I'm not poo-pooing educational devices, but maybe we should also be
teaching/showing our patrons how to have an aesthetic experience without
needing to have a label. My theory is that anyone can have an experience
with any art, even if they have no background information: how does the work
make them feel, does it remind them of something, what thoughts are they
thinking while looking and why? I sometimes feel that art makes them feel
stupid because they "don't get it". What's to get? Can't it just be a
personal experience? Who says there is something to get? Us? I realize
background info can give a deeper learning experience, but sometimes we
forget about the simpler experiences we can have with art.
Janelle Aieta
Admin. Asst.
Collections Management
LACMA
-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Heuman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 3:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Article on labels in art museums [faked-from]
Hi Audra et al.,
I apologies in advance for submitting such a long message, filled with evil
"educational" expression. Alas, I cannot express myself in paint . . .
Two points to ponder:
(1) You have made a generalization without regard to the different
categories
of educational devices. Aren't some educational devices helpful to art
museum
visitors? How about:
chronology - about the artist's life?
historical context?
technical aspects of art (elements of art, medium, etc.)?
information about the known/recognizable subject?
The "educational" devices you poo-poo are panels or labels with subjective
interpretation. Curatorial staff might refer to this as visul analysis, and
artists (such as yourself) feel is creative writing that imposes ideas alien
to your artwork.
Surely you can see the difference?
(2) The #1 complaint from visitors to art museums - whether they see
ancient,
Gothic, modern or contemporary art - is that they don't have the tools to
comprehend what they see. How many people can tell the difference between
Aphrodite and Juno? How may can look at a predella and identify St. Cecelia
or
St. Bartholemew? How about the development of printmaking and moveable
type,
which eased transmission of ideas and images across continental Europe and
around the world? What about the significance of the cubistic 'fracturing'
of
the picture plane? That Surrealism originated in psychoanalytic theory . .
.
and that there were two opposing schools of Surrealists? That some abstract
artists have specific, intention content/meaning? That performance art is a
time-based extention of static media?
Perhaps you take all this for granted; but, I assume, you studied it. (So
do
most others who graduate from art programs . . . whether or not they pay
attention during required art history and art theory classes.) But the
general public does not automatically know this.
To see Einstein's equation representing the theory of relativity does not
mean
automatic comprehension . . . so why do people assume looking at a painting
means automatic comprehension? To look at pretty pictures may provide
short-term benefit. But long-term benefit, which I'll define as
conservation/preservation of cultural objects, results from an understanding
of significance.
A side note about "artist's statements":
----------------------------------------
One might argue that visual artists choose to produce visual art for lack of
better means to express or encapsulate certain affiliations, feelings,
ideas,
etc. (Most artists with whom I've spoken and/or from whom I've read texts
are
not highly skilled with word-smithing.) However, some artists possess great
powers of observation - both inward and outward. They can, indeed, write
texts or historical and theoretical value. (Some examples: Leon Battista
Alberti's De Pittura, Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Donald
Judd's writings about minimalism.) So, maybe some artists feel
uncomfortable
writing . . . and should not be expected or compelled to write. But those
who
can write or speak, who can translate their visual thinking into written or
verbal expression should not be stiffled.
Sincerely,
Jay Heuman
Assistant Curator of Education
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
Utah State University (Logan)
>Another reaction:
>Remembering from my distant past as a working artist, one of our big gripes
>was museum interpretation. Our collective view was that we created art,
art
>historians and museums attached baggage to it. I think we universally
>resented the "artist's statement" that we occasionally were called upon to
>create. So I'd think that artists would find the lack of "educational"
>devises refreshing.
Jay Heuman
Assistant Curator of Education
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
t 435 797 0165
f 435 797 3423
e [log in to unmask]
www.artmuseum.usu.edu
Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.
Sir Claus Moser (b. 1922)
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