28.03.2006

 

Curator: Daniel Muzyczuk

 

The museum of art seems to be an exceptional place: a secular temple for aesthetic experiences, a Cartesian space of scientific research, a territory of meeting with power, an area of artistic realisation and curators’ visions, a place of entertainment and education, the museum has something from the temple and salon, graveyard and school� as Paul ValJry noticed. And although it has an institutional form, it is very difficult to answer the question of what the museum is for? Didier Meluvre underlines its paradoxical character, Andreas Huyssen points out the dialectic nature of the museum, and Joseph Margolis says that the essence of it cannot be captured, just as there is no definition of a work of art. Modern people, within the framework of the museum, make an effort to reconcile the contradictions brought about by everyday life, they put themselves at a distance from the past through the process of distinguishing what is not valid anymore, and at the same time they take a stance towards any novelty. In the museum one can cultivate ones love of the old times, but also take part in experiencing virtual reality and dream about a futuristic tomorrow. The aporia of time in the museum is one of many which we come across; contemporary thinkers and researchers try to rationalise the paradoxical nature of, amongst others, simulation, musealisation and heterotrophy. They try to answer the question of whether the museum soothes the effects of modernisation and emancipation, whether it helps humans to understand the present by exhibiting ancient works of art?

 

Maria Popczyk – aesthete, philosopher of history, works in the Institute of Science and Culture at Śląsk University. She is also the editor of the book: Space of art: pictures-words-commentaries.