Rhetorics of Value: Constituting Worth and Meaning through Cultural Display

Abstract

Museum exhibitions are commonly seen as critical sites for the constitution of identity and difference. They provide occasions and resources for representing and reflecting on notions of quality, worth, and other social values and meanings. But how are values and identities shaped and produced through exhibitions? How are exhibitions put together in ways that might communicate particular values and shape various identities? This article begins to consider how “rhetorics of value” are produced through contemporary museum exhibitions by exploring the multilayered, multimedia communication involved as exhibitions convey evaluations and interpretations through visual and verbal means and through “designed space.”

Visualizing Narcocultura: Violent Media, the Mexican Military's Museum of Drugs, and Transformative Culture

“…Like the mural, the display of objects from indigenous civilizations is more concerned with establishing that the Museum is an important cultural institution, which can offer a panoramic appreciation of drugs, drug trafficking, and the military's capacities to deal with and move beyond these threats, than it is with providing detailed information. The lighting in and around the case, as a form of media that modulates “pacing and mood” (Kratz :33), affirms the importance of the display as a starting point for the narratives that are developed in the Museum, as soldiers and civilians contemplate and reject different kinds of drugs and drug‐related pursuits. In sum, the exhibits in the first stage of the Museum participate in the ongoing development of the military's knowledge and discipline at the vanguard of a modernizing nation, in which the consumption of only certain, largely taken‐for‐granted drugs is permitted.…”

Collecting, Exhibiting, and Interpreting: Museums as Mediators and Midwives of Meaning

“…The museum is a visual experience, although all museums use a combination of the visual, the verbal, and an array of sensory material to create an exhibit. The complex ways these are combined and used are only now beginning to be unpacked (Kratz ), and the roles that objects and collections will play in new approaches to exhibition design and experience that develop in the coming century remain to be seen.…”

“…These display types all carry strong narratives, but they themselves are composed of different media of exhibition—including light, color, text, space, and sound—through which they produce their effects (Kratz ). In all of these exhibitionary approaches, the complex symbolic aspects and contexts involved in the use and display of objects prior to collecting are subordinated, at least in part, to other purposes.…”

“Things Chinese” in Italian Museum Displays: Exploring Visibility

“…The displays considered provide insight into curatorial attitudes toward Chinese arts and toward China as a cultural entity in Italian museums. Although the impact on the public and the public's contributions are important in any exhibition experience (Kimmelman :1; Kratz :29), it is not possible to give this topic the space it deserves in this article. I have therefore decided to concentrate on the curatorial aspect, bearing in mind that curators' choices ultimately influence visitors' reactions (Roberts and Vogel :75; Thorne :141).…”