Why mount.

As part of a series of blogs we will look at the many reasons why you may mount an object. We aim to show why it’s more than just simply to display it. There are many reasons from a form of preventative conservation, a tool to educate as well as safety and security.

In this blog we want to focus on grandeur, or as we like to say “mind control”.

This is the first thing that comes to mind when exploring why people want to mount an item, to enhance it! This is the reason it’s not left sitting on the base of your display case or just perched on the mantel piece. You want to showcase it, make the object sing, give it a sense of “grandeur”.

This is usually for two reasons. First, simply because the object deserves it, it’s a significant piece and you want to do it justice by having a bespoke mount to help it stand out within your collection. The presence of the mount, if done well, will highlight the piece and tell the viewer it’s significant by the mere fact it is mounted. So we can harness this assumption the viewer makes into giving something a false sense of grandeur. Here’s the “mind control” part and the second reason. Your object might be insignificant, something very common and of little monetary value. But by giving it a mount it takes on a sense of grandeur, whether it deserves it or not, and the viewer may then ask why all this fanfare for this specific object. Which may be what you want to achieve, if this piece is important to you as a collector, or part of the story you’re trying to tell through your exhibition, by mounting a simple object well the viewer is drawn to it when otherwise they may not.

So whether the items is something truly rare and priceless, or the opposite and insignificant in any other circumstances, through mounting we give an object a sense of grandeur no matter. Helping collectors display whatever is significant to them or helping highlight the importance of a seemingly simple everyday object within an exhibition.