Not A Typical Story by Vanessa Hsiao

A modern museum, what’s there to expect? Probably just some good paintings, I thought. But the Peabody Essex Museum was nothing near that typical modern museum. I paid a visit to the museum in Salem, Massachusetts on March 10, 2015. As much as I joined my visit there, it sure was overwhelming.

The first floor featured the Yin Yu Tang, a home in China that was shipped and rebuilt at PEM. Generations of the Huang family lived in the house from 1644-1911. The house gives a culture experience and displays the amazing Chinese architecture. The house gives a sense of Chinese lifestyle as well as the Chinese art. If you want to experience Asian culture without flying halfway across the world, I would say this is a good place to start.

Personally, I was really intrigued by the Storyteller special exhibition, being a lover of photography. The Storyteller exhibition is open from March 7 to June 21, presenting photographs by Duane Michals who is now in his eighties. His photographs were mainly black and white with a few exceptions. However, the colors gave simplicity to his work and it helped, of course, tell the story of every individual piece. His work was often displayed in some kind of sequence, like a row or square. The pieces were put in those sequences with the intentions to benefit the timeline of each story. Though many pieces stood alone and told a story themselves. Parts of his exhibition had a theme. Some themes were desire, portraits, play, and mortality. Looking at those specific works, they didn’t exactly scream out the theme but the theme definitely guides the audience to understand each story. He used a variety of skills to tell each story. He incorporated colors in very few but those weren’t taken in color. The colors seemed to be painted or drawn on over the photographs. Michals plays with exposures and shutter speeds to convey each story. Many of his work can be interpreted as symbolic and metaphoric.

The PEM is not just a typical modern museum. It features many exciting and rare exhibitions that define the opposite of typical.  To say at last, the museum is a lot. The museum holds a lot of exhibitions and works that requires time and patience. The PEM is definitely worth the trip if you want to experience a variation of art but make sure you give yourself enough time to enjoy it.