Andrea Fraser

Brooke Marcy

 

Summery of Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk by Andrea Fraser

 

 

In her performance piece, Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk, Andrea Fraser takes on the role of Museum docent and tour guide Jane Castleton. Her character dresses conservatively and presents herself as a representative of the Museum. She is white and middleclass, which makes her easily identifiable to her audience.  She begins her tour, which includes restrooms, coatrooms, the gift shop etc, by making sure that everyone has paid their entrance fee and by expounding on the privileges of Membership. She emphasizes her need to only express her “best qualities”, and encourages the visitors to raise themselves up to meet the standards, qualities, and values associated with the Museum.

 

 Instead of Jane giving the standard dialog associated with a Museum tour, she combines her own words with quotes she has appropriated from Museum publications, municipal reports and other sources.  She juxtaposes these quotes, jumping from discussions on poverty, workhouses, the prison system etc., with those exemplifying the artwork and embracing the purity and morality intrinsic to the Museum. By doing so, she is pointing out the discord between elevated values found within the Museum and the social, economical and political realities existing outside the protective walls. Another example of this dichotomy is seen when Jane enters a period room showing the living conditions found in 1625 England. She squirms at the dirt and filth referring to the room as an example of societal degradation and lack of education. Jane clearly finds this room unworthy of its surroundings, and to counteract this unpleasant reality, she quickly switches her audience’s attention to cleanliness of the bathroom, which serves as a more fitting reflection of the tastes of the Museum. Jane notes that the experience of visiting a Museum is not necessarily about the art but about learning proper values.

 

Andrea Fraser continuously points to the ridiculousness of the mystique surrounding the Museum, and through her juxtaposing of quotes, reveals the true nature behind the exalted facade. She looks at what the Museum expects of its visitors, and examines the differences and similarities between the volunteer, the donor, the staff, and the visitor, all of which, are drawn to the respectability and high moral values exemplified by the Museum. When speaking of the donor, she alludes to the fact that with enough money an individual can actually buy Museum credibility, bringing attention to the fact that the Museum is a business. Through her work Andrea Fraser is presenting people with a humorous and poignant look at the operations, values and motives behind the machine that is the Museum, and how those values relate to social and environmental reality.