I'm not a huge fan of Martin Scorsese's movies (too brutal, oftentimes, for delicate art critics--oh, ok, just lifetime scardey cats--like me).
But I caught a speech by the acclaimed director on last night's Golden Globes broadcast, and I have to say he makes a damn eloquent case for film preservation, one which can be easily extended to the practice of cultural-artifact preservation/collections curating in general, I think.
Scorsese's points on cultural memory and image memory are also interesting, no matter what the boredom on the celeb audience's faces might imply. (Best quote: "The past is never dead; it is not even past." -- William Faulkner) Just make sure to skip the montage-which-turns-into-a-commercial (or, you know, not) by starting at the 6 minute mark, and enjoy.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Scorsese Makes Unwitting Case for the Existence of Museums Everywhere
Monday, November 9, 2009
Museums and Sustainability: Douglas Worts Talks Tonight @ OISE

Just got a last-minute announcement for what looks like an interesting talk tonight at the University of Toronto Museum Studies Speaker Series:
Douglas Worts: Museums, Cultural Heritage and the Culture of Sustainability
Monday, November 9
5-7 pm
Douglas Worts is a consultant working on sustainability and culture issues and former long-term staff at the Art Gallery of Ontario where he introduced many innovations in public work and visitor research for the museum.
How can humanity create a ‘culture of sustainability’ within our increasingly pluralist, urban communities? Currently, cultural heritage organizations, like museums and art galleries, historic and natural heritage sites, do little to reflect or engage the living cultures of our societies and the environments they inhabit. They have the ability to do so – although it will require a complete reassessment of what these organizations assume are the cultural needs of our communities. New professional competencies and novel approaches to public engagement strategies will have to replace old institutionalized structures and traditional programs if these organizations hope to engage the cultural pulse of our cities.
I'm particularly interested in Worts' studies because I'm the bizarre holder of both a BSc in physical geography/environmental studies and a BFA in fine arts. Most of the time, I think this means I just can't make up my mind about what I'm interested in... other times I do write articles about art and sustainability themes... and other times I just enjoy not being alone in my interest. So there! If you're interested in finding out more, I suggest one of Worts' reports/blogs Museums in the Winds of Change.
Image of the Montreal Biodome from Hotel Europa
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Out this week: Review of Trade Secrets @ Banff Centre

Canadian Art magazine hit newsstands across the nation this week. In it, you can find my review of "Trade Secrets", a curatorial conference that took place at the Banff Centre last year. Where my web report on the conference, published on Canadian Art's website in the fall, was more descriptive, I took the review opportunity to, um, basically rant on related disconnects between museums and the public. Here's an excerpt:
Whither the "public" in "public art gallery?" Where's the exhibitionism in exhibition-making? If the broadly understood purpose of art can be summarized by that old E. M. Forster chestnut "only connect," why does there seem, at times, to be so much disconnect between art and its audiences?
Such questions were not the focus of "Trade Secrets," a curatorial conference held at the Banff Centre last November, but they did emerge afterwards, as niggling, nagging, circling flies whose swatting became one of the conference's more resonant subthemes...
Though the discussions may appear largely theoretical, it's clear that the public/gallery divide they indicate has grown to near-crisis proportions in North America. Just before the conference, the Canadian government saw fit to cancel long-standing plans for a national portrait gallery, after years of design work and proposals from three major cities. The newly revamped Art Gallery of Ontario—mere months after its reopening—was [at press time] in early 2009 considering laying off 108 workers due to under-target attendance figures. The Art Institute of Chicago, in order to offset years of rising operations costs, has plans to raise admissions fees by 50% (71% for students and seniors)—a strategy that could vackfire in any season, but seems particularly risky during a recession....
The review is also placed across from a nice picture of work by James Carl, so you can glance at that if your eyes glaze over.
[Image of a Banff Centre building from Banffcentre.ca. Fortunately, in my review, I don't blame mountains for getting between publics and their art.]