Museum as a Mirror of Society

On January 18th, 2013, a lecture by the Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky entitled "Museum as a Mirror of Society" opened at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, in which he addressed the boundary between a false and genuine understanding of the purpose of a museum and its role in the contemporary world. The Director of the Hermitage began his lecture by laying out positions that he intended to disprove during the course of his lecture. They involved what so-called "philistines" imagine a museum to be. "There are three misconceptions about what a museum is. The first is that a museum is some kind of warehouse, where, who knows why, they store lots of old things with inventory labels. The second is that a museum is vault full of treasure that needs to be counted regularly, so that when "identical diamonds" are found, a few of them can be seized for "government" needs. The third misconception regarding museums is the "freeloading" attitude towards them, that a museum is a place to spend some leisure time for free. All three positions are birthmarks left over from late socialism and early capitalism, which speaks poorly of the cultural level of those who hold them." As Mikhail Piotrovsky emphasized, a correct understanding of the nature and purpose of a museum in contemporary society is critical for successful cooperation between the government apparatus and museums. "The government needs two things from museums. The first is supporting the competitiveness of culture, which should not be connected with the changing winds of politics. The second is the capacity for cultural leisure activities for its citizens which, in one way or another, turns out to be a condition for a relatively stable life in society," he noted. It is precisely a museum that can level out the contradictions and dissonances of modernity. "We live in a very complicated world, where two times two does not always equal four. Museums help people to deal with contradictions, since within its confines different historical aspects, different cultures and different cultures meet as equals. Mutually reflected in one another, they all have an equal right to be understood. This is why a museum is really a mirror. A mirror like a shield, a shield for those parts of culture that have lived out there time and open a place for the new. Things that are declared to be are do not enter into a conflict with novelty, but pass into museums, which enables us to avoid unnecessary conflicts. A mirror is also a reflection of one thing in another. In museums, a dialogue of cultures arises, which creates understandings and acceptance of the diversity of the world and the possibilities of existence in it, as they sometimes seem, tendencies that do not intersect or contradict one another." For the Director of the Hermitage, the conclusion is obvious; the "encyclopedic" quality of a museum, which removes the need to ask the question about the necessity and advisable of holding a Chapman brothers exhibit called "The End of Fun" in the courtyard of the Winter Palace (and this was a question the audience asked). "A museum of the Hermitage's caliber can afford to show various forms of art. When it comes to the exhibit of the British artists, exhibits by Picasso, Matisse and many other artists whose works have now become classics were considered provocation at the time," Mikhail Piotrovsky noted. So, if only because a museum turns out to be a place where such seeming different forces as culture (in the form of works of art) and politics (as the struggle between various ideas of what is "good" and "proper") meet, it can be called a mirror of society.

Part of the lecture was conducted as a free dialogue with the audience.