Curating Pop: Exhibiting Popular Music in the Museum

191 Pages·2019·13.795 MB·English

by  Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity, Raphaël Nowak

Curating Pop
ii
Curating Pop
Exhibiting Popular Music in the Museum
Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity and Raphaël Nowak
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in the United States of America 2019
Copyright © Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity, and Raphaël Nowak, 2019
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. ix constitute an extension of
this copyright page.
Cover illustration © Hugh Cowling
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Baker, Sarah, 1977- author. | Istvandity, Lauren, author. | Nowak,
Raphaèel, 1985- author.
Title: Curating pop : exhibiting popular music in the museum / Sarah Baker,
Lauren Istvandity and Raphaèel Nowak.
Description: New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007906 (print) | LCCN 2019012015 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501343599
(ePub) | ISBN 9781501343605 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781501343575 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781501343582 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Music museums–Curatorship. | Popular music–Exhibitions. |
Popular music–Historiography.
Classification: LCC ML3470 (ebook) | LCC ML3470 .B356 2019 (print) | DDC 781.64075–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007906
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-4357-5
PB: 978-1-5013-4358-2
ePDF: 978-1-5013-4360-5
eBook: 978-1-5013-4359-9
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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For museum workers everywhere who are dedicated to
storying popular music’s past
vi
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Curatorial Practice in Popular Music Museums: An Introduction 1
2 Canonic Representations: The Celebration of Dominant (and
Hidden) Histories 17
3 Selling the Museum Experience: Curation, Economies and Visitor
Experience 35
4 Popular Music and Place: Local, National and Global Stories 55
5 Treating Objects like Art: Curating Material Culture 73
6 Telling Stories: Narratives of Popular Music’s Past 91
7 Curator Subjectivity: Influence and Bias in Popular Music Exhibitions 109
8 Living History: Nostalgia as Affective Curatorial Practice 127
9 Managing the Music: Sound in the Popular Music Museum 141
10 Beyond the Typology: Concluding Thoughts 155
References 165
Index 175
List of Illustrations
Figures
Figure 2.1 Hector Country Music Heritage Museum. Photograph by
Sarah Baker 22
Figure 2.2 Autographed photographs on display at the Hector
Country Music Heritage Museum. Photograph by Sarah Baker 23
Figure 2.3 The women’s wall of fame at the Australian Country Music
Hall of Fame. Photograph by Sarah Baker 29
Figure 3.1 Heart of Texas Country Music Museum. Photograph by
Sarah Baker 46
Figure 4.1 At Walk a Country Mile, ‘The story of Australian Country
Music’ is told in a series of five short films. Photograph by
Sarah Baker 66
Figure 4.2 Display at Walk a Country Mile focused on the
involvement of radio station 2TM in making Tamworth
the Country Music Capital. Photograph by Sarah Baker 68
Figure 4.3 Tamworth display case at Walk a Country Mile.
Photograph by Sarah Baker 69
Figure 4.4 Details of Tamworth display case at Walk a Country
Mile with Country Music Capital marketing material.
Photograph by Sarah Baker 70
Figure 5.1 Memorabilia on display at KD’s Elvis Presley Museum.
Photograph by Sarah Baker 76
Figure 6.1 Chronological narrative at the Ramones Museum.
Photograph by Sarah Baker 95
Table
Table 1.1 Research sites 9
Acknowledgements
The fieldwork for this book was made possible by grant funding from the
Australian Research Council (DP1092910 and DP130100317). A huge debt of
gratitude goes to all the museum professionals that gave their time to speak at
length about their curatorial practice as part of these ARC-funded projects.
Co-investigators on DP1092910 include Andy Bennett, Shane Homan,
Peter Doyle, Motti Regev, Sara Cohen, Susanne Janssen, Timothy Dowd and
Alison Huber. Shane, Peter, Alison and Motti conducted interviews with a
number of the respondents we cite in this book (see Chapter 1), but all the
co-investigators on DP1092910 played a role in shaping the project. Their
subsequent work on popular music heritage has informed our approach in
Curating Pop.
As we worked towards the development of the typology, we published three
articles in museum studies, heritage studies and cultural studies journals and
thank the peer reviewers and journal editors for their generous feedback which
helped refine our approach. Material or ideas from the following articles appear
in some form in the chapters of this book:
● Baker, S., Istvandity, L. and Nowak, R. (2016a), ‘The Sound of Music
Heritage: Curating Popular Music in Music Museums and Exhibitions’,
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 22 (1): 70–81.
● Baker, S., Istvandity, L. and Nowak, R. (2016b), ‘Curating Popular Music
Heritage: Storytelling and Narrative Engagement in Popular Music
Museums and Exhibitions’, Museum Management and Curatorship, 31 (4):
369–85.
● Baker, S., Istvandity, L. and Nowak, R. (2018), ‘Curatorial Practice in
Popular Music Museums: An Emerging Typology of Structuring Concepts’,
European Journal of Cultural Studies, doi.org/10.1177/1367549418761796.
Thanks go to Dr Zelmarie Cantillon for casting a critical eye over an early draft
of the manuscript and for proofreading the final document. Thanks too to
Professor Paul Long for his ongoing support for our work on popular music
heritage. We would like to acknowledge the generosity and flexibility of the