Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Contemporary markets and cultural arenas are overfilled with “copies,” “fakes,” and “reproductions.” In museums, however, exact “copies” are less valued than “authentic” objects, or objects that could be produced and authenticated through, for example, expert knowledge or certifications. There is a desire for authenticity in museums as well as in the society at large. This paper discusses the added value of objects that are considered as “authentic” or are authenticated in museums. Why do these objects, valued and appreciated as “authentic,” possess such a high cultural value? Imagined as objects that have attended sacred, painful, or glories realms, these artefacts have a higher attraction. Interesting is how different materialities, which are assessed to have been present in other times and touched by out-of-time people, are more interesting, fascinating, and valuable than exact copies, which have not made the “time-travel.” The paper concludes that “authentic” objects, in a higher degree, move us, bring affects, and concretizes historical objects and events. Material artefacts, and the meaning assigned to them, interact with the bodies and minds of viewers, producing an emotional experience of time-travelling, deep knowledge, as well as giving rise to new perspectives and interpretations. But the “knowledge” about the “authenticity” is also constructed in the crossroad between materialities and interpretive subjects. The “authentic” object prevails as a phenomenon, produced in the inseparability of the observed object and agencies of observation.