Artifacts and Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Beyonce and Jay-Z remain front and center in the Louvre while filming their music video for "APESHIT." The lyrics of the song express their excitement "I can't believe we made it (this is a different angle)/ Have you every seen the crowd goin' apeshit! Rah!"as well as anger "gimme my check, put some respect on my check."

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The unfamiliarity of having two rap artists staged in the museum such as the Louvre is because it is unfamiliar. Beyonce and Jay-Z insert themselves into the narrative of the Louvre singing "we livin' lavish, lavish/I got expensive fabrics/ I got expensive fabrics." 

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​Cardi B also places herself into a museum and the history of the ancient world as she dresses in a Neferti inspired outfit and shakes her butt in a display case. More than her provocative dancing, she has to explain to visitors (elderly white females and males) that she likes nothing more in the world than checks, thus, the reason she she is the museum. 

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These music videos explain the perspectives of those who are excluded from popular museums such as the Louvre. Museums are institutions that reflect political, social, and ecumenic power of nation, this who are not represented are not supposed to have power. 

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I propose if a museum, such as the Kelsey Museum of Archeology, would like to reach a broader audience then there needs to be a radical change.The narrative around ancient Near Eastern artifacts is intertwined with nationalism, as democratization occurs, these narratives expand. Therefore, more expansive narratives about the artifacts would connect more visitors to them. Curators of a museum should be hired from various backgrounds, not limited to academia. Academia is still is a source of power and can only present limited perspectives of the human experience. 

 

Curators could include but are not limited to rap artists, owners of local restaurants, Native Americans, Individuals from the Shelter Association Center, Recent Immigrants, CEO’s of companies, ex-convicts, stay at home mothers, recovering addicts​, women apart of a sorority and men about a fraternity.  

 

The histories of artifacts represent political, social, and economic power. Similar to the  curation of the kings of Mesopotamia, scholars of Greece, officials of Rome, and nationalistic museums of Europe and then America. The artifacts do not change, forms of power change, exemplifying that we are not so different from those of the ancient world. There is still an unequal dispersion of power.