It's really hard for me to envision how the Glenbow could possibly be saved from its schizophrenic state. Is it an art museum? Is it an anthropology museum? Is it a local history museum? Is it a high brow institution aimed at adults? Is it an edutainment centre aimed at kids (similar to Heritage Park and Telus Spark?). My sense is that they should go with high-brow museum of world cultures. Send all the local history artifacts over to Fort Calgary. Strip the quality artifacts out of their edutainment galleries and display them as true artworks. The "Warriors" exhibit is a prime example of the problem with the Glenbow. It's a roadside attraction ("See Samurais and Knights at the Warriors Museum! In 5 miles off the Kirkville turnpike!"). Dismantle the gallery and distribute whatever legitimate artifacts it has to galleries that are dedicated to specific world cultures (knights to a European gallery, samurais to an East Asian gallery). Once you strip away all the crap, perhaps you open up an entire floor to dedicate to substantial temporary exhibitions that fit in with the world cultures focus (e.g. ancient Egypt, etc.).
Or, if there are not enough legitimate artifacts to fill out a museum of world cultures, perhaps it's best to return to the prototypical museum: the cabinet of curiosities. This is the route that the AGO went with some of the Thompson collection, which was made up of an random mixture of model ships, ivory carvings, goblets, medieval bibles, etc. Rather than trying to organize them into neat galleries, you just kind of wander through, encountering interesting objects.
It's a really eclectic / unfocused mix of galleries; I do know that what's in there really falls into four groups:
- Local history: Mavericks, Niisitapiisinni
- Anthropology / Cultural: New Sun (Canadian indigenous), Where Symbols Meet (West Africa), Warriors (global)
- Natural history: Minerals
- Art: Picturing The Northwest, most if not all of the temporary exhibitions
I've seen some of these mixed well, but everything together is hard to grasp. The Portland Museum of Art does a nice job integrating indigenous art, Asian art, local art and a more traditional Euro/American art collection, but that's art only, which leaves out cultural artifacts that don't have any art properties. There are a number of combined natural history / ethnography museums (Smithsonian Natural History, Royal Ontario) but it can quickly turn into "look at the animals and primitive peoples" which is problematic. Royal BC does local history and natural history, but it's local natural history. The Melbourne Museum is perhaps the most diverse; it has natural history and science on the west side, and local history combined with anthropology on the east side. But it's huge; the middle is the "forest gallery" which is a 27m x 55m living walk-through forest with local animals, basically a pocket zoo. And it's worthy of note that the cultural aspect is Te Pasifika, which focuses only on nearby Polynesian cultures. (In the same way that Portland has a strong connection with East Asia, and the opposite of Calgary's connection with West Africa).
It's not only hard to grasp, but it's hard to do everything well. Not that many people are interested in all of this, and what's there isn't enough to draw; a big natural history buff wouldn't go just for the minerals gallery, but the people who do go because of the interest in local history or art don't care about minerals.
I think that visitors are more interested in the history of the place they are visiting (unless there happens to be a particularly good museum covering other cultures, but the Glenbow is not the British Museum), and our citizens could benefit from a stronger museum of the history of Calgary. If cash was unlimited, I'd say move the local history stuff to Fort Calgary, which would probably require tripling it in size, then make the Glenbow a more dedicated art museum that can include global art. But just dealing with the Glenbow itself, I'd brand it as the Glenbow museum of History And Art. I'd make the second floor the History floor, covering the indigenous and settler era histories of Calgary but including at least one small gallery that could be changed regularly. The top floor would be the Art floor, with primarily temporary exhibits. (One problem with the Glenbow is that the exhibits get fustier and older as you go higher, encouraging locals to visit only the frequently changing art on the second floor then bounce.) The third floor in the middle would be the And floor; it would look at the interaction between art and history; the Picturing the Northwest gallery could largely stay, it's a good place for indigenous art connecting historical traditions with contemporary indigenous art, perhaps a focus on local artists; the history rotating gallery could connect with changing art galleries. For instance, when the Glenbow had the
Black Gold Tapestry, the history gallery could have an indepth oilpatch exhibit.
