.

I wrote an article 18 months ago about the redevelopment work taking place at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. As we were preparing for the launch of the first Museum [Insider] ebook recently, we decided to revisit some of the stories in the publication, to bring them right up to date. Some pieces only needed a few details adding in – new project plans, revised budgets, etc – but the Royal Museum project has moved on so much, we decided to completely re-write it – the resulting article is live on Museum [Insider] today.

Work is progressing well at the site – in fact there’s now less than a year to go until the £46.4 million project opens to the public and the building is looking magnificent. There’s been a complete transformation of the museum with new galleries, open spaces and visitor facilities, including a brand new arrivals hall.

The project attracted further attention recently when Scottish philanthropist Dr Walter Scott donated £1million to the project. The new galleries open in summer 2011.

We’re looking forward to a trip to Scotland to see the redevelopment at the Royal Museum and also the revamped Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which opens in November 2011. With many museums currently aiming to be open in time for the Olympics in 2012, Edinburgh is clearly well ahead of the game.

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