The Politics of Art & Authenticity

I visited the Museum of Natural History on September 25 and I went through most of the museum, exploring different peoples and time periods and I covered the vast majority of exhibits in the museum. I love this museum so much because it is so comprehensive – it is enormous and displays every part of history, from the beginning of the world to the current day, without missing a single detail. I focused on human exhibits rather than the biological and ecological rooms, as I find the human groups most interesting. It is fascinating to walk through those and see how other people lived, whether it was in the Hall of Human Origins, the African Peoples, the Asian Peoples, etc. I couldn’t help but think what I would have done if I was born into one of those ancient time periods…. would I still be the same person I am now? As I was going through the exhibits, I was taking all of the displays into consideration. How in the early men were so primitive and undeveloped, how the Northwest Indians had such elaborately decorated clothing, and how religion was so pertinent to Asian culture. I tried to imagine myself living in each of these time periods. What I would be doing if I were in one of the exhibits. It was really interesting and mind-boggling. I’m happy I live now, in the twenty first century, and I get to watch models of other people in the exhibits instead of living on the other side of the glass.

I saw many exhibits that I thoroughly enjoyed, but my favorite exhibit is the infamous canoe that you first see when you come in through the 77th Street Entrance. I like this so much because in the novel Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caulfield hangs out at the museum and loves this canoe.

I took a few pictures of my day at the museum, and this is by far the prettiest one I took. This is a precious tiara from the rocks and minerals exhibit, where there are all kinds of rocks, gems, diamonds, minerals, etc. I was considering stealing it =).