The perception of an object’s value often depends on what is deemed to be in good taste in context. Cicero offered a word for it: “The Greeks call it prepon; let us call it decorum or propriety.” Cicero’s idea of decorum is rooted in a relationship between the speaker and their audience. By definition museums present works, and decorum is a factor in what they put on exhibition and the audiences who come to see it. According to Daniel Kapust, a professor of political theory at the University of Wisconsin, decorum is more a matter of judgment than rules, and it is intimately involved with meeting the expectations and desires of one’s audience.
While approaches to holding and displaying pieces vary according to the priorities of each museum’s collection, visitors to those museums do not share an understanding of decorum or a set of rules for engagement with objects; instead they are likely to hold their own views on what is expected or what is acceptable based on their experiences. Multiple histories exist within a single object, but which ones come to the fore depend on the context. Consider the example of a French sugar bowl, c. 1780, made of white porcelain with a blue and green leaf pattern, its rim trimmed in gold. The object, in discreet display, reflects an economy where sugar holds a prominent place on the table. The mouth of the bowl is wide, suggesting the ease and speed with which it might be replenished. But for those concerned with the more brutal aspects of the economy that made sugar available to so many households in the late eighteenth century, the sugar bowl and its related tableware might also be read as proof of the ruse of civility in the domestic sphere in order to distract from, if not obscure, the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade, which made this luxury accessible. Is a sugar bowl worthy of regard only for what its design reveals about a culture? Or for the contradictions it illustrates between that culture’s stated commercial, religious, and moral convictions? It depends on how one remembers the value of sugar in proportion to the costs of acquiring it. The ability to understand the significance of the sugar bowl depends as much on the foreknowledge of the viewer as it does the frame of reference.
Traditional museums shape the histories of power through the display of rare objects that can’t be accessed elsewhere and help us assemble the texture of cultural memory. But the singular works or artifacts that can expose unchecked histories of violence and subjugation might not be sufficient to address the gaps in any collection.
As museums face increasing pressure to be responsive to historical intersections and contradictions in their presentation of works, it can be risky to introduce audiences, who otherwise might not seek complexity born out of conflict, to objects that may provoke embarrassment or pain. Yet some institutions still believe generating this tension is a necessary step toward reconciliation. Perhaps there is no more powerful feeling provoked by a museum than shame, which extends beyond the initial encounter with an object and allows for an extended moment of recognition. Shame emerges when we are no longer confident in the stories that define us, when we are not proud of the things we have done, when we are no longer certain of the value of the things we have acquired. It can inspire leaps in compassion, as one calculates one’s own debts accrued through past misperceptions.