I think this might be the greatest museum ad of all time – it’s from the 2008-2009 season at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, a superlative institution which I’ve written about before.
Rather than present Austria’s Jewish community or Jewish material culture as the object of mainstream scrutiny or fascination, it focusses on the sense of wonder and discovery that visitors to the museum will experience.
I love that a minority identity within a nation, especially one with as fraught a history as that of Austrian Jews, refused to be exoticised or presented as ‘the Other’ in the museum space, and instead turned the tables on the Austrian mainstream with this neat image.
The museum has a great record as an institution which treats a rich, harrowing, and difficult history with verve, courage, and creativity. This includes the work of their marketing team as well as their excellent curation and events.
The 2008-9 ad demonstrates how the ways in which an institution markets itself to the world can be as sophisticated, political, and compelling as anything done with that institution’s spaces, services, or collections.
Check out the Jewish Museum Vienna, one of the greatest cultural institutions I’ve ever visited, online: http://www.jmw.at/en
Thanks to the archive team at the Jewish Museum for locating the image based on my vague memories of seeing this ad a decade ago…
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 