Medium of the Museum

Welcome to the first episode of season 2. We're kicking the season off by talking about the male gaze in the museum with the help of art historian and writer Elise Bell! We are so delighted to have Elise on the podcast. We consider the art historical developments of the male gaze, its existence in popular culture and the way contemporary artists look to upset and subvert it. What are the implications of having these types of artworks in the museum space? We think about ways that this patriarchal way of seeing and being seen can be constructively moved away from, and talk about the importance of education. \r\n\r\nThe Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you so email us mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, or contact us on Twitter @MediumMuseum or Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. \r\n\r\nElise Bell can be found on Twitter @eliseybell.\r\n\r\nOur recommendation and further reading\r\nBen Davis, 'I Looked Through All 5,000 Images in Beeple's $69 MIllion Magnum Opus. What I Found Isn't So Pretty', ArtNet\r\nhttps://news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656?utm_content=from_artnetnewsbar&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EU%2018%20March%20AM&utm_term=EUR%20Daily%20Newsletter%20%5BMORNING%5D\r\n\r\nJohn Berger, Ways of Seeing  (1972)\r\n \r\nLaura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)\r\n\r\nLorraine O'Grady, 'Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity', 1992-4\r\n\r\nRoberta Smith, 'Paula Modersohn-Becker and Her Thwarted Ambitions' The New York Times, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/arts/design/paula-modersohn-becker-and-her-thwarted-ambitions.html\r\n\r\nMany thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle! \r\n

Hello! Welcome to season 2 of the Medium of the Museum podcast by Alice Acland and Natasha Waddell! After a slightly longer than expected hiatus, we are so excited to be back. We bring you up to date on what we've been up to (not a huge amount...) and run through what you can expect to hear from us in this upcoming season. We're going to be taking a more personal approach, thinking about the way we curate the spaces around us, and the implicit ideas we bring to museums and galleries.   We cant wait to get going! Our first episode of Season 2 is going to be released on the 15th March so make sure you're subscribed to the Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts and follow us Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum for more updates.  We would love to hear from you so email us mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, or contact us on Twitter @MediumMuseum or Instagram @mediumofthemuseum.  Speak soon!

Thank you so much to our listeners who have so kindly and thoughtfully contributed their thoughts for our sixth and final episode of season one of the Medium of the Museum! This episode includes complications of responses to a number of questions and Alice and Tash have asked their listeners, and we discuss our thoughts about the issues the conversations raise. We will be back for season 2 at the end of January so keep your eyes and ears peeled! The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in a modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at, mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @mediummuseum, and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe! You can listen to the Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle! 

In our fifth episode, 'Fake it til you make it!' your hosts Alice Acland and Tash Waddell discuss the differences between a 'fake' and a 'forgery' and the roles they play within museums and Art History at large. In this episode we discuss if you can really trust a museum, how conservation and restoration  can affect art works and  if you would mind seeing a replica of your favourite painting in a museum? The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in a modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at, mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @mediummuseum, and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe! You can listen to the Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Our Recommendation:  "Deepfakes: five ways in which they are brilliant business opportunities" — https://theconversation.com/deepfakes-five-ways-in-which-they-are-brilliant-business-opportunities-131591 Links for further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/27/wasnt-cock-a-hoop-fooled-experts-britains-master-art-forgerSalvator Mundi: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/christies-releases-condition-report-for-leonardos-salvator-mundi#:~:text=Modestini%20then%20professionally%20restored%20the,back%20closer%20to%20Leonardo's%20original. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/14/leonardo-da-vinci-mystery-why-is-his-450m-masterpiece-really-being-kept-under-wraps-salvator-mundi https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/the-louvre-wants-this-450-million-leonardo-in-its-big-show-but-its-mystery-owner-appears-to-be-balking/2019/10/15/85bc5094-eec2-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html Oliver Watson - Definition of Fake and Forgery : https://www.academia.edu/1130702/Fakes_and_forgeries_in_Islamic_pottery Watson and Ferguson article: http://islamicartssn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/5._Fakes_and_Forgeries-1.pdf Al-Biruni Manuscript: https://collections.ed.ac.uk/iconics/record/51395?highlight=al+biruni+ Yves Klein’s Venus : https://kam.illinois.edu/resource/conservation-venus-bleue-yves-klein Vice documentary: Sean Greenhalgh : https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp5e8y/best-of-2015-the-year-in-art-crime Replicas in museum: https://www.msamlin.com/en/chart-hub/english/are-museums-displaying-fakes.html 

In our fifth episode, 'Fake it til you make it!' your hosts Alice Acland and Tash Waddell discuss the differences between a 'fake' and a 'forgery' and the roles they play within museums and Art History at large. In this episode we discuss if you can really trust a museum, how conservation and restoration  can affect art works and  if you would mind seeing a replica of your favourite painting in a museum? The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in a modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at, mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @mediummuseum, and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe! You can listen to the Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Our Recommendation:  "Deepfakes: five ways in which they are brilliant business opportunities" — https://theconversation.com/deepfakes-five-ways-in-which-they-are-brilliant-business-opportunities-131591 Links for further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/27/wasnt-cock-a-hoop-fooled-experts-britains-master-art-forgerSalvator Mundi: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/christies-releases-condition-report-for-leonardos-salvator-mundi#:~:text=Modestini%20then%20professionally%20restored%20the,back%20closer%20to%20Leonardo's%20original. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/14/leonardo-da-vinci-mystery-why-is-his-450m-masterpiece-really-being-kept-under-wraps-salvator-mundi https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/the-louvre-wants-this-450-million-leonardo-in-its-big-show-but-its-mystery-owner-appears-to-be-balking/2019/10/15/85bc5094-eec2-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html Oliver Watson - Definition of Fake and Forgery : https://www.academia.edu/1130702/Fakes_and_forgeries_in_Islamic_pottery Watson and Ferguson article: http://islamicartssn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/5._Fakes_and_Forgeries-1.pdf Al-Biruni Manuscript: https://collections.ed.ac.uk/iconics/record/51395?highlight=al+biruni+ Yves Klein’s Venus : https://kam.illinois.edu/resource/conservation-venus-bleue-yves-klein Vice documentary: Sean Greenhalgh : https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp5e8y/best-of-2015-the-year-in-art-crime Replicas in museum: https://www.msamlin.com/en/chart-hub/english/are-museums-displaying-fakes.html 

In our fourth episode, 'Money and the Museum' your hosts Alice Acland and Tash Waddell discuss the history, social politics and discourses around money and art and its manifestation in museum spaces. We talk about how blockbuster exhibitions can be a useful scholarly impetus but also how the 'spectacle' of the modern exhibition can sometimes be prioritised at the expense of other facets of artist's work. We discuss the museum gift shop (of which we are both big fans!) and the future of the exhibition as a tourist destination in the age of Covid-19.  The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe! You can listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Our recommendations The National Gallery tour of the exhibition 'Artemisia' (£8 to watch the film) https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/artemisia-curator-led-exhibition-film BBC 4, 'Inside Museums, Episode 4' (Katy Hessel of the Great Women Artists and 'Artemisia' curator Letizia Treves tour the exhibition) (Free to watch) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ng7w Links for further reading 'What Makes a Blockbuster Exhibition', Google Arts and Culture https://artsandculture.google.com/story/what-makes-a-blockbuster-exhibition-royal-academy-of-arts/YAUxkfQOWgoe3Q?hl=en 'Blockbuster Exhibitions Reimagined Online', ArtFund https://www.artfund.org/whats-on/more-to-see-and-do/features/how-to-stay-connected-to-museums-online-10-june-24-june-2020 S.J. Freedberg, Gervase Jackston-Stops and Richard E. Spear, 'On "Art History and the 'Blockbuster' Exhibition"' https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051024?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents 'Future of the Blockbuster' Talk by the Association for Art History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4XA6fQxj3U&t=3121s Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle!

Thank you so much to our first ever guest on the podcast, Julia Westerman! Julia is a fashion and art historian and on our third episode, talks with Tash and Alice about the difference between fashion and clothing, what fashion is considered worthy of museum representation, the gendered nature of the way we academically perceive fashion and how museums can best display fashion within museums.  The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. Julia Westerman can be found on Instagram @Julia.Westerman and on Twitter @JuliaWesterman9. You can listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Links for further reading 'Gone Global: Fashion as Art?' https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html?auth=login-email&login=email 'Fashion may be art, but does it belong in a museum?' https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/04/26/fashion-may-be-art-but-does-it-belong-in-a-museum/ Julia Petrov, 'Fashion, History, Museums Inventing the Display of Dress' https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/fashion-history-museums-inventing-the-display-of-dress/ch4-intervisuality-displaying-fashion-as-art 'Top 10 Most Iconic Art and Fashion Collaboration' https://magazine.artland.com/top-10-iconic-art-fashion-collaborations/ Francois Colbert, 'Marketing Culture and the Arts' Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle!

Thank you so much to our first ever guest on the podcast, Julia Westerman! Julia is a fashion and art historian and on our third episode, talks with Tash and Alice about the difference between fashion and clothing, what fashion is considered worthy of museum representation, the gendered nature of the way we academically perceive fashion and how museums can best display fashion within museums.  The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. Julia Westerman can be found on Instagram @Julia.Westerman and on Twitter @JuliaWesterman9. You can listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Links for further reading 'Gone Global: Fashion as Art?' https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html?auth=login-email&login=email 'Fashion may be art, but does it belong in a museum?' https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/04/26/fashion-may-be-art-but-does-it-belong-in-a-museum/ Julia Petrov, 'Fashion, History, Museums Inventing the Display of Dress' https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/fashion-history-museums-inventing-the-display-of-dress/ch4-intervisuality-displaying-fashion-as-art 'Top 10 Most Iconic Art and Fashion Collaboration' https://magazine.artland.com/top-10-iconic-art-fashion-collaborations/ Francois Colbert, 'Marketing Culture and the Arts' Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle!

In our second episode, 'Please Do Not Touch!' your hosts Alice Acland and Tash Waddell discuss the role of the senses in museum, and the ways that particular senses, such as sight are encouraged, where others, such as touch and taste (!) are discouraged. We talk about the implications of these decisions on the meaning of museum objects and how this has changed during the pandemic, as many museums and galleries look to exhibit their collections online.  The Medium of the Museum is a conversation twice a month which examines the responsibilities of museums and galleries in modern society through a lens of history, culture and thematic insights. We would love to hear from you! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. You can listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Links to further reading  Smartify App (our recommendation of the week) https://smartify.org/ 'Multisensory Exhibitions: Bond with Your Audiences by Appealing to Their Senses' http://www.wearemuseums.com/multisensory-exhibitions-bond-with-your-audiences-by-appealing-to-their-senses/ 'IK Prize 2015: Tate Sensorium' https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/ik-prize-2015-tate-sensorium 'The Museum of the Senses: Experiencing Art and Collections' by Constance Classen 'The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory and Space' edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone Lanham Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle!

Welcome to our first ever episode, 'What is a Museum?' Listen to your hosts Alice Acland and Tash Waddell discuss the origin and history of the museum and talk about key issues in the museum sphere at play in 2020, such as commercialisation, blockbuster exhibitions and the politics of representation.  We would love to hear from you! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. You can listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts. Links to further reading  'ICOM Museum Definition' https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/ 'How Museums Evolved Over Time From Private Collections to Modern Institutions' https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-museums/ Anna Cline, 'The Evolving Role of the Exhibition its Impact on Art and Culture' https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1275&context=theses Michael Glenwood, 'Museums' disturbing transformation: relentless commercialisation' https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-knight-art-commercialization-20150719-column.html 'Cabinets of Curiosities and the Origin of Collecting' https://www.sothebysinstitute.com/news-and-events/news/cabinets-of-curiosities-and-the-origin-of-collecting Holly Pittaway, 'Politics at Play: Space, Power, and Representation at BMAG' https://www.redbrick.me/politics-at-play-space-power-and-representation-at-bmag/ Andrew McClellan, 'The Art Museum from Boulée to Bilbao' (2008) (really good overview of historical changes of museums alongside thematic discussion of Commercialism, Restitution, Ideals and Mission) Many thanks to Immy Patron for creating our podcast graphic and Theo Young-Smith for our jingle!

Welcome to the the Medium of the Museum podcast! Join your hosts, Alice Acland and Natasha Waddell for a conversation twice a month about all things museums and art galleries! We'll be discussing the curatorial decisions made in museums and galleries to unpick, challenge and explore wider art historical discourses.  Think of this podcast as your audio toolkit to examine and enjoy museum and gallery spaces. From historical burdens, to colonialism, gentrification to restitution, artists interventions to the male gaze, the Medium of the Museum is an informative and entertaining conversation between two friends that will help you assess what really museums are really made of.  Get involved! Email us at mediumofthemuseum@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @MediumMuseum and Instagram @mediumofthemuseum. Listen to Medium of the Museum wherever you get your podcasts.