Tuesday, January 19
Does the Spiral Jetty make the Great Salt Lake a museum?
A widely debated topic in the museum world is whether or not the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake makes the Great Salt Lake a museum. In my opinion, it does not. True, the Spiral Jetty is a work of art and can be used to teach others about subjects such as marine construction, the artist, and the Great Salt Lake, and the Spiral Jetty is found in the Great Salt Lake, but one way the word "museum" can be defined is as a building (or area) that puts many different exhibits on display. If the Great Salt Lake is examined with this definition in mind, it most definitely falls short. The Spiral Jetty is just one exhibit, one display of artwork, available for viewing, thus leaving the lake just a lake, not a museum. Thus, the Great Salt Lake can not be a museum, but rather just a lake that houses a piece of work. This is not to say that museums must be a constructed building. In contrast, this definition only mandates that a museum must include many different works of "art" or exhibits for inspection. And so, my opinion on the matter, is that the Great Salt Lake, even with the Spiral Jetty included in it's boundaries, should not be considered to be a museum.
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I totally agree with you. I like how short and to the point you were about answering this question. I also liked how you pointed out that "the spiral jetty is just one exhibit, one display of artwork, available for viewing, thus leaving the lake just a lake, not a museum." I think if the world decided to accept a lake as a museum because it has just one piece of artwork in it, the world would also have to accept that the area where national monuments are located are museums. And if those places are museums than why not just say to whole world is a museum! A line has to be drawn concerning what is and is not a museum. A museum is a building, with many exhibits- like you stated above.
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