Unlike a tale or a myth, in which time could be undefined or cyclical, history is a story about the past organized chronologically and populated by unique characters, objects and events. And unlike a tale or a myth, it is presented as objective recollections of events from the past. Most of the museum exhibits today are organized chronologically along a linear time line having an open end toward the future.
However, there is no such thing as an objective history. Histories are constructed from a certain perspective and we should not confuse a history as a story with the event that it’s describing.
Once upon a time, there lived an adventurous young man. Being an explorer and ethnographer at heart, he longed to travel and make great discoveries. Then it happened one day that he heard a tale about some curious developments among the natives of the Old World. A new style in the making and decorating of art objects, it was said, had been spreading among the craftsmen of various tribes. The movement was already dying out, however, and soon it would slip into oblivion. Intrigued, the explorer immediately organized a series of expeditions across the ocean. He visited all the important places, collected paintings and other exotic objects from the natives and recorded the stories they told. Impressed with what he saw and heard, he brought back many artifacts and decided to establish an ethnographic museum, naming it the Museum of Modern Art.
What was Modern Art? 