The theme of the just-concluded annual conference of the Association of European Jewish Museums was “Approaches to Authenticity: the Virtual vs. the Material vs. the Recreated” — JHE coordinator Ruth Ellen Gruber spoke on a panel there devoted to that topic.
The Guardian newspaper runs a lively and provocative op-ed that adds to the discussion. Though not directly related to Jewish heritage, it explores a theme that was a constant at the AEJM meeting — particularly since the conference was held at the new POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, whose core exhibit displays some original objects but primarily uses reproductions and replicas to narrate the 1,000-year story of Jewish presence in Poland.
The Guardian article, by columnist Polly Toynbee, is titled “Why do we only worship ‘real’ works of art?” It is pegged to the re-opening of the “cast courts” at the Victoria and Albert Museum — an extensive collection of plaster casts of international great works of art (and even architectural monuments, such as Trajan’s column) that dates back to the 19th century, when displaying and collecting casts of artistic masterpieces was in fashion, partly because of the difficulty in travel.
(Other collections of casts and reproductions of artistic masterpiece also exist today elsewhere. These include two in Hungary that are located in former synagogues. One, a collection of Greek and Roman sculpture reproductions, is in the former synagogue in Tata — we show some pictures on this page. The other, plaster replicas of 15 of Michelangelo’s works, is in a former synagogue in Kecskemet. The repurposing from synagogue to museum in the wake of the destruction of local Jews in the Holocaust can be seen as an exercise in shifting authenticity; new realities on top of, and coexisting with, old. The fact that these two former synagogues have been repurposed (eliminating their interior synagogue decoration and fittings) to house artistic replicas adds another curve to the spiral. The Tata synagogue does retain some exterior markers of its original use — notably the tablets of the 10 Commandments, and a Holocaust memorial is sited near the building.)
States the V & A’ s web site:
When the Architectural Courts – or Cast courts as we now describe them – opened in October 1873, the builder compared the experience of seeing them for the first time with a first glimpse of Mont Blanc, creating one of those ‘impressions that can scarcely be effaced’. Since that date these two enormous rooms and the plaster casts they contain have continued to impress the Museum’s visitors. Because of a reaction against copying works of art [in the 20th] century, it is only quite recently that the interest of the collection as a whole, the quality of its architectural setting and the significance of many of the individual casts, have again been fully appreciated. [… ] by the late 1870s Wilhelm von Bode, later Director of the Berlin museums, was arguing that a small fragment of an original was of far greater value than a complete cast of a masterpiece. By the 1920s this attitude had become widespread among curators and art historians and the antipathy to casts was strengthened by the rise of the modern movement in painting and sculpture, and the rejection of the tradition of academic teaching where plaster copies played an essential role.
In her article, Toynbee asks “does it matter” if an object on display is “original” or “merely a copy.”
What’s wrong with modern perfect reproductions of the world’s greatest art that we could display in any gallery, virtually identical to the original? You can feel the frisson of shock at such iconoclasm, undermining the religion of art and the art market. But if the authentic experience is to gaze with the eye, not worship at the altar of a relic, why does it matter if a painting or an object is the “real” thing? If Duchamp’s urinal isn’t the original, wasn’t that the point? What matters is the image you look at, as created by the artist.
By now, she adds, there has been a turnaround — nearly a century and a half after the Cast Courts opened, she writes, the V&A’s casts “are safely passed [sic] the danger zone because they have turned old, rare and precious in themselves.”
Toynbee recognizes a point that a number of participants at the AEJM meeting made: that there is “magic” in the real thing. But she also noted that a wholesale bias against replicas can reflect a snobbery whose gaze also can encompass shifting authenticities, where, for example, “reproductions are seen as vulgar among the cognoscenti – except as posters for exhibitions, regaining authenticity as ‘real’ posters.”
In the exhibition framework, she notes, “honesty” is essential — that means letting people know what is and isn’t a replica or reproduction: “the viewer needs to know what they are seeing.”
On the other hand, Toynbee ends her piece with a provocative suggestion that, again, wonders how much this might matter, and to whom:
Why not curate a magnificent exhibition of the 200 greatest works of art in reproduction? Choosing would be an enjoyable controversy in itself. Present them spectacularly in a marquee to take to any town that wants it, a travelling art circus of the very best. And if you must have “authenticity”, add one real work, without revealing which.
Click to read the full article