A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Compared to a library, a museum hosts a much wider range of objects and usually focus around a specific theme such as the arts, science, natural history, local history, and other topics. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often considered to be tourist attractions, and many museums attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world regularly attracting millions of visitors annually.
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections.
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
The Canadian Museum of History is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of Canada, as well as support related research. The museum is based in a 75,000-square-metre-building (810,000 sq ft) designed by Douglas Cardinal.
The 1873 Vienna World's Fair was the large world exposition that was held from 1 May to 31 October 1873 in the Austria-Hungarian capital Vienna. Its motto was "Culture and Education".
An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is occasionally true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or "show". In UK English, they are always called "exhibitions" or "shows", and an individual item in the show is an "exhibit".
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally built to showcase King Leopold II's Congo Free State in the International Exposition of 1897.
The Tokyo National Museum or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, is the largest art museum in Japan. The museum collects, preserves, and displays a comprehensive collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, with a focus on ancient and medieval Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. There is also a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art. As of April 2023, the museum held approximately 120,000 Cultural Properties, including 89 National Treasures, 319 Horyuji Treasures, and 649 Important Cultural Properties. As of the same date, the Japanese government had designated 902 works of art and crafts as National Treasures and 10,820 works of art and crafts as Important Cultural Properties, so the museum holds about 10% of the works of art and crafts designated as National Treasures and 6% of those designated as Important Cultural Properties. The museum also holds 2,651 cultural properties deposited by individuals and organisations, of which 54 are National Treasures and 262 are Important Cultural Properties. Of these, 3,000 cultural properties are on display at one time, with each changing for between four and eight weeks. The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection.
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University or The Wolfsonian-FIU, located in the heart of the Art Deco District of Miami Beach, Florida, is a museum, library and research center that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design. For fifteen years, The Wolfsonian has been a division within Florida International University.
A museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that forms the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc. This differentiates it from an archive or library, where the contents may be more paper-based, replaceable and less exhibition oriented, or a private collection of art formed by an individual, family or institution that may grant no public access. A museum normally has a collecting policy for new acquisitions, so only objects in certain categories and of a certain quality are accepted into the collection. The process by which an object is formally included in the collection is called accessioning and each object is given a unique accession number.
The National Museum in New Delhi, also known as the National Museum of India, is one of the largest museums in India. Established in 1949, it holds a variety of articles ranging from pre-historic era to modern works of art. It functions under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The museum is situated on Janpath. The blue–print of the National Museum had been prepared by the Gwyer Committee set up by the Government of India in 1946. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, mostly Indian, but some of foreign origin, covering over 5,000 years.
The MIT Museum, founded in 1971, is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It hosts collections of holography, technology-related artworks, artificial intelligence, architecture, robotics, maritime history, and the history of MIT. Its holography collection of 1800 pieces is the largest in the world, though only a few selections from it are usually exhibited. As of 2023, works by the kinetic artist Arthur Ganson are the largest long-running displays. There is a regular program of temporary special exhibitions, often on the intersections of art and technology.
There are two types of exhibition catalogue : a printed list of exhibits at an art exhibition; and a directory of exhibitors at a trade fair or business-to-business event.
Exhibitions of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun have been held at museums in several countries, notably the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Japan, and France.
A travelling exhibition, also referred to as a "travelling exhibit" or a "touring exhibition", is a type of exhibition that is presented at more than one venue.
The Art Treasures of Great Britain was an exhibition of fine art held in Manchester, England, from 5 May to 17 October 1857. It remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK, possibly in the world, with over 16,000 works on display. It attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, about four times the population of Manchester at that time, many of whom visited on organised railway excursions. Its selection and display of artworks had a formative influence on the public art collections that were then being established in the UK, such as the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The National Museum of Industrial History, abbreviated NMIH, housed in the former facility of Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is a museum affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution that seeks to preserve, educate, and display the industrial history of the nation. It holds a collection of artifacts from the textile, steel and iron, and propane gas industries.
The Khalili Collection of Japanese Art is a private collection of decorative art from Meiji-era (1868–1912) Japan, assembled by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili. Its 1,400 art works include metalwork, enamels, ceramics, lacquered objects, and textile art, making it comparable only to the collection of the Japanese imperial family in terms of size and quality. The Meiji era was a time when Japan absorbed some Western cultural influences and used international events to promote its art, which became very influential in Europe. Rather than covering the whole range of Meiji-era decorative art, Khalili has focused on objects of the highest technical and artistic quality. Some of the works were made by artists of the imperial court for the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th century. The collection is one of eight assembled, published, and exhibited by Khalili.
The Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was the country's contribution to what was commonly called the St. Louis World's Fair, held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, in 1904. The exhibition included a showcase of Canadian natural resources and fine art.
