Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.01.2010, Side 23

SÖFnUn OG SýninGARRýMi
23
ABSTRACT
Collection and Exhibitionary Spaces: On museums, canons,
and institutions of memory
This article constitutes an interdisciplinary attempt to probe certain issues in
museum studies by focusing on canon formation in the face of the chaos of collec-
tion, and on literary representations of places and museum experiences. The
journey takes us via the guided tour of the cathedral in Franz Kafka’s novel The
Trial, through the Settlement Centre in Borgarnes, iceland (an exhibition without
original objects, except for the place itself), to the collection of iceland’s medieval
manuscripts. After an interim discussion about the dynamics and arbitrariness of
collection, selection and canon-formation, the attention shifts to the ways in
which museums have opened their doors to exhibitions by artists inquiring into
the institutional role of the museum. Transforming the museum space itself in the
process, some artists broaden the focus of their works in an effort to embrace – as
some novelists have also sought to do – a whole city, a grand but chaotic place of
collective and personal memories. in Orhan Pamuk’s novel The Museum of
Innocence, the city, the novel, and the idea of the museum all interact, revealing
meaningful facets of one another, and of the protagonist, who starts putting
together his personal museum, as has the author himself; and perhaps this is what
we all do, in one way or another.
Keywords: museum experience, canon, literary places, exhibitionary spaces, institu-
tions of memory.