Museums and the Art of Storytelling

The Auckland Art Gallery

I am an avid museum-goer. Next to travel and hands-on experience, it’s one of the best ways to learn. They are more interactive than reading a simple textbook. But there is another level that I hadn’t considered until recently, and that is the role of storytelling in museums.

It’s easy to allow a cliché term to lose its value, such as “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I tend to appreciate paintings and photos in museums more, however, when there are blurbs that help provide additional context for the image. This is especially true when the blurb focuses less on the timing of the painting or the materials, but on the subject of the painting.

This is because, at the heart of things, I prefer pictures that can tell a story. I believe this may be why certain abstract paintings do not hold my attention either. I can appreciate the ways in which they challenge the status quo, or hold dialogue with other pieces of art, but I will not study them with the same intensity as an image harkening back to a Biblical tale, or a Greek myth. In those, I can get lost in the moment, scrutinize the snapshot in the context of the whole.

 Village Fair, by Pieter Bruegel the Younger

A great example of this occurred as I was touring the Auckland Art Gallery during my first weekend in New Zealand. I came across A Village Fair, by Pieter Bruegel the Younger. I will never claim that the artistry is the most exquisite, but I found myself spending more time looking at this image than any other because of the delightful amount of detail to pick apart. The more time you spend looking at it, the more you see, from the play going on in the center, to the procession of idols coming from the right side, to the various forms of merrymaking taking place. Each character has their own story occurring, and despite its admittedly somewhat clunky style, I could easily immerse myself in what was happening.

It doesn’t always take a wide-angle lens, however, to tell a vivid story. One of the tenets of news reporting is to bring the facts and figures down to an individual level. It’s why journalists usually tell an individual’s story that is indicative of a larger phenomenon.

I can still remember vividly, though it’s been well over a decade, that the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. would give you a little passport representing someone who entered a concentration camp, and as you progressed through the halls, you would discover the fate of the individual you have been designated. It was an effective way to better immerse oneself and internalize the horrors inflicted on fellow human beings.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum, back when I visited it in 2015

It also makes me consider the art of curating a museum. I recall back in 2018, when a favorite filmmaker of mine, Wes Anderson, curated the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Though I consider him a great storyteller in his own domain, I remember the reviews of his art curating to be lackluster. It pointed out that not only did he have to contend with things he was untrained in, such as climate control and other preservation mechanics, but he also sought to rearrange the artifacts that each had their own unique story and significance. In the end, he sacrificed context and relevance to put together a purely aesthetic experience.

This example helps highlight both how challenging museum curation can be, as well as its significance to the visitors who tour the museum. It takes a well-trained eye to build up a cohesive narrative to act as a throughline from one room to another and explain the evolution of time, art, culture, and existence.

So the next time I visit a museum, I may try to take a moment to imagine it as a book, with each artifact as a character and each room as a chapter. I hope it may help me understand the silent dialogue taking place, and that I may leave with a deeper appreciation for what I came to see.

The Robert Louis Stevenson House in Samoa, telling the story of an author's later life.