Haha, great. It's the same story at art museums everywhere. It's less and less about the art and more and more about social messaging. Many institutions feel like activist group that merely have "art" as a front for their political and social aims.
The people most serious about art as such (all of it, not just the flavor of the moment) are evidently not the target audience for the art establishment, which appears far more interested in those with the "correct" sociopolitical views. Members of the latter crowd may be quite ignorant in terms of art history and may not even have an eye, but they are still the ones being catered to. Thus, the system is perverted and inspires little credibility or respect, nor does it deserve the benefit of the doubt.
At least a place like the Boston MFA has plenty of art worth seeing, which will always draw visitors, but there are other museums nowhere near so well stocked and of practically no interest to those of us who insist on quality first and foremost--and who know what that is without reading the wall labels.
Just down the road is the local woke fun house called The Dallas Museum of Art. It's woke because it's publicly funded, eternally in need of the readies, and woke is where the crowd is just now. And if you happen not to be woke-ified, there's quite a decent collection of actual art for you too. It's really that simple around here where fads and fashions keep the turnstiles turning for everybody, step right up, that's where the competition for Saturday picture show money is. For instance, I recall in the 1980s, media spots featuring Orson Welles summoning the Dallas "culturally awakened" to see the Frederick Remingtons and the Norman Rockwells at the Dallas Museum of Art. But I've never seen the slightest hint of pandering in the privately endowed institutions with their splendid collections, like the Meadows Museum (Dallas) and the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth). They'd like you to come and see, but they're not afraid of dying if you don't want to come, and they're certainly not phased by fashions as thin as wokeism.
Museums are definitely not there to play politics or preach morality--they are there to serve up art to those who seek after it. I know what I want from art and how to go about getting it, which is entirely my business, but I need access to the stuff, the best stuff I can get to. That's what I want from a museum; I'll do the rest myself, which is how it should work.
My point was that the Dallas Museum of Art and others like it are not doing what a museum should do as its unequivocal top priority, which is what the Meadows and Kimbell appear to be doing. Pandering is not just manipulative but offensive.
What exactly would the role of a museum be, and exactly who would determine that role? Personally, I want to be edified and enriched, so I choose accordingly.
The role of a museum, obviously in my opinion, is to present the best possible art in the best possible way and leave the rest to the viewers, and to absolutely, positively be about art as such, not as a means to ulterior ends.
There is the view of getting people in the door with whatever enticements might, in the process, bring them to encounters with quality. My personal experience was one of leveling. A while back, the Dallas Museum of Art presented an exhibition of the work of Philip Guston. It was mostly lost on viewers because it was, for them, completely alien. They weren't prepared. Is preparation the job of a museum?
You're making the huge assumption that ANY curatorial philosophy would be doing a better job at combatting dopamine culture.
Every IRL institution seems to be struggling, post pandemic. A friend of mine had to shutter her catering company last year, after surviving the pandemic, because her 15 year client base isn't throwing parties. Theater companies, opera companies, symphonies are struggling.
Culture war is another dopamine project. It provides the excitement of righteousness in place of the contemplative nature of seeing art on its own terms. I do indeed think that any other curatorial philosophy would be doing a better job at combating it, because the predominant one amounts to capitulation. And for that you could just stay home and doomscroll.
I was unpersuaded by Gioia's argument when it came out but didn't have strong enough feelings to comment. I don't think the addiction problem emanates from the devices any more than it emanates from drugs when they're the object. There's some prior lack or disorder that the addiction satisfies at cost to the rest of the person. And certainly there may be a benefit to cutting of the devices just like there may be benefit to cutting off the drugs. But if the problem in culture is postcriticality then there's just going to be the pain of broken cultural connection to deal with afterward.
And Franklin, that photography/advertising subgenre is being employed all over the place by all manner of entities, as I expect you're aware. It's at best cringeworthy, but then I'm not its target.
As for attendance, museums which alienate people who do NOT want extraneous ideological or political baggage, only access to the best possible art, are not serious about attendance (unless it's the attendance of a particular audience, as opposed to the public at large). Let their numbers drop, then.
Haha, great. It's the same story at art museums everywhere. It's less and less about the art and more and more about social messaging. Many institutions feel like activist group that merely have "art" as a front for their political and social aims.
The people most serious about art as such (all of it, not just the flavor of the moment) are evidently not the target audience for the art establishment, which appears far more interested in those with the "correct" sociopolitical views. Members of the latter crowd may be quite ignorant in terms of art history and may not even have an eye, but they are still the ones being catered to. Thus, the system is perverted and inspires little credibility or respect, nor does it deserve the benefit of the doubt.
At least a place like the Boston MFA has plenty of art worth seeing, which will always draw visitors, but there are other museums nowhere near so well stocked and of practically no interest to those of us who insist on quality first and foremost--and who know what that is without reading the wall labels.
Just down the road is the local woke fun house called The Dallas Museum of Art. It's woke because it's publicly funded, eternally in need of the readies, and woke is where the crowd is just now. And if you happen not to be woke-ified, there's quite a decent collection of actual art for you too. It's really that simple around here where fads and fashions keep the turnstiles turning for everybody, step right up, that's where the competition for Saturday picture show money is. For instance, I recall in the 1980s, media spots featuring Orson Welles summoning the Dallas "culturally awakened" to see the Frederick Remingtons and the Norman Rockwells at the Dallas Museum of Art. But I've never seen the slightest hint of pandering in the privately endowed institutions with their splendid collections, like the Meadows Museum (Dallas) and the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth). They'd like you to come and see, but they're not afraid of dying if you don't want to come, and they're certainly not phased by fashions as thin as wokeism.
Museums are definitely not there to play politics or preach morality--they are there to serve up art to those who seek after it. I know what I want from art and how to go about getting it, which is entirely my business, but I need access to the stuff, the best stuff I can get to. That's what I want from a museum; I'll do the rest myself, which is how it should work.
Not certain about how that replies or how anybody determines what museums are here for, but ok.
My point was that the Dallas Museum of Art and others like it are not doing what a museum should do as its unequivocal top priority, which is what the Meadows and Kimbell appear to be doing. Pandering is not just manipulative but offensive.
What exactly would the role of a museum be, and exactly who would determine that role? Personally, I want to be edified and enriched, so I choose accordingly.
The role of a museum, obviously in my opinion, is to present the best possible art in the best possible way and leave the rest to the viewers, and to absolutely, positively be about art as such, not as a means to ulterior ends.
There is the view of getting people in the door with whatever enticements might, in the process, bring them to encounters with quality. My personal experience was one of leveling. A while back, the Dallas Museum of Art presented an exhibition of the work of Philip Guston. It was mostly lost on viewers because it was, for them, completely alien. They weren't prepared. Is preparation the job of a museum?
You're making the huge assumption that ANY curatorial philosophy would be doing a better job at combatting dopamine culture.
Every IRL institution seems to be struggling, post pandemic. A friend of mine had to shutter her catering company last year, after surviving the pandemic, because her 15 year client base isn't throwing parties. Theater companies, opera companies, symphonies are struggling.
Even as an introvert, I'm finding it a challenge just to get new and old friends to meet for a cup of coffee or a drink. Dopamine culture has turned us into phone zombies: https://open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2la67
Culture war is another dopamine project. It provides the excitement of righteousness in place of the contemplative nature of seeing art on its own terms. I do indeed think that any other curatorial philosophy would be doing a better job at combating it, because the predominant one amounts to capitulation. And for that you could just stay home and doomscroll.
I was unpersuaded by Gioia's argument when it came out but didn't have strong enough feelings to comment. I don't think the addiction problem emanates from the devices any more than it emanates from drugs when they're the object. There's some prior lack or disorder that the addiction satisfies at cost to the rest of the person. And certainly there may be a benefit to cutting of the devices just like there may be benefit to cutting off the drugs. But if the problem in culture is postcriticality then there's just going to be the pain of broken cultural connection to deal with afterward.
https://dissidentmuse.substack.com/p/the-postcritical-era
And Franklin, that photography/advertising subgenre is being employed all over the place by all manner of entities, as I expect you're aware. It's at best cringeworthy, but then I'm not its target.
Richard Serra has proceeded to his reward.
As for attendance, museums which alienate people who do NOT want extraneous ideological or political baggage, only access to the best possible art, are not serious about attendance (unless it's the attendance of a particular audience, as opposed to the public at large). Let their numbers drop, then.