Art!

In 1948, the Currier Museum (then Gallery) of Art in Manchester, NH commissioned Charles Sheeler to create two studies on the industrial landscape of that city. The Gallery's trustees would choose one, from which Sheeler would create a larger scale oil painting and the museum would purchase. Here were the choices:

Charles Sheeler, Amoskeag Canal, 1948. Wikipedia.

Charles Sheeler, Amoskeag Mill Yard #1, 1948. Currier Museum of Art.

Which one draws you in? Sheeler created these paintings from photographs he took in Manchester. The first painting depicts a realistic landscape based directly on a single photograph. The Currier's Trustees (spoiler alert!) liked this one, and had Sheeler create the oil painting from it. The second painting (my favorite) was based on a photomontage; Sheeler layered two photographic negatives and painted the intersections of the mill buildings, creatively using light and color to suggest the contours of a phantom landscape beyond them. You'll have to go to the museum to see the photomontage, currently on view along with the paintings in the Currier's fun and unusual new exhibition The Secret Life of Art (Closing January 9, 2011!).

I mention this artwork here because it gets experimental with interpreting the industrial landscape. According to the National Gallery exhibit, Sheeler explained his process thus: "The idea is based on having realized that when we look at any object in nature there is the memory of the object we have previously seen that carrys [sic] over as overtones on the present. I combine the immediate image with things previously seen." What does this have to do with industrial history museums? The contrast between the two above paintings is in my mind the difference between:

• Recreating a commemorative facsimile of a historic work environment, a more traditional and often restrictive approach; and 
• Creating a new interpretive environment that explores different layers of history and memory, a dynamic space to explore these historic "overtones on the present."

How the heck does a museum do that?! For further inspiration: the two studies Sheeler created for the Currier were actually pretty tame in terms of layering and perspective. A couple years later, he created this awesome painting:

Charles Sheeler, New England Irrelevancies, 1953. National Gallery of Art.

Based on this awesome photomontage:

Charles Sheeler, Study for Improvisation on a Mill Town, 1948. National Gallery of Art.

So again, how might this dynamic/wacky approach to a work/industry museum look like? I guess that's what this blog is for. Since we're already talking about art, here's one possibility:

MASS MoCA

The MASS MoCA is an exciting contemporary art museum in North Adams, MA, that has taken up residence in the huge, partially unrenovated historic Arnold Print Works/Sprague Electric Co. complex. To be honest, the MoCA probably gets a lot more visitors as a contemporary art museum that respects, preserves, and (very) creatively interprets this industrial space than it would as, say, the "Arnold Print Works Historical Museum." It's fun, dynamic, immersive. The contrast of layering creative exploration into the utilitarian industrial environment in delightful and unexpected ways is fascinating. 

As a visitor to the MoCA, you are distinctly aware of your surroundings as a 19th century factory space, and the museum has made historical information available. "Straight-up" industrial history museums might harness some of this dynamism by creating spaces where visitors can explore layers of the factory environment in a relatively non-directed, non-didactic way, introducing art installations to add new life and creative perspective, and beginning to speak about history as a constant evolution and reinterpretation, rather than a series of fixed moments or static ideals.