#museum

If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum. ↗

— Arthur Eddington

#books #british #british museum #might #monkeys

I don't know a single collector or museum director who says: 'Oh, he's on a list, so I think I'll buy something of his.' The people who buy my art put a little more thought into it than that. ↗

— Olafur Eliasson

#buy #collector #director #his #i

I was in Beijing a month ago working on the smoke project in collaboration with an architect there, and I was asked very directly whether it was safe to breathe in the smoke. They did not have confidence in the museum not to use harmful smoke, and they certainly didn't have confidence that the city would protect them from harmful smoke. ↗

— Olafur Eliasson

#architect #asked #beijing #breathe #certainly

It's hardly even noticeable that so many artists, designers and architects live here. It isn't reflected in the cityscape or in the museums. Many of the artists, for example, exhibit around the world, just not in Berlin. ↗

— Olafur Eliasson

#around #artists #berlin #designers #even

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral. ↗

— John Burroughs

#feeling #funeral #go #history #i

Museum architectural search committees have invariably included the Kimbell in their international scouting tours of exemplary art galleries (a practice pioneered by Velma Kimbell, the founder’s widow, in 1964). Those groups no doubt respond to the Kimbell with suitable reverence, but given the buildings they later commissioned, many post-Bilbao museum patrons obviously wanted something quite different. The disparity between Kahn’s museums and recent examples of that genre parallels the discrepancy he saw between postwar Modernism and ancient Classicism: “Our stuff looks tinny compared to it.” At a time when commercial values are systematically corrupting the museum - one of civilized society’s most elevating experiences - the example of Kahn, among the most courageous and successful architectural reformers of all time, seems more relevant and cautionary than ever. ↗

— Martin Filler

#louis-kahn #museums #architecture

Visiting a museum is a matter of going from void to void. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#matter #museum #visiting #void

History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#artifices #both #everybody #found #history

Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#into #like #looks #museum #museums

The museum spreads its surfaces everywhere, and becomes an untitled collection of generalizations that mobilize the eye. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#collection #everywhere #eye #generalizations #mobilize