The Essence of Essentiality (The Museum, vol. 1)

I spent most of my time at the Museum of London perusing the Satirical London exhibit. While there, I mostly just walked around, chuckling at various Hogarth or Steadman illustrations but not thinking much of them. Increasingly, however, I've been thinking about the practicality and purpose in having an exhibit about Satirical London, in the Museum of London, and what that means.

What do we expect upon entering a museum? Josh posed that question to me today, and I've grappled with various answers since. The best I can come up with: it depends on the museum you're entering. Or, more importantly (for my purposes) the name of the museum you're entering. A visitor to the John Soanes Museum expects to see items that Soanes once collected. A traveler to the Dickens House Museum expects to ascertain some sense of how Dickens lived, the space he inhabited, if only for a blip in time. But the Museum of London? A museum audacious enough to adorn itself the Museum of London inherently burdens itself with the task of representing London. But, what does this mean, and is it even plausible? How does the museum define the city of London; determine what artifacts and totems are symbolic of the city; objectively portray itself, while at the same time, being part of the very city it's portraying?

I'm looking at Hogarth's "Gin Lane" in the Satirical London exhibit, and my eyes are focused, amongst the general madness of the cartoon, on a drunken mother who has just dropped her baby. This is not Gin Lane's only unfortunate event; elsewhere, a man wrestles a dog for a bone; down the street, presumably alcohol-induced riots erupt; and through a second-story window, I can see a man dangle from a rope. I get the impression that London had a gin problem. (It's solution? According to Hogarth's "Beer Street," more beer.)

I'm beginning to have more thoughts on why this exhibit existed, in this place, at this time. The museum presented it historically; that is to say, the drawings, masks, puppets, etc. were, in a historical museum, themselves artifacts of that history. But I found it ironic that the items in this satirical exhibit were (at least at one point) satirizing the very ideas, cultures, dogmas, whatever, that the other items in the museum supposedly represent; that is, the city of London. To recap: the Museum of London, by reason of it's naming, becomes both part of and representative of the city of London - because of this, it's collection are emblems of the city and it's history/culture/whathaveyou - however, it features a section satirizing London, and by consequence, the very city it represents.

The exhibit, while allowing for a diametric viewpoint of that which is London, is nevertheless presented almost solely in non-artistic terms. I wonder how such an exhibit would be displayed and interpreted in different museums? In the Victoria and Albert Museum, maybe the collection is divided according to it's historical genesis, and is presented in terms of the times it satirizes, or an example of the art of that time. In the Tate Britain, perhaps there is more critical analysis of Hogarth's use of shading, or Steadman's use of splatter. But none of these places would offer the same essential paradox as having the gallery in the Museum of London.