During the Spring Festival, the museum launched a number of exhibitions with auspicious meanings to set off the New Year atmosphere. The "Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Food Culture" of the National Museum of China reflects the wisdom of Chinese life from the fun between the spices and meals; the "Special Exhibition of Chinese Auspicious Culture" of the Shanghai Municipal Museum of History displays specimens and cultural relics together, which is a retrospective of the history of the museum and an innovation in museum education.
Both exhibitions have set up some immersive scenes and interactive links, which shows that today's museums, in addition to paying attention to professionalism, also hope to provide the audience with more ways to understand the exhibition, but in any case, the real connotation of the exhibition is what the public wants to see more.
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Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Food Culture
Venue: National Museum of China
When: From 28 December 2021
Comments: "The people take food as the sky", diet is the most basic life need of human beings, and the extension of food culture is extremely strong, almost blending with all aspects of social activities. Regardless of the breakdown of the theme of "diet", there will be omissions. Guobo selects more than 240 pieces (sets) of cultural relics, with a large number of exhibition boards to illustrate the interpretation, trying to interpret the flow of ancient Chinese food culture from different angles such as ingredients, utensils, techniques, etiquette, etc., quite a "look at a leaf and see the forest".
Rating: Three and a half stars
The common display method of cultural relics in general exhibitions is displayed by physical objects and pictures in contrast and complements each other.
Diet, which should have been full of human fireworks, was deduced and differentiated into distinctly different grades in ancient China. "Gentleman's Far Kitchen" distinguishes between two food cultures with huge differences. One is the "bell ringing food" at the upper level, and the other is the "coarse tea and light rice" of the commoners. The exhibition of the National Expo is divided into five units: "Eating from the Eight Directions", "Tea Rhyme and Wine Aroma", "Beautiful Instruments", "The Change in Dingzhong" and "Etiquette And Eating", which still takes an elegant and gorgeous route.
Lacquered lacquered gourd-style tableware box Qing (1644-1911)
This is an attractive exhibition. Because it is closely related to daily life, the audience may care not only about what the ancients used to eat and drink, but also what they ate. Obviously, the exhibition does not focus enough on this, and the actual food only presents a few items such as prehistoric rice and snacks excavated from the Astana cemetery in Xinjiang. There are still many direct materials excavated by archaeology, such as the dried crucian carp from the Xiajiatai Warring States Tomb in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, which is more than 2,000 years old, the meat skewers excavated from the Zhongwei Han Tomb in Ningxia, the lotus soup excavated from the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan, and a jar of eggs found in the Spring and Autumn Mound Tomb in Shangxing, Liyang, Jiangsu Province. The panels, which are important mediums, do not provide an introduction to these archaeological achievements. A few exceptions are the introduction of noodles unearthed at the famous Lajia site from 4,000 years ago and the world's earliest tea remains recently found in the ancient city of Shandong Province.
Dim Sum Tang (618-907) In 1972, the tomb of Astana Tang in Turpan, Xinjiang, was excavated
Qianfu Three-Year Guangqi Palace Silver Colander Tang (618-907) 26.5 cm long and 7.6 cm spoon diameter Excavated in 1958 in Nanyuzhai, a northern suburb of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province
Tao Er Cup Jin (265-420)
On the one hand, it is limited by material information, and on the other hand, it is for the convenience of exhibition. Most of the cultural relics on display are eating utensils within the scope of the National Museum. However, the appearance of many ancient texts has also remedied this deficiency. In addition, the introduction of incoming crops into a table to form a display wall to attract audiences to stop and discuss is also a way to improve interactivity. Cooking scenes in portrait brick portrait stones, feast scenes in ancient frescoes, and even tableware in late Western still life paintings are included in the exhibition board, making up for the monotony of physical display and the limited scope of the physical display. It is worth mentioning that some very famous cases have not been favored, such as the appearance of crescent-shaped lace dumplings in the Eastern Han Dynasty of Chongqing Zhongxian (the origin of dumplings that was previously believed to be advanced from the Southern and Northern Dynasties period). Another example is the tomb of Zhang Wenzao of the Xuanhua Liao Dynasty with a table of wine (you can see all kinds of cooked dishes, and even dried grapes and chestnuts that have not faded at all).
Compilation of crops introduced to China
Under the idea of promoting strengths and avoiding weaknesses, the exhibition arranges some immersive scenes and interactive links, such as the ancient study tea room, the use of molds to make mooncakes, and the templates that can be punched in and taken photos in the tent with chimes and lacquerware as the background. Some are slightly surprised that the exhibition actually restores the scene of the Hongmen Banquet, and the various characters are exquisite and worth watching. But this seems to be gradually off topic.
Exhibition site
Looking back, there are some important dietary themes that the exhibition deals with less. For example, spices and spices that serve as auxiliary dishes to exert color and flavor. Whether it is soy sauce, salt, vinegar, or peppercorns, shallots and ginger, licorice, they are things that have been mentioned repeatedly in the literature, and their inheritance is more long-lasting than that of utensils, and the circulation exchange behind them is a more grand story.
"Making cultural relics come alive" not only relies on the topicality of cultural relics themselves, but also has to consider what kind of pictures and sounds the audience and listeners need from a different way of thinking. (Text/Xiao Yu)
Fulu Shouxi Beautiful Life - Special Exhibition of Chinese Auspicious Culture
Venue: Shanghai Municipal Museum of History
Exhibition period: December 21, 2021 - March 13, 2022
Comments: The simultaneous display of art relics and natural specimens is a retrospective and curatorial clue to integrate multiple cultural fields, but if it becomes a pile of various images and elements, it exposes the lack of it. If the logic is more clear, the connotation is dug deeper, maybe it can be good.
Rating: Samsung
The "Special Exhibition of Chinese Auspicious Culture" held by Shanghai Municipal Museum of History introduces the origin, expression and inheritance of auspicious culture, and the exhibition is co-sponsored by Hebei Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum of Natural History and Shanghai Municipal History Museum, and creatively displays precious tiger, horse and monkey biological specimens and gilded deer pattern three-legged silver plates and other first-class cultural relics, showing the relationship between man and nature in nature, history, art and other categories.
"Fulu Shouxi Beautiful Life - Chinese Auspicious Culture Special Exhibition" exhibition site
However, from the overall perception, the focus of the exhibition does not fall on history and cultural relics, but on the auspicious ornaments themselves. Almost every mention of a class of animals and plants with auspicious meanings, in addition to calligraphy and painting utensils with related ornaments, also displays specimens or models, supplemented by scientific introductions (such as "Sanyang Kaitai" - Qing Dynasty Sanyang Kaitai ornaments - specimens of three-headed sheep), in terms of content and form to seek the fusion of nature and humanity, but the fusion of the two is slightly stiff and shallow. In addition to the relationship between nature and humanities, the exhibition also tries to connect ancient and modern, connecting China and foreign countries, such as from "inuyasha peace" to today's working dogs, such as the exhibition near the end of the auspicious culture of Vietnam, Japan and other countries, similar series and integration will also bring some surprises.
"Crown on crown" exhibition item, specimens and cultural relics are displayed together
But do these associations really hold true? Is there really a strong logical relationship between them? From the overall point of view, it seems to be a stack of various auspicious images, and then the images are divided into different plates for display; from a partial point of view, it seems to be a pile of different elements under the same image theme. For example, under the theme of "Taiping has elephants", there are utensils decorated with "Taiping elephants", ivory vessels and elephant statues related to the "elephant" elements, introductions to Chinese wild elephants, and documentaries on the migration of wild elephants in Yunnan in 2021. In this theme, it seems to be a fusion of ancient and modern, human and natural, but when these themes or elements are displayed side by side, it is confusing.
Exhibits under the theme of "Taiping Elephant"
The interconnection between humanities and art and natural knowledge is understandable, but the documentary on the migration of wild elephants in this section is outside the logic of the exhibition. Similar display methods appear in the exhibition, but it can also be seen that the exhibition is trying to make some useful attempts to explore the diversification of display forms and contents.
Tracing the history of the museum, the earliest prototypes are the collection rooms in ancient temples where antiquities such as loot and sculptures are preserved, and later the "Strange House" where the rich family collects rare natural objects and handmade products. The world's first modern public museum was the Ashmolean Museum, which opened in 1683, and from then until the end of the 18th century, under the influence of the Enlightenment, a number of representative museums were established in Europe, including many of the British Museum (1753) and the Louvre Museum (1793). Later, museums became more specialized, and functions such as research were strengthened. In addition to art museums, natural history museums and science museums were gradually born. Taking modern China as an example, whether it is the "Shanghai Museum" run by the Asian Literary Association on Huqiu Road on the Bund (in 1952, the North China Branch of the Asian Literary Association was closed, and the natural specimens, historical relics and art collections accumulated over the years constitute the basis of the collection of today's Shanghai Museum of Natural History and the Shanghai Museum; the Chinese and Western books collected by its library were merged into the Xujiahui Library building and became the special collection of the Shanghai Library), or the "Tianjin Museum" run by the Chinese, which was once a joint collection of specimens and antiquities. It is constantly subdivided into different fields and categories. "Specialization and categorization" are also notable features of modern museums, and in the view of David Morrie, a scholar of British cultural studies, old-style museums are more focused on curiosity. This requires a focus on scarce and unique objects, on the individuality of individual objects rather than on commonalities, and on the principle of presentation that focuses on sensational effects rather than rational and educational significance. The history of the museum's development from disorder to order is the scientific process of the museum from fallacy to fact.
"Songhe Tongchun" exhibition item, which can be used for taking photos and punching cards
The curation of the Shanghai Municipal History Museum seems to go back to the form of the museum's birth, but also to integrate its various fields again, the audience sees different cultural coordinates, and it forms a good interaction with the audience in the dissemination and education of the museum. Because of this, this is more like a popular science exhibition with a New Year's flavor. However, if outside the form, if the exhibition is more clear in terms of content logic, and then dig deeper, it may be able to take care of the needs of more audiences. (Text/Sleeping Sheep)