抄録
I had been a curator in an art museum for about ten years. Now I work at a university gallery and sometimes supervise art exhibitions. Here, I will try to consider the problem of providing (reproduced) image data from a curator's viewpoint
(1) What is the purpose of image data service at art museums?
I think that, at the present day, the difference between real and digital objects is only in information quantity. The reason is that today's art museums are often so crowded that visitors can not appreciate, but just see real artworks. Unless they are satisfied with an aura radiated by real objects, it would be much better to show them image data on a large screen or monitor. Curators should not only use image data as substitutes for the objects which can not be exhibited to the public, but include them in the exhibitions.
(2) What do digital image data bring to museums?
Image data change the custom to respect real and famous works. It will be commonly recognized that judging whether a work is beautiful or ugly is different from judging whether it is genuine or fake, and that a nice replica is better than a dull original work. People who have some connection with art museums should remember that an artwork is not a historical monument, but provides information like something alive.
(Reproduced from Newsletter of Japan Art Documentation Society, No.37, April 25, 1998)
