Andrew Warhola, Jr. was a Pittsburgh native, a
native son. He was a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon
in Fine Arts. The Andy Warhol Museum, one of
the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located
at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
(about 4 miles from the Natural History Museum).
It is the largest American art museum dedicated
to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works
by the artist. My guess is that the Warholia in the
Nat. Hist Mus. was to promote the Warhol Museum.
Andy's work is also exhibited on The Moon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Museum
The Carnegie Natural History Museum is dinosaur-
oriented; it has the world's largest collection of
Jurassic dinosaur fossils. The display issue is acute;
the Museum has 21,000,000 specimens of which only
10,000 can be exhibited at one time.
Meteorites are displayed in the Buhl Planetarium
with its Hall of the Universe. The fifth largest meteorite
fragment [746 pounds/340 kilograms] from Barringer
Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. (Meteorite now
displayed outside of the Henry Buhl, Jr. Planetarium
at the Science Center.
The Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems in the Natural
History includes a few meteorites from the hundreds of
specimens included in this Hall's permanent collection,
they say. What photos I can find seem old, dark and
dirty.
Best shot at a meteorite display? Get a Death of The
Dinosaurs exhibit on Chicxulub with a lot meteorites
in it --- tall and narrow; slip it in right next to the
famous Diplodocus carnegii... He's fiberglass; he
won't mind.
The lack of local reference, due to the fact that only
eight meteorites have been found in Pennsylvania,
may be largely responsible for the lack of emphasis
on them.
Sterling K. Webb
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Dunklee" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; "Peter Davidson"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] No Meteorites on display!!!!
Very good and well written response! I love art and am an artist myself.
I love Monet manet Salvador Dali. Frederic Remington. ect. And I
actually like some Andy Warhol. and not to mention Picasso and Rembrant.
i have some Monet prints and an original on loan to a museum. as well as
some other original paintings sculptures and pottery. The presentation
of meteorites or mineral samples compared to a major exhibit would
actually be low cost antdonly take up a small corner of space. One of
the museums here in arkansas did an Egyptian exhibit in 2008. they spent
millions of dollars setting it up then the market crashed. tickets for
an adult were around $40 and for students $22. they lost money big time!
had the price been lower like $12 fror adults and $8 for students they
would have had many more people viewing the exhibit and buying
merchandise at the show. every ticket sale at any event nationwide has
an average of $30 in ancillary sales. parking, food,
prints, programs,tshirts, maps ect. so for a $12 ticket you would have
at least 10 more people who would view and spend money as opposed to a
$44 ticket. 10 people spending $44 is $440. one person spending $44 for
a ticket then spending an additional $30 is only $74. A small corner in
a museum lets say 16 feet long with meteorite men advertisement and
Rocks from Space ads with unclassified real but weathered meteorites for
sale next to the shark teeth would be a low cost and maintainance money
maker for any museum.
Cheers
Steve
--- On Wed, 5/25/11, Peter Davidson <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Peter Davidson <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] No Meteorites on display!!!!
To: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 8:49 AM
Good Morning everyone on the List
I would like to thank Mike Antonelli for his e-mail drawing
attention to the situation at The Carnegie Museum of Natural
History in Pittsburgh. The lack of a meteorite display there
highlights one of the problems many museums have around the
World in deciding what to exhibit and what not.
Can I first say that I have no particular insight into the
museum's policies for exhibition, nor do I personally know
any of the curators. However I know many, many curators from
other museums around the World and I can draw on this
knowledge to get a feel for the problems the Carnegie has.
The notion that museums are somehow divorced from the
everyday World and that curators exist in tax-payer funded
ivory towers trying to devise as many ways as we can
possibly think of to avoid putting our collection on display
to the public is one that bears no resemblance to reality.
Museums around the World are under increasing pressure from
their funding bodies, whether that be National Governments,
local governments or town councils, to cut costs and to
justify their dwindling expenditure by housing exhibitions
that have some kind of "WOW" factor. These blockbuster
exhibitions may indeed, as Steve Dunklee rightly points out,
have little to do with Natural History. But it is likely to
attract big sponsorship and media attention and this may
have a trickle down benefit to the museum through increased
visitor numbers and heightened awareness. This inevitably
leads to hard decisions about the best (or most profitable)
use of the limited space museums have. If a museum director
has to choose between a high profile Andy Warhol exhibition
that will attract major corporate sponsorship and generate a
good deal of media interest or a much more worthy display of
objects from the museum's own collections that will bring in
no income and little media attention, then I am afraid that
in today's world Warhol wins!
Other factors to consider here are that a museum's policies
are largely decided by the Director (or equivalent - the
Head Honcho in any case) who may not have any interest in
meteorites, whether they have a good collection or not.
Perhaps there is no dedicated meteorite curator to look
after and promote the collection. This can be a serious
problem for any collection. After all, I myself am a
mineralogist who happens to have an interest in meteorites
and have been active in promoting the collection whenever I
can. Had I not had this interest, the collection would
indeed be stored away and might never see the light of day.
As it is we will have meteorites in our new galleries (not
enough in my view) but this is something!
There are other ways to promote the collection other than
by display. Taking the collection into the community is a
vital role museums can and do play. This can be done by
organising temporary or touring exhibitions, by school
visits or talks and lectures to people of all ages and
experiences.
I agree with MikeG to some extent in that private
collectors have a very important role in complementing the
work that museums do. Most collectors I know have an
enthusiasm, dedication and depth of knowledge in their
particular field that museums often lack. Clearly
co-operation and mutual appreciation is better than conflict
and constant criticism.
Please believe me when I tell you that as curators, we are
trying to do our very best under difficult circumstances.
Museums are often viewed by governments as an easy target
for funding cuts - expensive white elephants is a phrase
that often crops up - so the axe is often wielded here
quickest and deepest than in other areas. Collectors and
others should use every method available to highlight this
problem and contributing to online blogs, forums, Twitter
and Facebook are very useful weapons - use them.
Thanks for listening
Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
Department of Natural Sciences
National Museums Collection Centre
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh EH5 1JA
Scotland
Tel: 00 44 131 247 4283
E-mail: [email protected]
New exhibition A Passion for Glass, National Museum of
Scotland, Fri 20 May - Sun 11 September. Free entry.
www.nms.ac.uk/glass
National Museums Scotland, Scottish Charity, No. SC 011130
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