NORDI S K MU S EOL O GI 1997•2 , S. 9 3- 105

MUSEOLOGY - WHY, WHERE, WHEN?

Friedrich Waidacher

To many people outside the museum world the term «museology» is a foreign word - and even to some people inside as well. Thus I could also have chosen other interrogati­ ves: «What?», or even «Who needs it?» The last one is a question I have been asked many times, certainly more often by museum professionals than lay people. My answer was and is «You need it».

WHY? It would be utterly absurd to abstain from using this tool in such an important Let us assume that you are a linguist or undertaking and rely only on the theoreti­ mathematician, you were trained as a tea­ cal proceedings of the subject matter you cher of languages or mathematics, and you are assigned to communicate instead. In are working at a secondary school. It is the case of languages this might be for therefore your job to teach young people, example medieval grammar, for mathema­ help them find access to the respective tics the theory of numbers. subject, and impart to them a knowledge Perhaps you are already asking yourself that will enable them to deal indepen­ why I am telling these truisms. It is per­ dently with certain matters. How do you fectly obvious anyway that a theory that is proceed? the basis of one certain subject is necessa­ I presume that you would prepare and rily incapable of solving another's pro­ communicate the necessary material using blems. certain methods. You would, I think, also It is true that I can knock nails with a check, evaluate and feed back the success hammer but I cannot cut logs with it. of your work which is at the same time People have invented saws for the latter your student's success. purpose. Why these examples? For all this you would make use of the I have now already activated my first methodical know-how of a science which interrogative: WHY? - independent of content - is relevant for The answer is: because museology is a this specific teaching and instructional science capable of fulfilling a similar sum­ approach to certain disciplines. I am spea­ marizing, comprehensive and basic functi­ king of educational theory. on as educational theory does. Its imple- FRIEDRI C H WAIDA C H E R

94 mentation, however, is ignored by the matics and anaesthesiology. Its roots, majority of those who should be obliged however, lie much further in the past, as I to use it. will show. Often people who have served in the The first attempt to formulate a theory museum field for some years and thus gai­ of museums that we know of is to be ned practical experience think that theory found in Germany at the beginning of the is just a useless hobby horse and a waste of Renaissance: in a book published in time. They have apparently never learnt Munich in 1565 the Belgian physician their lessons properly and they have cer­ Samuel von Quiccheberg presents a com­ tainly not understood what my compatriot, prehensive collection of specimens and Nobel Prize laureate Ludwig Boltzmann artifacts in an ideal form as an autono­ had in mind when he said: «Theory is the mous educational institution. quintessence of practice». This important work had lasting influ­ I want to impart to you some basic ence on museum theory and the practice thoughts about museology, its develop­ of collecting until far into the 18th centu­ ment, its structure, its place in the system ry. Further major publications on museum of sciences and about what it is able to theory were published particularly in provide. Germany, some in Denmark (Ole Worm To deal with matters cultural, to treat 1655), Bohemia, France and Russia. The objects - which I shall refer to as irrepla­ term «museology» appeared for the first ceable because they are part of the time in the early 18th century (Neickelius museum's specific entity - in a dilettantish 1727). manner, to ignore the wealth of knowled­ Museology, as we understand it today, ge museology has acquired in the course was established in the second half of the of its existence (and is still acquiring more 19th century. The beginning of its current than ever) is at least negligent if not high­ phase is precisely dated with the founda­ ly irresponsible and detrimental to the tion of the German journal «Zeitschrift museum. fiir Museologie und Antiquitatenkunde Moreover, and this is really critical, sowie verwandte Wissenschaften» by museology is able to considerably upgrade Johann Theodor Graesse, director of the the quality of museum work of all levels. «Griines Gewolbe» in Dresden in 1877. After all, many years of theoretical rese­ Another pivotal point in the develop­ arch and practical application, have placed ment of modern museology at the turn of at its disposal procedures and methods the century was the publication of the which are far superior to mere unreflected periodicals «Anzeiger tschechisch-slowa­ empiricism or even to a mistaken employ­ kischer Museen und archaologischer ment of inappropriate methods. Gesellschaften» (1895), «The Museum» (USA 1902), «Museums Journal» (Great History ofMuseology Britain 1902) and «Museumskunde» Museology is a comparatively young sub­ (Germany 1908). The two last-named, as ject - comparable to sociology, psychology is well known, are still published. or ecology but senior to cybernetics, infor- Before and after WWI splendid and for- MUSE O LOGY - WHY, WH E R E , WHEN

ward-looking ideas were formulated by and communication of the world's natural 95 the members of museology's hall of fame and cultural heritage can well be accom­ Alfred Lichtwark, John Cotton Dana, plished. Hans Tietze, Arthur W Melton and Otto Neurath. WHAT? Shortly afterwards in Germany, the birthplace of museology, this promising I am now posing another interrogative: research was forcibly ended not to be resu­ WHAT? The reason of course is not becau­ med until after WWII, when it was cont­ se I suppose that you do not know what inued on an international basis, particu­ museology is, but in order to tell you how larly after the foundation of ICOM fifty I see it. years ago. Fundamentally, I understand museology The first hesitant agreements about the as a collective term. It comprises the des­ qualification of museology as an indepen­ cription, classification and explanation of dent discipline can be found at the end of all theoretical principles and practical pro­ the fifties. The decisive approach to cedures, methods, technologies and auxili­ modern museological thinking, however, ary means relevant to the museum pheno­ comes a decade later. menon.

Museology today Definition The definitive consolidation of modern Museology is the theoretical explanation museology occurred more than thirty and practical realization of a specific dis­ years ago when Zbynek Stransky publis­ tinguishing and evaluating relatio~ship of hed his outline of a system of museology man to reality which is carried out with which he had developed along epistemolo­ the help of philosophical tools. This rela­ gical principles (Predmet muzeologie. Brno tionship is called museality, a term that 1965). has been coined by Stransky. It is expres­ Thus he introduced a philosophical sed through objects that are selected, con­ approach which had so far been lacking in served, studied and communicated as tes­ the research. Through identifying a time­ timony of a particular social reality in the less object of cognition he made possible service of the respective society. museology's final emancipation from prag­ matic restrictions. Object ofcognition In 1971 Museology was officially Thus the question for museology's object acknowledged as a preparatory academic of cognition in the formal sense is the discipline by ICOM, and, finally, in 1977 question of which aspect of reality museo­ the International Committee for Museo­ logy is investigating. The answer is: it logy was founded. looks into the common motive for the exi­ Museology has now had at its disposal a stence of the museum phenomenon and well assorted set of instruments for a gene­ its forerunners. ration or more. With these instruments This object of cognition is therefore, as the important task of specific conservation in all theoretical science, an idealized part FRIEDRICH WAIDACHER

96 of the environment. It is the already men­ does not depend on the museum but on tioned relationship of man to reality, knowledge of the specific human rela­ which we have called museality. Museality tionship to reality. is established when people consider selec­ ted objects so important as evidence for Basic museum functions certain facts that they want to conserve The basic museum functions however - and to transmit them - to their contem­ selection, collecting, conservation, restora­ poraries as well as to posterity. tion, documentation, research, exhibiting, Museality thus relies on material objects interpretation, publication - can also be which have been identified as potential found in varying contexts without a bearers of this relationship and have final­ museum. They appear alone and in any ly been declared as such. We call these combination and for a variety of purposes. objects musealia. Their characteristics and These activities simply do not have by properties can only be conclusively percei­ themselves an exclusively museum quality, ved with the help of epistemological and even the knowledge linked to them is not axiological means within a definite social restricted to the museum. None of these structure, they can even only become activities therefore is museum specific in musealia at all within this frame of refe­ itself. rence. Museology thus does not distinguish, Objects as a centrepiece describe, study and explain things of all This approach is as important for the kinds but only those which have been selection of objects as it is for their study, methodically recognized as objectivations, documentation, conservation and presen­ as embodiments of museality. tation. Musealia are not just semiophores, Whether they belong to the realm of bearers of signs, as Krysztof Pomian mis­ museology or not therefore entirely leadingly claims: tapes, books and traffic depends on their meaning. This meaning signs are bearers of signs too. Musealia on is not something they possess intrinsically the contrary, are bearers of meaning, but it is attributed to them on their objec­ nouophores. Objects are given a new qua­ tivation. lity by means of specific and controllable Such an approach is, in contrast with methods. This quality only gives them other museum or object centred concepts, intersubjective significance in a museolo­ unmistakably related to society. Here it is gical sense. Because of this they are trans­ not things or properties that are the object formed into something different from of cognition, as in special disciplines, but what they were before their musealization, museality, this specific, namely socially something completely new. relevant relationship between human Usually objects are not incorporated beings and their world. into a museum collection because of their This relationship is subjective by nature intrinsic value, nor because they are so and any attempt to objectivate it, to sepa­ rare, big, small, beautiful or otherwise rate it from its living expression, would extraordinary as such, but because they fail. Museology, as Stransky once put it, represent certain meanings. They stand for M US E OLO GY - W H Y , W H E R E , W H EN

ideas, they can furnish evidence of particu­ Once again: museality does not exist 97 lar events, facts and circumstances. This is intrinsically but is in each case a socially also what as a rule makes the approach of a created and acknowledged attitude that private collector so fundamentally different cannot even exist without its carriers, that from that of the museologists. is human beings. As long as there is evi­ dence of human life this particular desire Identity problems ofthe museum can be proved, hence we can call it time­ That is precisely where the problem lies less. today: museum people still are blundering Museum institutions in their objective where they should be performing in a very functional and organizational appearance, professional manner, namely as museum on the other hand, are variable by necessi­ people - instead of specialists in their field ty. The museum, as a concrete institution of research. There are several reasons for of our times, is just one dynamic form this. One is the misconception that the among many possible alternatives. This methods of one particular science can sol­ form has been created under certain histo­ ve the problems of another science. The rical and social circumstances and it had confusion of philosophical realization and predecessors of a different nature. It will objective practice is also a reason why inevitably change in the future. many people think that museology is no­ This is also the reason the museum itself thing more than the application of the cannot be museology's subject of cogni­ methods of certain special subjects to dai­ tion as has been erroneously thought for a ly museum practice. Some also think that long time. The museum is not a goal but there is no necessity to look for generaliza­ only the means through which an idea is tions beyond empirical knowledge. expressed. Ultimately many even believe that the This idea persists unchanged in its requirements of the museum profession structure although in its separate ele­ can be met altogether by the knowledge ments, governed by history, changes hap­ inherent in the subjects represented in the pen permanently. So the subject of cogni­ museum. tion museology deals with is that attitude which makes people select certain objects MUSEUM AS CONCEPT from the abundance of reality and preser­ ve them at great trouble and cost; in fact The museum is the type of organization because they intersubjectively consider which makes museality real today. them important to such an extent that Admittedly, although it expresses every­ they want to keep them indefinitely and thing in a physical language its identity is present them ·to their contemporaries as not material but lies in the world of mea­ well as to the future. nings. Museality cannot be objectivated independently but has to be desirable and Meaning understandable in society. Only when a Museums are certainly characteristic of message meets willing recipients can it the time. They had forerunners and they become concrete. will, as I said, be replaced by other institu- FRIEDRI C H W A IDA C H E R

98 tions depending on the demands set up by ACCEPTANCE OF MUSEOLOGY the respective societies. All these institu­ tions - treasuries, portrait galleries, Kunst­ The scope of acceptance of museology, und Wunderkammern, scholarly collec­ however, is wide. It might be of interest tions - served goals of various kinds at that a person not unknown in the world different times. They had their own orga­ of museums recently delivered an expert nizational forms, basic ideas, messages and oprn10n on museology in the following modes of operation. Their meanrng, form: however, was always the same. I do not believe that a subject called museology MUSEUM WORK AS A SYNTHESIS exists. I think it is something created in order to provide jobs and committees. I myself have no inte­ In order to achieve its goals in the best rest in or res pect for theories and I have a particular possible way the museum must not make contempt for philosophy ... Museology is no more a use of the methods of other types of insti­ science than psychology or education is. tutions, but has to proceed in an indepen­ dent synthesis of science and art. This is I have chosen this extreme example in the only way to realize its cognition, order to show what grotesque figments of memorial and communication functions imagination the refusal to perceive the appropriate to its essence. human mind's achievements of at least the This is also the reason all attempts so last four hundred years can result in. far, and there have been many, to explain To return to reason. the nature of museum presentation Museology is no isolated case. It has the through semiotics, have only resulted in same experience as any other relatively fruitless repetitions of discoveries which new science. It not only has friends but is have been small change for linguistics for still disapproved of, ignored, even attac­ thirty, fifty or eighty years. Museology ked by the majority of the establishment. also looks at its signs differently from Why is this so? other disciplines: namely ontologically. Here is the answer of a another Nobel This is a difference which has so far been Prize laureate, Max Planck: «A new scien­ carelessly neglected in all definitions. The tific truth is not in the habit of gaining individual being of each single particle of acceptance in such a way that its oppo­ museological attention is the point which nents are persuaded and pronounce concerns museology and one of her themselves instructed but rather due to daughters, the museum. Again the simple the fact that its opponents die out gradu­ classical rule is valid: the problems of one ally and that the coming generation is science can never be solved using the met­ familiarized with the truth right from the hods of another one. Lock and key insepa­ beginning.» ( Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiogra­ rably belong together. Of course this app­ phie. Leipzig 1967: 22) lies not only to presentation but to all, I Thomas S. Kuhn (Die Struktur wissens­ emphasize, all aspects of museum activity. chaftlicher Revolutionen. Frankfurt a. M . 1976) has told us what happens to every MU SEOL O GY - W H Y, WH E RE , W HE N

new discipline that questions familiar I believe that museology with reference 99 rules. It is rejected by most specialists to its goals of operation is an applied (as whose domains are affected. Each new opposed to a theoretical) science; theory has its impact on works already as to its matter it is idealistic; successfully completed and demands a as to its basis of recognition empirical as revision of former theories and a re-evalua­ well as rational; tion of earlier concepts. Consequently regarding the way it sees things it is part many museum workers are not even pro­ of the humanities (museology strives to perly prepared for their profession as such. gain insight into single and historical phe­ nomena and contexts by means of inter­ Remedy: education pretation, and it deals with all kinds of I think there is only one remedy for this objectivations of human mind); deficiency: education. Whoever works as to its form it is a cultural science that within the museum system must not only describes singularities and makes use of a be able to perform known and familiar generalizing method; tasks but must also be able to judge and concerning its mode of manifestation it act in a museologically relevant way in does not justify phenomena transcenden­ new and even unexpected situations. tally but it demonstrates and describes Regular formal training in museology them objectively; however is only available for one genera­ finally, museology is only slightly tion. As it always takes at least a dozen abstract and highly concrete. years for the first well-trained professio­ This attempt already shows us that nals to become effective the predominant museology is not a monolithic discipline majority of museum staff at work are still but rather heavily integrative. amateurs in a museological sense. They are usually excellent specialists and crafts­ Museum as a system people of course but they lack proper qua­ The essence of the museum phenomenon lification for their occupation. As a conse­ cannot be understood through random quence inadequate and obsolete practices empiricism or other disciplines' methods are so firmly established that even when of realization. An investigation into muse­ they are proved false it does not lead to a ology's single components can never give shift in thinking but rather to suppressi­ an insight into the idea that is the basis of on. I shall give an example of this tension all museum practice. This idea is simply between museological potential and not to be found in the variable particulars museum reality below. of museum institutions but only in the structure they are forming, and in their relations. WHERE? Thus it is its system which makes the Where, within the system of sciences, special differences - another vital fact, by could museology find its place? I shall bri­ the way, which has so far not been taken efly refer to a paper of mine published a into account in the least by any of the couple of years ago. existing museum definitions. FRIEDRI C H WAIDA C HER

100 Museology as an eclectic science substance through concrete objects. Its Museology investigates a complex behavi­ specific importance is that it does not only our and its impact. Therefore it really communicate knowledge but that it also needs exchange and cooperation with proves it correct with the help of authen­ many other disciplines. Just because it has tic objects. Museum presentation is by no the potential has to investigate and to means an imitation of reality but is a cul­ explain all conceivable actual phenomena tural reality in its own right. Museum rea­ of the natural world and that shaped by lity is always metareality. This is what man from this specific point of view, it basically distinguishes it in its meaning as can of necessity only exist in an interdisci­ well as in its appearance from all other plinary and multidisciplinary fashion. kinds of representation. A mere showing That is why museology needs the loyal of objects is just ostentation whereas help of all basic as well as special discipli­ museum presentation shows and tells. It nes - from geology to history of art, and presents, it makes present. from philosophy to communication scien­ The subjective experience of museum ce. In order to be able to develop their visitors is a personal, intimate coming faculties to the optimum, however, they awareness of essence which they can - must all be put to use under the primacy immediately or much later - understand of museology. as significant. This reaction is due to the fact that museum presentation is a work WHEN? of art, and the way art is perceived is totally different from the way in which Let me take the third of my interrogatives: intellectual contents are taken in. WHEN? When do we need museology? Museum presentation is an eminently There is a simple answer to this question symbolic mode of expression because the too: at any time, in any context, in any objects presented, even when they look phase of museum specific thinking and most attractive, are not as a rule standing acting; from concept to deaccession, from for themselves but are evidence of certain selection to exhibition, from conservation realities which they should make it possi­ to publication. There is not a single detail ble to understand. which cannot and should not be dealt A fundamental requirement for this is with according to museological standards the palpable or visual encounter with and with the specific system in mind musealia. Consequently the museum is which makes a museum. not in the first place a site of transfer of knowledge but of understanding. The Example: museum presentation museum as a medium offers a unique I shall give you the example I referred to opportunity to transform the physiologi­ earlier: museum presentation. What is cal­ cal process of seeing into an holistic expe­ led museum exhibition must in fact be rience of understanding by looking. more than just a showing of objects. Only a few museologists, among them Museum presentation is a message, it Jerzy Swiecimski, have so far pointed out must communicate. It represents abstract the decisive role of poetry in museum pre- MU S E O LO G Y - WHY , W HERE , WHEN

sentation. In schools - I take this example Our organ of equilibrium tells us where 101 because museums are frequently mistaken up and down are, our eyes where front as such to their own and their public's and back are, our hemispheres let us dis­ detriment - pedagogy and didactics are tinguish between right and left. And even indispensable requirements for the con­ when we cannot see our ears help u~ to veyance of knowledge and skills, of mate­ orientate ourselves, and when we are deaf rial and formal education. The museum we perhaps still have our sense of touch. however must make use of totally diffe­ Anything beyond our direct experience is rent, namely artistic tools in its presentati­ given a substitute: plans, maps, ground on. plans, elevations, sections. Signposts tell us where we are, arrows and pictograms MUSEUM AS MEMORY STORAGE where to go. AND HOLISTIC INFORMATION And in time? Moments we can recognize SYSTEM through the blink of our eyelids, our pul­ se, our breath; day and night, morning Let me return to my first interrogative: and evening through the position of the WHY? sun; plants and animals show us the sea­ I shall try to offer you an answer that is sons; rock lets us grasp the gigantic peri­ possibly just the sort that sometimes fits ods covered by the history of the earth. museums, namely not a direct answer but For whatever goes beyond our experience an attempt to provoke you into finding in time and yet is still needed in everyday your own answers by offering reflections life we have invented calendars and clocks on the poetic quality of the museum expe­ so that we can find orientation between rience. At the same time I want to give an century and second. example of museological reasoning. However, there is also our desire to understand periods of time not only as Why do we want to remember? quantities - from nanoseconds to aeons - Why do we try to keep memory alive? In but also in terms of their quality. Above the case of museums, mostly memory in all it is important for us to know what has the shape of tangible objects? happened or not happened at a certain Because a human being without memo­ moment or during a certain period. The ry is a living corpse. Without memory reasons for this are deeply anchored in the there is no remembrance. Amnesia is a human mind: to pass oneself on, to make disorder which tears us out of the here oneself remembered, to transcend man's and now, which deprives us of our certain­ finite being on earth. Since we know of ty of knowing where and when we are. the existence of the human race this desire Why do we want to remember? This can be detected. desire is an expression of the basic human There are also other, very pragmatic rea­ need for orientation, for finding our way sons. Recently Alexander Kluge (Die around. We need orientation wherever Wachter des Sarkophags - I 0 ]ahre Tscherno­ there is expanse: therefore in space and byl, Standard, Album, 19. 04. 1996) has time. pointed out in connection with the FRIEDRI C H WAID AC HER

102 Chernobyl disaster that never was one world we live in. There are also intrinsic single generation able to create or main­ reasons. Not only does the world in each tain community. Community is the result case appear as the individual perceives it - of a contract between generations where my world is not the same world as yours, as the essence is the passing on of knowled­ hers, as his; the media themselves that help ge. Fundamental experiences of life are keep memory alive are also treacherous. transferred with the object of reaching The classical and most widespread carrier grandchildren and great-grandchildren. of information is writing. Memory is pre­ One must not deprive these new generati­ served in written form and where it bears ons of knowledge, especially knowledge of particular significance it is brought into what is dangerous and what is not. This is the world as historiography. For a long not a moral requirement but a very practi­ time it was possible to believe that it was cal one. objective and did report how something had actually been. This, however, is too How do we remember? simple. We know that memory of the past How can we keep hold of memory and use as well as writing about it are dependent it as an orientation mark in time? Firstly, on conscious and subconscious selection there is our personal ability to remember - as well as interpretation and distortion. just now, yesterday, a fortnight ago, last None of these is the responsibility of any year, when I went to school... this does not one individual. They have social causes yet need objective determination, I can because they depend on the organization keep it within myself, I do not have to of their transmission and on the different separate it in order to keep it. If it is more media used. (cf. Peter Burke, Geschichte als than I can keep in my memory I can still soziales Geddchtnis, in: Thomas Butler, write it down in notes or diaries. Ed., Memory. History, Culture and Mind, But what about other people? Did they Oxford 1989: 97-113). experience it too, did they even take part? Among these media are, in addition to And if they did, how did they experience oral tradition, conventional historical it? Whenever more than one person, more documents such as memoirs and other than a small group, wants to record facts written records, paintings or photographs, it must be done in a way with which all or still and motion pictures, collective memo­ at least the majority can basically agree. If rial rituals, geographical and social spaces this knowledge is meant to be available to and, finally, objects - things that literally other people too, this record must also and concretely are set in opposition to us . survive for as long as possible. This is the more difficult the more rapidly time is Objects, carriers ofsignificance perceived to pass in a certain culture, the Objects play a special role in this context fewer the considerations among people, since they do not report indirectly, like all the more attention is given to having other media. They are not carriers of signs instead of being. but they are the signs themselves. What To preserve memory is a laborious task. they carry is meaning. Objects are able to Not only because of circumstances, of the give evidence, to prove. MUSEOLOGY - WHY, WHERE, WHEN

It is of course not a modern idea thar «material witness of history» but is in each 103 objects are important media for preserving case an element of and a testimony to a memory. In the 19th century Jakob historical construct. Burckhardt defined his history of culture Objects can serve as signs when they from the contrast of texts and traces, that stand for a whole of which they are an is written reports and direct material evi­ integral part. The examples I gave are dence. Texts as the encoded messages of a signs of this kind. For the sake of comple­ period comprise all possible tendentious teness I want to mention objects that serve self-delusions. Traces, on the other hand, as symbols if they are put into an arbitrary document the involuntary memory of a context with elements they are not intrin­ period and are more truthful. Of course sically related to - a broken candle as a this concept is open to discussion and has parable of death, a twig of acacia as a sym­ been questioned, but in each case traces - bol of eternal life. Such objects do not in our case objects - by necessity possess a have to be authentic because they do not much higher degree of authenticity than serve as concrete evidence. written evidence. Walter Benjamin called collecting a Example: conservation of form of practical recollection. Objects can bearers ofsignificance indeed help us to reconstruct certain facts. Since objects are bearers of significance Just think of a possibly trivial thing which their conservation plays a decisive part. falls into your hands again after many Recently the Austrian conservator Maria years and suddenly opens a window into Ranacher put conservation into a broader the past or into a strange world. On a lar­ museological context which I should like ger scale it could be a Viking ship, Carl to mention, especially since it was written Nielsen's trumpet or Hans Christian for a catalogue but was eventually emitted Andersen's rope. from the printed version due to lack of Why do we consider objects to be so space. important? Claude Levi-Strauss has given a very thorough answer: people only differ Works of art and other cultural evidence of the from each other through their works, they human mind are important in three respects: the can even only exist through their works idea out of which they have been made, their materi­ because these are evidence of something al existence as ca rrier of this idea and the statement, really having happened among human the message they convey. Museums are points of beings in the course of time. contact for past and present, they are a place of What kinds of objects are suitable to simultaneousness of the non-concurrent and - actu­ give evidence? They must be authentic, ally a most spiritual institution. This potential - authentic with reference to the fact they idea, materiality (decay), historicity and its impact are to testify to. Only something that has on the present and future is content and programme been part of an occurrence and thus con­ of a museum in itself, it is the subject of research and forms with it ontologically can serve as a conservation. direct and immediate proof. Such an The museum offers to its visitors a unique oppor­ object, however, is not automatically a tunity to experience themselves in front of the FRIEDRICH WAIDACHER

104 background of the past. This experience with the not for all, not even for the majority. It is aid of original objects is more than the transfer of one of the great failures. e.g. museums of knowledge, it is a getting into resonance with histo­ ethnography suffer from and will continue ricity, getting into resonance with the contents and to suffer from, the fact that only the signi­ essence of a document and it gives us the infinitely ficant and conspicuous have been selected important feeling of being integrated into a succes­ and collected from the wealth of material sion of generations and it puts us in touch with the evidence of everyday life. Thus we know stream of human beings who have inhabited this quite a lot about 19th century festive clot­ planet Earth, who have created empires and works, hing but too little about work clothes. and who have suffered, fought and loved. And we shall never be able to regain the It is just this experience of life, this interest material evidence which has been lost (which means to be within a matter) that makes because of this narrow perspective. Thus, people visit a museum, be they conscious of it or I am keeping to the chosen example, most not. The political significance of museums is that early museums of ethnography are in fact by way of this experience they reinforce their visi­ museums of folk art. This is what some of tors' ability to deliberately accept and to integrate them actually call themselves, even though or to reject their own past instead of repressing it there is no such thing as folk art. without reflection. The perception of three-dimensional objects pos­ Things vs. musealia sesses a special quality, in contrast to photographic Care for museum objects is thus very or filmic documentation, in contrast to merely vir­ important as everyday things and musealia tual worlds of experience. Through an original differ intrinsically. The latter have been object idea, material and message can be experien­ lifted out the river of time. A new capacity ced because it offers a possibility of realization on has been conferred on them which they an authentic one-to-one scale. did not have before. They have been For that very reason it is so important to hand endowed with values. They are the result down authentic objects as genuinely as possible. of a specific epistemological and axiologi­ This trusteeship which museums have accepted cal process of selection. Their value is not towards human history means responsibility. a material value but a cultural one. This is Namely, the responsibility of bringing and keeping the reason why each and every museum museum objects in ~uch conditions that reasons for object is basically equally important and aging and decay are eliminated or at least decisively why they should only be evaluated accor­ minimised.» (Maria Ranacher, Erhalten fiir die ding to their testimonial capacity. Z11k1111ft : Priiventive Konservieru ng in Gemiilde­ galerien. [Not printed). Wien 1996). Everything counts, even the most unspectacular EVERYDAY LIFE I shall conclude with a quotation from a work of a poet who has dealt with the There are museums that concentrate on same topic, admittedly not knowing that collecting the extraordinary, the outstan­ his poetry is at the same time a good ding and exemplary. This is perfectly right example for museological thinking. His for some types of museums but certainly name is David Malouf, he is Australian, MUSEOLOGY - WHY, WHERE , W HE N

and his essay is called In Trust. This is elves as co-existent, 111 the very moment of their 105 what he wrote about the trivial objects we first stepping out into their own being and in every are surrounded with: instant now of their long pilgrimage towards us, in which they have gathered the fingerprints of their There is to begin with the paraphernalia of daily most casual users and the ghostly but still powerful living: all those objects, knives, combs, coins, cups, presence of the lives they served. razors, that are too familiar, too worn and stained None of our kind come to us down that long with use, a door-knob, a baby's rattle, or too swiftly corridor. Only the things they made and made use in passage from hand to mouth or hand to hand to of, which still somehow keep contact with them. arouse more than casual interest. They are disposa­ We look through the cracked bowl to the lips of ble, and are mostly disposed of without thought. children. Our hand on an axe-handle fits into an Tram tickets, matchboxes, wooden serviene rings ancient groove and we feel the jarring of tree-trunk with a poker design of poinsenias, bunonhooks, on bone. Narrowly avoiding through all their days beermats, longlife torch batteries, the lids of the accidents that might have toppled them from a Daulton soup tureens, are carted off at last to a tip shelf, the flames, the temper tantrums, the odd and become rubble, the sub-stratum of cities, or are carelessness of a user's hand, th ey are still with us . pulped and go to earth; unless, by some quirk of We stare and are amazed. Were they once, we ask circumstance, one or rwo examples are stranded so ourselves, as undistinguished as the buttons on our far up the beach in a distant decade that they beco­ jacket or a stick of roll-on deodorant? Our own me collectors' items, and then so rare and evocative utensils and artefacts take on significance of a as to be the only survivors of their age. moment in the light of the future. Small coins glow So it is in the life of objects. They pass out of the in our pockets. Our world too seems vividly, unbe­ hands of their first owners into a tortoiseshell cabi­ arably present, yet mysteriously far off.· net, and then, whole or in fragments it scarcely maners, on to the shelves of museums. Isolated the­ NOTE re, in the oddness of their being no longer common or repeatable, detached from their history and from * from: David Malouf, «in Trust», in: Antipodes: the grime of use, they enter a new dimension. A Stories by David Malouf. Penguin Books 1986: quality of uniqueness develops in them and they 123- 124) glow with it as with the breath of a purer world - meaning only that we see them clearly now in the This paper was given June 21 1997 in the seminar light of this one. An oil-lamp, a fragment of cloth Mme11111s, sociel)> and 11111seology, arranged by the so fragile that we feel the very grains and precious Danish M11se11111shojskole11, at Vester Vedsted. dust of its texture (the threads barely holding in their warp and woof), a perfume flask, a set of taws, Dr. Friedrich ~'(/aidacher a strigil, come wobbling towards us, the only angels I