Museums as powerful institutions in the construction of identities in the public domain have long attracted the scholarly attention. Scholars, such as Carol Duncan, have abandoned the idea of the art museum being a neutral container for the disposal of art and recognized the verbal and visual methods employed in representation that leads to canonization through its establishment as a secular temple . The museum became the facilitator of modern ideological fiction . The ancient rhetoric, that observes the museum as communicator or orator, trying to persuade the public of the importance of its message through ethos, pathos and logos, can be effectively used in order to dissect art museums’ strategies and positions .
Ethos, or establishment …show more content…
Pathos, however, can be seen as a crucial element in museology, a way to distance itself from 20th c. museum strategies as it promotes a multi-vocal perspective against the tendencies of master narrative . For instance, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris can be seen as an open cultural centre rather than a museum as numerous cultural organisations are occupying the space. It acts as a forum, in which the museum interacts with the city and art forms interact with one another, as highlighted by the installation ‘Pockets Full of Memories’, in which visitors contributed over 3300 objects in their possession to the museum . Its openness and invitation of the public can be further highlighted by its inside-out architecture.
Logos, on the other hand, is visible in the museums that take on a more traditional approach towards museology, such as Neues Museum in Berlin. The museum re-opened in 2009 and intertwined its revolutionary architecture by David Chipperfield with its ruin historiography, by visibly rendering the traces of destruction in the museum’s structure . This approach positioned the museum in the context of Germany’s memory culture and in this way, managed to convince the public of its …show more content…
Dissecting their aims through the method of ancient rhetoric, thus, appears to be fruitful as they act as orators, trying to persuade the public of their argument through elements of ethos, pathos and logos. Thus, museums aim for the communication of prescribed values to its audiences that through many characteristics such as architecture with embedded political meaning or aesthetics that are historically specific as explored above, create a strategic system of representations
Ethos, or establishment …show more content…
Pathos, however, can be seen as a crucial element in museology, a way to distance itself from 20th c. museum strategies as it promotes a multi-vocal perspective against the tendencies of master narrative . For instance, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris can be seen as an open cultural centre rather than a museum as numerous cultural organisations are occupying the space. It acts as a forum, in which the museum interacts with the city and art forms interact with one another, as highlighted by the installation ‘Pockets Full of Memories’, in which visitors contributed over 3300 objects in their possession to the museum . Its openness and invitation of the public can be further highlighted by its inside-out architecture.
Logos, on the other hand, is visible in the museums that take on a more traditional approach towards museology, such as Neues Museum in Berlin. The museum re-opened in 2009 and intertwined its revolutionary architecture by David Chipperfield with its ruin historiography, by visibly rendering the traces of destruction in the museum’s structure . This approach positioned the museum in the context of Germany’s memory culture and in this way, managed to convince the public of its …show more content…
Dissecting their aims through the method of ancient rhetoric, thus, appears to be fruitful as they act as orators, trying to persuade the public of their argument through elements of ethos, pathos and logos. Thus, museums aim for the communication of prescribed values to its audiences that through many characteristics such as architecture with embedded political meaning or aesthetics that are historically specific as explored above, create a strategic system of representations