While interrogating materiality and the importance of objects in a museum space, I began thinking about why objects are used in a museum space, and for whom they are used. We previously discussed the ability of a museum and its objects to carry histories, stories and even traumas, and such intertexual context may be communicated through an object’s material form. Beyond this, objects in museums seem to build meaning together, rather than individually. But it seems so often museums pose the patrons as if they are the anthropologists, looking to “discover” the object. It’s no coincidence that Conn states, “Anthropology started with museum collections; hence museum collections define anthropology,” (Conn, 31). Instead of presenting objects as individual markers and representations of knowledge to be acquired, objects, as they are grounded in their own physical material, should be grounded in their own historical material, or context.
When looking through the George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection, our group was initially perplexed as to how the box was organized. We first looked at clipped advertisements for Oscar Micheaux’s film The Symbol of the Unconquered, but then switched to a profile of Archie Moore, a former boxer who took up the role of Jim in a film adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These were part of Johnson’s methodical recording of black actors and filmmakers in the industry, kept with newspaper articles, ads, and other ephemera. When handling these materials, which seem as though they have been carefully selected and curated, one could get a sense of the historicity of such objects. Much of the material of these objects was not meant to survive, used for publicity purposes; surely, there is probably a great amount that was not preserved that could better represent this historical period and subject. But George P. Johnson’s remarkable work in preserving these signifiers for the collective industry of black filmmakers shows that the material was significant in enabling these artists to create.
Part of what made the collection so enriching to look at, was to understand that these objects existed in relation to a multitude of other objects. Materially, these objects do not just create knowledge for us now, but also created a historical product at the time. Whether implicating an object’s physical substance or its form when speaking of materiality, the object was made in a particular time for a particular end, and this can be useful in determining what place and purpose it should hold in a museum.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I like your point that often times a singular object is fated to stand in for an entire set of knowledge, rather than a starting point from which to seek more understanding. It really highlights how the design of the museum and how the objects are displayed can make a visual argument that is not always explicit. I also appreciated your reflections on how quotidian objects can end up in collections, even though they were never designed with that purpose in mind. The life of objects is an intriguing topic. It’s one of the reasons why the movie The Red Violin is one of my favorites. I highly recommend it, if you’ve never seen it.
You did a really great job connecting the concept of materiality with the George P. Johnson collection! While I agree that the fact that several of the objects in the collection were “made in a particular time for a particular end,” do you think the way certain objects have aged affect their materiality? For example, would a newspaper clipping that was somehow perfectly preserved be experienced differently or presented differently in a museum than a newspaper clipping that had been aging for 80 years? Just some more food for thought!