Many roads lead to art: SlowArtDay 2018

13.04.2018

On Saturday, 14.4.2018 is again #SlowArtDay. Numerous museums offer guided tours, for example, to make visitors* linger longer and more consciously in front of works of art. TheMKK Frankfurt also offers suggestions in its blog on how to make your visit more conscious.

In this context, Barbara Weber-Dellacroce shares her thoughts on a book she recently read.

The journalist Elena Goukassian asked the following question on January 8, 2018 on the online platform Hyperallergic: "IsThere a Right Way to Look at Art? Is looking at a work of art for up to fifteen minutes with no context the best way to appreciate and understand it?" In doing so, she refers to the new book by the New York art dealer Michael Findlay: Seeing Slowly: Looking at modern art (Prestel New York 2017).

Findlay's core statement can probably be found in this sentence: "My core belief is that when it comes to the moments, we experience truly great works of art, no information is necessary. (p. 104) I was inspired to read this book by the fact that I wanted to understand why Findlay so categorically rejects audio guides and smartphones in art museums, for example, and what his way of gaining access to the works of art is like. Specifically, I wanted to understand how the "average visitor" can do this without any aids. This "average visitor" without much previous knowledge, he finally envies: "I envy the woman, man, or child, visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, who stands in front of this painting uneducated by the vast literature, high and low, about the artist." (S. 105)

First of all, I found the book very inspiring on the one hand, but on the other hand it was very one-sided and black-and-white picturesque.

Michael Findlay deals almost exclusively with modern and contemporary art in his book. In art museums, there are certainly other rules in terms of the use of mediation instruments than in historical, natural history, archaeological or other museums. Yet this total rejection of questioning seemed worthy to me.

From the very beginning, Findlay postulated an almost mutually exclusive opposition of "information" and "engagement". To illustrate this, he uses strong formulations like "All others, from the written word to the latest app, serve only to subvert our engagement with art." (S. 97)

For him, true enjoyment of art consists in a kind of contemplative dialogue with the work of art that appeals to you in the collection. "Commitment" and "emotion" are central concepts here.

Findlay is to be envied that he can achieve this state without the help of an expert and finds fulfillment in it. However, he also brings a profound expert knowledge to the viewing, about which he freely informs us, almost flirting with it. However, the feeling crept up on me again and again that this very fact could call his theses into question. So, he discusses the completely unbiased view of art only theoretically, he cannot ignore his knowledge. It is therefore very easy for him to reject all mediation tools, both analogue and digital.

Of course, he is right up to a certain point when he complains about the distraction caused by mediation tools. Many visitors do not concentrate primarily on the exhibits, but on the "surroundings". Whether they really "see" the art is questionable in many cases. In my opinion, however, it is not the right way to demonize mediation tools. We can talk about the way they are used, but not about whether they are necessary. In line with his line of argumentation, digital cultural mediation must above all be rejected. For example, he calls the "Museum Selfie Week" a strange outgrowth of cultural mediation (p. 146)

Is there even one right way to look at art? The answer is obvious. Of course not! The museum visitors are so different in their interests, prerequisites and needs that there can be no panacea.

The Van Abbe museum in Eindhoven, NL, for example, has a completely opposite concept. Here, works of art are so explicitly contextualized and staged that a pure viewing of art is hardly possible.

I would, however, suspect that Findlay's approach can be fraught with difficulties for most of the visitors. Even if one of the aims of Findlay's method is to free the visitor from the fear of coming out as ignorant or uneducated without prior knowledge, I do not believe that the majority of visitors will feel this way. In their studies, image scientists not only learn facts and background knowledge about artists, artworks, and epochs, i.e. the context in which the artworks were created. In my opinion, what is much more important is the fact that we were given the tools to approach the works of art there. Scientific methods of viewing and describing images, as well as ways and means of exploring their meaning and classifying works of art. This is certainly not the only way to approach art, but we have these tools, we can't put them down, and so we can create our first access to works of art unknown to us, almost without fear. Everybody knows this about himself. As a rule, we tend to avoid topics that are foreign to us or approach them only hesitantly and with reservations. Cultural education, and in today's world especially digital cultural education, has the task of building bridges. This means not only the promise of information mediation, but also entertainment and participatory approaches. But Findlay is also very critical of these methods. "... culture has to be 'entertaining' to be marketed to a broad audience, results in content providers (museums officials, publishers, and others) packaging modern art as entertainment snack food. (p. 108) Why culture should not simply be fun is not clear to me.

Audio guides, apps and other digital tools can, if used correctly, offer all this to visitors who want it and feel well accompanied by it. Those who do not want that, can ignore the offers. To look at a work of art completely out of context is neither sensible nor permissible in my opinion. To quote Elena Goukassian in Hyperallergic: "Art has never existed in a vacuum, and contemporary works especially often require at least a little bit of background information." To receive a picture only from an aesthetic and emotional point of view denies an important part of the artwork. Only when seen in its context can the work of art not only be experienced but also understood. Even numerous artists of monochrome painting wrote manifestos, e.g. Barnett Newman or Lucio Fontana, which make their intentions first understandable. One could however apply Findlay's approach to these works of art: first view the paintings in a white cube, as it were, and then obtain information afterwards. But that really seems to me to be true only for a small number of works of art and oeuvres.

At the end of the reading, I'm split in two. The book has certainly inspired me to deal with art more consciously once again and to give the emotion more space. This is certainly an important invitation that one could follow on #SlowArtDay. On the other hand, I am more than skeptical on whether the concept could be realized without any guidance. Without mediation a broad mass will surely not succeed in gaining access to it. But why not try to digitally process Findlay's fictional art talk as a guide to viewing art? ("Achieving contact" p.149-158)? His good ideas should be reconciled with (digital) cultural mediation with a little imagination. This also applies to the possibilities of digital image reproductions, for example in online collections. They do not actually serve the enjoyment of art, these reproductions do not want to replace the original. Or the possibility of a conversation among friends about works of art, inspired by Museum Selfies or Instagram pictures by work of art. It is all a question of weighting. The enjoyment of art can only be enjoyed in front of the original. But that is by no means all that art museums and cultural mediation can offer.

In conclusion, Findlay sheds new light on an old discussion, but without quoting it directly. The controversies of the 60s and 70s about the white cubes and black boxes are at best only hinted at in passing, and the pros and cons of these positions are not received. What Findlay also completely ignores, in my opinion, is the fact that not only the museum world, but above all society is undergoing radical change. This means not only a change in media use, but also a fragmentation of visitor groups with different educational and cultural backgrounds, a much more participatory approach that can be expressed in commentary and communication in social media. Many other aspects could be mentioned here. His postulated method of reception may be practicable for a small section of society, but there is not only THE one universally valid approach.

In any case, I wish us all (not only) on #SlowArtDay 2018 to be able to engage in art just for the enjoyment of it, and still be able to perceive and accept the opportunities of (digital) art mediation.

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