What a terrific thread!  I have a few additional items for thought.
Referencing everyone's interpretation friend Freeman Tilden "the chief aim
of interpretation is provocation."  It sounds like the Hirschorn did a great
job provoking their visitors, but maybe the exhibition was lacking in
follow-up discussion.  Maybe it didn't offer visitors any tools with which
to answer the questions they may have been asking silently throughout their
experience in the gallery.  Some provocative statements, alternate points of
view, forum for discussion, maybe even an annex gallery that is an
"exhibition about the exhibition."

Museum visitors, as people with their own pasts and experiences, comprise a
large part of the information floating around in a gallery space.  Education
can happen without "teaching" in the traditional sense of the word.
Visitors can take their own life experiences, add information to them,
relate these experiences to what they see, thereby creating a new experience
and a new level of understanding of themselves or the world around them.

I certainly agree that the curator is a different person, a different voice
in the exhibition, than the artist or group of artists. Sometimes I feel
that the curator's vision is not clearly addressed as one possible vision or
way of interpreting a body of work out of many ways of interpreting the same
group of paintings or sculpture.  The curator's voice is absolutely a voice.
Neither history nor art is a completely factual field.  But I sometimes feel
that visitors approach a museum exhibition thinking they will be reading the
absolute one and only truth, when it is one of many truths.  We all choose
some information over other information based on importance or
appropriateness to the theme. Then there is the actual theme, the
interpretive mission of the exhibition -- the main idea. Is the main idea
the subject, the artist, the time period, politics, medium, etc? The same
object could appear in twenty different shows with twenty different
interpretive objectives depending on how the curator chooses to view that
particular object.  If visitors had a better understanding of this idea of
exhibition curation, I think the museum experience could become instantly
less intimidating.  (as an aside that could be a great way to get some
repeat visitation -- a line a the bottom of the label "do you want to know
more about green vase in this painting? come back in April when this
painting will be featured in an exhibition entitled 'Fabulous green vases in
our collection'")

In the end I think the "no label" method of interpretation has some definite
merits.  Fred Wilson is certainly an innovator and pioneer of this
interpretive concept. However, we still have to give our visitors the tools
with which to think critically while they are in the gallery space and to
help them answer their own questions as they progress.  As museum
professionals maybe we need to think about letting the public know that they
have abilities for interpretation, and that we recognize, value, and trust
their abilities.  In viewing a new exhibition visitors are really adding to
their skills as independent interpreters of art and history. Hopefully they
will learn (either from a label or from themselves) new ways of seeing in
the next show they visit. If art education is lacking we can only do
something about it -- it could be a great asset to new exhibitions.


Erin Crissman
Curator
Historic Cherry Hill
523 1/2 South Pearl St Albany, NY 12202
phone.   518.434.4791
fax.     518.434.4806
email.   [log in to unmask]
website. www.historiccherryhill.org

the quotes).

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