Critical Review

(Pip Dowie)

Critical Review of a Museum Exhibition

Museum Exhibitions change lives, maybe more than any media. Sculpture, painting, film, dance, theatre and music, all combined with the visitor into one experience. I believe that museum exhibitions have the opportunity to change lives.

Walking into the Plymouth museum, the amount of white pillars took to my attention that as a group; we would combine our ideas in creating the Nine Muses. A museum is originally from the Greek, which denotes a place, or temple dedicated the Muses, and hence a building set apart for study and the arts. The purpose of this exhibition is to highlight each space of the museum identifying a Muse. To accomplish this; we intend to have a live performance with costumed models and props showing people around the museum that identifies their muse abilities.

Imagine a hall with marbled floors, architectural floors for enclosed spaces open to light and air, tall white pillars surrounding the room; goddess muses standing in elegant postured positions waiting to enter your mind to show the space of the museum with their source of muse ability. Calliope the fair voiced, Clio the proclaimer, Erato the lovely, Euterpe the giver of pleasure, Melpomene the songstress, Polyhymia she of many hymns, Terpsichore the whirler, Thalia the flourishing, Urania the heavenly. The theme states back in the 5^th century BC, where the Greeks believed that the purpose of art was to edify, to create perfect forms of men and gods, illustrate the noble themes that express the triumph of Greek Civilisation. The live exhibition; the exhibit is in the form of a historical narrative explaining the religion of Greek mythology and also to give a source of inspiration.

The strengths of this exhibition are that it includes telling the story of the nine muses and the combined sources in the museum. It includes posters of the muses, photographs on how it has been organised together with costume design, props, film audio, lighting, a live performance from 12pm-3pm everyday for an hour in the duration of 3 months and funding.

The enjoyable parts of this would be the live performance; getting involved with the scenery of the museum, taking an interest in the background history and the arts. The exhibit may cause to lose interest if the guider talks about the exhibit too much; it would be better to talk about things briefly and well spoken about. Labelling everything in the exhibition will either be stated on the poster or on the models themselves that includes props of scrolls in their hand that has detailed information about the exhibition itself. Audio guides are also available when the muses are not there; there will be a television programme that goes on for an hour describing about the history, the muses and the mythology of it all. There are certain artefacts in the museum that states our history, which are the Greeks in the architecture of the building.

There are a few sculptural monuments scattered about the museum but also shows the ‘’ages of man’’ that means the stages of human existence on the earth according to Greek mythology. There are many different viewpoints from inside and outside the museum that will be of interest to go and explore. It will be quite entertaining as it all links ups with the history of the museum from West Europe culture and nature. That also identifies the centuries of preserving the arts.