Museum
of
Fictions:
Fabrication of
Authenticity and
Institutional Critique in
Imaginary Museums
MA Museum Studies Thesis
by Jean Carlo Medina
Zavala
Universiteit van Amsterdam 2019
that nothing is real.” -Jorge Luis Borges,
Fabrication of Authenticity and Institutional Critique in
Imaginary Museums
_______________________________________________________________________
MA Museum Studies Thesis Jean Carlo Medina Zavala University of Amsterdam UvA ID: 11607564 Supervisor: Mirjam Hoijtink Second Reader: Christa-Maria Lerm-Hayes Submission date: January 31, 2019 Word Count: 20’623_______________________________________________________________________
Abstract: Imaginary museums abound in the world, stemming from novels, Gilms, and conjecture. Amongst these, however, are cases of museums that arose from Gictional sources and eventually materialized into real, tangible institutions. These ‘museums of Gictions’ inconspicuously present apocryphal collections through carefully constructed yet Gictive narratives, often attempting to engage audiences in their play of make-believe. How do imaginary museums relate to real museums in their fabrication of authenticity? Furthermore, to what extent are imaginary museums successful as a form of institutional critique, and challenging narrative (re)presentations? Through a detailed analysis of three recent museums of Gictions, this thesis aims to encourage a reconsideration of imaginary museums as helpful tools in challenging perceptions of authenticity in established institutions, as well as contesting traditional representations of truth, history, and identity Keywords: Imaginary museum, Gictional museum, authenticity, institutional critiquePreface 1 Introduction 15 I. A Fictional Museum / The Museum of Innocence 35 II. Artist Apocrypha / Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable 55 III. (In)Authentic Storytelling / The Making of Modern Art 75 Conclusion & Epilogue 82 Bibliography & References 90 Annex
It is increasingly difGicult to pinpoint where the inspiration for this thesis came from. Like an upturned tree, the origin is dispersed— although some past events have sparked my interest in the topic of imaginary museums, it has only been through conversation with colleagues, friends, and supervisors that I decided to pursue this interest and expand it into a thesis. A conversation full of anecdotes and literary references during the Museum Concepts and Narratives seminar at the Universiteit van Amsterdam certainly stuck in my head, and reminded me that museums go far beyond tangible institutions and factual reality. I am especially grateful with Mirjam Hoijtink, who from the start welcomed my research and supervised me with keen interest and a good doze of humor. I owe much to Natalia Martinez for her contagious enthusiasm and constant help, as well as to Marju Tajur and Valeria Ferrari for their insightful conversations on reality, Giction, literature and nostalgia. I also want to point out Jvlie Ganem’s illustrations, which adorn the start of each chapter with a mysterious, monochrome atmosphere that brings to mind the chaotic nature of memory. Finally, this text would have not been written without the profound inGluence of two writers: Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. Their supreme understanding of Giction allowed them to construct impossible cities and inGinite libraries— sites that, in their capacities of reGlecting the universe through synecdoches and signs, have close ties to museums. I like to think that, had one author not been a librarian, and the other not died so young, perhaps they would have extended their literary reach into museums.
A Non-Fictional Conundrum As we exited the museum, I was left dumbfounded and amazed by the comments of my unintentional companion. The visit had been thoroughly enjoyable, as re?lected by the bag full of souvenirs hanging from her shoulder. Conversation made it clear that this museum was one of her main interests for visiting London, as it was held in the historical house of one of her idols. When asked about what she found most enjoyable about her visit, she singled out the impression left by seeing a smoking pipe belonging to this man, carefully preserved and displayed along with walking canes, hunting hats, and magnifying glasses. “It is so incredible to imagine” she told me, “that this pipe actually belonged to the Sherlock Holmes”. My face couldn’t hide a reaction of utter bewilderment, as I found myself facing a conundrum. How could I possibly break it to her that Sherlock Holmes was a ?ictional character? And perhaps more importantly: what had led her to believe that what she had seen in the museum was entirely real? Indeed, without external references, one would be led to believe that the contents of The Sherlock Holmes Museum are all authentic. Hosted at Holmes’ famous address at 221B Baker Street, the house is decorated with Victorian furniture and objects making reference to the different cases, enemies, and adventures encountered by the famous, yet ?ictional, detective . For someone who had either not read or misread the original 1 stories, or who had only been introduced to Sherlock Holmes through one of his various incarnations in popular media, it would make sense to think that he was indeed a real person—especially when stepping inside his house, and going through what seemed to be his personal belongings. In the imagination of this young woman, Sherlock Holmes was —and perhaps still is— real. The museum is actually hosted at 237-239 Baker Street, but has been given permission by the 1 City of Westminster to bear the number 221B (see “Sherlock Holmes 101”, The Washington Post). To further the confusion, the building also displays a (forged) blue plaque commemorating Holme’s years residing at the street, an honor usually given by the English Heritage foundation, reserved for non-?ictional people.
This interaction left a mark in my memory. The Sherlock Holmes Museum is but one of several instances of ?ictional or imaginary works becoming ‘real’ through a museum framework. Further interest in the topic showed that imaginary museums have long existed as a starting point and a re?lection of real ones, in more recent times being used by artists and curators as a strategy for institutional critique, as will be seen in the following pages. The play between real and imaginary poses the key questions: How do imaginary museums relate to real museums with respect to authenticity? Furthermore, to what extent are imaginary museums successful as a form of institutional critique, and challenging narrative (re)presentations? A Brief and Incomplete History of Fictional Museums There is a case to say that ?iction is only truly effective when it is persuading enough to be, at least momentarily, believable. To be pulled into a ?ictional world, engaging with imaginary landscapes and characters, plots and drama, is one of the main reasons the public looks for literature and entertainment. This necessity has been thoroughly examined, however Samuel T. Coleridge’s description of the “willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith” might be the best-known, as the term “suspension of disbelief” has entered the public imaginary . While it is 2 common to ?ind this term applied to ?ictional works such as novels, theater plays, and ?ilms, it is no so common to ?ind it associated with museums . After all, museums as 3 institutions historically rely on the presentation of original artifacts and research— as presenters of knowledge, these institutions are not traditionally in need of a “willing suspension of disbelief”, or at least are not expected to do so from their audience. Although now presumed to be institutions dedicated to safeguard and preserve history, or present art in as a neutral environment as possible, it should be remembered that all museums, to a different degree, start out as imaginary. This is a pretty straightforward proposition: all museums, before being built or even written down, had to be imagined,
Coleridge, S. T. [1817] (1960). Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions.
2
London: J. M. Dent. p. 169.
Böcking, Saskia. (2008) “Suspension of Disbelief ”. In The International Encyclopedia of Communication.
3
thought of, conceptualized. Indeed, going back in history one can ?ind examples of proto-museums and private collections that were not strangers to housing fantastic artifacts, based on the often wild imaginations of their owners and the society around them. Although there is no canonized compendium of imaginary museums, it can be asserted that they predate the institution of modern public collections and displays. As their name implies, imaginary museums have ?irst of all existed as speculative devices, conceived by creatives through the ages. Cases abound in the collections housed inside Cabinets of Curiosity or wunderkammers, such as the famous Museum Kircherianum in Rome (?ig.1). These early collections clearly had a thread of playful imagination running through them, as they would present anything from naturalia, architectural models, and scienti?ic devices to the skulls of unicorns, the tools of witchcraft, and documents attributed to the occult. Strikingly, there were even accounts of ?ictional cabinets of curiosities, as expressed in Sir Thomas Browne’s Musæum Clausum, a tract describing the (alleged) fantastic contents of a long-lost collection . Wunderkammers are perhaps a common ancestor of 4 modern and imaginary museums: where modern museums ?ind the origin of systematic collecting and scienti?ic classifying, ?ictional museums ?ind their inspiration for apocrypha, playful mysticism and hermetic knowledge. The presence of improbable artifacts in these premodern collections didn’t detract from their overall quest for wonders. Browne, Thomas. (1683). “Tract XIII: Musæum Clausum”. In Certain Miscellany Tracts. 4 Retrieved from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/misctracts/museum.html#note1 Accessed on January 2nd, 2019.
fig.1 the Museum Kircherianum. Image: 1679. Das Kirchen Museum im Collegium Romanum. Reproduced in Roos, Alexander. 2007. Alchemie & Mystik, 576 S. Köln u.a.: TASCHEN
Throughout history one can ?ind examples of imaginary museums, from those described in a couple of sentences and conjectures to others that have found their way into literature, pop culture, and artworks. In literature, museum-like structures and devices can be found from the civilization-spanning symbols in the mythical shield of Achilles, to the in?inite libraries and impossible encyclopedias conjectured by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Indeed, novels have been compared to museums in that, when thought of as texts, they both present readers with collections of memory; the difference lies in that a novel unfolds through the abstract realm of time, while a museum often does so through the tactile, concrete realm of space . Along with 5 representations of museums in other media, these museums that originally appeared on paper or ?ilm are what we may call ?ictional museums . 6 The emphasis of this research, however, is in those museums that don’t fully belong to either complete historical reality, neither to the con?ines of a book or an illustration. The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, from a novel by Orhan Pamuk, showcases the objects of an obsessive love, simultaneously telling a larger story of class and con?lict set in modern Turkey; Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable traces the story of an improbable vessel and its impossible contents, stemming from the imagination of one Damien Hirst; ?inally, The Making of Modern Art exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, relies on copies and reproductions to re-imagine the canon of modern art. These museums can be found in concrete spaces, hosted in galleries, museum buildings, and former homes. They also have collections that, to the unsuspecting eye, might seem completely real. Alas, to borrow Roland Barthes’ term, a ‘perverse reader’ will notice that the objects and stories in these museums are not quite real, yet still choose to suspend their disbelief within their walls . Hence a speci?icity of terms used: those 7 see Xing, Yin. (2013) “The Novel as Museum: Curating Memory in Ohran Pamuk’s The Museum 5 of Innocence”. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 01 April 2013, Vol.54(2), p.198-210 Writing from the perspective of cultural marketing, L. V. Prokopovich makes an opposite but 6 insightful analysis: how have representations of real museums in ?iction (especially the Night at the Museum Series and Dan Brown’s thrillers) affected visitor numbers, attention to speci?ic artworks, or even tourism on a regional level. See L.V. Prokopovich. (2014). “Art Literature about Museums as Alternative to Museum Guides”. Proceedings of the Odessa Polytechnic University, 1 (43). see Barthes, Roland. (1975). The Pleasure of the Text. trans. by Richard Miller. Hill and Wang: 7 New York. p. 46-47
museums that walk the ?ine line between reality and ?iction, that inconspicuously show fabrication as factuality, are not ?ictional museums but instead museums of ;ictions. Challenging Modern Myths Following the French Revolution of 1789, a shift in social composition assigned new power and meaning to public museums, granting them their still popular standing as keepers of history, knowledge, and art. This particular understanding of what a museum is also assigns utmost importance to the availability of original artifacts and artworks, a topic that to this day causes much controversy, especially in collections pro?iting from imperialist projects and colonial plunder . With the move from ?iction to reality, 8 museums of ?ictions are usually composed of objects that are either completely fabricated, faked, or reproduced. In this sense they contest modern museums by challenging still popular notions of museums as holders of authenticity and pursuers of truth, institutions housing only original objects and presenting only facts . The 9 employment of both imaginary and real museums as part of museum practice helps in reminding that “artifacts are the product of artiKice… when arti?icially placed within the con?ines of a museum” .10 Artifacts and artworks inside a museum of ?ictions can come from a variety of sources and needs. Sometimes these objects might be procured to ful?ill an entirely ?ictional narrative, while in other cases the lack of access to original artworks can lead to the use of fakes and reproductions. The latter case has been proposed by French art theorist André Malraux in his Le Musée Imaginaire (1949), translated into english as the “museum without walls”. Since most major collections are divided amongst public and private collectors around the globe, Malraux called for the use of these ‘virtual’ see Anderson, Maxwell. L. (2018, December 3rd). “Should we relinquish our insistence on 8 privileging original works of art?” The Art Newspaper. retrieved from https:// www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/should-we-relinquish-our-insistence-on-privileging-original-works-of-art Accessed January 4, 2019. See MuseumNext (2017) “Should Museums be Activists?” MuseumNext. Retrieved from 9 https://www.museumnext.com/2017/04/should-museums-be-activists/ Accessed 11th January 2019. Pine II, Joseph & Gilmore, James. (2007). “Museums & Authenticity”. Museum News, May/ 10 June, p. 78
museums, composed of replicas, reproductions and photographs, argumenting that there was no need for originals when the prime focus of an exhibition would be narrative . What is more, an imaginary museum, even when presenting copies, is not 11 necessarily fake. It is on this understanding that Le Musée Imaginaire tackles one of the main concerns of this paper: authenticity. Or rather, what happens when the fetish for ‘original’ or ‘authentic’ objects is shifted towards a main interest in narrative and storytelling. A museum of ?ictions is not necessarily a fake one. As Pine and Gilmore explain in Museums & Authenticity, even a museum whose collection is entirely composed of replicas and forgeries can be experienced as honest, as long as the museum renders itself, phenomenologically, as authentic . As such, it is possible for a museum to be both 12 ?ictional and perceived as authentic— an apparent paradox, which is nevertheless the main interest of this research. The case studies to be analyzed use the concept of ‘museum’ as a device to frame and present ?ictional stories, often to the bewilderment of public and critics alike. These are museums that, in a conscious effort, move from the realm of ?iction to reality, and which have a distinct thread of imagination running through them. Inside their exhibitions, pre-conceived notions regarding where reality ends and ?iction begins are blurred, purposefully inciting debate over museum narratives and the fabrication of authenticity. Indeed, the making of imaginary museums has been used as a tool for institutional critique during the twentieth century. While criticism towards artistic aura and a fetish for original artworks in an environment of mass production had already been developed in the theoretical works of Walter Benjamin and the readymade oeuvre of Marcel Duchamp, a direct stab at museum frameworks came from Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers. In 1968, the artist opened the Musée d’art, Département des Aigles inside his own studio, using art transport crates, photographs, and a plaque labelling the installation as a ‘museum’. Noticing that it wasn’t necessary to have a collection or Allan, Derek. (2010) “André Malraux, the Art Museum, and the Digital Musée Imaginaire”. 11 Lecture delivered at Imaging Identity, at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra July 15-17, 2010. Pine & Gilmore, 2007, p. 78 12
institutional structure, the artist started using the concept of ‘museum’ as a frame. Later Broodthaers would describe his actions: “The ?ictitious museum tries to steal from the of?icial, the real museum, in order to lend its lies more power and credibility. […] What is also important is to ascertain whether the ?ictitious museum sheds new light on the mechanisms of art, artistic life, and society.” 13 By creating a ?ictional museum that rendered all artifacts within it as part of the art institution, Broodthaers implicitly made use of what would later be described as the “museum effect”, while critiquing the logic of exhibitionary structures . His actions led 14 to questions pertaining not only how museums come into being, but also who are the stakeholders behind these institutions and how collections are amassed . Through the 15 medium of institutional critique, following Broodthaer’s example, many artists would go on to use museum frameworks, displays, and structures to comment on how institutions work and use their power. Three Fictions This thesis is structured as a comparative analysis of three case studies: The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, authored by Orhan Pamuk; the Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable exhibition by Damien Hirst, presented during the 2017 Venice Biennale; and The Making of Modern Art at the Van Abbemuseum, in Eindhoven. These studies were selected because they are neither completely ?ictional— which would require a thesis written from the perspective of literary studies or semiology—, nor completely real— hence requiring a more traditional museological interpretation. Instead, these Broodthaers, Marcel (1972) “Musée d’Art Moderne, Départment des Aigles” in Institutional 13 Critique: An Anthology of Artist’s Writings. The MIT Press: Massachusetts. p.139 The “museum effect” refers to the semiotic transformation that objects go through when 14 inserted into a museum. Removed from their context and denied of their original use, objects turn into artifacts or art simply by being displayed in a museum-like context that privileges “attentive looking”. See Alpers, Svetlana. (1991) "The Museum as a Way of Seeing" In I. Karp & S. Lavine (Eds.) Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington. pp. 25–32 Alberro, A. and Stimson, B. (Eds.). (2009) Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artist’s 15 Writings. The MIT Press: Massachusetts. p. 5
projects represent different degrees of ?ictionality being materialized into reality through a museum framework. What is more, while the ?irst two cases stem from the works of individual creative minds, the third one arises from an established institution, serving as a contrast in how ?ictionality is approached from the standing points of artists, authors, and institutions. It is worthwhile mentioning that, due to the museums analyzed existing as fabrications, and thus not conforming to traditional museum-making, this research will be dedicated to analyzing them ‘from the ground-up’. Any and all materials, from artifacts to architecture, labels, and catalogues, are taken into account since they contribute to each project’s make-believe. Authenticity is rendered by a coherent balance between how a museum constructs itself and how it is perceived. This entails taking into consideration the very same texts, allusions, and objectives set forth by the authors, artists, and curators behind each museum, in order to critique them through their own terms. Furthermore each case has been analyzed through relevant academic literature, empirical notes, and comments based on in situ analysis where applicable. At the same time, it is necessary to mention the relevance of New Cultural History in the development of these museums and the theoretical framework of this research. The revitalization of museology and cultural/memory studies in the late 1980’s and 1990’s is inextricably linked to the development of New Cultural History— it doesn’t seem as a coincidence that the origin of the museums of ?ictions researched goes back to these decades, and a renewed interest on the production of ‘truth’, ‘history’, and ‘reality’ by means of representations .16 Inspecting the cases of real and imagined museums and exhibitions, each chapter will tackle further questions, such as: How do museums consciously use elements of ?iction to develop new narratives and exhibitions? How successful can the jump from imaginary to “real” museums be in shifting the emphasis from the presentation of ‘authentic’ artifacts towards pure narrative? The ?irst chapter, The Fictional Museum, delves into museums that originally appeared in works of ?iction and literature, and which have made a leap into reality. The introductory anecdote at The Sherlock Holmes Museum is telling of the way literary museums can be confused for non-?ictional narratives. However, for my main analysis I Burke, Peter. (2008) What is Cultural History? Polity: England. p.77 16
have turned towards The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul. Based on the novel of the same name by Orhan Pamuk, this site is particularly thought-provoking due to the semantic complexities behind its realization. The museum is composed by a collection of vintage objects gathered by the author, both inspiring and determining the events happening in the novel. The literary work, set in Istanbul from 1975 until the year 2000, follows the story of upper-class Kemal Basmaci as he falls in love with Füsun Keskin, a distant cousin from a lower-class family. The collection at the Museum of Innocence, which is hosted in a house in the Cukurcuma street of Istanbul, is presented as belonging to Kemal’s, rather than being an assemblage by Pamuk. Indeed, the thread that holds together the assortment of everyday objects in the museum is the tragic love story between Kemal and Füsun. Within the museum all elements of the novel, including characters, events, and the origin of hundreds of items, are shown as real. The opening of the museum in 2012 has led to much discussion regarding questions of legitimacy and value inside a collection which “conspicuously represents fabricated reality” . To what extent is the Museum of Innocence successful 17 in ‘suspending disbelief’ and fabricating authenticity? To consider this, the chapter will also be dedicated to discussing the relationship between novels and museums, and the role of a writer as a collector. In Artist Apocrypha, the second chapter, ponders over instances of artists creating their own ?ictional exhibitions and museums. Although some cases predate the term itself, the core analysis in this section will be done through the framework of Institutional Critique, looking at how artists use the museum as a conceptual and physical device to criticize art institutions and markets, as well as playing with the limits and possibilities of museum-making. While examples abound, the main case studied is a contemporary artwork: Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, originally presented as part of the 2017 Venice Biennale. The massive exhibition, which occupied the entirety of the Punta de la Dollagna and Palazzo Grassi, saw the artist exhibiting the alleged archaeological ?indings of a second-century shipwreck off the east-African coast.
Tekgül, Duygu. (2016) “Fact, fiction and value in the Museum of Innocence”. European Journal of
17
Monumental sculptures of ancient myths and civilizations, half-covered in coral and rust and reproduced in copies of marble, gold, and silver, created a sense of lavish wonder in the biennale’s public. The photographs and accompanying documentary showing divers retrieving the artifacts from the ocean ?loor gave way to incipient signs of fakery— an ‘ancient bust’ looking suspiciously like the artist himself, smaller sculptures with the shape of Transformers, barbie dolls, and Mickey Mouse— were all part of an enormous play between reality, ?iction, and make-believe . This case study was selected precisely 18 because of its unprecedented scale and playfulness, coming from an artist that has already been legitimized by artistic institutions. How is Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable related to previous instances of artists using institutional critique through ?ictional museums? What are the implications of such artwork not only for contemporary art, but also for the traditionally artifact-based area of archaeology? Finally, (In)Authentic Storytelling focuses on a reversal of the ?iction-to-non-?iction strategy. While the case studies examined in the ?irst chapters deal with completely ?ictional works that are rendered authentic through institutional framing, this chapter will focus on the reverse scenario: museums making use of ?ictive elements and strategies to tell factual histories. This not only takes the shape of using stories, but more importantly of giving more importance to narratives than to objects. Artifacts take a back seat, and claims of authenticity, originality, or chronology all become secondary to the main narrative the museum is trying to push. The semi-permanent exhibition The Making of Modern Art at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven proves to be an intriguing case study in this respect. Curated by Steven ten Thije, the exhibition aims to showcase the development of the modern art canon on an international scale, heavily based on the in?luence that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York had over early directorships in the Van Abbemuseum. Not only does the museum exhibit factual history, but it also tries to ‘step outside’ its own institutional framework in order to comment on its own history, displays, and acquisitions. Featuring a playful weaving of factual history with facsimile documents, original artworks with naive reproductions, and even a model-within-a-model of a MoMA gallery, The Making of Modern Art is
Cumming, Laura. (2017, April 16) “Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable
18
review – beautiful and monstrous”. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2017/apr/16/damien-hirst-treasures-from-the-wreck-of-the-unbelievable-review-venice Accessed on October 1st 2018.
effectively an exhibition about exhibitions: a meta-museum. The thick intertextual and art historical web of the exhibition, as well as the logic and objectives behind a rather unorthodox display methodology, are to be examined trough an empirical analysis. How effective can the presentation of factual history be when done through the lens of ?iction? In how far is the Van Abbemuseum able to engage in meta-commentary as a museum institution? Examining imaginary museums compels us to ask what we mean by a museum, as well as considering broader de?initions for this kind of institution. The act of imagination required to come up with a theme, and fabricating the necessary stories and artifacts to render the museum authentic, constitute an exercise in deconstruction that can inform and expand the possibilities of what a museum can be. Interestingly, one of the ?inal rooms at The Making of Modern Art consists of an exercise of imagination: how would a museum for Western art look like if it was to open in the ?ictional land of Thomas More’s Utopia? The question is telling of how any work of ?iction is, at the same time, a work of speculation. Furthermore, the use of ?iction has consequences for how time and space are understood and experienced: while non-?iction relies on chronology and lineal history, ?iction allows for multiple temporalities, anachronisms, and ahistoricity. Many of the imaginary museums of today might be the of?icial museums of tomorrow; this nosedive into the contents and reasons behind a lovelorn collection, an impossible shipwreck, and a meta-museum, may give us clues into what direction the museums of the future may take.
A Fictional Museum
The Museum of Innocence
“If a man could pass thro’ Paradise in a Dream, and have a ?lower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there, and found that ?lower in his hand when he awoke – Aye? And what then?” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria19 As repositories of memory, novels can be conceived of as museums whose artifacts are composed of language. Both tend to the encyclopedic, as each object is only a gateway to a world of meaning and interpretation. The fragment of a mosaic displayed in Amsterdam can lead us to the story of a long-lost synagogue in Apamea, a history of ?ight and ?ires ; it is also how the simple mention of a madeleine can become a symbol 20 for the tragic passage of time and memory in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Nevertheless, tradition dictates that the experience of visiting a museum and reading a novel must be different in one key regard: while the former is popularly expected to be grounded in historical truth, the latter is not. This harsh divide between fact and ?iction still informs a lot of museum work and audience expectations. The speci?ic questions I aim to explore in this chapter include: What if, upon reading a vivid description of an object in a ?iction novel, we were to look over the book in our hands only to ?ind that very object lying in front of us? To what extent can a narrative rather than object-oriented museum be able to suspend the disbelief of its audience? It is telling, then, that
Coleridge, S. T. [1817] (1960). Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions.
19
London: J. M. Dent. p. 169.
Hoijtink, Mirjam (lecturer). “For the Welfare of My Children: Stories of a Jewish Mosaic in Syria”
20
Museums and the Mobility of Artifacts Lecture, from University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2018.
Coleridge’s words, cited above, are to be found at the very beginning of The Museum of Innocence . 21 Perhaps because of its single-handed dedication to narrative, Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence provides a fascinating case study for its existence as both a real and a ?ictional museum at once. Originally appearing as a novel in 2008, The Museum of Innocence tells the story of Kemal Basmaci, an upper-class heir from Istanbul who falls in love with lower-class shopgirl and distant relation Füsun Keskin . From the moment 22 they meet in 1975 and up until Kemal’s death in 2000, the protagonist gathered objects that are linked to his love and memories of Füsun— each chapter in the book carefully describes these intimate items, which eventually amount to a collection. In what amounts to a real-life twist, the Museum of Innocence opened its doors in the Çukurcuma neighborhood of Istanbul in 2012, featuring the objects, settings, and references introduced in the novel — an especially astounding event since the story of the star-crossed lovers is entirely ?ictional. It is important to note that The Museum of Innocence is not inspired by the novel of the same name; instead, both the novel and the museum were inspired and created through a collection of real objects. As Pamuk details in interviews and in the museum catalogue, The Innocence of Objects (2012), he personally started acquiring items for the museum in the early 1990’s, combing for objects that might prove helpful to his narrative in antique shops, ?lea markets, and houses of friends and family in Istanbul. The nostalgic amassing of objects also had to do with the author’s own concerns regarding Turkish identity and memory, especially in relation to the clash between Western and Eastern cultures in the city of Istanbul. Soon, Pamuk’s studio was over?lowing with trinkets that informed and inspired the chapters of the story, effectively turning into a bricolage of reminisced memories, invented characters, and real artifacts. The collection housed in the museum has the distinction of striving for make-believe while being simultaneously real and ?ictitious. That is to say, while the amassed artifacts are neither completely illegitimate — the vast majority of objects are real antiques and
From this point on, mentions referring to the novel The Museum of Innocence will be in italics, while
21
mentions referring to the museum in Çukurcuma are in regular text.
The Museum of Innocence was visited twice, on the 9th and the 11th of November, 2018.
products from 1970’s-80’s Istanbul—, nor traditionally authentic — many objects are replicas or fabrications—they are all inconspicuously presented as real. This presentation is a far cry from the de?inition of authenticity favored by modern museums for most of their history, where “the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity” . Instead, the Museum of Innocence values narrative and 23 suspension of disbelief over the legitimacy of artifacts. Indeed, Pamuk’s novel only came about as a way to gather all objects within a narrative, and originally was planned to act as the collection’s catalogue (?ig.2). This chapter looks at several of the factors that help rendering the Museum of Innocence as authentic. Based on literary devices, the museum is endowed authenticity through the intertwined ?igures of Orhan Pamuk, acting as owner of the property, writer, collector, and curator, and his character Kemal Basmaci, who serves as the ?ictional red thread that holds the narrative together. The close relationship that the author has with the setting, history, and objects on display, as well as Pamuk’s inquisitive visits to hundreds of house and literary museums across the globe, gives the entire museum verisimilitude— the appearance, as opposed to the factuality, of being real . In addition, 24 a couple of visits to the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul were enlightening for analyzing how exhibition displays, architecture, and carefully designed education materials allow for an augmented experience of Pamuk’s narrative. Altogether, these characteristics allow for the willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience, who act as co-constructors of their own museum experience through imagination and nostalgia. The successful presentation of the Museum of Innocence as authentic proves that it is not only an exercise in narrative and museum-making, but part of a larger statement on how museums work, and how narratives could be applied in the future. The conception of the museum in the 1990’s is also tied to a general trend towards cultural/memory studies in Europe during that decade, leading to Pamuk’s nostalgic re?lections on the
Benjamin, Walter [1936] (1969) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In
23
Illuminations. trans. Zohn, Harry, Arendt, Hannah ed. Schoken Books: New York. p. 220
Tekgül, Duygu. (2016) Fact, fiction and value in the Museum of Innocence. European Journal
24
effects of Western modernization in Turkey. Pamuk has been open regarding the creation of the Museum of Innocence, as well as his intentions behind it: the collection is not only about Füsun and Kemal, but about life in Istanbul during the second half of the twentieth century. For the author, the ?ictional narrative intertwined between collection, novel, and museum, serves a grander purpose— representing a city and its people, as well as a national (and spiritual) struggle between East and West. Hence, I consider this case particularly illustrative of how ?iction can inform reality in a museum setting, especially through the lens of nostalgia. Further questions tackled include to what extent does the display of objects in the museum augment the novel’s play on ?iction, and vice-versa? What was the intention of building such museum? In how far is the Museum of Innocence successful in the representation of a grander narrative of Istanbul?
fig.2 The Museum of Innocence in Çukurcuma street. Image: Medina, Jean. 2018. Museum of Innocence at Çukurcuma Street. Amsterdam: personal collection.
The Novel as Museum / The Writer as Collector “Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.” -Unpacking My Library, Walter Benjamin 25 As Walter Benjamin unpacks his personal library, he invites the reader to consider several aspects not on the content of collections, but on the nature of collecting itself. Firstly, Benjamin stresses that collecting is often not about the physical aspects of an object, but about the way an object might be integrated into the collector’s personal narrative. This entails the establishing of a sentimental relationship with the object, a move from objectivity to subjectivity in which objects act as carriers of memories . 26 Secondly, Benjamin asserts that of all the ways of collecting books, “writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method”. He adds that “writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatis?ied with the books which they could buy but do not like” . 27 Ringing true to Benjamin’s words, Pamuk himself relates the endeavor of writing and collecting to a similar feeling of “insuf?iciency” left by novels. While reading a good novel, the author explains, a reader may be able to fully immerse into the narrative, which may feel even more authentic than life itself. The “insuf?iciency” appears when, upon ?inishing the book, the reader has to come to terms with the imaginary nature of the novel against the real world . For the Turkish author, the cognitive dissonance 28 provoked by the “insuf?iciency” of literature represents an opportunity to close the gap between ?iction and reality, in this case by materializing ?iction. Readers of The Museum
Benjamin, Walter [1931] (1969) “Unpacking My library: A Talk About Collecting”. In Illuminations.
25
trans. Zohn, Harry, Arendt, Hannah ed. Schoken Books: New York. p.60
Morris, Rachel. (2014). “Imaginary Museums: What mainstream museums can learn from them?”
26
MIDAS [Online], 2 | 2014. http://midas.revues.org/643 Accessed 08 August 2018. p. 3
Benjamin, Walter, 1931, p.61
27
Pamuk, Ohran. (2010) The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist. Trans. Dikbas, Nazim. Harvard
28
of Innocence might ?ind solace in visiting the museum located in Çukurcuma street, and ?inding the objects they imagined while reading, with enough gaps left in the narrative for them to co-construct with their own imaginations. Through the process of co-construction, the readers also satiate the “insuf?iciency” of reading. Within the novel, the position of collector is ?illed and re?lected on by Kemal Basmaci. Towards the end of the novel the character makes a distinction between two kinds of collectors: the ‘Proud’ ones, who consider collecting an “enterprise intended for proud display in a museum”, and the ‘Bashful’, who collect for the sake of collecting and are resentful about their mania . Interestingly, while Pamuk himself might fall into the 29 category of a ‘proud’ collector who assembled his collection with a ?inal objective in mind, Kemal describes himself as a ‘bashful’ one, collecting in order to heal the wound left behind by Füsun’s absence . Both men compensate for a lack— the ‘insuf?iciency’ of 30 novels in the case of the author, and the ache of lost love in the case of Kemal. Indeed, the mere act of collecting involves singularizing and detaching objects from a practical commodity sphere and elevating them as ‘sacred’ artifacts with their very own ‘aura’ . The objects thus gathered by writer and character across Istanbul go “from 31 objective to semiotic, from thing to sign […] from presence to absence” . Combs, 32 garments, and ticket stubs change from mass-produced commodities with a particular yet banal history, to being inserted into the subjective narrative perspective of both writer and protagonist— always as objects connected in one way or another to Füsun. Any process of collecting is fetishistic in nature. Kemal’s obsessive accumulation of objects belonging or coming into contact with Füsun involves a semiotic process of domination and de-personi?ication, through which objects are “abducted [and] denuded
Pamuk, Ohran. (2009) The Museum of Innocence. trans. Freely, Maureen. Faber and Faber: London. p.
29
691
Pamuk, 2009, p.692
30
Belk, Russell W. [1988] (1994) Collectors and Collecting. In Interpreting Objects and Collections. Susan
31
M. Pearce, ed. Routledge: London. p.320; also see Tekgül, 2016, p.391
Bal, Mieke. (1994). “Telling Objects: A Narrative Perspective on Collecting”. In The Cultures
32
to be available for use a sign” . This fetishization, with its heavy sexual undertones, is 33 evident in Chapter 28, aptly titled “The Consolation of Objects”. The episode ?inds the lovesick protagonist laying in the apartment where the lovers used to meet. Surrounded by intimate objects that trigger his memories, Kemal re?lects how he might seize upon an object ‘bearing Füsuns essence’ and stroke, smell, or even put it inside his mouth, reducing his pain while “imagining perhaps for a moment that by loving her so, I had become her” . Interestingly, Kemal both dominates and is de-personalized by the 34 objects he collects; the intense, erotic emotions invoked by the protagonist might provoke the reader, who becomes compliant in the narrative. Value is thus assigned to the objects by the collector, in what amounts to a personal, if fetishistic, relationship. It is through de-contextualization that objects are reinserted into a ?ictive narrative, or in this case, a literary one. It is also the way in which everyday objects, found as junk or antiques throughout Istanbul, are detached from their reality and inserted into a ?iction, augmenting their symbolic value. In his analysis of the novel, Xing rightly asserts that “the signi?icance of collecting objects lies not in the storing of the object itself but in the invisible value embodied in the object; the memory, the lived experiences, and the stories dear to the heart of a person or a nation at certain times” .35 The separate narratives of Pamuk as writer and Kemal as literary character come together and dissolve in the role of collector. Stemming from an interest in the history and motivations behind collections, Mieke Bal makes a compelling point relating narratology to the semiotics of collecting. Her analysis exalts how the tension between the physical accessibility of objects and the subjectivity of narratives found in collections “makes ?ictionality a matter of degree” . It is not the objects themselves, but the 36 relationship between collector and collectibles that give verisimilitude to the stories behind The Museum of Innocence, and thus bring it closer to authenticity. Actively writing and collecting as a means of atoning for a certain lack also ?inds a parallel in the Bal, 1994, p. 97 33 Pamuk, 2009, p. 215 34 Xing, 2013, p.198 35 Bal, 1994, p.85 36
role of the reader and the museum visitor. Through imagining the events described in the novel, a reader effectively detaches and resigni?ies meaning in his or her mind. As a witness to material objects in the museum, the reader might now ‘complete’ the text by endowing both with his or her own belief, and thus complying with the process of legitimization through co-construction. And so, the parallel established between writers and collectors can be expanded to the medium through which they express their memories: novels and museums. As Xing writes, “encyclopedists, museum curators, photographers, and novelists all have something in common; […] to represent their personal understandings of the objects through the process of cataloguing, assembling them according to their signi?icance, endowing the world of objects with structure, order, and readability” . Jumping from 37 printed pages to the halls of a museum, the assemblage of intimate objects gathered by Kemal faces the challenge of communicating a story and seeming authentic not only through written words, but through the actual presentation and display of artifacts. How does The Museum of Innocence materialize ?iction in its physical location? How is credibility fabricated through means of architecture, display, and exhibition narrative devices? Inside the Museum of Innocence Walking past the antique shops, cafes, and old houses that dominate the street of Çukurcuma, I started wondering if any visitors to the museum, like so many tourists visiting Juliet’s balcony in Verona, might believe that Kemal and Füsun’s love story was real. I didn’t need to wait long for an answer . While presenting my copy of The Museum 38 of Innocence for a free admission — Pamuk cleverly included a single-entrance ticket within Chapter 83 of the novel—, I witnessed another visitor, an older woman with an Xing, 2013, p. 203. 37
Casa di Giulietta, in Verona, is a building from the XII century that has been turned into a touristic
38
site, presented as Juliet Capuleti’s house, from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The building was rebuilt in the twentieth century, now featuring the balcony where Juliet would meet her lover at night. The site, although fictional, remains one of Verona’s top tourist attractions. See “Casa di Giulietta”, Verona Guide. Retrieved from https://verona.com/en/verona/casa-di-giulietta/ Accessed December 28th 2018.
American accent, approaching a member of the museum staff and quietly asking: “But is the story of Kemal real?”. While a novel may present a ?iction set in the real world, with believable characters and events—very much like The Museum of Innocence does—, it is an altogether different claim to present real objects as belonging to ?ictional characters. The former, as a printed book (or e-book), has only an iconic relationship to its narrative, that is, it only claims to represent events through prose, and as such maintains a certain distance from facts. Objects inside a museum, however, are claimed to have had an immediate, indexical connection with history. To present real objects as belonging to ?ictional characters is walking a semiotic tightrope, especially since the fabrication of indexicality can easily be seen as uncanny or kitsch, and therefore as completely inauthentic . 39 The Museum of Innocence fashions itself in such a way that its guests can suspend their disbelief throughout their visit. From the moment one steps inside its wooden doors there is a constant reliance on (alleged) indexicality to present the museum’s story as authentic and real. With the exception of some slips, the exhibition materials describe all artifacts, characters, and events as genuine; the very ?irst wall-text welcoming visitors declares that the Çukurcuma house where the museum is hosted was once the Keskin family home, later becoming the place where Kemal Basmaci lived for the last years of his life . Indeed, Pamuk’s museum is heavily indebted to the living spaces of house and 40 literary museums around the world. Indeed, Kemal cites the Musée Gustave Moreau in Paris as a key in?luence for his own: originally the French painter’s house, Moreau started planning on it becoming a museum after his death, showing not only his works and illustrations but also his personal effects and the original architecture of his dwellings. Within the novel Kemal praises this museum for being a “house of memories, a ‘sentimental museum’ in which every object shimmered with meaning” . 41
Hede, Anne-Marie, & Thyne, Maree. (2010) “A journey to the authentic: Museum visitors and their
39
negotiation of the inauthentic”, Journal of Marketing Management, p. 688.
Although it is carefully phrased throughout, the exhibition booklet does mention that the museum 40
“is at once a fictional museum, and a museum of ‘Istanbul life in the second half of the 20th century’”. Besides this one phrase, the exhibition materials are careful to never acknowledge the museum’s status as fictional.
Pamuk, 2009, p. 682
The Museum of Innocence’s architecture certainly embraces being a “sentimental museum”. Windows are kept closed, providing darkness; on instructions given by Kemal in the novel, no more than 50 visitors are allowed into the museum at any one time; the low light, the wooden ?loors, and the loving displays draw the audience into an intimate ambience. Videos projected on the walls show black-and-white archival footage of Istanbul and clips from old Turkish ?ilms. Many of these photographs come from Ara Güler, considered “the greatest photographer of modern Istanbul”, with whom Pamuk has collaborated before. Güler’s pictures, always in black and white, are known for depicting not only the monumental side of Istanbul but also focusing on the individuals, usually from lower and working classes, who move through the city’s narrow streets on a day to day basis . The photographs are also effective in showing the rapid change of 42 the urban landscape, with concrete buildings and paved streets taking the place of wooden houses and muddy streets that were common in Istanbul throughout the twentieth century. These images recall both Pamuk and Kemal’s childhood, and further envelop the museum’s public into a nostalgic atmosphere. Sounds of rain, birdsong, and the River Bosphorus accentuate the silence and enforce liminality. The main exhibition spans three ?loors, following the 83-chapter structure of Pamuk’s novel. The vast majority of chapters are given individual display boxes, each one showing diverse objects and images referenced in the novel. Information labels are for the most part absent; the novel serves as the guidebook for the exhibition, with many attendees holding and constantly checking their copies of The Museum of Innocence for information . In addition to this, an audio guide narrated both by Pamuk and Kemal is 43 recommended for those visitors who have not read the novel. As the narrator of the text and the audio tour, Kemal constantly directs the public’s attention towards the contents of each vitrine, while Pamuk takes the role of curator, explaining the logic and
Pamuk, Ohran. (2018, November 1) “I Like Your Photographs Because They Are Beautiful”. The
42
New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/opinion/orhan-pamuk-ara-guler-istanbul.html. Accessed on January 2nd, 2019.
Two volumes of the novel— one in Turkish and one in English— are present in each floor as 43
resource material. It is worth noting that these editions have also become de facto visitor books, with audiences from all around the world scribbling messages for the author in a variety of languages, with dates and signatures, all over the text’s pages.
arrangements behind each display. While all displays relate to the novel’s chapters, their approach to representation is sometimes different and not strictly based on the object’s indexicality to Füsun, i.e. not all objects were necessarily ‘touched’ or directly related to her. As explained by the author “each box needed its own structure and aura; each should have its own particular soul” . 44 The ‘regular’ display of Chapter 2,”The Sanzelize Boutique”, showcases how most of the vitrines work (?ig. 3). The wooden box shows a yellow shoe alongside a leather Jenny Colon bag. Both objects lay underneath a metal signboard painted black, with big stylized letters spelling out “Sanzelize Butik”. All these elements are tied together through the novel’s narrative: chapter two details how the yellow shoe used to belong to Füsun, while the bag was seen through the window of the Sanzelize Boutique by Kemal while walking down the streets of upper class neighborhood Nisantasi. Kemal’s visit to the store later that week turns into his very ?irst meeting with Füsun, signaling the moment that kickstarts the lover’s affair and the beginning of the story.
Pamuk, Ohran. (2012) The Innocence of Objects. Trans. Oklap, Ekin. Abrams: New York. p. 61
44
fig.3 Chapter 2 display box. Image: Pamuk, Orhan. 2012. 2. The Sanzelize Boutique.
Istanbul: The Museum of Innocence. © Google Arts Project.
While the display case neatly ties the visual elements of the chapter together, the coming-about of the artifacts is eclectic. The yellow shoe and shop signboard comes from Pamuk’s collection of antique objects, gathered around ?lea markets and antique shops in Istanbul; the handbag was commissioned especially for the museum, as it is supposed to be a Turkish knock-off of a well known European brand . Since the object 45 is ?ictional, Pamuk recruited Istanbul craftsmen to make a handbag with the appropriate knock-off style . 46 Chapter 2’s diorama-like display is representative of how objects with disparate origins are brought together inside the Museum of Innocence. Artifacts with different pasts, which previously existed as commodities, ?ind their provenance replaced by a new ‘aura’ that grants them a certain uniqueness. This effect is exacerbated in each carefully constructed box, which recalls a particular set and setting, but also a sensation. The chapter displays function as small windows through which the audience can see the world through Kemal’s and Pamuk’s eyes. Interspersed amongst the cabinets are displays that rely on literary elements, jumping from indexicality to iconicity and symbolism. Such is the case of Chapter 23 (“Silence") and Chapter 29 (“By Now There Was Hardly a Moment When I Wasn't Thinking About Her”). These boxes rely on metaphors conjured up by Kemal while describing kissing Füsun —“…like a ravenous bird taking a ?ig into its beak” —, or feeling jealous about 47 Füsun’s past lover — “…as if a black lamp were burning eternally inside me, radiating darkness.” . In both instances, Kemal’s visual metaphor is literally shown. In the former, 48 the metaphor is presented as a painting of two seagulls ?ighting over a ?ig, commissioned for the exhibition by Pamuk (?ig. 4). The latter display shows a ‘Black Lamp’ built by the author from the pieces of other artifacts (?ig.5).
Jenny Colon, the so-called Paris fashion house, is actually an allusion to French poet Gérard de
45 Nerval’s lover. Pamuk, 2012, p.61 46 Pamuk, 2009, p.139 47 Pamuk, 2009, p.219 48
These pastiches are outwardly justi?ied by Pamuk in the audio tour, describing Kemal’s words as being “so precise that they can be represented as objects”, further insisting that “similes and metaphors are too objects of thorough scrutiny” . The 49 presentation of illegitimate and fabricated objects along with depictions of visual metaphors would, under a traditional object-oriented museum, be a perfect formula for claims of inauthenticity. However, the Museum of Innocence is clearly unconcerned with simply presenting ‘factual history’. Instead, the exhibition aims to create a sensitive atmosphere that fully surrounds and immerses the audience into the narrative. The museum seems well aware that, in lieu of indexical authenticity, visitors will rely more on their own memories and imagination, the museum materials (including the audio tour and handout), and previous knowledge of the novel. These instruments allow for a co-construction of the visitor’s experience, where by means of “associations and imaginings as well as […] immediate sensation” a feeling of authenticity can be provoked . 50 Fabricating Indexicality The apex of the museum’s play with reality and ?iction comes with the third and last ?loor of the Çukurcuma house. Dedicated to the last three chapters of the novel, the Pamuk, 2012, p.144 49
Prentice, R., 2001. Experiential cultural tourism: museums and the marketing of the New
50
Romanticism of evoked authenticity. Museum Management and Curatorship 19 (1), p. 22; also Thyne et al, 2010, p. 2
fig.4 Chapter 29 display box. Image: Pamuk, Orhan. 2012. 29. By Now There Was Hardly
a Moment When I Wasn't Thinking About Her. Istanbul: The
audience is brought directly in contact with the protagonist’s history. Facing the untimely death of Füsun, Kemal decides to open a museum in her honor, featuring his collection, at her family’s old house. As visitors climbs the stairs into the attic they are confronted with Kemal’s bedroom, where he lived for the last 7 years of his life. Humbly arranged in a corner of the attic are the protagonist’s bed, bedside table, slippers, pajama, and a small collection of photographs and objects. The room is presented as a lived-in space, akin to the living spaces displayed in house museums and palaces. Without any warning, the audience is effectively brought inside one last inconspicuously built display; the ?irst two ?loors of the museum maintained a certain distance between audience and artifacts through wood and glass boxes, but the lack of such presentation makes the attic more intimate, private, and without distance. Visitors enter the frame, activating the last ?loor with their presence. Kemal’s room in the Museum of Innocence represents the moment in which fact and ?iction are well and truly blurred. This moment also happens in the last chapter of the novel: as Kemal gathers his collection, he realizes he wants someone to write down and publish his memories as a guide for the museum. The aging collector meets and befriends local writer Orhan Pamuk, whom he selects for his fame and similar background. Introducing himself into the narrative, the last chapter of the novel features Pamuk meeting Kemal and establishing a friendly relationship over seven years, during which the writer would spend long nights interviewing Kemal. Unlike the chapter boxes
fig.5 Chapter 23 display box.
Image: Pamuk, Orhan. 2012. 23. Silence. Istanbul: The Museum of Innocence. © Google Arts Project.
that dominate the rest of the house, which keep a certain separation between objects and visitors, the attic room is presented “as-is”. Only a cordon stands between the visitor and Kemal’s lodgings; while the displays from chapter one to seventy-nine seem carefully built and borderline theatrical in their attention to detail, Kemal’s room doesn’t look particularly staged or fabricated. Beside the bed lies a wooden chair, where Pamuk would sit while listening to Kemal’s story. In the closing narration of the audio tour, Pamuk explains: “Once or twice, Kemal noticed that I was tired, and we switched places. He sat on my chair and I lay down on the bed; suddenly I was looking at the world through his eyes, unnerved. I could easily be Kemal. I could tell my story as if it were his, and his as if it were mine […] I felt that it didn’t matter too much which voice was Kemal’s and which was mine. Did the objects not remind us both of the very same things?” . 51 Audiences may listen to this narration while sitting on the only bench in the attic, which gives a similar view of Kemal’s bed as from the chair mentioned by Pamuk (?ig. 6). At this moment the ?igures of the author and the protagonist of the novel merge, through sheer bodily identi?ication and perspective, with the gaze of the viewer. Left for the conclusion of the visit, the apparent indexicality of the room legitimizes the authenticity of the entire collection. As Thyne, Hede, and White conclude in their study of literary house museums, “indexicality must also be present in some form” in order for inauthentic artifacts to “become a legitimate resource for the co-construction of the visitor experience” . In this degree Kemal’s room is successful in convincing the 52 audience that everything they just saw was real, as well as throwing skeptics off-balance by the sudden shift in representation. It would be easy to ascribe the Museum of Innocence’s successful presentation of authenticity to its selection of objects, carefully built displays, and nuanced presentation
Pamuk, 2012, p. 251. This quote also appears towards the end of the audio tour, in the attic. The 51
phrase becomes knowingly ironic since, in the Turkish version of the audio tour, Orhan Pamuk voices both himself and Kemal.
Thyne et al, 2010, p.5
of ?iction as fact through the so-called “museum effect” . This, however, would be over-53 simplifying. In terms of exhibition design, Pamuk is invested in creating a nostalgic “sentimental museum”. As a consequence, understanding that the museum doesn’t need to be ‘fact’-based allows for the active use of metaphors, similes, and theatrical elements that create an immersive experience rather than an encyclopedic one. Secondly, both the novel and the author legitimize the existence of the museum. As a respected novelist, Pamuk’s closeness to the museum predisposes the audience to let their disbelief be suspended— very much in the same way that a reader might before diving into a work of ?iction. In this way Pamuk’s understanding of a museum comes closer to what one would expect of a novel: not just as a repository of historical information, but as a narrative device that can take a reader into an imaginary journey, while still informing his or her reality.
see Alpers, Svetlana. (1991) "The Museum as a Way of Seeing" In I. Karp & S. Lavine
53
(Eds.) Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington. pp. 25–32
A Lie that Brings Us Closer to the Truth(s) There is a further element in addition to the objects and setting that plays an important role in the authenticity of the Museum of Innocence. In addition to collecting cigarette stubs, watches, and glasses of raki, Pamuk and Kemal avidly visited thousands of museums of all shapes and sizes around the world. For more than twenty years the collectors became quite knowledgeable amateur museologists, being able to recognize patterns, shortfalls, and gather inspiration for the establishment of their own museum. A large discussion on the more than 1’700 museums visited by Kemal can be found in Chapters 81 and 82 of the novel. The evident museum knowledge of the character legitimates the Museum of Innocence through intertextuality — it acknowledges the in?luence that “backstreet” house and literary museums, eclectic exhibitions, and humble yet passionate collectors have had over its own creation. Harking back to Pamuk’s feeling of “insuf?iciency” in ?iction, as well as Benjamin’s claim about a writer’s proclivity to write about that which they haven’t found, it is clear that by creating his own ideal museum Pamuk is addressing his personal views and politics. Tellingly, upon entering through the narrow doorway of the Museum of Innocence, one ?inds a copy of “A Modest Manifesto for Museums” displayed on the very ?irst wall beside the entrance . This short text functions as a statement by the author, explaining his 54 vision for future museums and adding a slight political charge to the proceedings; Pamuk notices one more parallel between novels and museums, seeing how “the transitions from palaces to national museums and from epics to novels are parallel processes… National museums should be like novels; but they are not” . In the eleven 55 points of the manifesto, the author states his belief on museums going from grand national narratives to smaller, individual stories; from being hosted in spectacular and expensive buildings to the homes and neighborhoods of common people; from detached and representational to personal and expressive. The dynamic relationship between fact and ?iction inside the Museum of Innocence, aided by the use of literary devices like metaphors and similes, challenges traditional
see Annex, fig. 1
54
Pamuk, 2012, p.55
displays and any view or claim of “clear-cut sources of value” . Nevertheless, this play 56 between categories is merely a device used by Pamuk to address larger concerns. Singularizing national museums as out-of-touch with social reality, Pamuk emphasizes how “the stories of individuals are much better suited to displaying the depths of our humanity” . The disputed existence of Kemal and Füsun is not the point of the Museum 57 of Innocence: what’s important is that they could exist, and that their story would one way or the other be representative of the struggles of the lower and upper classes in Istanbul during the second half of the twentieth century. What is more, the small, ordinary moments in the lives of Kemal and Füsun— such as watching television after dinner for countless evenings, inside the Çukurcuma house—, can be relatable not only to Turkish culture but to a wider middle-class experience, which Pamuk relates to other places— China, India, Russia, Mexico—, where there is a clash between local tradition and Western modernity . 58 The quote referenced in the section heading, “Art is a lie that brings us closer to the truth”, has been attributed to Pablo Picasso. Whether this attribution is real or not, I mention it here for its alikeness and difference to Pamuk’s work. Making a museum out of ?iction could be considered deceptive, and in the era of “fake news”, ethically wrong. Nevertheless, and in contrast to Picasso’s (alleged) claim, Pamuk doesn’t seek to bring us closer to the truth, but to a truth. The author’s emphasis on individual stories advocates plurality and heteroglossia. The Museum of Innocence is thus a plea and an example in how museums can be scaled back, rethought, and presented. The use of ?iction in narrative comes naturally in this process, for it allows museum visitors to suspend their disbelief and engage on a deeper level with the co-construction of meaning and sensations in the museum. Tekgül, 2016, p.399 56 Pamuk, 2012, p.55 57
Gardels, Nathan. (2009, November 11) “To solve Turkey’s Culture Clash, Old Elite must yield to
58
Free Speech”. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/ Opinion/2009/1111/p09s01-coop.html Accessed on January 2nd 2019.
Artist Apocrypha
Treasures from the Wreck of the
Unbelievable
An Unbelievable Museum “Are we justi?ied in calling this innate habit of mind, this tendency to create an imaginary world of living beings (or perhaps: a world of animate ideas), a playing of the mind, a mental game?” —John Huizinga, Homo Ludens In the quest for the suspension of disbelief, an author might take diverging paths based on genre. The previous chapter dealt with Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, a museum and novel in which ?iction and reality are interweaved. After all, Pamuk’s oeuvre has been written under the literary genre of realist ?iction, and so is his museum: both the novel and the exhibition in Çukurcuma are grounded on real, found objects, which are inherently tied to the history of Istanbul. Pamuk merely created a ?ictive storyline to connect these artifacts, which overall is realist enough to be believable. This chapter starts by considering what happens, then, when a ?ictional museum is inherently unbelievable? How would a museum with a completely fabricated collection and backstory tackle the suspension of disbelief? And to what extent can this deeper play between ?iction and non-?iction work as institutional critique? As with many wondrous things, a prime example of an unbelievable museum can be found in the Baroque era. In 1684, Sir Thomas Browne published a tract by the name of Musæum Clausum, also known as Biblioteca Absconditha. Drawing from the popularity of cabinets of curiosities and esoteric collections in Europe at the time, Browne’s text lists a compilation of “remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living”. Allegedly based on knowledge passed on to him by contemporaries, the museum described contained fantastical objects, such as ‘A large Ostrich’s Egg, whereon is neatly and fully wrought that famous battle of Alcazar, in which three Kings lost their lives’ and ‘A Glass of Spirits made of Ethereal Salt, Hermetically sealed up, kept continually in Quick Silver and so volatile a
