I visited the Bowers Museum and will be using Lindauer's example of a museum critique to formulate a critique of a cultural museum. The Bowers Museum is a cultural or ethnological museum. According to their website, their vision is to "[c]elebrate world cultures through their arts" and their mission is to "[enrich] lives through the world's finest arts and cultures." The Bowers Museum focuses on a variety of world cultures and displays art from each of these cultures.
There are several museum entrances all located on the street level. Grassy lawns surround the Spanish-style building. The main entrance brings visitors through a grand arch with an open gate into a small garden area. The arch and gate gives a grand and exclusive air to the museum. According to one museum docent, the architecture was styled after a hacienda from the Spanish colonial times. When walking through the side entrances, the transition from city to museum space is sudden.
Displays setup along the edges of the museums were very well lit by natural light coming through the huge glass paneled windows. It gave a very open and relaxed atmosphere to the room. The inner rooms with other exhibits were dimly lit with spotlights highlighting the artifacts. There were also rather unobtrusive wooden benches placed in each exhibit. Throughout the rest of this critique, I will use examples from the Pacific Islands and Chinese exhibit.
The display style of the Pacific Islands exhibit was that of an anthropological exhibit as explained by Lindauer. I particularly enjoyed the Pacific Islands exhibit. It is one that I had not visited before. The visitor must enter through a couple of heavy glass doors labeled with the exhibit name. The space inside is dark with dark colored walls. The exhibit attempts to geographically orient the visitor by displaying maps of Polynesia toward the entrance. As I walked into the museum, there was the sound of birds and a forest. This provided a more engaging atmosphere. There were freestanding cases and cases lined against walls full of different objects. But next to each object there was always a white plaque providing a name and description of the peoples, time, and function related to the object. There were also large red signs posted along the walls telling the story of Polynesian peoples. They had plenty of text written in a text-book authoritative manner but also had pictures of these peoples along with it. The text provided a better cultural context for each section of exhibited objects, it led the visitor through Polynesian peoples' lives in a narrative-like fashion. Unobtrusively against the walls were also huge printed pictures of Polynesian peoples.
I was very satisfied with the engagement of different senses and context provided for each cultural object. It was great to see how the museum emphasized the people who are connected to these objects and not just the objects themselves.
By contrast, this was not done the Chinese exhibit. This is interesting to me since they are two exhibits in the same museum, with different approaches to exhibiting different cultures and objects. The China exhibit had jades, elaborate clothes, ivory carvings, a chess set, and pottery displayed in more of an aesthetic style rather than an anthropological one. The information on the white plaques gave a basic description and time period of the object sometimes describing its function. There were also cloth scrolls along the walls explaining a little about the dynasties within Chinese history and a plaque explaining origin and types of jade along with certain beliefs and association held with each type.
Although some information about Chinese peoples' thoughts, beliefs, and lifestyles were displayed this exhibit was completely different from the Pacific Islands one. There were no pictures of Chinese peoples along the walls. Emphasis was placed on the objects. There was also minimum description of how the objects related to the Chinese people. This exhibit seemed to be more of an artistic rather than ethnographic display.
Overall, I believe the Bowers Museum is a well-designed cultural museum. They have many public programs that go along with exhibits to attract and involve the public. The exhibit rooms successfully encouraged discussion. There was interactive carts where museum docents interacted with the public to explain each culture and artifacts. Docents also actively interacted with the public coming up to visitors and asking if they have questions. The family festival presented on the day I visited the Bowers included face painting, food, and shows of Spanish dances. It brought a livelier and more family-oriented atmosphere to the museum.