GREAT MAGAZINES THAT NEVER MADE IT. MUSE (2)

MUSE: Exploring the World's Museums (Part 2)

GREAT DISPLAYS

McGraw-Hill, the publisher of MUSE, the long-gone magazine devoted to museums, thought they had a solid creative idea. The premier issue contained articles about the Getty Museum, the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, the Air and Space Museum in D.C., and (for the time) exciting color spreads of museum exhibits. "For too many centuries, too many museums were scholarly warehouses, gigantic filing cabinets, even, in the telling nickname of the Smithsonian, 'the nation's attic'...display artists (now we would call them "exhibit designers") have become as important to museums as they are to department stores. And for similar reasons: to "sell" the merchandise, to help the customer-visitor grasp the virtues of the materials and their relations to others like them.

THE COST OF CREATING AN EXHIBIT.

In 1978-79, the East Building of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., designed by Architect I.M. Pei was new. According to a major article about "Great Displays" and specifically, "From the Pacific", MUSE said that a 17,000-square-foot exhibition space was stripped bare and rebuilt. On display were masks and figures, weapons, musical instruments, delicate utensils and vibrant textiles from Hawaii in the east to New Guinea in the west. The exhibitions total cost, including transportation of the objects, came to to almost $500,000". Wow! What a difference thirty years can make.