The problem with presenting "controversial" art in the museum to provoke
is that visitors tend to assume that if it is on a wall in a museum, it is
"good" art.  (or "good" artifacts, by the same token).  When we present
objects or art to provoke thought, we often don't do a good enough job of
letting the visitor in on our thinking.

At my museum, we once exhibited a Klan robe--a real surprise to many native
South Dakotans who tend to associate the Klan with the South, not South
Dakota!  Anyway, one pair of visitors was so offended that we had showed
it, that they wrote and excoriated us for "glorifying" the Klan.  We had
intended to do no such thing, but our matter-of-fact label about the Klan's
presence in SD was probably not sufficient to let the visitors know that
history, at least, IS about the good, bad, and the ugly.

Art museums are generally worse, because the art if often exhibited without
comment.

Claudia Nicholson
Curator of Collections
South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre

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In article <[log in to unmask]>, Richard
Perry <[log in to unmask]> says:
>
>On Fri, 29 Mar 1996, Eric Siegel wrote:
>> >    I don't get worked up about desecrating the flag, but I do get worked
>>    up about bad art.  And I am particularly concerned that the museum
>>    community is losing its credibility by making hard and fast
>>    commitments to protect *any* sort of artistic expression.  Can't we be
>>    discriminating?  Can't we say that some stuff, even if it is
>>    provocative, is just dopey?  Or is provocation itself now an artistic
>>    virtue, so that the more provoking a piece is, the more it is worthy
>>    of being considered art?
>>
>>    I think that there is an important distinction between controversial
>>    exhibits that posit different historical viewpoints and controversial
>>    exhibits that present art that is in some way enraging.>
>>
>
>
>And there is also a difference between the activities (1) of curating a show
>and deciding to include certain objects as worthy, and (2) of choosing to
>"protect" certain cultural works.  If we choose to give curators the
>authority to make some pronouncements about what they consider good or
>important or notable art, that doesn't mean that we have to bow to their
> choices,
>but it does mean that their choices should at least be considered.
>Evidently somebody that we museum folk at least give the status of
>professional authority to was deciding that the ideas communicated in these
>objects could present some different ideas (provocative? perhaps so).
>
>They deserve protection because they are ideas, and they deserve special
>protection because they are likely to suffer at the hands of those who
>would deny them The light of day.
>
>The course of time and the negotiations and conflicts among various interest
>groups will participate in the decision ofthe longterm worth of these
>ideas, but they gain even more if they are so hounded that they must go
>underground.
>
>Richard Perry
>UC San Diego
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