Ключевые идеи и работы

Кеннет Хадсон. Биографическая справка

Социальная история музеев (1975)

Влиятельные музеи (1987)

In Museums of Influence Kenneth Hudson has written a sweeping and thoughtprovoking

book treating the recent history, current status, and future prospects of the world's museums, particularly those in his native Great Britain. He accomplishes this by identifying and focusing on thirty- seven institutions of differing sizes and disciplines

that he feels have significantly influenced museum thinking and practice over the past

two centuries and provide optimism for the future of the global museum movement/

Во «Влиятельных музеях» Хадсон обращается к недавней истории, текущему статусу и будущим перспективам мировых музеев, концентрируясь, в основном, на европейском и британском опыте. Он выделяет тридцать семь институций различного масштаба и дисциплинарной направленности, которые, как считает автор, значительным образом повлияли на музейное мышление и музейную практику за прошедшие два столетия, и продолжают являться источниками вдохновения и свежих идей для глобальной музейной ситуации.

Following opening chapters devoted to his- torical patterns of "fertilization and cross-

fertilization" (p. 1) in the museum realm and archaeological museums of the antiquarian tradition, Hudson concentrates on the world's fine and decorative arts museums-his "temples of art" (p. 39).

Here he discusses the motives and the processes for collecting and the origins and the evolution of certain pace-setting institutions, highlighting the Central Art Museum (Louvre) in Paris, the Altes Museum in Berlin, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in

New York. He sees the J. Paul Getty Museum in California as a potential rival to the

Metropolitan in future decades.

В вводной главе Хадсон рассматривает исторические модели «оплодотворения» и «взаимооплодотворения» в музейном мире, и имеет в виду под этим взаимовлияния, которые претерпевали музеи на протяжении своего формирования, с начала XIX века и до наших дней. Распространение музейных идей и появление новых коллекций автор рассматривает на примере таких ключевых институций, как парижский Лувр, музей Древностей в Берлине, музей Виктории и Альберта в Лондоне, музей Метрополитан и музей современного искусства в Нью-Йорке. От первых путешественников-энтузиастов до появления специализированных журналов по музеологии — таков вектор расширения музейной сети, который сегодня имеет свое логическое развитие с всепроникающим действием Интернета.

Во второй главе Хадсон касается мотивов, стоящих за человеческим желанием выявлять, коллекционировать, классифицировать и изучать предметы....

мотивы и процесс коллекционирования, истоки и эволюцию ключевых музейных институций, таких как парижский Лувр, музей Древностей в Берлине, музей Виктории и Альберта в Лондоне, музей Метрополитан и музей современного искусства в Нью-Йорке.

The two chapters devoted to history museums merit particularly close attention. The first, "The History and Customs of the Homeland," treats both indoor museums and historical societies as well as outdoor (open-air or living-history) museums.

Две главы, посвященные историческим музеям, заслуживают особого внимания. В «Истории и обычаях родной страны» Хадсон обращается как к крытым музеям и историческим обществам, а также к музеям под открытым небом и музеям «живой» истории, ярким примером которого является «Бимиш». Бимиш - …..

Он отмечает изменения в подходах репрезентации исторического прошлого. от устаревшего подхода к выставочной деятельности и интерпретации наследия в формате «великие люди/великие события» к выставочному пространству, в котором объекты и подготовленные интерпретаторы работают для продвижения изучения того, как люди жили в различное время в рамках как сельской, так и городской культуры. Последний вариант исторического музея Хадсон критикует, поскольку считает его

The latter

group illustrates the transition from the older "great people/great events" approach

to exhibition and interpretation, to the exhibit setting in which objects and trained

interpreters are employed to promote learning about the way people have existed over time in both rural and urban cultures. Hudson disparages those museums of history

that "are in fact little more than storehouses and displays of the historian's raw material" (p. 113).

As prime examples of this very prevalent type, he points to the Museum of the Army in Paris and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington

(which he refers to by its former name, the National Museum of History and Technology), which is in many respects a very different kind of museum today than it was when the author must have last visited there some years ago.

He then quite properly singles out Artur Hazelius's Skansen (and Nordic Museum) in Stockholm (rural agrarian) and the Beamish Museum in Stanley, England (urban industrial) as pioneering examples of outdoor museums that have had worldwide im-

pact, but he ignores their equally contrived American and Canadian counterparts (Old Sturbridge Village, Greenfield Village, Old World Wisconsin, King's Landing, Upper Canada Village, and so forth) which he inaccurately views as "architectural zoos"

(p. 125), incapable of faithfully recreating and presenting life as it was in the past.

For muse- ums operating in the urban environment and focusing on local/community history, he refers to the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions in Paris and the Museum of the History of the City of Warsaw; American institutions of comparable quality, such as the Museum of the City of New York, the Atlanta Historical Society, and the Chicago Historical Society, do not receive mention. The Museum of German History in East Berlin and the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora

at Tel Aviv are identified for their ability to tell a story effectively without excessive

chronological structuring and extensive reliance on original artifacts and to encourage discussion as to what a popular history museum should ideally be (certain urban-based "ethnic" or single-theme museums have fostered such dialogue in the United States).

In the development of their historic-site museums, the United States and Canada have been

world leaders, a fact that Hudson does not suf- ficiently recognize in his second chapter

on history museums, "History Where It Happened." Fortunately, along with Ironbridge Gorge

Museum at Telford, England, and the Museum of Man and Industry at Le Creusot, France, he directs generous attention to the massive Colonial Williamsburg restoration in Virginia, although his treatment is clearly based more on secondary works than on personal visitation

experience. One further wishes, however, that some credit for outstanding site restoration and interpretation could also be accorded the National Park Service and Parks Canada which, in both instances, have accomplished remarkable work since World War

II.

On the other hand, Hudson does admit that it was in North America that the site museum in its various forms originated and set standards for other countries to emulate. Furthermore, he sees the value and importance of America's more than 2,500 scattered

historic-house museums, which he terms "collectively her Skansen" (p. 146), as Laurence Vail Coleman noted in 1939.

He presents himself as an enthusiastic supporter of "live interpretation," praising particularly

the efforts of Williamsburg and other outdoor sites and living-history farms which have had broad influence as teaching resources and have been "immensely popular in America" (p. 153). The final chapter, "Pointers to the Future," is certain to foster more controversy as well as to force the reader to ponder further the raison d'etre of museums. As such, it is a

highly appropriate capstone to the book that ends with much more of a bang than a whimper. Clearly, as he states earlier in the text, he likes museums that have a "potential

for action" (p. 172) and service to soci- ety, and the two American examples he pin-points-the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Brooklyn Children's

Museum in New York-have impressively achieved these objectives. In the main body of this chapter Hudson engages in some highly speculative but interesting forecasting for museums, relating their future prospects to major societal problems and challenges and urging

them to pursue the socially stabilizing goal of promoting visitor confidence. He believes that for museums to survive and grow in the next century, they must achieve financial and organizational stability, link closely with the local community to satisfy real social needs, and encourage popularization on a foundation of sound scholarship.

As Hudson concludes, museums must heed these maxims or they will surely fail, fading away and possibly dying "from a surfeit of learning, dullness, obstinacy, and arrogance" (p. 194). Even if we may take issue with his view of the principal museum challenges to be faced in the years ahead, we must agree that these challenges, many of which are historically

rooted, must be successfully met or a significant educational resource will be lost to the nations of the world.

Заключение. Критика.

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