Reviewed y Mary Case

Like the Nicolas Cage character in the movie Adaptation, assigned to write a movie script from the book The Orchid Thief, I feel unqualified to review the reasoned arguments Hilde S. Hein presents with rigor and grace in The Museum in Transition: A Philosophical Perspective. In some ways, this book has reawakened me to the reasons I first entered museum practice: the ethics, the diversity, the combined rich resources of objects, the experience, the learning, the people. On the other hand, Hein says little that hasn't been said before. But listen up! She says it so well.

Writing from a philosopher's point of view, Hein asserts that "museums materially accomplish what philosophers do conceptually," i.e. examine the narratives of life, the life of the mind. She tackles the intellectual underpinnings of contemporary museum work, asking such questions as:

• Should museums be in the business of producing experiences, and if so, to what extent should that preempt their more traditional occupations?

• What is signified by representing objects as an instrumental part of an experience?

• If personal subjectivity grounds all experience, can one's individual's experience matter more than someone else's?

• What is the legitimate power of the professionals who care for objects, create experiences, and determine learning objectives?

• Do museums have a choice in selecting their communities? Is there a generic museum community, or do different museums have distinct communities?

The author of The Exploratorium: The Museum as Laboratory (1990) and associate professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross, Hein begins by providing a philosophical context for various museum disciplines.
Art museums, she says, face the polemic "imperative to make art accessible" by collecting culturally significant objects. Since such objects "do not invariably appeal to contemporary tastes, it is difficult to acquire objects whose aesthetic merit is spontaneously evident to today's noncollecting museum audience." From my own work, I know that curators lament intellectual constraints even more than a lack of funds. Educating the public, particularly donors to the collections, about what makes something beautiful is one of the greatest curatorial challenges.

Science museums give currency to theoretical ideas by teaching "through objects, rather than about them," writes Hein. She believes these museums succeed by enlisting visitors to complete an experience (particularly by invoking the "universal process of science") rather than by presenting stand-alone information. As a result, science museums propel the visitor into the wider world rather than toward introspection or reflection.

History museums acquire objects because they hold the ascribed record of the past, rather than because of their "intrinsic aesthetic or material worth," says Hein, though beauty does count for something. Consider, for example, an incised and shaped silver pitcher or the undulating line and texture of a carved, upholstered Belter chair. The problem, of course, is that museum messages are received by individuals who come equipped with an array of learning styles, and levels of interest, and receipt competencies (e.g. reading ability, attention span, knowledge of the topic, ore even how tired or tense a person is). She also discusses children's museums, historic house museums, and visitor centers).

Hein also offers some insight to those seeking deeper connections with their communities. As she explains, we tend "to associate community with warmth and intimacy and therefore to regard membership in a positive light." But, she adds, every community includes people who are considered outsiders, not to mention things and ideas that originated beyond the community's boundaries. Thus, as museums reach out beyond their traditional visitors and supporters with "cognitive camaraderie," they shouldn't be surprised if they encounter disinterest and even hostility. The museum insider "categories of meaning and rank" don't travel well, Hein says. Outsiders may well reject museum dialogue if they believe it denigrates or objectifies their ancestral memory.

In the chapter titled "Transcending the Object" Hein shows her philosophical mettle, conveying Plato's position that objects are inherently unknowable since they are subject to alteration. She cautions that these "charming mnemonic aids" lead to various interpretations and are always subject to inaccuracies and misunderstandings from someone's point of view. Objects create illusion. They are "captive things" that never speak for themselves, says Hein. "Their voice is not independent of the semiotic systems that define them," a truth we sometimes forget as we face the daily pressures of museum work.

But Hein misses the point when she states that "experience becomes educationally meaningful" only when shared. Until an experience flows into a "common domain," she writes, "it has no more educational efficacy than uninterpreted objects do," and she defines learning as access into public dialogue. Isn't there more to learning than that? What about my own discovery of the emotional power of Rothko's paintings? I've never told anyone about that before, but my experience hasn't changed because I've done so now.

Hein does provide a cogent examination of how people learn from objects, listing the ways objects may be contextualized: during their creation, primary use, or reuse in a museum setting. She reminds us that objects are as "semiologically thick as words," which underscores the function of museums as important research sites and that museum presentations are a form of human literacy, a mediated system of knowing.

In the past four decades, educational theorists have turned away from "the 'banking model' of deposit and investment that seemed to have been legislated by behaviorism and positivistic epistemology" toward systems advocated in earlier decades by Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, and Maria Montessori. This shift exposes the student to process as well as subject matter, and considers an understanding of the individual as primary to learning. Such informal learning systems are ideal for museums, where creativity and synergy have been a hallmark of learning. Today, as I see museum education programs train their sights on Standards of Learning and "teaching to the test," I wonder if we have become so dependent upon the school district's money or the number of children in the gift shop that we have abandoned our primary mission.

Hein believes that both museums and philosophical aesthetic theory have been moving from an appreciation of aesthetics and subject matter to an interest in the individual experience. She notes that art museums offer one way of studying beauty, but that we can look to other types of museums for aesthetic stimulation. She reminds us of the "aesthetic satisfaction presumed to lie in the process of intellectual pursuit..." She points out that the "hooks" and "holds" designed to keep visitors engaged in exhibits are the same as those employed by the commercial enterprises whose aim is persuasion. She poses the question about intrinsic motivation that has engaged psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Why do people do what they are not required to do? Hein's answer: aesthetic gratification. If she is right, this gives museums further support for the time and trouble we take to install beauty into our exhibitions and programs.

In her conclusion, Hein references the multicolored beach ball as a popular metaphor for museum work. But she misunderstands the role of the beach ball, which represents any organizational issue or opportunity. Rather than keep the ball aloft, as Hein suggests, museum leaders need to understand all the stripes so that they can make informed decisions. The only way to see all the stripes without distortion is to solicit different perspectives from everyone with a legitimate point of view. The challenge, of course, is to understand who has standing to speak on behalf of the objects and the learners, staff, volunteers, patrons, and visitors who engage with the museum.

I suspect you won't agree with everything in The Museum in Transition: A Philosophical Perspective, but you will relish the elegance of Hein's arguments and the beautiful way she uses the English language. My review hardly does justice to the results of this extraordinary mind at work, in the flow, as Csikszentmihalyi would say. Read the book slowly, a few pages at a time, and savor Hein's views of the field you know so well.

This review was first published in Museum News, Sept/Oct 2003.