Melanie Vandenbrouck

Collecting cosmic aesthetics: contemporary art for the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Abstract

As the home of the National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House and Royal Observatory, the key aims of Royal Museums Greenwich are to stimulate curiosity and transform our understanding of the sea, ships, time, the stars, and their relationship to people. Contemporary art is a powerful tool to engage audiences and strengthen the institution’s relevance to the present. Formulating a (thus far overlooked) contemporary collecting policy offers the means to explore new perspectives into the Museum’s historical collections and core themes.

In the 1970s, the Royal Observatory Greenwich effected a transition from a working observatory to a centre of learning and public engagement. As part of Royal Museums Greenwich, the observatory is also developing a collection, which reflects the relationship between representation and understanding. Objects relating to the cultural impact and dissemination of astronomy show the penetration of astronomical ideas into the broader history and culture of the period in which they were made.

While in the past, the fine arts have been used as a way to record scientific information and the work of astronomers, I shall argue that contemporary artists’ fascination with the cosmos and our place within it enable varied audiences to engage differently with these sciences, but also encourage scientists to connect with art. These considerations imply other, pragmatic, curatorial concerns: How does a national museum devise and implement a coherent collecting policy that has an ‘astronomical art’ theme? How may such collecting meet the challenges of working in a multidisciplinary museum which encompasses sciences, history and art?

Biography

Melanie Vandenbrouck is Curator of art post-1800 at Royal Museums Greenwich, which involves developing, researching, interpreting, displaying and communicating the Museum’s superlative art collection. She is the founder and chair of the museum-wide Contemporary Art Forum, and a judge of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. In discussion with the Public Astronomer and the Curator of the Royal Observatory, Melanie is currently drafting a contemporary arts collecting policy for Royal Museums Greenwich which will include artistic responses and contributions to the field of astronomy. Prior to joining royal Museums Greenwich in 2012, Melanie earned a PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and worked in the Sculpture department of the Victoria and Albert Museum.