I apologize for my lack of precision in my earlier post. When I
mentionned attendance levels, what I should have said was
participation levels, but in many cases these go hand in hand. There
have been numerous studies in Europe, North America, and Australia
since Bourdieu and Darbel in 1969 that have all confirmed that art
galleries almost always draw a smaller audience than other types of
museums, and that the art gallery audience is almost always far
wealthier and more educated than that of other types of museums.
Approximately 75 percent of the population in these areas does not
attend a public art gallery at all in any given year. In effect, art
galleries are less "public" because virtually none of the "general
public" attend. Some authors who have described this are J. Mark
Davidson Schuster, David Halle, and Tony Bennett. The remarkable point
is that over the past 35 years art galleries have been aware of the
large and recognizable group who have been historically excluded, and
they have tried to become more inclusive with no recognizable success.
Does that help to clarify why I'm researching what the problem is? Why
do only unusually wealthy and educated people attend public art
galleries? Should institutions that somehow exclude the large majority
of the population from participating receive public funds?
Thanks for all of the comments so far, I would love to receive more,
Robert Steven
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 09:45:04 -0500, Diane Gutenkauf
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Why do you believe "public art galleries" receive lower attendence than
> other types of museums? What evidence do you cite for this assumption?
> Aren't you generalizing a tad? As my college philosophy professor used to
> say "Define your terms."
>
> Many factors determine a museum's attendence level, I would not attribute
> a low attendence simply to the museum's "type."
>
> Diane Gutenkauf
>
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:01:03 -0500, Robert Steven <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> >Do you think there is an intrinsic problem with the insitution of the
> public art gallery that causes it
> >to receive lower attendence in general than other types of museums? What
> do you think that
> >problem is? Is there a solution? Your advice will inform my research on
> this subject.
> >Thanks very much,
> >Robert Steven
> >
>
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