Museum Analysis

Thomas Kinkade Gallery
I went to the Thomas Kinkade gallery located in the mall. I thought that it would give a good representation of displays. I noticed they had a room set up to look like a living room. There's a fake fireplace, and plants in the small room. There are Thomas Kinkade paintings hung all over the walls as well. In the same room there was a small television placed inside a frame. The T.V. was showing someone talking about the paintings. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what was being said, I just heard a voice in the background. There's so many "paintings" in that little gallery. Large paintings were hung with other large ones and then the small ones were hung together. You could tell there was an order to how they presented the work in that way. There was a little space with other Thomas Kinkade memorabilia as well.

Cabela's
Cabela's has taxidermy animals displayed all throughout the store. Right when you walk in there's dear and other animals displayed. Above mounted on the wall there's a small variety of animals along with some larger ones, like a moose too. In some of the glass counters, there's displays of small animals as well. Under the animals, there's plaques telling you the donor, if there was one, along with the name of the animal. In the center of the store is the main animal display. There's a wide range of different animals placed in their natural habitats. It starts with some big game animals like elk, moose, dear, etc. Then it goes to polar bears, grizzly bears, prairie dogs, wolves and back around. There are a ton more animals, I can't list them all. If someone donated the animal, the plaque says, "Taken by_____," and the name of whoever killed the animal. There was also a plaque that said, "Lynn Stewart Taxidermy Dewey Wildlife Studio." So that is the studio where the animals were preserved like they are. With the animals, there were also plaques of information about the animal; mainly just facts and such.

Ann Frank Memorial
1.Describe what you see:
There are stone walls everywhere with quotes from all different people. There's quotes from Moses to Gandhi. There are benches made of stone, plaques, landscaping, podiums that have sound, sculpture, etc.

2.Describe the varying degrees of representation
I guess the answer to number one would answer this question too. There's stones in the ground with names, stones describing what the memorial is about, there's plexiglass podiums, etc.

3.What are visual elements/principles that dominate in the memorial?
Definitely the stone walls, that's the first thing I noticed.

4.Is this memorial "site-specific"?
No, this is just in an open space outside. No certain thing happened at this particular site so it could be placed anywhere.

5.Who created, designed and funded this memorial?
It was given to Boise. On a stone it read, "Idaho human rights education center gratitude to Boise City council and mayor Brent Coles. " There are the donors name and amounts listed on big stones, there's a ton of them ranging from 251,000-500,000.
I'm not sure who designed it.

6.What materials/media were used to create this material?
Again I think this question is pretty much answered from the above questions. There was some little plaques that you turn and they talk, so that is mixed in with the text.

7.How does the text/word elements function?
They function as the part of the memorial that informs you. They give quotes, explanations of what the memorial is about.

8.Reflecting on your answers to the previous questions, what do you think was the intended meaning/function?
I think that the memorial is about human rights. It's about freedom. There's plaques remembering war victims and quotes about freedom all over the memorial. Although it's called the Ann Frank Memorial, it's not just about Ann Frank, but more about what she represents.

9.In your opinion, how successful is this memorial?
I think that it's very successful. It's peaceful with the water and landscape and stone. It's pretty obvious what the meaning of the memorial is too.