on 3/31/06 11:04 AM, Barbara Case's electrons arrived as:

> A question particularly for regional art museums:
> 
> We are dealing with how best to address issues of controversy in our
> exhibitions, particularly as we are trying to attract new community audiences
> who may be inexperienced art museum visitors.

There's a risk that controversy can alienate certain audiences, but it can
also attract them, and others.  I think a museum should consider it part of
their mission to engage and shed light upon the resonant ideas of their
time, and if controversy comes along with those ideas, so be it.  Playing it
safe is, ironically, risky for a museum.  If the reputation a museum
cultivates is that it will always deal in inoffensive material, digestible
to every type of visitor sensibility, it will find itself ultimately
imprisoned by its own timidity -- fearful of the dire consequences should it
stray from expectations and shock the audience it has grown dependent upon.
Better that a museum indicate, by its willingness to engage controversy now
and then, that its audience will need to be on its toes and prepared for
surprises when it walks through the doors.

In the summer of '04, just before the presidential election, I organized a
show called "SelectionS" that featured satirical artworks and posters about
US presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Beorge W. Bush.  Although the show had
balance, there was a discernable left-lean to its content.  I thought it was
just timely, but some of our conservative donors and supporters strongly
disagreed.  You all may remember how contentious the last election was, the
Michael Moore film and all, and I had to fend off demands that the show be
closed until after the elections, and threats to withdraw donor support.
Ultimately it blew over, because calmer minds on both sides of the political
fence came together to help out.

It would have been worse, though, had I never done a controversial show
before that one.  Most people knew such shows lay within the programmatic
purview of the gallery, and therefore while some may have been offended,
they couldn't claim to have been bushwhacked.


______________________________________
S t e p h e n    N o w l I n

Director,
Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery
Art Center College of Design

http://xrl.us/nowlin
http://www.williamsongallery.net
______________________________________

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