Art world snobbery at its finest
Item one in Tyler Green's recent post Five things I think I think deserves attention for both its brutal honesty and sadly elitist attitude:
"1.) If I hear one more museum podcast feature visitors to the museum and what they think of ______, I'm going to delete them from my feeds. Museums all employ armies of people who do interesting things: conservation, research, building, installing, curating, and so on. Podcasting was made for telling us what cool things those people are up to. Instead we too oft get Joe Schmoe saying that the comb in a Magritte looks soooo reallllll."
How dare a museum provide a venue for "Joe Schmoe" to engage in art dialog! Apparently, museum patrons are a necessary evil that art professionals must merely tolerate in the course of their "interesting" lives. Museums, or at least those with podcast feeds that Green subscribes to, need to keep the great unwashed masses (with such lowbrow tastes that they might actually experience a sense of wonder at trompe-l'œil) from wasting the time of those with more sophisticated art perspectives - the ones who are up to "cool things." You've got to admire his unadulterated disdain for the plebs - Roger Kimball would be proud.
"1.) If I hear one more museum podcast feature visitors to the museum and what they think of ______, I'm going to delete them from my feeds. Museums all employ armies of people who do interesting things: conservation, research, building, installing, curating, and so on. Podcasting was made for telling us what cool things those people are up to. Instead we too oft get Joe Schmoe saying that the comb in a Magritte looks soooo reallllll."
How dare a museum provide a venue for "Joe Schmoe" to engage in art dialog! Apparently, museum patrons are a necessary evil that art professionals must merely tolerate in the course of their "interesting" lives. Museums, or at least those with podcast feeds that Green subscribes to, need to keep the great unwashed masses (with such lowbrow tastes that they might actually experience a sense of wonder at trompe-l'œil) from wasting the time of those with more sophisticated art perspectives - the ones who are up to "cool things." You've got to admire his unadulterated disdain for the plebs - Roger Kimball would be proud.
Issued from Dilettante Ventures control room at 10:45
4 Comments:
I've written plenty of snobby things on MAN, but suggesting that a museum work a little harder when it comes to programming its podcast isn't one of them.
How is wanting a little insight, a little inside-the-building perspective, or a museum sharing successes from its K-12 education program with us an inherently snobby thing? After all, it's not like Joe Schmoe is lacking for outlets...
"suggesting that a museum work a little harder when it comes to programming its podcast isn't one of them. "
If that is how you phrased it, the perception of snobbery would be vastly different. We both know that there are more and less snarky (our post being an example of counter-snarkiness) ways to say things.
"...an inherently snobby thing?"
Wanting insight on behind the scenes museum activities is not inherently "snobby." Placing the value of said insight against the inclusion of "Joe Schmoe," and seemingly dismissing the value of that input is quite snobby.
Certainly, the "common" person has plenty of outlets (our lonely little blog being an example), but it's obvious that offering your opinion to a friend as you walk out of a museum, writing the opinion on a blog, and being invited to share it by the institution itself are vastly different contexts.
We probably even agree in spirit that quality podcast programming is lacking, but why take rhetorical potshots at the public whose mission it is for cultural institutions to serve and educate about why there might be more to be said about Magritte for instance?
"why take rhetorical potshots at the public whose mission it is for cultural institutions to serve and educate about why there might be more to be said about Magritte for instance?"
There was nothing rhetorical about my post and it wasn't a potshot. It was an honest criticism.
And precisely: If an institution's mission is to educate, and it should strive to fulfill that mission.
I recently learned that a study done at MOMA several years ago showed that over 95% of visitors walk in the door with zero art knowledge, and spend most of their time relating pieces to their own lives, rather than to a greater library of technique, history, and critique. And those are the people who even make it in the door...
An art museum director once told me, "I believe there's an epiphany for everyone in our galleries." And yet so few museum resources (labels, tours) provide tools to access those intense experiences; instead, the tools intellectualize the experience. I personally enjoy and seek out the "visitor comment" type of audio tours because I find those are the ones that are most likely to inspire my own "seeking inside" the art for emotional, transformative experiences. Not that there isn't a place for the authoritative voice, but that voice already rings loud and clear through the vast majority of museum interpretation.
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