What are the purposes of art museums and galleries - Essay Example

WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF ART MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES Many and varied are the views about the purpose of Art galleries and museums. have posited, postulated and presented arguments in support of their diverse views on the end art galleries and museums serve. But could these arguments stand the test of critical intellectual and empirical analysis Could they be substantiated incontestably with living evidence, so that these views on the purpose of the institutions come across as a cogent piece of intellectual submission This paper will critically examine a number of arguments in support of the views, for logic of presentation, relevance of structural methodology and cogency of content. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese artist & poet in US, once said 'To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to'. This statement, with its allusion to 'aspiration', offers a significant point of departure for this exposition. Aspiration is evidenced in current attempts, in current efforts towards the realisation of a purpose. Therefore, the appreciation of the purposes of art museums and galleries lies in the discovery of the aspiration of those who set them up and conscientiously maintain them. This simple deduction will be used as a fundamental yardstick for estimating the validity of the various arguments. The arguments of the chosen authors will be represented with excerpts from their works, which capture the long and short of their arguments and submissions. These excerpts will be enlarged upon very briefly and then examined for validity. The term 'museum' dates back to the Greek origin of the institution as the abode of the muses, a place of learning and inspiration. It is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as: 'A building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value', (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000). In their A Sense of Place, a work of advocacy, Peter Davies and Tony Knipe (1984) subscribe to an opinion embodied in this excerpt : ' Lets not each beauty everywhere be spied, When half the skill is decently to hide, He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, surprises, varies and conceals the bounds' The advice "not to spy each beauty everywhere, 'when half the skill is decently to hide'" suggests that easily appreciated objects of artistic beauty do not hold as much attraction as those whose artistry is 'decently' hidden, that is, complex. Thus, art galleries, which generally hold attractions for frequenters, contain artistic collections whose intents and purposes need closer (not to be 'spied') examination and special explanations, for their full understanding and appreciation. Consequently, close examination of artistic works of art for their enjoyments and appreciation, is presented by these authors as the purpose for which art galleries and museums are set up. The complicated artistry of the collections is to challenge- 'pleasingly' confound- the visitors, stimulate their imagination and increase their appreciation of beauty. The validity of this submission is, however, yet to be seen, for no empirical evidence lies in this excerpt. From the work of another pair of authors on the origins of museums, we find this excerpt: 'The opening of the New World and the opening up of contacts with Africa, South-East Asia and the Far East revolutionized the way which people saw the world and their own place in it' (Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor, Origins of Museums (1985), p.2). Further reading of this work reveals that the stir created by the opening up of Africa, South-East Asia and the Far East to the New World gave birth to the very beginnings of museums as we know them. Interestingly, many of them were filled with ordinary object of every day use, so that almost nothing exhibited in museums were actually meant to be seen in them. Museums used to offer glimpses of most of the world's art and artefacts, which were thereby given such shallow artistic status as do not have the least relation to their intended function, since museums were meant for commonplace objects of everyday use. Tokens or emblems of societies whose very existence was a source of astonishment to the intensely parochial European public. Clothing, weapons and utensils of all sorts, often made of unfamiliar materials found their way to collectors through the major ports and, in time, through dealers. (Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (1985), Origins of Museums , p.2). Are Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor, therefore, suggesting that museums are not-because they were not- purposed to display the (artistic) collections of collectors, however valuable or intriguing these objects might be to the collectors Or that they once were, but no longer are, purposed to display such collections Whatever the case, what then are they purposed to display Non-collections of collectors Or collections of non-collectors Perhaps objects that caught the artistic fancy of collectors and appealed to art museum and gallery curators, whatever the purposes of the objects These ambiguities are definitely not resolved by the excerpt. Consequently, no definite opinion about the purpose of art museums and galleries is expressed in this neither-advocacy-nor-policy piece of excerpt. But a clear-cut submission lies in Charles Saumarez Smith words: The literature of the transformation of goods as they travel through a life-cycle suggests that once artefacts appear in museums they enter a safe and neutral ground, outside the arena where they are subjected to multiple pressures of meaning. This is not true; on the contrary, museums present all sorts of different territories of display. (Charles Saumarez Smith (1989), Museums, Artefacts, and Meanings, in The New Museology, ed. Peter Vergo, London: Reaktion Books, p. 12). In Mr. Smith's view, museums are places for the display of artefacts- special collections of (discriminating) collectors. Further to this fact is his belief that museums take artefacts, many of which once had an independent use and significance, and turn them into objects that exist solely to be exhibited and studied. Thus, by transforming the context of artworks, museums hardly seem to be acting in a neutral way towards them. But no evidence is given here of an acknowledged or perceived transformation of context of these artefacts-although the fact of their transformation is readily conceivable, since a mere change in environment of an object can have significant changes in the meaning generally attributed to the object. Consequently, since both give no empirical evidence of their claims, and since both concur on the fact that museums do exhibit artefacts, Mr Smith's submission can be safely married to that of Peter Davies and Tony Knipe to yield the conclusion that: Museum artefacts are works the appreciation of whose artistic and historical significance demand close inspection and interpretation which, far from being drudgery, offers pleasure and diversion as well as a better appreciation of the past and the present. Theoretically, then, both (in the marriage) point to the idea of a museum as being purposed to engage the public through intriguing their senses and stimulating their intellectual curiosity and artistic imagination. Supplementing the above conceptual marriage is the inferential argument and implication of the following excerpt from Ellis' Introduction to Museum Work: 'Some of the interpretations, as a result of research, reach through publications, the public indirectly; interpretations are direct through exhibits, guides, lectures and otherwise'. (Burcaw G Ellis, (1983), Introduction to Museum Work, Second Edition,p135). The 'interpretations', direct or indirect, of museum objects affords deeper appreciation of the artistic, historical or cultural significance of the objects, thus elucidating the to-be-unearthed beauty of artefacts in which 'half the skill is decently to hide' (Peter Davies and Tony Knipe [1984]). The suggestion that understanding is gained through 'exhibits, guides, lectures and otherwise' indicates Ellis' opinion of the enlightening purpose of museums, and suggests his submission to be a piece of perceptive advocacy. Thus the artefacts exhibited in 'all sorts of different territories of display', Ellis, asserts stimulate inquiries, challenge researchers, occasion lectures which, satisfying the eye-opening goal he apparently predicates of museums, raise public cultural, artistic and cultural consciousness. Although there is no evidence in this excerpt to back up his supposition, this supposition is sufficiently conceivable in itself and in its support of the intelligible suppositions of previously cited authors. Another interesting dimension to the purpose of museums and art galleries as suggested by all the foregoing authors but Charles Saumarez Smith, lies in an argument from James Cuno's Whose Muse: Art Museums and the Public Trust (p51.). Describing the encounter with an art object as the most inspiring, he argues that museums are not meant to encourage individuals' parochial view of themselves but are to encourage them to expand their view of themselves as part of a larger universe. He says that authentic objects have a remarkable power, as the representations of another society, with a worldview and way of life so different from our own that they force us to step outside of everyday concerns and look at ourselves and our lives with a fresh eye and inspired mind. Cuno's reference to the deep impact of 'authentic' objects stands to reason, given the fact that truly indigenous objects, if creative and presented with artistic touches, must take strangers out of themselves, and so stimulate their curiosities that they are taken off their everyday mentalities and induced to review their current ways of life constructively and innovatively Cuno, therefore, holds that museums (and art galleries) serve an ennobling, creative, and constructive purpose. Intellectually valid - because it is evidently sequential and logical in thought development. However, standing aloof from others in their submissions is John Holden. He claims that most cultural organisations including art museums and galleries and their funding bodies have established a quite good description of their value in terms of social impact, such as, exclusion, increasing diversity and contributing to economic development that gave justifications for grant applications. But today there is a growing demand within the cultural world for more convincing reasons to validate public funding of cultural institutions and programs : 'We need a clearer understanding of what Cultural Value might be, and the range of values through which we can recognize it. But the ability to act on such recognition is equally essential'. (Heldon, John (2004). Capturing Culture Value: How Culture has become a tool of government policy. London. Consequently, John Holden's submission points to the fact there is no clearly, or not-always-clearly, articulated purpose which museums serve. But is such clarity of articulation a part of the purpose of museums and art galleries Demos, p50. states: We believe that every town should have one collection of pictures to tell everyone who enters it, in the beautiful language of art, of all that is best worth knowing of the place and its surroundings and its history, and to make him feel, if its in him to feel, the best influences with nature and history can exert, as well as those of art'. (Horsfall, T.C. (1998) "Art in large towns. Art and its Histories: A reader. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University. p71). From this, it is inferable that: Clearly articulating the purpose of museums and art galleries does belong to the purpose of these instructions, art being a creative way of expression and articulation. In the article Smoke and Mirrors: A Response to Paola Merli's 'Evaluating the Social Impact of Participation in Arts Activities', by Franccois Matarasso, he responds to the criticism she made of his ground-breaking study on the social impact of the arts, in which he documented several examples where participation in the arts increased the confidence of individuals, enriched their social lives and helped them to build the skills needed to find better jobs, his research was published in 1997 and was upraised in the beginning. However, in 2002 two critical reviews were released on Matarasso's research, one by Eleonora Belfiore and the another by Paola Merli. Both Merli and Belfiore suggest that the quantitative statistics utilized by Matarasso's survey data have been derived from ambiguously-worded questions and that, without longitudinal evaluation of the impacts of arts and cultural participation, it is very difficult to prove their positive or negative effects. 'They make two principal criticisms of Use or Ornament: methodological and political' Smoke and mirrors: a response to Paola Merli's (Matarasso, (2003) Evaluating the social impact of participation in arts activities, p337), Matarasso presents the points of interest and conflicts she finds in both reviews and explains that advocacy is aimed at persuasion where an analysis is aimed at. But does failure to successfully persuade invalidate rationale or intellectuality of trend of argument. No, of course. For the inability to convincingly articulate a position in which the germ of truth and validity exists, or to longitudinally assess it, does not make the position wrong. So is it with Matarasso. Matarasso is by no means to be adjudged wrong on grounds of insufficiency of analysis and failure of persuasion. For instance in his statement, 'I Still believe that art is among the most important resources we have for enjoying, understanding, sharing and benefiting from our lives and that its importance demands equal access to it' (Matarasso (2003) Evaluating the social impact of participation in arts activities, p345), there are a number of indisputable facts. The first lies in the 'enjoying' - every feeling person is at one time or another arrested by artistic exhibitions to savour its aesthetic beauty; the second in 'understanding'- artistic presentations are often sources of revelation that broaden the viewer's understanding; third, 'sharing'-the understanding and knowledge of diverse cultures and traditions presented through works of art amounts to sharing knowledge; fourth, 'benefiting', comes from 'enjoying', 'understanding', and 'sharing'. These facts are clearly unarguable in spite of Mataraso's supposed failure of analysis and presentation. Now, Demos' position, from the source above, on the need to clearly articulate purpose, and the position of Mataraso, also as contained in the source cited above, point to the lapse in the operation of museums nowadays; both positions, similar in their tendency, highlight the artistic gap in the current structure of museums and art galleries: The necessity for articulation of purpose, being in itself a necessity for a beautiful feature, undoubtedly belongs to art and, consequently, to buildings that house artefacts and works of art. Richard West's statement supports this fact: Only by deconstructing many of the existing boundaries that define our thinking as museum professionals, and by involving, systematically and consistently, those who sit outside of museums but within the communities that we serve and of which we are a part, can we begin, truly and effectively, to contemplate, dream about, envision, and formulate the 21st-century possibilities regarding museums and community. (West, Richard (2000), Director, National Museum of the American Indian ). The 'deconstructing' of thinking boundaries is an allusion to the need to bring visitors and prospective visitors into the picture of the purpose of museums and art galleries-'systematically and consistently', i.e. as new collections arrive in the museums, and as new structural developments are made to them. This need, an artistic gap in itself, significantly belongs to the purposes of museums and art galleries. In conclusion, the implications of the assertions of the authors cited above, supplementing and complementing one another, lead to the inevitable inference that: Museums and art galleries have the purpose of stimulating the thinking and imagination of the public, inspiring them to innovation and creativity, broadening their horizons about the past, the present of the future, and inculcating in them a sense of beauty which finds relevance in day -to-day economic, political and familial existence-emphasising the necessity for a sense of balance in planning, judging and evaluating. Consequently, they serve to inspire, to informally educate, to raise awareness of the community on matters around and beyond them. But, because new collections often arrive in museums and art galleries, and structural developments are frequently made, the field of art being an ever- evolving one, it is impossible to predict what lies in the future of museums and art galleries. New audio and video technological developments emerge daily in media and communication, new cultures and traditions come to the limelight, new knowledge is acquired by the hour. Bibliography 1- Arts Council England:[ accessed 14 December 2005] 2- Belfiore, Eleonora (2002). 'Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion: does it really work' A critique of instrumental cultural policies and social impact studies in UK" International Journal of Cultural Policy. Vol.8. No.1. pp. 91-106. 3- Bourdieu, Pierre (1986). The Forms of Capital. In John Richardson, Ed. Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 241-258. 4- Burcaw G Ellis (1983), Introduction to Museum Work, Second Edition, p.135 5- Charles Saumarez Smith, Museums, Artifacts, and Meanings, in the New Museology, ed. Peter Vergo (London: Reaktion Books, 1989), p. 12. 6- Chew, Ron. 2000a. The Wing Luke Asian Museum: Gathering Asian American stories. Chinese America: History & perspectives. San Francisco, California: Chinese Historical Society of America. 7- Cuno, James (ed.) (2004) Whose Muse : Art Museums and the Public Trust. Oxford: Princeton, p51. 8- Davies, Peter and Knipe, Tony (1984), A Sense of Place, p 14. 9- Elaine Scarry (1999), On Beauty and Being Just, Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press. 10- Follett, Mary Parker (1918) The New State. 11- Holden, John (2004). Capturing Cultural Value: How culture has become a tool of government policy. Demos: London, p 50. 12- Horsfall, T.C. (1998) Art in large towns. Art and its Histories: A reader. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with the open University. p71 13- Khalil Gibran (1923), 'The Prophet' mystical poetry collection 14- Lavine, S. &Karp, I, 1991. Introduction: Museums and multiculturalism. In I. Karp & S.D. Lavine (Eds.), Exhibiting cultures, pp. 1-9. Smithsonian Institution Press: y Washington, D.C 15- Matarasso, Francois, 'Smoke and mirrors: a response to Paola Merli's "Evaluating the social impact of participation in arts activities"'. International Journal of cultural Policy, 2003, vol9 (3), p.337,345. 16. New Direction in Social Policy: developing the evidence base for museums, archives and libraries In England. [accessed December 18 2005] 17- Plaza, Beatriz (2000) 'Evaluating the influence of a Large Cultural Artifact in the Attraction of Tourism: The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Case'. Urban Affairs Review Vol, 36. No.2, November. p1. 18- Putnam, R. D. (1995) 'Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital', The Journal of Democracy, 6:1, p 77. 19- Sara Selwood, The UK Cultural Sector. Profile and Policy Issues, PSI (2002) 20- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Read More