19th September 2011

Today’s museums seen by postgraduate students / 2

Here is the continuation of the selection of ideas put forward by students from the Postgraduate Course in Museum Management. As you can see, the new waves of museum people have plenty of critical force. Let’s listen carefully to what they have to say.

Intelligent interactive museography: not to trivialization

‘Currently, we can still find museums that belong in the nineteenth century, and others that have exaggerated the formula and become theme parks for family fun.’
Núria C. Read more »

7th September 2011

Today’s museums seen by postgraduate students / 1

What role should museums have today? What are they like? What should they be like? We asked the students on the Postgraduate Course in Museum Management to reflect on these questions when they were still in the first term. The result was a first-rate collection of ideas, criticisms, questions and suggestions. What we offer you here is a selection — hard to make, I can assure you! — grouped by sub-theme. As you will see, in some of their formulations they have really put into practice what we asked them to do in applying a critical eye. You will also see that there are conflicting opinions. That is the strength and the beauty of collective participation — a participation that we in the museums are still learning to encourage and integrate.

So as not breach any blogger laws about the length of articles, this post will be in two parts.

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20th July 2011

“Feasting on Paris. Picasso 1900-1907″. An exhibition readily accessible to all

Here at the Museu Picasso we have at last got round to tackling a very important pending aspect of accessibility: accessibility of communication. We have long been aware of the need to make accessible to everyone not just the physical space of the museum but also our content, and had marked it out as a priority, as we noted in a previous post.

Preparation of the exhibition “Feasting on Paris. Picasso 1900-1907” gave us the perfect opportunity to incorporate communication accessibility measures and implement these in the exhibition process. In this task we have benefitted from the invaluable input of Barcelona’s Institut de Cultura (ICUB), guiding us through the process and providing support at each step. For some time now the ICUB has been providing the city’s museums with the tools they need to improve in this facet of communication in general, and especially in the production of temporary exhibitions. Read more »

21st April 2011

The Museums are going Mobile / 2. Notes from #mw2011

Just as Social Media were the key theme of the 2010 conference, at Museums and the Web 2011 the main topic was Mobile. A lot of sessions, workshops and debates were devoted to it and it was present in many of the stands and conversations. We even had a Mobile Parade! Here we will focus on the Mobile Strategies in Museums workshop run by Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy & Initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution, and some of the tips from the Crit Mobile Room.

Image from http://www.museumapp.nl

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7th October 2010

Presentation of the 2010-1011 Programme: a lot of work done and a lot still to do!

This week we presented our programme for the 2010-2011 season, which we are particularly pleased with because it embodies the results of the Museum’s evolution and the main objectives we set ourselves three years ago:

• To promote research and knowledge from the Museum itself as a basis on which to undertake projects;

• To continue to review Picassian narratives and the critical reception of the artist’s work in the area of Barcelona and Spanish.

This programme is a proposal of greater complexity than in previous years, and most of the projects have been generated in-house with the aim of continue to make the Museum a space for debate and participation. Read more »

9th April 2010

Museums as part of society – and vice versa

As head of the Visitor Services department I have just spent three days visiting some of the most famous museums in the city of London – the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

In all of these museums I had the pleasure of meeting the heads of the various departments responsible for visitor services and of discussing with them issues to do with guided tours, audio guides, activities, accessibility, complaints, signage and tour management, including others.

Like the vast majority of cultural institutions in Britain, these museums believe that art and culture are not a luxury but a part of the DNA of a country or city and, as such, a necessity. Read more »

15th February 2010

Love at First Sight: how we select the catalogue’s cover

Imagine you’re browsing among the art catalogues in a bookshop, without looking for anything in particular. The first thing that strikes you about all of the books there — from a distance, even before you can read the titles — is the colourful covers. Reproductions of famous paintings, intriguing details, familiar styles, indecipherable typefaces… you stroll over to a table next to the shelves and pick up a catalogue. Could you say just what it was that attracted you to it? What made you go for this one rather than some other? If the cover had been different, would have you have looked inside it anyway? And when you did open it, was the interest that the cover aroused in you confirmed by the contents, or were you disappointed?

We tend to think that in the case of an art catalogue, like any other book, the cover is the bait dangled in front of the reader, the siren song we hope will entrance you. Choosing one design over another is not simply a matter of taste. The decision is made according to what we want to say to you, what part of the content we want to focus on, what we believe will attract your attention. Read more »

14th December 2009

If you can’t come to the museum, the museum will come to you

Getting closer the users, making the museum more accessible, taking the museum where there are public who can’t visit it, are lines that we are working on to open up. Since the beginning of the year at the Museu Picasso we have started, little by little, but surely, to intensify the relation with other entities and collectives of Barcelona. There are various reasons for this: to establish relations with those closest to us, with those who can add value and with those who need it most.

Today we will talk about the collaboration of the Museum with the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, internationally recognised for its specialisation in paediatrics. Since October we have held, once a week, a workshop of masks and storytelling based on the works of Picasso.

Read more »

23rd November 2009

Protecting Picassos and people

It is well-known that, for the public, security is an unknown and restricted topic. However, as part of the major aim of the Picasso Museum to get close to you, of integrating an online community, we would like to give you the chance of taking a look at everything that is not accessible to the public in general, and therefore to show you how we combine the protection of both art and people in the museum.

A different conception: in search of proximity. Firstly, it should be said that in recent years a change has taken place in terms of the behaviour of the figure of the security guard, in the sense that he or she doesn’t have the exclusive role of carrying out surveillance, but also that of attending the various needs of the public, be it for information or to receive help.

Adapting ourselves to the latest technology: watching from the heart of the museum. Thanks to the commitment of the director and management around 5 months ago, we started up the new Coordination Centre (CECOR), both for security as well as for emergencies. It currently represents one of the most modern centres from among the cultural centres of the country, thanks to the incorporation of the latest technologies of the market. A migration has been undertaken of all the old systems to an IP system (Internet Protocol), and as such everything is now digitalised.

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27th October 2009

The Sound of Painting

Has it ever occurred to you that we can listen to a painting?

A starting point: Picasso’s 1897 painting Science and Charity. A sound intervention. This is the proposal developed by playwright Victòria Szpunberg and sound engineer Lucas Ariel as part of the programme Seen by… Visions of the Museum’s Collection this October, putting forward a new critical vision and personal appreciation of Picasso and his work. Far removed from conventional readings and art-historical interpretations of the artist, this fresh, unusual, daring, experimental proposal presented itself as the starting point for a possible investigation into the ’sound painting’. It has proved interesting for many reasons.

Szpunberg and Ariel start with a picture from the artist’s early academic period, a religious subject that is perhaps not one of his most outstanding works, and by means of a peripheral figure, an invalid, a model, a woman of little significance in Picasso’s life and work, and establish a narrative discourse in sound.

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