Blog 5/6

Tittle: The Standing Lion
Artist: Unknown
Date: Unknown, a few years ago.
Culture: Italian
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: H. 10.5 cm
Classification: Bronze, Metalwork
Source: I got it in a Flea Market.

In my house there are a few objects that the museum may show them in their expositions and others may not. I've always been very passionate about lions and lionesses, for me they represent courage, monarchy, empowerment in the world and history.
The Unknown artist engraved "ITALY" in the bottom of the sculpture that gives me the sense of a historic meaning. The fact that the Lion is standing represents to me a battle where he is the king of Italy. I chose "The Standing Lion" because everything is related to the meaning we assigned to our different objects. Whether we got it from a family member as a gift, or that we bought it in a thrift store is simply relative, especially when it comes to being "rare."

So why this object isn't at the Museum? Because, it may not have the same value or meaning for some of the experts and powerful people that maintain the museums by choosing what they should put in their expositions. Just as John Cotton Dana in The Gloom of the Museum states by saying "They become lost in their idea of a museum and forget its purpose. They become lost in working out the idea of a museum and forget their public." In other words, what Dana is saying, is that most of the time they don't present what is meaningful for other people, base on their culture, beliefs and traditions. Basically, they only present what they think its best to capture the viewer's attention and not what's really behind of any other work of art, that probably has the same meaning in a different level and circumstance. The rich people that supports the museums are mostly based in wealthy people like them, but what about the lower class that always wanted to see rare objects from their ancestors? The truth is that we are usually attract towards rare objects that provokes certain kind of emotion whether is related to our culture, time being, religion or simply to the meaning we gave to an specific object.