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| This gem was taken at one of the many “Museum Without Walls” exhibits here at Tufts University. Leslie Fry’s statue of the “Colossal Acorn Head” is a widespread mystery on campus and a prime spot for a museum selfie. The panel next to the statue indicating the artist asks the question: “Why is this head in a flower bed?”, and provides a link to the Tufts Art department website to find out. It invites its curious audience (aka every single Tufts student) to delve deeper into the mystery of the omnipotent Acorn Head while offering a great opportunity for all students to share in the universal question of why the f*** there’s a giant bronze demi-nut in the middle of our campus. |
The whole "museums without walls" concept is intriguing. By placing recognizable art pieces in our daily environment, it seems to blur the lines between what *is* art and what can be seen *as* art - sort of like the distinctions in performance theory that we've talked about. There's certainly plenty of art in nature, in social interaction, etc.
ReplyDeleteActually, this selfie is a great example because I can't decide whether Juliette or Acorn Head is more fascinating :)
I really like Sam's thought about how "is" and "as" distinctions can apply nicely to objects that perform – or are made/interpreted to perform – as well as tourists. The selfie does an interesting thing to a museum without walls; in a way, it reframes that which seeks to transcend framing. The dispersed exhibits are not the end of the story, since individual objects can be recontextualized in relation to the one-to-one viewer interactions with them rather than their relationships to the other objects or even to their markers. In this case, the curator's question is less important than your own personal question that I certainly share – what is this thing, and why is it here at all, let alone in a flower bed? The selfie gives a new kind of control to the curatorial life of the object.
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