With the chain of recent pandemic events disrupting public life and everything transitioning to the digital platform, several museums are still allowing people to experience the iconic content embedded within the museums, no matter where you are located and what the current circumstances entail. Similar to how other businesses are transitioning digitally, online arts programming has become more necessary than ever before.
A variety of museums are now offering virtual tours and allow a user to explore the online collections through Google’s Arts & Culture page. If you’re not familiar with Google Arts & Culture, it’s essentially a massive collection of some of the biggest and most widely known museums in the world. You can browse through entire exhibits online, and in many cases, you can also walk through the museums using Google’s street view. These two links were advantageous as I became interested in exploring the online exhibitions.
More specifically, Google’s street view allows you to virtually tour a handful of museums, creating a similar feeling as if you were strolling through the galleries; except, on a positive note, it’s completely without cost. The overall experience of using Google’s Arts & Culture page allows the user to easily navigate through the interface while exploring the dense collections of content that’s offered. In addition, the collections consist of art, space, history, and fashion museums, as well as other famous and iconic sites all over the world. Another interesting feature of the Google Arts & Culture page is that it can categorize an entire group of content into subcategories; for example, mediums, art movements, historic events, historical figures, and places.
While I was exploring the interface, one of my favorite museums that I came across was the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bangkok, Thailand. To be honest, before I became immersed in the content on the website, I was unaware of most of the museums and iconic places that were listed, including MOCA in Thailand. This particular museum holds a large collection of valuable paintings and sculptures created by famous Thai artists. The museum’s key concepts are to communicate, promote, and transfer authentic Thai art and culture to people all over the world.
As I began exploring the online exhibition, I was taken back by the concepts and spiritual language that’s associated with the visual message. For example, the painting The Blessing of Lord Buddha, painted by Chalermchai Kositpipat in 2006 (see image above). The painting encompasses Dharma and aims to release from countless rounds of rebirth. In the painting, there is Lord Buddha, without the appearance of the artist; only clearness and the praise for Lord Buddha exists. Also noted, these are the classifying principles of the Buddhism religion.
Now that it’s summer and you have extra time on your hands, I highly recommend the Google Arts & Culture interface.
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