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Exhibition Reviews
Frazier Historical Arms Museum, 829 W. Main St., Louisville, KY 40202.
Permanent galleries, opened May 22, 2004. M-Sa 9–5, Su 12–5, closed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Adults $9; children 5–13 $6, under 4 free; seniors, students, teachers, active military (all with I.D.) $6. 57,000 sq. ft. Craig Mooney, project manager; Walter J. Karcheski Jr., chief curator; Suzie Loredo, registrar; MFM Design, designer.
Selections from the Frazier Historical Arms Museum. By Walter J. Karcheski Jr. (Lawrenceburg: Creative Company, 2004. 64 pp. $19.88, ISBN 1-891468-28-6.) Heavily illustrated.
Internet: collection descriptions, images, program information, and press coverage <http://www.frazierarmsmuseum.org> (Jan. 11, 2005).
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| Almost four hundred years after the landing at Jamestown, Britain has once again established a permanent presence on American soil—in the museum world. The Frazier Historical Arms Museum, which opened in a renovated warehouse in downtown Louisville last spring, features an entire floor of permanent exhibits from the Royal Armouries, Britain's oldest museum. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation this is the first British national museum to open a permanent exhibition overseas. The Frazier's core collection was amassed by Owsley Brown Frazier of the Brown-Foreman liquor empire. Both the museum and the collaboration were Frazier's idea, and the result is pure inspiration. By combining collections, the museum delivers on the promise in its brochures to tell "the complete American story—not the abridged version that begins in Jamestown with the colonists, but a larger story that begins in Europe some 600 years earlier." |
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This museum is not just a gun collector's display of his collection. It offers visitors a look at arms from medieval times through the nineteenth century and places armaments in historical context, showing not only their evolution but also the way that evolution affected conflict, exploration, and technology. The focus is Britain and America, though future exhibitions would do well to include artifacts from other cultures for comparative purposes. |
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The exhibits are arranged mostly in chronological order; visitors start their tour on the third floor with the Royal Armouries galleries. An introductory film about the Tower of London explains the basis for the royal collections, and the exhibits focus on British history from a British perspective, including what must be one of the shortest summaries of the American Revolution ever written. |
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Beyond the initial film, the rooms generally follow a thematic approach within an overarching chronological organization. The exhibits, which feature well-placed artifacts in accessible cases, excellent lighting, and design that allows for examination, engage the visitor with a variety of presentation formats. Illustrations from historic tapestries and Bibles help emphasize interpretive points. Informative timelines place the exhibits in the context of political and technological history. In a departure from more traditional approaches, each main gallery includes a life-size dramatic tableau highlighting a specific battle and showing warriors in action with reproduction weapons. While this format could easily have slipped into a Disneyesque show, the figures are well crafted, and the effect is impressive. Fortunately, the figures do not move, and their facial expressions are mostly believable. Short films illustrate other aspects of the artifacts' use as well—battle overviews, weapons demonstrations, chain mail construction, armor preparation, and archaeological research. |
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