Virtual Museum – General
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A museum is defined by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) as a ‘non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment’. A virtual museum (VM) (according to the ViMM working definition [1]) is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum through personalization, interactivity, user experience and richness of content.[2] Both the ‘physical’ museum (PhM) and the VM share a common commitment to the institutional validation of content and quality of experience through curatorial process, inherent in the ICOM definition.
As with a traditional museum, a virtual museum can be designed around specific objects (such as an art museum or a natural history museum), or can consist of online exhibitions created from primary or secondary resources (as, for example in a science museum). Moreover, a virtual museum can refer to the mobile or World Wide Web offerings of traditional museums (e.g., displaying digital representations of its collections or exhibits); or can be born digital content such as, 3D environments, net art, virtual reality and digital art. Often, discussed in conjunction with other cultural institutions, a museum by definition, is essentially separate from its sister institutions such as a library or an archive. Virtual museums are usually, but not exclusively delivered electronically when they are denoted as online museums, hypermuseum, digital museum, cybermuseums or web museums.
Source: Wikipedia, “Virtual museum”.
The Virtual Brooklyn Museum at The Cuyler/Mohawk Church
The Virtual Brooklyn Museum at the Cuyler/Mohawk Church is in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. The semi-eclectic museum, housed in the 1891 Cuyler Church, has several areas of interest. The overall theme of the museum is artistic expressions in the basic areas of content. The contents, whether historical or design oriented, is centered around the art deco and mid-century periods in America’s history.
One of the focuses of the virtual museum is to offer an overview of the art deco and mid-century periods of American design in furniture, furnishings and the decorative arts at their high points both nationally and internationally- before countries like Japan and recently Chinese and other Southeast Asian countries replaced American artistic ingenuity in these many areas. Included in these designs are the classical automobiles and their chrome hood ornaments from the art deco to mid-century periods of about 1935 – 1965.
All the items displayed on the Virtual Brooklyn Museum are at the Cuyler Mohawk Church and can be viewed by appointment. These include the hundreds of pieces of art deco and mid-century modern furniture, furnishings and hundreds of period decorative objects. The exhibition is designed to portray the American genius for design and arts during these periods and the outstanding workmanship involved in their production. Although all aspects of American design like clothing and jewelry have not been catalogued representative works such as the hundred plus beautiful umbrellas of the eras are used as examples of the individuals who participated in the overall artistic development in all areas of commercial design.
In almost all cases the displays are not meant essentially as an educational source for the areas displayed but rather as a guide to American arts and designs during the art deco and mid-century eras. The overall theme of the museum is artistic and illustrative representations of the eras. Therefore, in all possible cases where actual photographs are the only source of representation artistic illustrations are employed.
The area of Black and African Americana from the periods of 1915-1960 are represented as much as possible in illustrative forms. The thousand plus images from these years highlight the historical and positive images of Black and African Americans. Given the overwhelming negative images of Blacks during these periods (Sambo’s, Uncle Tom types, Aunt Gemima type images, etc.) historical and illustrative images are used to accentuate the relatively rare positive images seen by all people of Blacks during these times.
As the developer of the site has years of contact with China it seemed natural to collect art deco and mid-century artistic and decorative pieces popular during these times. Unlike the prevailing negative stereotypes of Blacks, the Chinese are depicted in non-discriminatory expressions. In general, Chinese images are related to pre-modern, Mandarin styles in China- mainly long-robed images of royalty, gods and scholars. The most prevalent historical images are those of the popular nation-wide Chinese restaurants.
The Major Themes Depicted:
- Black and Chinese Americana from the art deco and mid-century periods.
- Furniture including lighting from the two periods.
- Decorative and design object from the art deco and mid-century eras.
- The Cuyler/Mohawk Church physical building and its architectural development.
- The artistic works of Claire Klarewicz-Okser; both the pieces on display and a history of her artistic interpretations.
- The art collection belonging to the building. Displays of model cars and actual hood ornaments from the periods.
- The history of the church and the Mohawk steelworker Indians that used the church during these periods.
- Additionally, for personal reasons, the works of XSwamiX, noted California street comedian, philosopher, poet, political analyst, etc. from the 1960’s and 1970’s.