Museum Labels

Paul Dirac (b. 1960)

Large and Small 1995

Stylus and Paint 3D

Inspired by relativistic quantum mechanics and its large scale consequences, artist Paul
Dirac decided to create Large and Small after contemplating a “unified theory of gravitation
and quantum mechanics”

The seemingly small stars have been suggested to represent the small scale particles of
quantum mechanics. The use of black holes and galaxies are direct representations of the
large scale sizes of the cosmos.

Erwin Schrödinger (b. 1963)

Quantization of the Cosmos 2008

Stylus and Paint 3D

Taking inspiration from simulations of cosmic strings, a one dimensional hypothetical concept,
Schrodinger decided to represent them as loops throughout space in a vanishing cylinder.
The non-vanishing part of the cylinder suggests discrete(or quantized) properties of cosmic
strings.

Gifted by L. de Broglie, 2010

Paul Ehrenfest (b. 1987)

Broken Degeneracy 2013

Stylus and Paint 3D

Using paint software, Ehrenfest created this all in one night, taking advantage of technology’s
ability to copy and paste, until finally breaking the pattern and creating a new singular
representation of the universe

It has been suggested that the different representations of the universe are actually energy.

Gifted by anonymous donor, 2002

Reflection Essay
 What do you expect when you walk into an art museum? Well first, art, of course. But

what else? Is it just art with no context added? No. Because art museums are educational, they

not only include the art but must include information about it, via museum labels. Museum labels

are important parts of art museums. They include important information regarding the art piece,

ranging from the basics such as the artist’s name and the name of the work, to longer writing and

commentary.

While trying to follow the conventions of museum label writing, I tried to keep in mind

the audience I was trying to reach. Presuming museum goers are typically older college-educated

adults, I attempted to focus my writing to that demographic. Since I modeled this project to be

similar to an art exhibition that melds the arts and quantum mechanics, I assumed that this

exhibition would attract a scientifically inclined crowd. Since this is still in a hypothetical art

museum, I assumed that, while interested, the patrons would not necessarily be well-versed in

the specifics of the science(nor would they need to be). Because of this I attempted to explain

certain less known scientific terms, while also emphasizing that all the work were not science

fact but artistic interpretations

Museum labels follow similar templates1, which I attempted to mimic as well. I began

with the name at the beginning, in bold font with the year of the fictional artist’s birth. The

placement of the name and bold font is common in museum labels because it, in addition to the

name of the art piece, is one of the pieces of information most people want. I then placed the

name of the piece after the artist’s name, in bold italicized font with the year the art was finished,

1 Gray, Nick. “How to Make Your Own Home Museum Displays.” Medium. Medium, June 22,
2017. https://medium.com/@nickgraynews/how-to-make-your-own-home-museum-displays-
19dbf93d95ed.
as is typical in museum labels. Below this, I included the materials used, because many

museumgoers wonder how or what the pieces in museums were made of.

All of the short, factual information can give the audience context behind the piece. The

artist’s year of birth and the year finished can place the piece during a time period that imbues a

whole new meaning to the art. The materials used can inform the audience about the complexity

in making the artwork, or the ingenuity in the materials used. All of this information is important

to the museum experience.

Right after these short pieces of information, some art museums decide to include a body

of text that describes and explains the piece. While this convention is a bit uncommon, I decided

to follow this in order to include more writing. This strategy also allowed me to expand on why I

made certain choices in my drawings.

In order to tie in my original academic article, I decided to name all the artists after

people who contributed to quantum mechanics. I also attempted to explain why the “artist” made

the artistic choices they did by pulling in some of the science of the articles. I did make sure to

not interpret everything as literal. Since it is supposed to be an art museum, I attempted to make

the drawings whimsical. They do not accurately represent what the article is about because they

are not models made in order to understand the science, but supposed to have been inspired by

the science.
 In my first label, for the drawing Large and Small, I chose that in order to tie in what the

grand scheme of the Klein–Gordon oscillator under a uniform magnetic field in cosmic string

space–time was attempting to work towards. They were trying to understand how the very small

scale of quantum mechanics eventually impacts the large scale, hence the name. In the main

body text, I included the artist’s inspiration and reason for making the drawing because this is

not uncommon in some museum labels. A short analysis of the drawing was included for this

reason, and to inform museum goers who are not well-versed in quantum mechanics about the

reasoning behind the drawing.

I then included phrases such as, “Have been suggested,” since generally, certain claims

about art pieces are just speculative, since the artist either can not, or will not confirm their

intent. Since an artist may occasionally elaborate on their piece, I also included phrases such as,

“The use of,” and, “are,” in order to imply that artist Dirac explicitly mentioned the intent behind

certain elements of the drawing.

In the second drawing’s label, for Quantization of the Cosmos, I followed the same

template and conventions of the previous label, all for the similar reasons (because art museums

labels use them). In this one, I used phrases such as, “the artist decided to do…” in order to make

clear that the artist specifically elaborated on their intent. While not delving into the topic, I did

expand a small amount on cosmic strings, because I think it is safe to assume most

people(including myself) do not know what they are. Since art museums are usually not full with

quantum science experts, I believe elaborating was the best choice in this case. At the very

bottom, I included, “Gifted by L. de Broglie, 2010.” Since museums often receive art donations
from wealthy patrons, they often include a little line at the end in order to make other patrons

aware of this.

In the label for “Broken Degeneracy” I delved a bit into the process it took to make this

piece. The techniques used by the artist for certain pieces are often displayed instead of any sort

of commentary or interpretation. I chose to make this label shorter in order to represent these

shorter, less in depth labels.

The most difficult part of this genre translations was finding a way to interpret the

science as art, trying to take something very mathematical and abstract and making it look like

something. I was able to move past this by trying to analyze what it was that the scientific article

was trying to achieve.

After that problem was resolved, finding the correct tone and language for the museum

labels was tricky. I was not sure how to write them, even after research into them. The only way

to overcome that obstacle was by analyzing who would most likely read these labels, and what

the labels are trying to achieve. Museums educate, my labels needed to educate. In order to

educate, I needed to think about what people want to know about an art piece. This got me past

the, “what to say.” Now, I needed to know how to say it. Since I knew that most art museum

patrons would be older and educated, but not necessarily scientifically inclined, I knew that

meant that I needed to cater to them. That meant using professional words, but not scientific

jargon. The English had to be fairly proper, but also short and to the point.

Museum labels are aspects of museums that are rarely given a second thought by the

people who use them. But, they follow very specific conventions that, if changed, would be very

obvious to anyone even slightly familiar to them. They do this in order to give museumgoers the
information they want, and are set up this way for their benefit, something I never gave a second

thought of until this paper, which I will continue to keep in mind in the future.

Bibliography

Boumali, Abdelmalek, and Nadjette Messai. “Klein–Gordon Oscillator under a Uniform

Magnetic Field in Cosmic String Space–Time.” Canadian Journal of Physics 92, no. 11
(2014): 1460–63. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjp-2013-0431.

Gray, Nick. “How to Make Your Own Home Museum Displays.” Medium. Medium, June 22,
2017. https://medium.com/@nickgraynews/how-to-make-your-own-home-museum-
displays-19dbf93d95ed.

Miller, Laurie G. “Guidelines for Making Wall Labels for Your Art Exhibition.” Art Biz
Success, November 18, 2019. https://artbizsuccess.com/wall-labels/.