Caitlin and all,
I did not mean to give the impression that I was criticizing art museums. I
work in one, and I/we are proud of what we do and how we do it. Sure, we
would like to bring more visitors in, get more people involved, etc, but we
have to work with the resources we are given or can acquire. We are not
normally intentionally motivated by elitism, nor do we seek to exclude any
particular segment of society. I think Caitlin's suggestion is correct;
most of what we and the public are perceiving as elitism is left over from
centuries of it being treated that way from both sides. It is an
anachronism that needs to be undermined in some way.
Art tends to be elitist by its nature, and there is a certain degree of
elitism that is natural to the field as a result. I believe art museums
tend to act and react in response to the nature of art and the art world.
The notion of artistic expression and the variety of esoteric forms it can
take is often not an easy concept to incorporate into your world view. The
public generally prefers easy, and many art museums/exhibitions are
definitely not easy. I work in an institution which focuses its attention
on contemporary avant garde art, which adds another layer to the pile. The
difficulty seems to be in expressing the information to the general public
in a way that will interest them enough to attend an exhibition and inform
them enough to want to see more.
I do not believe the Met, National gallery, Louvre, etc are not good
examples of the issue we are talking about. They are big enough, famous
enough, and well-funded enough, that they have become destinations in their
own right. The public goes to those places as much to see the place as the
art, and their disproportionate visitation can be attributed in large part
to reputation. Of course, their collections are fantastic, but the
interpretation of the individual works of art is not better than we have
right here, and the visitors are not going away with any higher level of
understanding of the art they have just seen.
Perhaps that is part of the problem. Smaller institutions that are trying
to protect, exhibit and interpret art for their communities can not compete
with the mega-museums on the same level and can not provide the general
public with the "Wow, there was so much stuff that I can not remember a
darned thing" experience that they seem to be looking for. It is not easy
enough. Everyone remembers seeing the Mona Lisa and the glass pyramid, but
the rest of the Louvre is a multi-day long blur of sculpture and art that
boggles the mind. If I ever personally make it to New York, the Met is at
the top of my list, but for no other reason than it is the Met.
Mark Janzen
Registrar/Collections Manager
Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art
Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection
Wichita State University
(316)978-5850
Caitlin McQuade
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I’d like to understand the reasons that art museums choose the exhibition
techniques and programming that they do. Perhaps choices that look as if
they’re motivated by elitism have some other impulse behind them. And if
those who’d like to reform art museums understood the motivating forces,
maybe we could find techniques and programs that satisfied both “old” and
“new” standards.
Here’s a speculative example: In a history or science museum, an object’s
significance depends a lot on information not inherent in the object——its
historical or scientific context. Exhibit techniques and programs therefore
work hard to provide visitors with the context. In an art museum, an
object’s significance lies much more (though not exclusively) in inherent
qualities of the original object. A priority of the interpretive work in an
art museum, then, is not to obscure the object. Hence the minimal labeling.
What kind of interpretive tools could help visitors enjoy an original
artwork’s inherent qualities without obscuring them?
Another example: We’re familiar with the “temple” model of museums. If
those
making decisions about a museum’s environment want to attract more visitors
while still creating a place for meditation, how might they design their
spaces and programs?
Of course, there are people who disagree about the fundamental purposes of
art museums, so naturally the interpretive methods they choose would be
incompatible. Is criticism leveled at art museums in this thread as deeply
rooted as this, do you think?
In the end, it may be useful only up to a point to talk about “art
museums,”
in general. As someone pointed out, the Metropolitan, the Louvre, the
national galleries in D.C. and London——these places don’t suffer from
attendance problems. And I have appreciated the label-less Barnes or
Pulitzer foundations’ displays just as well as the (tiny!) interactive
gallery at the De Cordova. People go to art museums for different reasons;
art museums exist for different reasons. Variety is good. Let’s figure out
a
way to make more.
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