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Slavery, Memory, and Museum Display in Baltimore: The Great Blacks in Wax and the Reginald F. Lewis
Author(s) -
Wood Marcus
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2009.tb00341.x
Subject(s) - memorialization , diaspora , context (archaeology) , situated , art , art history , history , visual arts , anthropology , archaeology , sociology , gender studies , political science , law , artificial intelligence , computer science
This paper meditates upon a conundrum: Can there be a right way to represent the traumatic experience of Atlantic slavery within the context of a museum setting? The analysis deals with the question by focusing on the radically contrasting museological, aesthetic, and ethical codes of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, and the Reginald Lewis Museum, both situated in Baltimore, Maryland. Three key sites are isolated for discussion: the names of the museums, their approaches to the topic of the Middle Passage, and lynching. While both museums have made important cultural contributions to the public memorialization of highly charged subjects, the Great Blacks in Wax emerges as the more radical institution, closely in touch with the dynamic and creative museum aesthetic of the wider Black Atlantic Diaspora, and of Brazil in particular.