Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

36
interactions specifi c to this place, or
to all the images and ideas that this
place might evoke.
2. As a result of the act of displaying,
exhibitions are seen today
as one of the main functions of the
museum which, according to the
latest defi nition by ICOM, “acquires,
conserves, researches, communicates
and exhibits the tangible and intangible
heritage of humanity…” According
to the PRC model (Reinwardt
Academie), exhibition is part of the
museum’s more general function of
communication, which also includes
policies for education and publication.
From this point of view exhibitions
are a fundamental feature
of museums, in so far as these prove
themselves to be excellent places for
sensory perception, by presenting
objects to view (that is, visualisation),
monstration (the act of demonstrating
proof), ostention (initially the
holding up of sacred objects for adoration).
The visitor is in the presence
of concrete elements which can be
displayed for their own importance
(pictures, relics), or to evoke concepts
or mental constructs (transubstantiation,
exoticism). If museums can be
defi ned as places of musealisation
and visualisation, exhibitions then
appear as the “explanatory visualisation
of absent facts through objects,
and methods used to display these,
used as signs” (Schärer, 2003). Showcases
and picture rails are artifi ces
which serve to separate the real
world and the imaginary world of
museums. They serve no other role
than to mark objectivity, to guarantee
distance (creating a distancing,
as Bertolt Brecht said of the theatre)
and let us know that we are in another
world, a world of the artifi cial,
of the imaginary.
3. Exhibitions, when they are
understood as the entirety of the
objects displayed, include musealia,
museum objects or “real things”,
along with substitutes (casts, copies,
photos, etc.), display material (display
tools, such as show cases, partitions
or screens), and information tools
(such as texts, fi lms or other multimedia),
and utilitarian signage. From
this perspective the exhibition works
as a specifi c communication system
(McLuhan and Parker, 1969; Cameron,
1968) based on “real things”
and accompanied by other artefacts
which allow the visitor to better identify
their signifi cance. In this context,
each of the elements present in the
exhibition (museum objects, substitutes,
texts, etc.) can be defi ned as an
exhibit. In such a situation it is not a
question of rebuilding reality, which
cannot be relocated in the museum
(a “real thing” in a museum is already
a substitute for reality and an exhibition
can only offer images which
are analogous with that reality). The
exhibition communicates reality
through this mechanism. Exhibits in
an exhibition work as signs (semiotics),
and the exhibition is presented
as a communication process which
is most often unilateral, incomplete
and interpretable in ways that are
often very different. The term exhi-