December 2010
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Chagall @ Rome's Ara Pacis
Ara Pacis Pays Tribute to Marc Chagall on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of His Death http://t.co/X9B5xuF
(via @AddThis)
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Schools & Museums
Glancing through an old (1967) booklet I’ve found in my archive.
Written by Paola Della Pergola, it was published in Rome by the National Association of Italian Museums (Associazione Nazionale dei Musei Italiani). Its title: “La scuola e il museo” (i.e. School & Museum).
It deals with a new (at that time) approach to history of art in schools, involving museums as...
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The cyber world war: As WikiLeaks protestors... →
nerdgasms:
This week, computer hackers sent one of the world’s biggest credit card companies into meltdown in revenge for cutting off donations to the WikiLeaks website. The attack by a group called ‘Anonymous’ said MasterCard had been targeted — along with PayPal — for freezing the account of the site. The cyber attack revealed the chaos hackers can achieve. So what would happen in an...
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Feed the fish
aqsakal:
They’ll follow your mouse pointer around because they hope you’re about to drop some feed into the aquarium by clicking.
Mesmerizing! :-)
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“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad...”
– Stephen King via samara-g. (via tobia)
Not bad as a wrapping it up definition, in fact…
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clipped wings: Helping museums in Afghanistan →
aqsakal:
Afghanistan – a never-ending hell on earth, where thousands have died and scores of thousands have been wounded in only the latest years of struggle, and where you might think that no sane civilian would venture voluntarily.
And yet one quietly-spoken Roman with a direct, dark brown gaze and…
Nice picture, isn’t it? Though the attire is Uzbek, not Tajik, there in the...
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Students on Strike - 5
Helicopters fly over my head in Rome, with their menacing, circular noise. There’s many of them, and it sounds really unpleasant.
Students, everywhere in Italy, are protesting against the “involutionary” education reform. But Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini says: “I don’t really understand why they are against my decree…” (via Mattino Cinque TV,...
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A Museum Professional in Afghanistan →
Geoffrey Watson, former Press Officer at the British Embassy in Rome, interviewed me a few weeks ago: “…So what does an Italian museums’ expert do in Afghanistan?”
The answer to that (and many more questions) came out today on Wanted in Rome, the English language magazine in Rome. Have a look! :-)
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“The Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an...”
– From the Newseum’s Overview.
The Newseum is located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
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MACRO, Rome - 3
Giving the last final touches to my risk assessment of Odile Decq’s new annex at MACRO museum in Rome.
Will be out after Christmas, probably. Maybe on SlideShare (I’m a great friend of open access policies…) ;-)
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Afghanistan - A Cultural Centre in Mazar-e Sharif →
My article about the UNESCO sponsored Bactria cultural centre in Mazar-e Sharif has been published by e-conservation magazine on issue #17, a couple days ago.
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Students on Strike - 4
After vast anti-governmental demonstrations and some heavy clashes with the police in many Italian cities on 14 December, new students’ strikes are announced starting from today until Wednesday this week, when the so called “school (and university) reform” will most probably receive its final approval.
Mr. Gasparri (a.k.a. Th-Th-Gathparri, for his lisping), president of...
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Innovation in museums - smart move in a small New Zealand museum to become more innovative: : http://bit.ly/fsMzik (via @ninaksimon )
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Bloated, sick & senile, Burlesqueoni saved his ars once more in Rome, yesterday. No hope of stopping government’s budget cuts to culture & education, yet.
But he’ll burst soon, methinks…
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A Thoughtful Museum →
museummuse:
These are some good things to keep in mind, not just for childrens’ museums. In the last three museums I’ve worked with, I tried to just sit for awhile, listening to visitors. It is often the simplest things that they want to know about; where is the bathroom, “is this real”, etc. Museums could make their own lives a lot easier, and the experience of their visitors a lot better by...
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Green Museums - UK Event 2011 →
UK’s Museums Association just advertised an event to take place in London on 20 January 2011.
“Museums are increasingly finding effective ways of reducing their energy consumption, making them kinder on the planet and more popular with governing bodies and funders, who often have carbon reduction targets.
They also save money.
This conference is an opportunity to learn from experts and museum...
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More Books - More Freedom (but not always...)
“More books, more freedom” would be the English translation of the “Più lib(e)ri” national book fair of small and medium sized publishing houses, organized in Rome from 4-8 December 2010.
A lively place packed with all kinds of books - some pretty difficult to put your hands on, due to a generally very inadequate distribution system - and crowded with people, EUR’s...
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Il Fatto Quotidiano » Archivio » Saving private Assange! Sign the on-line petition http://t.co/CuMEY22 (via @antefatto)
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“Julian Assange was arrested on December 7th, on the basis of absurd and...”
– “Saving private Assange” - an on-line petition supporting Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.
(via Il Fatto Quotidiano)
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Museums - Italian Social Network on Ning
Alessandro Califano is now member of movimENTI CULTURALI: http://ning.it/eurd5c
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How the charges against Julian Assange were... →
emmanuelnegro:
Let’s just put a couple of things together. No original research, just a little bit of connect-the-dots.
1) The Guardian has a nice roundup of the accusations against Assange; the article dates back to August, but it’s still probably the most detailed analysis around. I’ll just quote some…
Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and a peculiar Interpol procedure… Just...
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MACRO - "(Re)opening a Museum: Some DOs and...
The title in brackets was the subject of the latest UNESCO workshop I organized last August at the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, for museum and site management professionals coming from the capital and from the provinces – most of them from Ghazni. It could however – and even should, maybe – be applied elsewhere, too. In Rome, perhaps, where during the last (3-5 December 2010) weekend...
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MACRO, Rome - 1
Large crowd gathered at press conference for the new 10,000 sqm of exhibition space @ MACRO annex. Facts and figures given, lively interest.
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MACRO, Rome - 2
MACRO annex - an opening isn’t the right moment to perform risk analyses. At a first glance it seems however that major flaws were fixed…
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Kabul, Murad Khane 2010 →
My article about urban renovation in the district of Murad Khane, Kabul, published on AR (XLV, n. 90/10, July-August 2010, pp. 43-46), journal of the Roman Chapter of the Italian Architects’ Association, is now on line.
Many nice pictures (shot in 2008 and 2010), text in Italian.
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“Wenn Sportartikel im Kunstmuseum verkauft würden, würden wir sie dann mit...”
– Design and Phylogenesis, Design as Phylogenesis
“If sports goods and equipment were for sale at an art museum, would we look at them with different eyes?…”
George Nelson, Zum Design von Sportgeräten. In: “Augenmaß – Heft 1”. Peter Karle/Villa Massimo, Rom 1993
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Rome - MACRO Reopening
MACRO Museum annex by Odile Decq opening later today after 6 months.
Wondering if previously assessed risks have been taken care of? Me too…
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Creative Cultural Protest
Fantastic idea from @newcurator’s blog post: A True Cultural Protest http://newcurator.com/2010/10/a-true-cultural-protest via @MuseosUnite
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“Museums: a wholesome recreational alternative to procreation and the pub”
– Attributed to Henry Cole, founder of the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria & Albert Museum). Quoted by A. McClellan, Art and its Public: Museum Studies at the millennium, 2003.
(via The Attic)
Actually, I just found out I had posted this before - on 24 June 2009 - but I still think...
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Students on Strike - 3
The budget-cutting school- and university system reform proposed by Burlesqueoni’s government passed the other day in the Lower Chamber.
University and school students and also teachers throughout Italy are on strike. Many schools and faculties have been occupied by protesters between yesterday and today in Rome, and from Milan to Palermo. Traffic jams abound, and highway and railways here...
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UK - Salary Guidelines (2009) by Museums... →
“Low pay is widely recognised as a major problem for the sector. Museum pay is falling behind that of comparable sectors, and is barely keeping up with the cost of living…”
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“I get a call that something weird is happening out by the tipis in front of the...”
– Minneapolis Institute of Arts curator Joe Horse Capture, on Facebook (via artsorbit)
Just to underline that enforcing a decent behaviour IS possible - even at museums… 