IKONER PÅ KONSTMUSEUM En jämförande studie av Nationalmuseums utställning i Stockholm och utställandet av ikonen Guds Moder av Vladimir på Tretjakovgalleriet i Moskva

Abstract

Exhibiting and managing religious objects in museums presents a challenge due to their religious and sacred context, which may or may not be taken into account. When an object enters into a museum, it is stripped of its previous identity, only to be filled with a new one as a museum object, which is has been described as process of heritagization and musealization. Religious objects in museums are usually presented as evidence of history, objects of art and aesthetic admiration or objects of cultural curiosity. Orthodox icons are a form of religious art that in its religious context are used as holy liturgical objects of veneration, where sensuality and physical touch plays a key role to worship, which in most art museums is not something being accounted for. Using three different models of exhibiting religious objects and applying them to two different icon exhibitions in two art museums: one at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the exhibition of the Virgin of Vladmir icon at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, this paper aims to examine how different approaches to religion and sacredness in exhibitions affect the experience of icons in museums.