Educating museum visitors

Shelley Reisman Paine <shelley [at] srpaine__com> writes

>I have a client who wants to construct a display for the lobby of
>her museum that illustrates why visitors should not touch artwork.

I saw a wonderful one at the conservation school of De Montfort
University in Lincoln, UK, which really stuck in my mind. It was a
panel, about a foot square, with vertical strips of various museum
object materials, such as wood, white marble, bronze, parchment,
fur, paper, leather, textile and so on. The top half was protected
by clear perspex, the lower half exposed. The label said something
like : this is what the various textures feel like--feel free to
touch them, but please don't touch the originals, because--as you
see--this half (ie the lower, exposed, often-touched half) is what
happens to them if you do. You could also notes how long it has been
exposed in weeks. Paper and textile last only matter of weeks before
being shreds, and the other materials look terrible in a similar
period.

Mark Clarke
Vlaamse kunstlaan 35
B 2020 Antwerpen, Belgium
+32 3 257 2717


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:10
                Distributed: Wednesday, August 17, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-19-10-013
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