November 19, 2008
Hammer Web Site Raises the Bar for Museum Offerings
Gary Garrels, a Hammer Museum curator, talks with six artists in one of the new Web site’s multimedia offerings.
For an art gallery, the Armand Hammer Museum of Art has always been both interactive and inventive. The museum — which is part of the University of California at Los Angeles — not only offers patrons a wide variety of talks, readings, screenings, and field trips, but it also goes outside the box when it organizes exhibitions.
On Monday, though, the museum surpassed itself — and every other museum I can think of, either on a campus or off — by unveiling a new Web site that all but vibrates with podcasts, videorecordings of presentations, blog posts, slide shows, and more. Many museums offer images of works in their collections or in special exhibitions, along with calendar listings, directions, and hours, but usually that’s about it. At the Hammer site, so much is available online that even those of us several time zones away have plenty to enjoy and learn from. And people who live in Los Angeles couldn’t possibly attend all of the museum’s events in person, so archiving presentations online benefits Angelenos as well.
Among the site’s current offerings — check the “Watch + Listen” tab — are a video of a screening of several delightful Brent Green short films (with live musical accompaniment), podcasts of a lecture by the artist William Christenberry and a reading by the writer Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient and much more), and a recording of a conversation between Leon Botstein, the conductor and Bard College president, and Frank Gehry, the architect. And this is, presumably, just the start. If the museum keeps adding to what’s online now, within a few years the site will be a treasure trove.
Making so much smart content available free online is a tremendous service to art and culture — a service other university museums would do well to study. —Lawrence Biemiller
Posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Thanks for sharing this.
Museums have had a wide variety of success with online venues. A few years back, I had the honor of judging in the Best of the Web contest as part of the Museums and the Web conference hosted by Archimuse. All of the nominees as well as the winners from the last several years can be found on the conference web site for each year (Here’s 2008: http://archimuse.com/mw2008/best/index.html). I have found these sites a good resource for ideas in thinking about the Internet and delivering content.
Karen B
— Karen B Nov 19, 10:21 AM #
Diego to Karen-
Wow, thank you for making this comment! I had not made the leap from being a viewer to becoming a presenter. I am always looking for new and rich strategies for my classroom, and this idea of yours leads me into a whole new realm.
I am also getting ready to take an art class myself, so I suspect this site will be a perferct compliment to my own studies. Kudos to the great folks at the Armand Hammer Musuem!
— Diego Nov 20, 10:16 AM #