Saturday, January 15, 2011

Museum of the Week: Beatles Museum

Earlier this week the Beatles Museum opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The museum is based entirely on the private collection of Rodolfo Vazquez, who earned a Guinness World record for his collection in 2001. The museum hosts a collection of over 8,500 objects and a thematic restaurant and bar.

A visitor looks at the exhibits on display at the Beatles Museum in the eastern German city of Halle on April 3.
Credit: CNN

This is the first Beatles Museum in South America, but not the first in the world. The Beatles Story, which opened in 1990, is a museum dedicated to The Beatles in Liverpool, England. The exhibitions take you through the life and times of The Beatles and spans two locations with over 23,000 sq ft. in space.


File:The Beatles Story .jpg


What I find to be most interesting about the museum in Buenos Aires is that it was founded entirely on the collection of one man. In the past, entire art museums have been founded on the collection of one individual or a group of individuals, sometimes concerned with the education of society.

As people are collecting a variety of objects in our material-driven society, will we see more collections of memorabilia as the foundation for museums?

1 comment:

  1. If you extend the definition of "memorabilia" every museum which deals with human culture is already a museum of memorabilia. Just because paintings or statues are considered "high art" right now doesn't mean the definition of art won't change in the future. Did the ancient Greeks put as much emphasis and interest on their clay pots that we do? Anthropologists frequently study mundane objects to get an idea of the daily life of a culture. Who's to say that in 500 years our video games won't be just as interesting in an historical sense as Greek pottery is to us.

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