How could I resist this?

Seb Chan talks about the “exhibition” The Odditorium”.

The Odditoreum’s small exhibition component is 18 ‘odd’ objects that are not currently in storage. Shaun Tan, a celebrated author was invited to write ten of the labels… Seven labels were written by young children (from Stanmore Public School) to inspire other visitors to write their own ‘labels’ during the holidays.

Nina Simon picked up on it (obviously from the reaction to the participatory elements).

That discussion has traditionally focused on visitors’ ability to distinguish real artifacts from props and the question of whether an experience with a reproduction is lesser than, equivalent to, or superior to engaging with “the real thing.”

But in the Odditoreum’s case, it’s not the object that’s in doubt but the interpretation. The objects are real, the labels absurd.

And it was Paul Orselli’s comment that got me thinking.

Is “making up meanings” for objects (real or not, in a museum or not) really the same as “making alternative meanings”?

This all seems more like a way to start a creative writing class than an exhibition.

Personally, I like the idea of telling lies in museums. You can make up such wonderful lies. That is, ultimately, what makes a good book. But Paul Orselli’s comment is right, there is a difference between “alternative” and “made-up”. Whilst this exhibition was certainly aimed to drag out the creativity of the museum visitor, I feel it touches on another issue: the subjective/objective in museums. I can’t approach the topic of when something shifts from the traditionally objective to the radically subjective without bringing up the Good Doctor Thompson.

Hunter S. Thompson invented Gonzo Journalism almost by accident. He was sent to the cover the Kentucky Derby. Instead, fuelled by a variety of drugs, he faxed in his almost random notes about the crowds he saw and the bizarre culture around him through the completely unreliable eyes of intoxication. The most important aspect was the he was in it. He was in the story and was the story. Journalism was supposed to be about pure objective observation. The point was not that he lied (of coursed he “lied”). The point was, as he put it, that he took a novelists approach the journalism, hoping to receive and transmit more of the Truth. Maybe then more people would give a damn.

Now, the Powerhouse Museum asked an illustrator and author of children’s books to write the copy of an exhibition. Then they asked people to write their own. What you got was a view straight into their psyche. When Thompson wrote, you looked into his eyes into the eyes of the 70s American Alternative Culture.

This year, Bourriaud names his exhibition Altermodern and falls just shy of giving it the subtitle, “I Made This Word Up”. He displays art that fits his, arguably subjective, globalised outlook towards consumerism and universal rights.

The shift is often painful. Museums pride themselves on their objectivity, often confusing it for authority. Thompson proves that hi subject Gonzo Journalism can provide just as much authority on a given subject, but it did not mean the style was generally accepted or even had a particularly long shelf life. There are few journalist who managed to take it forward with the majority of subjective journalism being the remit of idiot celebrities, banging out mostly ghost written columns about they people they know.

I choose the term Gonzo Exhibition Design carefully. I wish to highlight the novelist approach rather than drug-addled narration.  I also refuse to use the “New” prefix of the preceding movement “New Journalism” (Yes, I know the irony). I often hear that museums are there to tell the stories of objects. When this was tried objectively, we ended up with Kopytoff-style Object Biographies. Good Lord, just tell stories. The best stories are about made-up alternatives.