BGLHM_website_logo.jpg

Bean Gilsdorf Living History Museum

The Bean Gilsdorf Living History Museum—a life-sized diorama and the world’s smallest living history museum—was a place for visitors to sense the immediacy of the past. Part site-specific installation, part performance, the project ran from June 2013 to July 2017, and included interpretive tours, MP3 conceptual walking tours, K-12 lesson plans, and a gift shop. Inspired equally by Magritte’s The Human Condition, Craphound’s “Remover Installer,” and Borges’ “On Exactitude In Science,” the BGLHM recreated reality “to the extent that the image becomes the standard by which reality is judged.” The museum was free and open to the public by appointment.

 

BGLHM brochure and installation map for the first exhibition, 2013.

 

BGLHM West Wing, ready for visitors.

 

The West Wing, with works in the 2014 BGLHM Whitney Biennial by (from left to right) Whitney Kimmel, Richard Whitney, and Whitney Lynn.

 

BGLHM installation of Roll Along, 2015.

 

The BGLHM featured in the first issue of Ventriloquist ‘zine, May 2015.