The Decorative Experience

The Decorative Experience
Location: McClung Museum

This entire exhibit was a disaster. McClung Museum is so hit and miss with their exhibits, and this one was a definite miss. Before I even entered the exhibit I was in a bad mood. Entering into McClung was like entering into a tropical jungle. The lobby was more humid than the rain forest. This did not put me in the mood to visit a museum. There's nothing worse than feeling hot and sticky as you walk around trying to read museum labels. My visit did not start off on a good note.




The first thing that I noticed when I entered the exhibit was that the lights were not on in one of the display cases. It wasn't even that one light was out. The entire case was dark. This was an obvious problem that any of the museum's employees should have spotted and fixed. It did not reflect well upon the museum to have a darkened display case. The museum is dark enough as it is. The cases need lights so you can actually see the artifacts inside. This looked very unprofessional on the museum's part.



Another problem I had with the exhibit was the "Art of the Chinese Tang Dynasty" portion of the exhibition. This display case was the second thing I noticed when I entered the exhibit. It stuck out from the rest of the exhibit like a sore thumb. The background was a completely different color from those in the other cases. The presentation of the artifacts in that case looked much more professional that any of the other cases. Although that particular case looked nice, it made the poor quality of the other display cases stand out even more. I had trouble figuring out if the Tang dynasty display case even went with the rest of the exhibit. For a moment I wondered if another little exhibit had been placed in the room with a completely different exhibit.


A third problem that I immediately had with the exhibit was the awkward placement of a television at one end of the room. The TV clearly blocked part of the exhibit, and it wasn't even on. It wouldn't have been so bad if the TV had been showing a film related to the exhibit. But instead it just stood awkwardly at one end of the room. It looked like it was a remnant from a past field trip to the museum. This was another mistake made by the museum staff. The television should have either been showing a related film or shouldn't have been in the room at all. It distracted my attention from the rest of the exhibit.

Overall this exhibit was not a success. I left McClung not remembering the amazing artifacts that I had viewed but instead thinking of all of the annoying problems that the exhibit had. I know that McClung can put together an excellent exhibit. The Sacred Beauty exhibit is a good example. There was no excuse for such a poor presentation, and McClung failed to professionally maintain this exhibit like a university museum should.