Avoiding abstraction: An investigation of the average museum visitor's difficulty with abstract painting

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AVOIDING ABSTRACTION:
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE
AVERAGE MUSEUM VISITOR’S DIFFICULTY
WITH ABSTRACT PAINTING
by
Rhonda Lane Howard
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment o f the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(Art History)
August 1997
Copyright 1997 Rhonda Lane Howard
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U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
T H E G RA D U A TE S C H O O L
U N IV E R SIT Y PA R K
L O S A N G E L E S . C A L IFO R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This thesis, w ritten by
____________ R honda L ane Howard________________
under the direction of Thesis Com m ittee,
and approved by all its members, has been p re
sented to and accepted by the Dean of T he
Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of the
requirements fo r the degree of
f t e s t e r o f A r ts
D ti
D a te ..J k v ^ § & ..lS .» ...] 3 9 2 ^ ___
THESIS C O M M IT T E E
i
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
L Questioning Abstraction: Not a New Development 1
n . Stereotyped Notions 10
DL Passive Consumption 23
IV. Failed Missions 30
V. Minimising Museumgoers’ Aversions 46
VI. Implementing Changes 54
VIL Conclusion 65
Bibliography 66
t
i f
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I. Questioning Abstraction: Not a New Development
The phrase 'anxious object' was fir s t used by H arold Rosenberg1 to
describe the kind o f modem art that makes us uneasy because o f
uncertainty as to whether we are in the presence o f a genuine work o f
art or not. Faced with an anxious object, we ’ re usuaUy challenged, and
may even fin d ourselves baffled, disturbed, bewildered, angered or ju st
plain bored.
Anxious objects do not elicit the standard, cherished responses to art—
rather they seem to openly contradict traditionalfunctions o f uplifting,
redeeming, and reconciling, substituting instead the disequilibrium o f
shock and doubt.
— Suzi Gablik
For the last century, American’s have questioned the validity and importance o f
abstract painting. Disturbed by its apparent disregard for traditional, representational
painting, they have expressed their frustration with its transformation and, in particular,
elimination of recognizable objects through inattention or ridicule. Indications of the
public’s uneasiness with abstraction became evident as early as the 1890s with Cezanne’s
formulaic and disengaged presentation o f mountains, still lifes and portraits, but it was
not until 1913, at the Armory Show in New York City that public opposition toward
abstraction fully erupted. This controversial exhibition presenting 1300 modem
European and American drawings, paintings and sculptures, created a great deal o f
commotion both in the art community and the public arena. Originally proposed by the
organizing committee to be an exclusive exhibition o f contemporary American art, it
The “anxious objects” discussed by Harold Rosenberg in his book, The Anxious O bject (New York:
Horizon Press, 1964) specifically refer to non-representational paintings by artists such as Hans Hofmann,
Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.
2 _ Suzi Gablik, H as M odernism F ailed? (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984), p. 36.
Ibid., p. 52.
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developed a radical European slant under the supervision o f Arthur B. Davies and Walt
Kuhn, whose preference for European abstraction influenced the exhibition's final
checklist
The public, anticipating an exhibition o f traditional American landscapes and the
then popular urban city scapes, were bewildered, shocked and outraged by the never
before seen, obscure European a rt Meyer Schapiro remarked in a 1950 lecture on the
Armory Show:
...[it] was a challenging experience fo r the public who was placed here
in a new role. It had to consider more than ever before an unfamiliar
and difficult art. Its judgm ents were unprepared by the selections o fa n
authoritative jury, nor could it rely on established criteria o f its own.
Through the Armory Show modem art burst upon the public like a
problem atic political issue that called fo r a definite choice. Taste as a
personal decision assumed a new significance which was to effect the
meaning o fa rt as such. U ntil then the idea o f great art had been
embodied mainly in those solemn, w ell certified, old European works o f
fabulous price transportedfrom the palaces o f the declining European
aristocracy, together with objects from the palaces o f the treasure
chamber o f kings, to the homes o f the American rich.4
Accustomed to an art of image-making— religious, mythical or historical subjects,
landscapes, portraits and still lifes— the public had only recently accepted Impressionism
and was just beginning to tackle Cubism. Now confronted with p aintings like Marcel
Meyer Schapiro, “The Introduction o f Modem Art in America: The Armory Show (1952),” M odem A rt:
19th & 20th Centuries: Selected P apers (New York: George Braziller, 1978), p. 138. This essay was
written in 1950 and was presented in a lecture at Bennington College in the winter o f 1950-51 for a scholar
series on Crises in American History, which was initially published in 1952 in die volume A m erica in
C risis, edited by Daniel Aaron.
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Duchamp’s Nude D escending a Staircase (1913), frequently described as “a fearful
explosion in a lumber yard,” the public was again forced to negotiate a new art.9
For the duration o f the exhibition and during the months that followed its closing,
newspapers lampooned the Armory Show in a series o f articles and cartoons. The
International News Service's cartoon, “The ‘ New Art* Fest! With Explanatory Diagram,”
presented a series o f satirical illustrations with captions such as, “Recent work by
“Nuttists,” “Dope-ists,” “Topsy-Turvists,” “Inside-Outists,” and “Toodle-Doodle-i sts, ”
whom police are now trying to locate.” Another was titled “Nobody Who Has Been
Drinking is Let in to See this Show.”6 The public’s inhibitions, spurred on by newspaper
writers and radio announcers, were further vindicated by reports o f popular public figures
such as ex-president Theodore Roosevelt who, while attending the exhibition, “waved his
arms and stomped through the galleries pointing at pictures and saying, ‘That’s not art!
That’s not art!’”7 The cynicism that surrounded this exhibition exacerbated the public’s
fear o f the unfamiliar and negatively altered its encounter with modern art.
Long after the Armory Show closed, the public continued to voice its preference
for conservative, representational painting. World War I, the stock market crash o f 1929,
5 Described in a newspaper dipping titled, “He’d Have Bellevue for Next Stop Alter Futurist An
Exhibition, Scoffers Assert.” Reproduced in “The Armory Show: A Selection o f Primaiy Documents,”
A rch ives o f Am erican A rt Journal, v. 27, no. 2 (1987): 24.
6 Ibid., pp. 24-26.
7 William Zorach testified that Roosevelt stated this at the opening o f the Armory Show, Rosenberg, p. 190.
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and the Nazi invasion o f 1939, activated an intense interest in America. The public
dismissed “foreign” abstraction and instead focussed on American representational
painting that reflected poignant economic, social and cultural values. Charles Sheeler’s
Precisionist paintings o f streamlined machines and mechanized landscapes highlighted
the American industrial environment and created a mood o f ideality. The desolate and
quietly daunting atmosphere of Edward Hopper’s American Scene cityscapes and movie
palaces appealed to many o f those people, who flocked to the city for employment and
were greeted by a lonely city, zapped o f life. And Thomas Hart Benton’s Regional
paintings provided an optimistic depiction o f Americans at work and play. The pro-
American sentiment clearly dominated the artistic scene and continued well into the
middle o f the century.
The American pictorial tradition was highly revered and any art departing from
this tradition was viewed with great antagonism, especially by period critics like Edward
Alden Jewell o f the New York Times and Jerome Klein from the New York Post. Jewell
and Klein, who admittedly misunderstood and disliked abstraction, increased their
readership by rhetorically positioning themselves with the public and nursing its fear o f
American abstract art In Jewell’s review o f Cubism and Abstract Art, a major exhibition
at the Museum o f Modem A rt in 1936, he expressed his frustration:
But we, the anxious, the harassed spectators— we who go about trying so hard to
understand abstraction as presented to us in terms o f color and line and plastic
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form — are we uniquely a tfa u lt when failure crowns our efforts? No, la m inclined
to think that the artists themselves should be asked to shoulder their ju s t share o f
the blame. Too often they who ought to be bearers o f light, have walked in
darkness andflow n in such a fo g as would keep any sensible aviator on the
groundI 8
Two years later Klein reviewed the American Abstract Artists exhibition and mocked
their work, stating that he found, “A series o f light pops, a bit o f sizzle here, a fizzle there
and plenty o f duds.” He advised the viewer to, “...poke among the droppings o f modem
art, pick yourself a dry bone and suck i t See what you g et”9 Similar to the harsh
proclamations that accompanied the Armory Show, the disparaging words o f these
widely read art critics confirmed and magnified the public’s aversion toward abstract art
This allegiance to representational painting continued to be so resolute that in
1948, the United States government was forced to sell a group o f one hundred and fifty
two modem paintings and watercolors purchased by the U. S. State Department two years
earlier. In 1946, State Department officials J. Leroy Davidson and Richard Heindel
purchased 79 oils and 73 watercolors by artists such as Arthur Dove, Stuart Davis, and
Georgia O’Keeffe, with funds provided by the Office o f International Information and
Cultural Affairs. Their intention was to form a five year traveling exhibition program
that would impress the world with the innovative character o f modem American painting
8 Edward Alden Jewell, “The Realm o f Ait: Abstract Pennants Flying,” originally printed in die New York
Times (March 8, 1936). Excerpt reprinted in Pioneers o f A bstract A rt: Am erican A bstract A rtists 1936-
/996. exhibition catalogue (New York: Baruch College, The City University o f New York, 1996): 6.
Jerome Klein, “Plenty o f Duds Found in Abstract Show,” originally published in the New York P ost
(February 19, 1938). Reprinted in Pioneers o f A bstract A rt, p. 9.
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and dispel Nazi propaganda that the “U. S. was solely a militaristic, technological
society.’ * 1 0
This exhibition, entitled Advancing American Art, opened at the Metropolitan
Museum o f Art in 1946, and traveled to Paris, Prague, Czechoslovakia and Cuba, but was
canceled in 1947, after receiving extensive opposition from the public. Numerous letters
attacking the government for using taxpayer money to exhibit un-American art flooded
the State Department One of many adversaries, Albert T. Reid, Vice President o f the
American Artists Professional League, filed a formal complaint on behalf o f the artist
members o f his organization who:
...view ed with uneasiness and misgiving the onesided selections o f works
which represent and reflect our art to other nations...our associated
groups question the cultural value o f any exhibition which is so strongly
marked with the radicalism o f the new trends o f European art. This is
not indigenous to our soil.1 1
Fearful that this traveling exhibition would jeopardize other international programs, the
State Department recalled the exhibition and auctioned off the modem pain tin gs as war
surplus property through the War Assets Administration. The works were sold at a 95%
discount to government supported nonprofit institutions. The collection which was
Margaret Lynn Ausfeld, “Circus Girl Arrested: A History o f die Advancing American Art Collection,
1946-48,” Advancing American A rt: P olitics and A esthetics in the State D epartm ent Exhibition, exhibition
catalogue (Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum o f Fine Arts, 1984): 11-12.
Ibid., p. 17. Letter in its entirety is reproduced in Albert T. Reid, “League Protests to the Department o f
State,” A rt D igest, no. 21 (November 15, 1946): 32.
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originally appraised at $85,000 brought die government only $5,544— evidence o f
America’s unmerciful view o f American modem painting.
Though the rivals o f abstraction were numerous during the 1940s, a few
supporters contested the dissention. Abstract painter, Ad Reinhardt mocked the public’s
distaste by openly scorning its ignorance o f abstract art in his satirical articles and
cartoons that appeared in the Sunday Magazine section o f P .M (an anti-facist and anti
communist New York tabloid founded by Marshall Fields). His articles mimicked the
“How-to” books o f the 1930s and 40s and parodied the textbooks and didactic
appreciations o f abstract art which explained its highly complicated rules and structures
in simplistic diagrams and similes.1 2 His entries included pieces like, “How to View
High (Abstract) Painting,” “How to Look at an Artist,” “How to Look,” “How to Look at
Looking,” “How to Look at Things Again,” etc. Reinhardt had no sympathy for the
resistant public which was unwilling to look at or devote any time to understanding
abstract art.
This debate between the general public and the art world lives on. Although the
public has increased its tolerance for paintings with abstracted images, it consistently
struggles with non-objective/non-representational paintings. After almost a century,
1 2 Thomas Hess, The A rt and S atire o f A d Reinhardt (Marlborough, Rome: Kunsthalle Dusseldorf 1975),
p. 27.
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museum visitors continue to wander through gallery spaces raising their eyebrows,
laughing nervously and mumbling derogatory comments about abstract paintings. In an
attempt to understand the average museumgoer’s concern, admitted confusion,
apprehension and hostility toward abstract painting, I visited four museums displaying
abstract painting and studied visitor’s reactions by tracking their movements, observing
their body language, eavesdropping on conversations and conducting direct interviews. I
spent: ten days, approximately four hours a day at the Seattle Art Museum, specifically in
a permanent collection exhibition entitled M inimalism: A ffinities and Afterm ath; three
days, five hours a day in the permanent collection of contemporary art at the Museum o f
Modem Art, New York; two days, four hours a day at the Hirshhom Museum and
Sculpture Garden, Washington, D. C.; and two days, four hours a day at the National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., focusing on a special exhibition, The Robert and Jane
M eyerhoff Collection: 1945 to 1995.
This investigation, in addition to interviews with curators and educators and
numerous studies documenting museum visitors’ experiences reveal: how an individual’s
personal assumptions about art affects his/her understanding and experience o f abstract
painting; how outside forces, i.e. education and media, influence the viewer's approach to
abstract painting; how museums have been ineffectual in their role to present abstract
painting in a way that is meaningful to the general public, and that museums must
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experiment with modes o f presentation and evaluate their effectiveness if they are to
uphold their missions. This is not intended to be a formal study, but an analysis o f a gap
that continues to exist between museums and their visitors; a gap which must be
eliminated in order to encourage the average museumgoer’s interpretation and
understanding o f abstract painting. Although it is agreed that, “...we are not in the
business o f creating converts....” as stated by Susan Badder, curator o f education at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art, museums do have a responsibility to adhere to their mission
statements, which cite as their goal the need to increase a visitor’s comprehension o f art
and the enhancement o f aesthetic experience.1 3
1 3 Interview with Susan Badder, curator o f education, Corcoran Gallery o f Art, Washington, D.C. Portions
o f each museum’s mission statement or statement o f purpose can be found in Section IV.
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II. Stereotyped Notions
The greatest problem facing novice viewers perplexed by abstract painting is their
own misconception about art. Having had little experience with art, the average
museumgoer has, over time, inadvertently constructed a definition of art from a mesh o f
conversations, stories and articles instituted by teachers, parents, critics and historians,
who have modeled the definition of art after representational painting. Searching for art
which is skillfully rendered, beautiful, entertaining, informative or instructional, this
visitor is frustrated with abstract painting, which fails to fulfill these requirements.
The average museum visitor, representing nearly three-quarters o f museum
guests, is characterized as a novice-intermediary viewer who has had minimal exposure
to art O f the one hundred and twenty nine visitors interviewed for this study, 71%
placed themselves in this category; 23% identified themselves as experienced art
viewers— artists, art historians, students, or teachers; the remaining 6% considered
themselves beginners and had no previous exposure to a rt Although the accuracy of
these statistics is probably skewed by the varying number o f hours, days, and time of day
spent in the four museums, the findings can be corroborated by many museum
professionals, who agree that most visitors are, to use Philip Wright’s term, “non-art
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specialists.”1 4 Cynthia Nachmani, coordinator for school programs at the Museum of
Modem Art, stated during an interview, “Most o f our audience, even though they might
have a doctorate or masters degree are not art historians or curators. Most are novice
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viewers.
Nachmani’s definition o f a novice viewer is based on Abigail Housen’s 1983
dissertation, The E ye o f the Beholder: M easuring Aesthetic Development. In this study,
Housen refined a scoring manual for measuring aesthetic development and in doing so,
identified a sequence o f aesthetic types, levels one through five:
Level One/Accoantive Stage - this viewer is egocentric in her/his observations
and tends to narrate works o f art by relating personal memories to the work or
understanding work in the context o f everyday encounters and disregards a formal
analysis.
Level Two/ Constructive Stage - this pragmatic viewer is interested in finding
the function and/or message in the work o f art based on pre-established standards
and often looks for the accuracy of the artist’s ability to copy.
1 4 Philip Wright, “The Quality o f Visitors’ Experiences in Art Museums,” in Peter Vergo’s The New
M useology (London: Reaktion Books, 1989), p. 120. The following museum professionals conceded that
the majority o f art museum visitors have had limited experiences with art: Susan Badder, curator o f
education at the Corcoran Gallery o f Art, Washington, DC; Tamara Moats, curator o f education at the
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington; Margaret Krug, artist and lecturer at die Whitney Museum o f
American Art, New York; Neal Benezra, chief curator and director o f public programs at the Hirshhom
Museum and Scultpure Garden, Washington, D. C.; and Stephen Weil, senior scholar emeritus, Center for
Museum Studies, Smithsonian, Washington, D. C.
1 5 Cynthia Nachmani, coordinator o f school programs. Museum o f Modem Art, New York.
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Level Three/Classifying Stage - this objective viewer is the typical art student
who attempts to decode the work o f art by identifying the artist, period and style
and is most interested in getting it right
Level Four/Interpretive - this experienced viewer responds to art in an
individualized way and searches for a meaningful message.
Level Five/ Creative Reconstructive - this relaxed viewer has had the most
experience with art and combines knowledge, critical skills and sentiment to
understand why and how the artist created the work.
Housen concludes that the aesthetic stage increases with age and train in g and implies that
representational painting should be used as a spring board for novice viewers in stages I
and II who have difficulty with abstraction. Certainly one’s exposure promotes a more in
depth understanding and appreciation of art, but it should not be assumed that a viewer is
restricted from “climbing” the sequenced aesthetic scale unless she is older or has more
long term experience. Nevertheless, not unlike Housen’s stages, the museum visitors for
my study were divided into three categories— beginner, novice-intermediary and
experienced. Although I disagree with Housen’s assumption that an inexperienced
viewer must leam formal art analysis from representational painting before graduating to
abstraction, the characteristic approach o f my novice-intermediary visitor parallels
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Housen’s viewer in Stages I and II, whose primary concern is looking for a narrative and
finding the artist’s skill and competency.1 6
It is readily apparent that the average museum visitor privileges representational
painting over abstraction. In part, this predilection for landscapes, portraits, history
paintings and still lifes is based on the viewer’s ability to easily: identify objects, places
and individuals; compare and contrast the “real” and the painted; understand images in
relation to things seen or heard; or relate images to personal memories and experiences.
It is instinctual, according to E. H. Gombrich, for human beings to want to find the
familiar.1 7 Though a visitor may have never before seen the portrait of George
Washington by Gilbert Stuart, John Everett Millet’s Ophelia or Frederick Church’s
Niagara Falls, she may be comforted to recognize basic objects, fascinated by comparing
her recollection of popularly reproduced images o f George Washington with the painting
and intrigued by the correlation between Millet’s Ophelia and the Ophelia in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Though it is considerably more difficult to exercise these
activities with an abstract painting, some abstractions, like Helen Frankenthaler’s
M ountains and Sea (1952), depict slightly discernible forms that would allow a viewer to
make similar connections. Such images permit “projection,” a psychological concept
1 6 See Abigail Housen, The E ye o f the Beholder: M easuring A esthetic D evelopm ent, dissertation
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1983).
See E. H. Gombrich, A rt and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology o f P ictorial Representation, second
edition (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960).
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defined by Gombrich as the as the innate urge to cast familiar forms into configurations.1 8
The true challenge for novice viewers is the confrontation with nonobjective p ain tin gs,
e.g. paintings by Agnes Martin and Richard Serra, in which they cannot distinguish or
project forms.
Mimetic art is much more appealing to the inexperienced viewer than abstraction
not only because it is familiar, but because it has a long, tenable history. Gordon Graham
in his article, “Value in the Visual Arts,’* states that modem art has received so much
criticism and rejection because, “...it laid aside centuries o f achievement in the art of
representation....”1 9 Indeed, the longevity and progressive improvement demonstrated by
representational painting is greatly respected by the average museumgoer and this
phenomenon is discussed at great length by art historian E. H. Gombrich in his book A rt
and Illusion. Here, Renaissance painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, nineteenth-century
art writer John Ruskin, and Gombrich himself have identified the history o f art as the
continuous improvement o f the techniques o f naturalism.2 0 As early as 60 A. D., the
quest to refine representation was made evident by Pliny the Elder who honored
Phythagorous, the sculptor, for topping Polygnotus’s rendering of people with open
1 8 Ibid., p. 105.
1 9 Gordon Graham, “Value and the Visual Arts,” Journal o f A esthetic Education, v. 28, no. 4
(Winter 1994): 1.
Gombrich, A rt and Illusion. For additional discussions on this topic, please see: John Ruskin, M odem
Painters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1987), edited by David Barrie; Arthur Panto, The
Philosophical Disenfranchisem ent o f A rt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 86.
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mouths and teeth by adding nerves and veins. During the Renaissance, Vasari
acknowledged the importance o f Taddeo Gaddi’s p ain tin gs which built upon all that
Giotto had learned o f representation by applying his new found understanding o f brilliant
color. And in the mid twentieth century Gombrich praised artists like John Constable for
improving upon the landscapes o f Thomas Gainsborough and Jacob van Ruisdael so
much so that his landscapes created a tangible atmosphere. This ideology of in fin ite
regression and progression toward the visual truth has dominated art literature for nearly
a century. Together art historians, such as Ruskin, Vasari and Gombrich have
emphasized and perpetuated the importance o f representational pa in tin g based on its
ability to present illusion and have indirectly set a precedent for the masses.
Convinced by the undying notion that, “...the more representational a painting is
the better it is,” the average museum visitor is disturbed by the “drip” pain tin gs o f
Jackson Pollock and the “zips” o f Bamett Newman, which do not re-present the real
skillfully.2 1 Because technique and craftsmanship are valued over the im agin atio n and
innovation used to conceptualize a work o f art, such abstract paintings are frequently
anathematized for their apparent lack of skill and effort Typical responses include, “My
child could do that,” “...anybody can buy some paint and slap some colors on a canvas,”
and “those spots are worth how much?”2 2 hi 1991, The Getty Center for Education in the
2 1 Graham, p. 1.
2 2 Comments from visitor interviews.
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Arts and The J. Paul Getty Museum sponsored a focus group experiment, Insights:
Museums, Visitors, Attitudes, Expectations, which compared the museum staffs
understanding o f the public’s expectations o f museums to the public’s actual experiences.
One o f the focus group experiments revealed that ’Visitors have difficulty understanding
[abstract] objects and appreciating them as “art” because they see them as requiring little
effort to make.”2 3 Most visitors reject paintings like those by Pollock or Newman in
favor o f deft paintings such as Michelangelo’s sixteenth-century Creation o f Adam
located on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo’s painting is deemed worthy not
only for the high degree o f difficulty identified in the application on the high vaulted
ceilings, but for the technical proficiency evident in its representation o f perfectly
modeled figures. Its recent conservation, made public through the media, further
confirmed the time and effort it involved and as Nachmani stated, “Americans want work
to look like it took a long time.”2 4
The equation-time plus work plus skill equals value— exemplifies the
quintessential American attitude dating back to the settlement o f this nation when
immigrants were enticed to this country by the prosperity promised for their hard labor.
This ingrained work ethic continues to exist and has established one o f the standards by
2 3 Insights: M useums, Visitors, A ttitudes, E xpectations: a Focus Group Experim ent (Los Angeles: The
Getty Center for Education in die Arts and die J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991), p. 24.
4 Interview with Cynthia Nachmani.
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which we judge the value o f objects. Sherman Lee wrote in his introduction to On
Understanding Art Museums,
A ll dictionaries and almost a ll writers on art agree that one word must be
included in any such definition— skill..skillfully made, visually perceived objects;
or skill, visually manifested in intellectual, emotional, or im aginative imagery; or
ultimately, skill manifested in the beautiful}s
The problem is that although skill can be understood as both a physical and intellectual
adeptness, most identify skill as a technical ability. Margaret Krug, artist and lecturer at
the Whitney, stated during an interview:
Sometimes in order to get people to see beyond the “ skill’ ’ issue, I have to explain
that most o f the abstract artists shown in this museum know the basic skills and
are trained. They have studied painting and drawing, have advanced degrees or
have taught at one point in time or another. They sim ply choose not to create
representational w ork because it has been done before and i t ‘ s a m atter o f truth
and honesty that they ’ re after.2 6
Convinced o f the museum’s authority to choose art, but confused by the seeming lack o f
skill demonstrated by abstraction, some novice viewers desperately attempt to explain
away abstraction. One o f the visitors interviewed at the Seattle Art Museum correlated
the “absence o f technical ability” in the painting o f Richard Serra to the decline of
craftsmanship associated with the Industrial Revolution, a view which Ruskin, for
example, might well have shared. Commenting on how the widely spread, turn of the
century, theories suggested that an increased dependence on machinery resulted in the
atrophy o f motor skills and coordination, he provided his own, legitimized explanation
Sherman Lee, On U nderstanding A rt Museums (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1975), p.6
Interview with Margaret Krug, lecturer at the Whitney Museum o f American Art, New York.
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for the “poor, klutzy and effortless,” appearance o f this abstract painting. For the average
museumgoer whose definition o f art insists on the requisition o f skill, abstraction is
rationally rejected.
Perhaps even more standard to the average museum visitor’s definition o f art is
the assumption that a “good” painting must be beautiful. O f the one hundred and twenty
nine visitors asked, What do you consider a good painting? One hundred and two o f
them responded with answers, such as: “a beautiful woman;” “a beautiful still life;” “a
pretty landscape;” “an attractive portrait;” a “gorgeous vase o f flowers;” etc. The
tendency to confuse a beautiful subject with a beautiful object is common and many
museumgoers’ idea o f beauty, as Kathleen Walsh-Piper notes in her article, “Museum
Education and the Aesthetic Experience,” is wrapped up in conventional standards o f
appearance.2 7 For many of these visitors, art is something that is elegant and decorative—
something to hang on their living room wall. Accustomed to the popularly reproduced
prints of Claude Monet’s water lilies, Edgar Degas’s ballet dancers, and Albert
Bierstadt’s mountainous landscapes, they expect to find similar pieces at the museum and
according to Benjamin Ives Gilman, “Works o f art, once they are put into museums, exist
for one purpose only, to be looked at as things o f beauty.”2 8
2 7 Kathleen Walsh-Piper, “Museum Education and the Aesthetic Experience,” The Journal o f A esthetic
Education, v. 28, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 108.
2 8 Carol Duncan cites Benjamin Ives Gilman’s Museum Ideal and Purpose o f M ethod (Cambridge: Boston
Museum o f Fine Arts, 1918), p. 56 in “The Art Museum as Ritual." C ivilizing R ituals: In side Public A rt
Museums (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 16.
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These “decorative’ * objects provide an escape for many viewers who fantasize
about becoming lost in their beauty. Nelson H. H. Grabum, professor o f anthropology at
the University o f California at Berkeley describes, “the museum [as] a place o f peace and
fantasy, a place to be alone with one’s thoughts amid objects that are beautiful, that
inspire, that one loves.’ * 2 9 This concept originated not with museums, but with the
objects themselves. Renaissance nobles treasured their mistresses’ portraits painted in
the guise o f Madonnas and at the end o f nineteenth century, Boston Brahmin men used
paintings o f beautiful women to seek refuge from the stress o f the women’s’ suffragist
movement. Boston men retreated to their homes furnished with p ain tin gs o f beautiful,
delicate, docile women, who were involved in quiet reverie and idle indoor activities.3 0
These idealized paintings o f the “proper woman’’ offered them an opportunity for rest and
relaxation from the chaos caused by the new woman.
Einstein has been quoted as saying, “one o f the most powerful motives that attract
people to science and art is the longing to escape from everyday life.’’ 3 1 Before the
cinema and television, picture galleries and art salons displayed art for the pleasure and
distraction o f the masses. Even after movies were popularized in the thirties and art
2 9 Nelson H. H. Grabum is quoted in a highlighted section o f “A New Imperative for Learning,” Museums
fo r a New Century: A R eport o f the Commission on M useums fo r a N ew Century (Washington, D.C.:
American Association o f Museums, 1984), p. 59. Mihaly Czikszenmihilyi also commented that most
visitors “...seek to escape from their everyday existence,” Insights, p. 59.
See Bernice Leader, Boston Lady a s a fVork o f A rt: Paintings by the Boston School a t the Turn o f the
Century, dissertation (New York: Columbia University, 1980).
1 This quote appeared in one o f Reinhardt’s cartoons for the P.M.
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galleries were used less for entertainment purposes, artists like Reginald Marsh created
drawings and paintings o f seductive women and fix)licking couples at Coney Island to
divert the public's attention from the desolate, hopeless bowels o f the city during the
Depression. Museum visitors today continue to look for m ech a n ism s of escape in works
of art and are greatly disappointed with paintings like Ad Reinhardt’s black squares.
If a painting isn’t beautiful, skillful or entertain in g, the average museumgoer
expects it to be informative or instructional. We have been taught from the moment we
can see, to extract a narrative from an image, so it is only natural for the layperson to seek
a story in a painting. Take for instance, the early Christian mosaic, M iracle o f Loaves
and Fishes (c. 504) at Sant’ Appolinare Nuovo. This mosaic is representational, but not
as perfectly rendered as Michelangelo’s Creation o f Adam or Constable’s Haywain
(1821), and not as aesthetically beautiful or entertaining as Jean Honore Fragonard’s The
Swing (1766). In this case, however, the average viewer will overlook its imperfections
and entertaining qualities in favor o f its original value to religiously instruct thousands o f
people who were either illiterate or spoke other languages. Likewise, Aaron Douglas’s
abstracted social scenes do not perfectly render men at work, but they do “illustrate” the
African-American struggle for the improvement o f living and social conditions, imply the
fight against racism and celebrate African-American contributions to the American
culture. Some might even say that Douglas’s pain tin gs are important because they acted
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as a catalyst for change. Though Sant’Appolinare Nuovo’s mosaics and Douglas’s
murals are not given a high rating by the average museumgoer, they do not nearly require
the leap that viewers must make to identify the purpose and justify the importance o f
abstraction.
Despite the minimal experience most museumgoers have had with real art they
have managed to formulate a rather distinct set o f criteria from which to evaluate what is
and is not art and abstract painting definitely does not fulfill their requirements for
“good” art. Stuart Davis was mistaken when he stated in the introduction to an exhibition
catalogue for the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1935 that . .we will never again
ask the question o f painting, is it a good likeness, does it look like the thing it is suppose
to represent?”3 2 Almost sixty years later, the American public continues to measure the
value o f a painting on the basis o f its technical ability. Expecting to find perfectly
rendered people, places or objects, beautiful subjects and entertaining or instructional
narratives, the novice viewer is dumbfounded by imageless abstraction. The desire to
immediately categorize art on the foundation o f a misconstrued definition limits their
interaction with abstraction. Abstract painting is quickly dismissed because these
viewers cannot: justify the skill and effort o f “slung paint on a canvas;” see the beauty o f
3 2 Abstract Painting in America (New York: Whitney Museum o f American Art, 1935).
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variously juxtaposed colors, lines and forms; nor buy the idea that abstract painting can
express ideas and emotions.
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m . Passive Consumption
The ways in which we have been conditioned to receive and process information,
adversely affect how we function within a museum and specifically how we choose to
approach abstract painting. On a daily basis, we are bombarded with masses o f verbal,
visual and written information that is communicated to us through a variety o f media—
television, newspapers, books, radio, and computers. Television, now our most popular
form o f gathering snippets o f information, packages easily digestible information that
requires little effort to understand. Add to this our previously programmed method of
quickly retrieving information and responding to questions with scantron answers
(courtesy of our public school system) and our ability to think conceptually is severely
impaired. Captives of the television and victims o f a poor public education, the general
museum audience passively consumes art in the same way they approach everything else
— expeditiously and with as little thought as possible.
E. W. Eisner and S. M. Dobbs in “The Uncertain Profession: Observations on the
State o f Museum Education in 20 American Art Museums,” quoted the director o f the
museum o f the State University o f New York at Purchase who stated in a public forum
that, “...the crises o f what faces us are not museums at all, but education. More and more
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are being worse educated....”3 3 Most public schools across the United States are faced
with more students and less resources. With the increased ratio o f students to teachers,
time constraints, and the enforcement o f core requirements, teachers are spending less
time developing teaching strategies which individually engage students and more time
struggling to push their students through the basic requirements o f reading, writing and
arithmetic. Despite many experimental programs and numerous teachers’ attempts to
implement new curriculum, emphasis continues to focus more on memorization and
wrote than the creative, critical thinking process.
With limited time for individual attention, the majority o f American K-12 public
education programs involuntarily inculcate conformity and impede im agin ation .
Confined to conventional pedagogical methods, students become casualties o f the
garbage in-garbage out syndrome. By presenting information in a linear manner,
encouraging quick identification instead of exploration, and offering rewards for
“correct” responses, our students are discouraged from thinking deeply, creatively, or
circuitously. As David D. Edwards comments in his book, How to be M ore Creative,
“Rational, logical, linear thinking is top dog in our society. Intuition, feelings and non
linear modes o f thinking are underdogs.”3 4 Students graduate from high school with the
3 3 E. W. Eisner and S. M. Dobbs, “The Uncertain Profession: Observations an the State o f Museum
Education in 20 American Art Museums,” A Report to the J. Paul Getty Center fo r Education in the Arts,
1984, pp. 6-7.
3 4 David D. Edwards, How to be M ore Creative (San Jose, CA: Occasional Productions, 1980), p. 45.
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essentials. They know how to classify, sort and categorize, write, speak, read and listen—
but they don’t understand the process o f how and why they arrived at answers to say
nothing o f how to look.3 5
Unfortunately, this does not stop at the high school level. Stephen W. Shipps,
writes in his article, “About Thinking, about ‘Art,’” that college students have not
“typically been made aware that they can think...or even for that matter, that th in k in g is a
thing there is to do.”3 6 The prescribed lack o f critical thinking that dominates the K-12
classroom is equally manifest in introductory college courses. Take for instance one
hundred level classes in art history— students are forced to sail through centuries of
important events and artists in a matter o f days. Images are flashed by the students, the
professor identifies basic characteristics about particular pieces and attempts to place
works o f art in more global context In depth conversations are rarely initiated, the
written papers seldom reflect an individual thought process and the exams require little
more than spitting out “the” answer.
The average museum visitor trained to find the right answer, experiences
significant anxiety and fear in the presence o f abstract painting. Locked into a state o f
“ Evan Turner, commented on die “deteriorating quality o f public education” in Insights, p. 106.
Stephen W. Shipps, “About Thinking, about ‘Art,*” The Journal o f Aesthetic Education, v. 30, no. 1
(Spring 1996): 78.
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frustration when she cannot identify an image or place it in a category, this viewer
instantaneously rejects i t Over three quarters of the museumgoers at the Seattle Art
Museum’s exhibition M inimalism: A ffinities and Aftermath ignored the abstract
paintings and when asked why they were not engaged by the art, many conveyed that
they were uncomfortable with the lack o f visual and written information:
*1 don’t get it, I can’t make anything ou t”
*1 feel stupid. I don’t have the tools I need to decipher it.”
“You need a psychology degree to get into their heads and understand what they
were trying to do. I don’t have information about what they were trying to do and
the museum doesn’t supply it, so how can I understand it?”
*1 know nothing about any o f this abstract painting. What I do know is that I
can’t find anything in a black square o f canvas. Without labels, I don’t even try.
I don’t know where to begin.”
"I feel like I need an art history degree to understand what’s going on.”
Many viewers are searching for explanations. If labels do not provide supplementary
information, as is often the case with abstract painting, then they look to titles for clues.
However, some artists, such as Thomas Nozkowski, specifically leave their abstract
paintings untitled because they don’t want viewers to turn the pictures into c o nundrum s
that can be solved.3 7 Feeling foolish for their inability to identify and categorize, these
visitors are turned off when there appears to be no easy solution.
The apprehension generated by conventional th in k in g significantly d im in ish es the
average museumgoer’s capacity to critically think and-see and is compounded by our
twentieth century lifestyle o f fast food, minute lube, and one-hour photo. Neil Postman,
3 7 Discussion with Thomas Nozkowsld.
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author of Am using Ourselves to Death, is particularly aware o f how television, our most
popular form o f entertainment and primary source of information, presents us with an
easy to understand format that requires no complicated demands and, “has made
entertainment itself the natural format for the representation o f all experience.”3 8 The
brief constant and varied stimulation provided by mass media has decreased our
attention span and marginalized our thinking. We want things to be simple, quick and
entertaining, and this carries through in our museum experience. Postman continues,
“...short simple messages are preferable to long and complex ones...being sold solutions
is better than being confronted with questions about problems.”3 9
Seeing, in the face o f contemporary society, has become passive. Our
conditioned methods of learning and desire for uncomplicated, entertaining information
enforce passive consumption, which drastically impairs the museum visitor’s ability to
understand and experience abstract art. As Sheryl Conkelton, Senior Curator at the
Henry Art Gallery in Seattle stated, “the museum requires problem solving, and visitors
who have been trained to be passive don’t want to internalize their experience as a
process.”4 0 Artists insist that art requires time— time to look, to think, to relate, and to
3 8 N eil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age o f Show Business (New York:
Penguin Books, 1985), p. 87. Lawrence Alloway also comments on how “...the repetitive and overlapping
structure o f modem entertainment..permits marginal attention,” in “The Arts and Mass Media,”
Architectural Digest (February 1958): 34-5.
3 9 Postman, p. 131.
4 0 Interview with Sheryl Conkelton, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington.
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associate— and some are infuriated by the art viewer’s once over. We know that the
amount o f time the average museum visitor spends in an exhibition is limited and we
also know that a museum visitor cannot possibly experience an abstract painting unless
they stop and take a few moments to be face to face with the object Museum
professionals intend for museumgoing and art viewing to be an open-ended process o f
interpretation that requires as much creativity and risk taking as making the art, but the
average visitor wants to skim the surface and quickly internalize a work o f art through
some form o f osmosis.
The passive consumption phenomenon is partially inspired by the average
museum visitor’s urge to fill up a cultural checklist with socially compelling activities,
such as the theater, opera, or the museum. The cultural consumer rushes through the
museum attempting to catch a peek at as many masterpieces as possible and then they
vanish. In the 1980s, blockbuster exhibitions encouraged the use o f art as consumption
for entertainment by herding thousands o f people through galleries, which left them
“little room for getting much o f a glimpse o f a work o f art let alone contemplating and
spiritual refreshment.”4 1 With the demise o f blockbusters, museums have replaced that
scene with the 90s gift shops at the end o f most major exhibitions. It’s like a shopping
mall, where museum visitors are converted into consumers. ’T he immediate
4 1 Sanford Sivitz Shaman, “Education, Sunflowers and die New Vulgarity in Art Museums,” in Museum.
Media, Message, edited by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 101.
»
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gratification felt by the department store customer in the act o f purchase, and the
experience o f handling objects...are united in the museum store and seal the museum
going experience for many visitors.”4 2 No longer does a visitor go to the art museum for
enlightenment, they go to say, ‘ 1 saw the Van Gogh,” and “Look at the mug I bought o f
Starry N ight”
The personal agenda o f most museumgoers, as well as their programmed modes
o f processing information influence the amount o f time and energy they will expend on
a work o f art. The interpretation o f all art, but especially abstract painting requires time.
As William Rubin wrote in the introduction to Yves-Alain Bois's A d Reinhardt, “The
visitor who “does” the Ad Reinhardt retrospective at three miles per hour will literally
not see it, for the purely optical adjustment that Reinhardt’s later paintings posit as a
prerequisite to the real experience o f the picture constitutes a kind o f willed barrier.”4 3
The museum cannot force a visitor to invest time in abstract painting simply because the
museum feels it is important, but it can acknowledge the factors which prevent its
visitors from engaging themselves in a dialogue with abstraction.
4 2 N eil Harris, “Museums, Merchandise, and Popular Taste: The Struggle for Influence,” in
M aterial Culture and the Study o f American Life, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby, (N ew York: W. W. Norton
and Company Inc., 1978), p. 172.
4 3 Yves-Alain Bois, “The Limit o f Almost,” Ad Reinhardt (New York: Rizzoli, 1991), p. 7.
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IV. Failed Missions
Over the last decade American art museums have become increasingly aware o f
their responsibility to address and educate a diverse audience, yet many continue to
neglect the novice viewer and cater to a minority of experienced, art educated
individuals. In one way or another, all four museums selected for this study failed to
recognize how their physical installation and/or presentation (or exclusion) o f
information did not take into consideration the novice viewer’s needs, goals, desires,
levels of art knowledge, misconceptions about abstract art and various approaches to
learning. While it would be unwise for museums to simply respond to what a viewer
“thinks” he wants, it is crucial that they educate themselves about their visitors and
develop an understanding o f how the physical and cerebral aspects o f installation
influence a visitor’s experience.
All museum visitors are directly affected by the physical aspects of exhibition
installation. The physical attributes o f the gallery space-color, height, position and angle
o f the walls, floor materials, and lighting— merge to create an environment that sets a
tone. The severe characteristics of abstract painting call for pleasant rather than
impersonal or anxiety-generating surroundings. Stark white, tall, blue lit walls appear
cold and can add to the anxiety o f an already intimidating selection of p a in tin g s. The
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arrangement of the space can designate a flow that directs visitors’ experiences or creates
confusion, and the appropriate positioning o f paintings and benches can draw attention or
cause particular works to be overlooked. As Benjamin E. Braverman writes in his article,
‘ Toward an Instructional Design for Art Exhibitions,” “Exhibitions are not haphazard
selections o f objects that are displaced in a random manner. Rather they are designed
environments that enable art museums to communicate with the public.”4 4 Already
hindered by visitor misconceptions and inattention, a poorly designed installation of
abstract paintings can further encourage novice viewers to avoid abstraction.
The most heated debate concerning the presentation o f abstract painting pertains
to the juxtaposition o f text and object. Many museum professionals and numerous artists
argue that extended labels or wall texts adversely modify the museum visitor’s
experience with abstract painting, even though the exclusion of information puts the
inexperienced art viewer at an incredible disadvantage. The average museumgoer,
lacking the tools to approach an abstract painting and having had little experience, craves
what they know best— language. Artists and curators nonetheless assert that visual art
implicitly communicates information imbedded in the work and does not need to be
justified by words and are concerned that words will alter the object.4 5 This theory is
4 4 Benjamin E. Braverman, ‘ Toward an Instructional Design for Art Exhibitions,” The Journal o f Aesthetic
Education, v. 22, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 85.
4 5 See Lfly Wei, ‘ Talking Abstract,” Art in America (July 1987): 83, 87,96; Kenneth Wahl, “Jake Berthot,”
Arts Magazine (March 1990): 89; Danto, p. 69; Walsh-Piper, p. 106.
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criticized by Peter Vergo who believes it is ridiculous to assume that “seeing equals
understanding or that one merely has to look in order to appreciate a rt”4 6 Educators and
curators that supplement exhibitions o f abstract painting with text are not employing text
to justify the works of art, nor are they implying that abstract painting is not intellectually
rigorous. They are concerned with giving the novice viewer a place to start and
providing them with information as a means to tap into the a rt It is hypocritical and
elitist for artists and curators, who have themselves been privy to information, to insist
that one does not need language.
As a result, some educators have adopted a cynical view that the specialized art
experts are deliberately keeping information from the public in order to m ain tain
authority. Flora S. Kaplan, argues in her article, “Exhibitions as Communicative Media,”
that museums curate exhibitions which “...are kinds o f rituals, enacted to assert and
perpetuate power; and are based on objects, which, in these instances, are also secret and
‘sacred,’ available only to those who ‘know,’ and who have been initiated into the
western notion o f art and the world o f academia.”4 7 While it is true that some museum
professionals ignore or overlook the fact that art is accessible only to those who can
interpret it, most are not intentionally trying to keep information away from the
inexperienced simply to preserve an authoritarian position. These painters and curators
* Veigo, p. 124
Flora E. S. Kaplan, “Exhibitions as Communicative Media,” Museum, Media, Message, p. 38.
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are advocates for an art, which they believe, should be experienced directly without the
mediation o f text.4 8
These textless advocates are troubled by the competition posed by exhibition text,
which they argue will swallow up the a rt While the juxtaposition of label copy and
painting is aesthetically unfavorable, label copy should not be visually or intellectually
powerful enough to override a work o f a rt Artist and writer, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, is
particularly concerned with these issues which he discusses in his essay “Vision’s
Resistance to Language.” Gilbert-Rolfe believes that “naming a work of art, attaching it
to a language or suspending it in language, deprives it of its existence as a visual object in
the world and replaces that existence with another, in which it serves as the armature for
a display o f metaphor-metaphor being that into which language turns the visual.'*4 9
Gilbert-Rolfe’s argument is valid— text does alter one’s experience— but using language is
the only way most o f us have o f making sense out o f it, label text or not. Gilbert-Rolfe
gives entirely too much credit to exhibition text. Label texts, if written properly, are not
poems or award winning stories, they provide factual information or pose questions for
both the uneducated and educated viewer.
4 8 John Walsh from the J. Paul Getty Museum admits “many nnwwmi professionals are still squeamish
about dispensing information, believing that the unmediated encounter is the most meaningful approach to
a work o f art...” Insights, p. 38.
4 9 Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Beyond Piety: Critical Essays on the Visual Arts, 1986-1993 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 39.
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Exhibition text can have a positive impact on novice viewers, give them a place to
start, and encourage them to look and think. Artists and curators understandably become
frustrated when visitors spend more time looking at labels than focusing on the art, but
what they don’t realize is that, for those visitors unfamiliar with abstract painting, labels
often draw attention to abstract paintings ordinarily ignored.
The following evaluations elucidate how the four museums’ exhibitions surveyed
failed, according to their individual mission statements or statements o f purpose, to
present abstract painting in a meaningful way to the general museum public.
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Minimalism: Afterm ath and Affinities
The first line in the Seattle Art Museum’s mission statement reads, “Dedicated to
engaging the public in a dialogue about the visual arts...”
In April 1996, the Seattle Art Museum opened an exhibition entitled Minimalism:
Aftermath and A ffinities, which included a selection o f abstract pain tin gs and sculptures
by artists from their permanent collection as well as promised gifts and loans from the
Seattle area. Although this exhibition presented some astonishing works by artists like
Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Robert Mangold and Richard Serra, it certainly did not
“...engag[e] the public in a dialogue about the visual arts....” hi fact, it alienated most
museum visitors. Only 19% o f the museumgoers who visited the fourth floor, where the
exhibition coincided with other permanent collection displays, spent more than three
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minutes in the Minimalism exhibition. The rem ain in g 81% walked through the gallery
without a pause.
One o f the biggest problems with this exhibition was the lack o f direction. There
was no beginning, middle or end, and as Peter Nesbett, curatorial associate, pointed out,
the spatial constraint caused a great deal o f difficulty in guiding visitors. The exhibition
occupied a gallery space which spilled into the central corridor and adjoined another
gallery displaying a separate selection o f the permanent collection. The purported
entrance o f the exhibition was located in the corridor where a wall panel, small and
improperly placed, secretly announced the entrance to the exhibition. In most cases,
visitors entered the exhibition from the adjacent gallery and not from the m ain corridor as
was assumed. As a result, only twelve percent o f the visitors saw the panel.
Furthermore, the transition from the gallery displaying a random selection o f permanent
collection modem and contemporary pieces to the M inimalism exhibition was not made
clear and most visitors were not aware they were encountering a separate exhibition
space.
When this exhibition first opened in April it was installed with traditional object
labels which included a quote from the artist or a critic. Sometime in May, however, the
curatorial department made a choice to not only remove the quote from the label, but also
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to remove the entire object label, leaving the objects with no identification. The choice to
present these paintings and sculptures without any text represented a m in im a list
exhibition strategy. Some of the visitors (five to be exact), identifiable as experienced
and art educated museumgoers, were pleased by this presentation which they recognized
as mimicking the context of the exhibition, but the average museum visitor was turned
off, confused, and angry. They didn’t understand why the museum couldn’t even provide
a basic object label, let alone any explanation. Some selected comments included:
“If there was some text, I would be more apt to pay attention.”
“We would be much better off having some text.”
“It’s silly that there’s no title or description.”
“I feel humbled by the work as it is. Without text, I feel like the museum expects
me to know who painted it, what it is about and what it means. That makes me
feel inadequate.”
“A little information about the artist, a description o f this particular painting or its
meaning would be appreciated.”
“Real people make this art. I want to know about those people, or at least know
their name. Why didn’t they provide any information about these artists or what
they do?”
“The fact that these paintings are in the museum in the first place means that
they’re special, but I don’t understand why they’re important and the museum is
obviously not willing to tell me. I feel intimidated.”
The absence o f labels, intended by the curator to encourage the visitor’s individual and
direct experience with each work o f art had a reverse affect on the average museum
visitor. Their apprehension of the abstract paintings ensued not only because o f
predetermined opinions with respect to abstract art and anxieties caused by unfamiliarity,
but because the lack o f information made them feel ignorant.
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The curatorial department did, however, make an honest attempt to provide some
basic information in the form of laminates. At two places within the exhibition, near the
invisible introductory wall panel and near a door which led to the other exhibition of
permanent collection work, a couple of plastic boxes housed two separate laminate cards.
The first card illustrated a simplistic map o f the space with numbers marked on the map
to correspond with numbers below providing basic object label information (artist, title,
date). The other laminate provided some very interesting quotes from artists and critics.
The “map” laminate was obviously intended to help the viewer identify the particular
works o f art and their respective makers, but unless someone was very spatially oriented,
it was extremely confusing to use. hi order to determine an object’s artist, title, date and
medium the visitor had to stand next to the work in question, attempt to orient the map,
try to figure out which number represented the object on the map (the objects themselves
had no numbers next to them), and then look up the number on the laminate. If you
wanted to find out any additional information you had to go to the other laminate and find
the artist’s name. This route to obtain basic information, which should be easily
accessible, required entirely too much coordination and unnecessary work for a museum
visit. Not to mention the fact that those who actually picked up the cards, didn’t realize
that there were two separate cards. The laminated cards could have potentially been
useful if their location was obvious and presentation was clear. As it turns out, only nine
percent picked up a laminate, and only five percent continued to use it. A few people
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even carried the cards into the adjacent exhibition space that was not at all related to the
Minimalism exhibition. One o f the guards confirmed that, “Just about everyone that uses
the cards, which is not very many, gets confused and gives up.”
When I spoke to Jill Rullkoetter, head o f education, about the absence o f labels
and explanatory information in the exhibition, she explained that the education
department was not involved in the decisions for this exhibition. Perhaps they should
have been. She also mentioned that, in general, they try to encourage the use o f the
education room. The education room, with additional materials— books, videos or
materials written by the education department— would have been useful. Unfortunately,
the education room, located three gallery spaces away from the Minimalism exhibition,
near the front o f the building on the same floor was not visible and was not clearly
advertised anywhere else in the museum. Even if the “resource center” was obvious, not
one book about Minimalism or even abstract art was available and the notebooks written
by the education department supplied outdated information on objects which had
previously been in the permanent gallery exhibition spaces.
Hirshhora Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Selections from the Permanent Collection
The Hirshhom’s statement of M ission, Goals and Values declares its intent “...to
encourage and develop a greater understanding and appreciation o f modem art. The
Museum is not instructed merely to satisfy an existing interest in its audiences but to
stretch that interest, to build on it further, to increase the scope o f what they previously
understood and appreciated.”
i
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The Hirshhom’s installation o f contemporary art from the permanent collection
ran a close second to the Seattle Art Museum’s ineffectual Minimalism exhibition. For a
museum, which claims to be specifically dedicated to “developing a greater
understanding and appreciation of modem art,” it failed miserably in its presentation o f
abstract painting. It was painfully obvious from the uninviting gallery space and lack of,
or poorly written extended labels that the curator gave this installation o f contemporary
works from the permanent collection little thought or attention.
Unlike the highlighted temporary exhibitions in which the Hirshhom
conscientiously labors over its presentation and interpretation, the permanent collection
o f post World War II paintings was treated like an abused stepchild. The Hirshhom
visitor only mysteriously happened upon the “basement” exhibition space when exiting
the escalator to look for the restroom or coat check. The gallery was unmarked and there
was no special introductory wall panel or prelude to what the viewer was about to
encounter. Immediately turned offby the uncomfortable space— cement floors, tall walls,
and enormous rooms— the average museum visitor peaked in, walked an eighth o f the way
through and turned around or quickly walked through to find the exit. Although the U-
shaped space was appropriately set up to guide the visitor through a faintly chronological
arrangement o f mostly paintings and some sculpture, the visitor was unable to bare more
than one and a half minutes in the empty, cold gallery to make that determination. In the
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eight hours I spent in this exhibition, only fourteen visitors walked completely through
the galleries and o f those fourteen only three, two who were together, spent more than
three minutes looking at the paintings.
Wall labels were provided for a select number o f pieces, but the few that were
available were either too long, inappropriately written, or not directed toward the novice
viewer. The paintings, which needed the most explanation, such as Agnes M artin's
Untitled # //, supplied zero extended text. One o f the few visitors I was able to interview
was laughing and when asked why, she stated, “It is nervous laughter. I don’t feel
comfortable in here. I don’t know how to deal with this kind of work and it makes me
feel pretty alienated.” Another visitor said, “I feel I need to know something in order to
understand this cold, unemotional, inhumane stuff.”
For the Hirshhom to present its collection of contemporary art which is already
feared by the average museum visitor, in an atmosphere which one visitor termed
“negative,” validates and amplifies the novice viewer's stereotype o f abstract art as
unappealing, boring and intimidating and certainly does not encourage a viewer to
“develop a greater understanding and appreciation of art”, nor does it “stretch his/her
interest.” The Hirshhom’s installation did not invite repose and interpretive
contemplation, it encouraged its visitors to look quickly and move on.
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The Museum o f Modern Art
Permanent Collection
In 1944, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. stated that MoMA’s primary purpose, “...is to help people
enjoy, understand and use the visual arts o f our time. By helping to understand, I mean
answering the questions raised by works o f art such as “Why? How? Who? When?
Where? What for?— but not so much to add to the questioner’s store o f information as to
increase his comprehension.”
MoMA, the first museum o f modem art, is probably the most experienced at
presenting abstract art to the American public. The twentieth-century permanent
collection exhibition space which houses paintings by artists like Jackson Pollock,
Clifford Still, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko is, without a doubt, one o f the most
impressive, comfortable and easily absorbed installations o f abstract p a in tin g s. Lacking
in educational interpretation, this installation is still a bit intimidating for the novice
museum visitor seeking information, but attempts to encourage a positive and en g ag in g
experience by intentionally directing the visitor through a physical and visual maze.
Unlike the Hirshhom, MoMA's permanent collection galleries are inviting. The
floors are carpeted, the space is large, but intimate, the lighting is soft, and gray walls are
warm. The galleries are large enough to contain the large p ain tin gs o f the 50s and 60s,
but not exhaustingly monumental. Under ordinary circumstances, the large number o f
paintings may have been a bit overwhelming, but the rooms o f varying sizes and alcoves
created an intimacy that encouraged observation.
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What was most successful in this installation was the use o f subliminal messages
to promote experience. The galleries use o f alcoves and benches seemed to whisper,
“These works require some time; sit down, look, think and experience.” Although it is
evident that many visitors use the benches simply because they are exhausted, this is
immaterial. The benches gave them a breaking point to relax and an opportunity to clear
their head, which, at its optimum, allowed them to contemplate and potentially work
through paintings they would have ordinarily neglected.
In a similar fashion, the positioning o f paintings directly across from doorways
coerced the viewer to look. In particular, the placement o f Barnett Newman’s Vir
Heroicus Sublimis (1950-51) in the second gallery is perfectly executed. One woman,
who admitted having difficulty with abstract paintings, said, “I couldn’t avoid it. When I
walked into the room, bam, it was in my face. I had to look at it and then I had to ask
myself why.”
Although the comfort level o f the average museum visitor seemed to increase
with the aforementioned installation techniques, many visitors remained substantially
frustrated with the lack o f information:
“Where are the artist’s statements?”
“Why can’t they provide labels? Are they trying to make the works o f art
inaccessible to the public because it makes it more valuable?”
*1 paid a lot to go to this museum, and I want to get the most out of it. They owe
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it to me to provide me with at least the option o f obtaining information.”
“I need to be guided. Is it so difficult to give me some information. Isn’t this the
museum’s job?”
‘ I want to know about this painting. You can't tell me that the information
doesn’t exist.”
“Can’t someone or something help me with this stuff?”
“Museums should be more interactive. If they aren’t going to give me
information, on the labels then they should encourage guards to have dialogues
with the people.”
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
The Robert and Jane MeyerhofF Collection
Section four o f the National Gallery o f Art’s Mission Statement focuses on “fostering
understanding.” “The Gallery recognizes that not only the dissemination o f information
but the enhancement o f the aesthetic experience are essential to fostering understan d in g
o f works o f a rt”
This exhibition o f abstract paintings by artists, such as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth
Kelly, Frank Stella, Mark Rothko, Clifford Still and Bamett Newman, to name a few,
was the most successful at presenting information that would enhance a novice viewer’s
understanding. Unlike the other exhibitions, this exhibition had an appropriately placed
introductory wall panel with a brief amount of information about the Meyerhoffs and the
works that they collected. This introductory wall panel adequately prepared the viewer
and the short wall texts and select number o f extended labels dispersed throughout the
exhibitions helped to guide the visitor through the space and answer important questions.
With the exception o f the Hirshhom, which had a few poorly written extended
labels in their permanent collection, the National Gallery was the only one o f the four
museums to provide extended labels for the visitors. These labels were well written,
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provided enough information without being overwhelming, were placed successfully and,
according to the visitors, very helpful for those lacking a previous knowledge of abstract
painting. Unlike the visitors at the Seattle Art Museum exhibition, visitors actually spent
time looking at the paintings. The labels gave them a bite o f information to grab onto and
interested them in looking. Unfortunately wall text alone does not have the ability to
answer questions and comments that arose, like:
“Why is this art?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s just paint on canvas. How can they put this on the walls and call it art?”
“Is it upside down? I don’t get i t ”
The exhibition’s greatest and probably only downfall was its enormous size. The
space was not cold and intimidating like the Hirshhom, but its sprawling space and large
number of paintings was confounding. The labels and benches helped to cope with the
size o f the exhibition, but because most visitors felt compelled to look at everything, they
became fatigued and frustrated.
Each o f the four museums neglected to acknowledge how the various aspects o f
their installation would affect the novice viewer. The Seattle Art Museum and the
Hirshhom failed on all counts. And while the National Gallery successfully directed and
enlightened the average museum visitor with its supplementary text and the Museum o f
Modem Art provided a comfortable space which subliminally directed the visitor’s flow
i
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and attention, they nevertheless failed to increase the visitor's aesthetic experience and
understanding of art, because each lacked important components. All o f these museums
alleged their commitment to fostering understanding, answering questions, developing
appreciation and engaging the public in art, but their exhibitions o f abstract painting
proved otherwise.
J L
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V. Minimizing Museumgoers* Aversions
Art museums must conduct visitor studies and implement programs and
procedures to address the average museumgoer’s aversion to abstract painting. A
minimal investigation, similar to this study, would indicate that most museum visitors
respond negatively to abstraction because: 1) it conflicts with their stereotyped definition
of “good” art; 2) they are unequipped with the tools to evaluate or appreciate it, and 3)
their lack o f knowledge makes them feel ignorant. Their anxiety, induced by an
unfamiliarity and inexperience with abstraction, is further exacerbated by uncomfortable
exhibition settings, in which visitors “...[perceive] that they are walking uninvited around
someone else’s space and are unwelcome at best and at worst trespassing.”5 0 These
impediments create a mental strain that results in physical stress and can, according to
Harold Rug, “divert attention, restrict the circulation o f blood, waste energy, [and] stress
the nervous system.”5 1 The resultant uptight bodies and minds disrupt the average
museum visitor’s ability to evaluate abstract painting. Art museums, committed to
increasing the visitor’s aesthetic experience and understanding of abstract art, are obliged
to acknowledge this tension, identify and address the reasons for opposition through
various modes of presentation, and evaluate responses to these experimental approaches.
5 0 Gaynor Kavanagh, “Museums in Partnership,” Museum, Media, Message, p. 125.
5 1 Robert H. McKim, Experiences in Visual Thinking (Boston, Mass: PWS Engineering, 1972), p. 38.
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The first obstacle that the art museum consigned to lessening the average museum
visitors’ difficulty with abstraction must confront is the visitor’s misconception about
“good” art The novice viewer who snickers and makes cynical comments about abstract
painting will not allocate any time to abstraction unless they understand that skill is not
merely craftsmanship, a beautiful painting does not require a beautiful subject, and it is
not essential for a painting to entertain, inform or instruct. Elizabeth Vallance in her
article, “Art Criticism as Subject in School and Art Museums,” states, ‘T he task of
museum education in criticism is to peel back...preconceptions and help this variously
educated public see works in their own terms again...the public does not start with a clean
slate that would facilitate seeing.”5 2 Museums have a responsibility to address viewers’
assumptions about abstract art and encourage them to suspend their judgments until
they’ve had time to evaluate the art for themselves.
Another fallacy that plagues most museum visitors is the belief that a painting has
one purpose, one meaning, or one answer. Preoccupied with finding “the” answer, the
average museum visitor is annoyed with abstraction when they cannot determine what the
painting represents, what the artist is trying to express, or what message is being
communicated. Visitors must be relieved of this compulsion to look for “the” solution.
As Arthur Danto stated in his book, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement o f Art, “There
"Elizabeth Vallance, “Art Criticism as Subject Matter in School and Art Museums,” The Journal o f
Aesthetic Education, v. 22, no. 4 (Winter 1988): 78.
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are views o f artistic interpretation in which...there is no correct or incorrect
interpretation.5 3 Museums need to make clear that paintings have no right or wrong
answer, that evaluating art is a personal investigation and a work o f art means something
different to each o f us because the way we see things is affected by what we know, what
we feel, what we believe and what we choose to bring to it.5 4
Shedding misconceptions will certainly help liberate the visitor to make his/her
own interpretations, but it is not enough. Sixty-eight percent o f the visitors interviewed
for this study admitted they didn’t know how to begin analyzing or evaluating an abstract
painting and communicated a desire for recommendations. Having had little or no
instruction on methods o f approaching art, most o f the observed visitors gave up without
even trying. As Lucy Lippard points out, “...there's going to have to be an im m en se
educational process to get people to even begin to look at things....”5 5 The museum
should empower its visitors by teaching them how to look at and analyze art, but the
reality for most museums is that they have few resources to create and m ain tain such
education programs. Furthermore, visitors, who spend a relatively short amount of time
at the museum are unwilling to commit all o f their museum time to learning various
5 3 Danto, p. 39.
5 4 See Vallance, p. 73; Danto, p. 79; Walsh-Piper, p. 114.
5 5 See Lucy Lippard’s interview with Ursula Meyer in Six years: the dematerialization o f the a rt object
(New York and London: Praeger, 1973), pp. 7-9.
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critiques o f art The most reasonable and effective solution is to provide visitors with a
short list o f suggestions on how to approach an abstract painting.
This strategy was tested as part o f this study. At each o f the museums, selected
novice viewers were provided with simplistic ideas on how to approach abstract
paintings. This very brief discussion/notecard broke down misconceptions and then
outlined questions that encouraged the viewer to have a more in depth experience with an
abstract painting. The questions were separated into three categories:
1) Formal analysis - How does the painting exist as an object? How does the
paint function on the canvas? What colors are used? What kind o f textures are
created? What is the platform? Canvas? Wood? What is its overall shape?
What elements make up the composition? How do the elements function
together? Do the colors/textures recede, move out? Do the lines create motion?
2) Personal analysis - How does the painting affect you? Do you respond
emotionally? Physically? What does it mean to you? What does it remind you
of? Why?
3) Interpretive analysis - Does it have a meaning or connection beyond your
personal analysis? How does it relate to the rest o f the world? Something
happening in your community? Political issues? Etc.
Unknowingly, this series o f questions closely resembled two models set up by art
educators Edmund Burke Feldman, Harry S. Broudy and R. Silverman. Feldman wrote
Varieties o f Visual Experience in which he proposed four phases in art analysis: 1)
Description - inventory shapes and colors; 2) Formal Analysis - how elements are
organized and structured; 3) Interpretation - analyze meaning, what’s the message and 4)
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Judgment - appraise artistic m erit Harry S. Broudy and R. Silverman also developed a
method o f aesthetic scanning which includes looking fo r 1) Sensory properties - shapes
and lines 2) Formal properties - how elements fit together 3) Expressive properties -
meaning and feeling and finally 4) Technical properties - medium.5 6
The response to this experiment was positive. After reading this notecard o f
suggestions, a man, who had previously mocked a Richard Serra painting at the Seattle
Art Museum, began to talk about the formal characteristics o f this enormous, vertical,
black painting. And within a few minutes he was questioning why it was: made o f linen,
painted with black oil stick, stapled to the wall, and ended by positing a whole range o f
possible meanings. When asked why he had previously passed it by, he responded with a
shrug o f the shoulders, “I thought it was stupid and I didn’t know what to do with it.” He
and others who read the notecard ended up spending at least fifteen minutes in the
exhibitions, periodically approaching me with questions, and th an k fal for the assistance.
Although fifteen minutes is a relatively short amount o f time to truly experience
an art exhibition, it is an improvement over the sixty seconds it takes to streak through
the exhibition. To really see requires time and a visitor will not get anything out o f a
work o f art if they turn away after the first glance. Visitors need to be encouraged to
5 6 David N. Perkins, Occasional Paper 4: The Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art (Los
Angeles: The Getty Center Education in the Art), 75.
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spend time looking and interpreting. Mihaly CzikszentmiMlyi and Kim Hennanson,
explained in their article, “Intrinsic Motivation in Museums: What Makes Visitors Want
to Leam?” that the ideal understanding o f a work o f art comes from a “flow experience.”
This inscape or centering requires, time, effort, total immersion and concentration on the
part o f the viewer.5 7 Unfortunately, time, fear, exhaustion, insecurity, and most o f all
sensory overload hinder our attentiveness in the museum. Many visitors feel compelled
to see everything in the museum; they speed walk through exhibitions, attempting to
glance at every object, mark it off their checklist and then leave. Educators advise
docents that visitors should not try to pay attention to every work o f art in large
exhibitions, because it’s too much to absorb in a small amount o f time and it results in
anxiety and frustration, but self-guided visitors are not aware o f this recommendation.
Museums must encourage visitors to be more selective if they want them to engage in a
dialogue with a work o f art.
Art dialogues are difficult for the novice viewer, who is daunted by questions that,
for the most part, go unanswered by the museum. The inaccessibility o f information is,
by far, the biggest complaint from inexperienced art viewers. They want information
about the artists, particular paintings as well as summaries on various periods and
5 7 MiMly CzikszentmiMlyi and Kim Hennanson, “Intrinsic Motivation in Museums: What Makes Visitors
Want to leam?” Museum News (May/June 1995). Shipps also stresses the need to experience a work o f art
intensely, p. 77.
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movements o f a rt Many find it difficult to have an intellectual exchange when they have
so many questions that remain unanswered.3 8 Alfred Barr was mindful o f the visitors’
need for information in 1944, when he made it the mission o f the Museum of Modem Art
to help visitors understand art by answering the questions, “Why? How? Who? When?
Where? What for?” but it is evident that MoMA and numerous other museums exhibiting
abstract art do not always provide the novice viewer with information that addresses
these issues. It’s unfortunate because, as Insights, the Getty study revealed, “Information
increases appreciation o f the art [and] the more visitors know about a particular object
and its background, the greater their connection with it.”5 9 Museums must empower their
visitors to see, to choose, think about and make informed interpretations of abstract art by
making information available. As James Elkins states in his book, The Object Stares
Back, “...seeing...requires practice and special information— you have to know what
you’re looking for....”6 0
The information presented must take into consideration an audience with different
levels o f education, multiple interests and learning styles which include cognitive,
intellectual, emotional, perceptual, and communicative. A complete aesthetic experience
involves a blend o f all five, but everyone responds differently to each category depending
“ Richard Saul Wurman, Information Anxiety (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 129. Wurman writes that
“Many people can’t listen to an idea until key questions about it have been answered in their minds.”
1 9 Insights, p. 21.
6 0 Elkins, p. 56
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on their background.6 1 The emotional learner is interested in things such as the artist's
life or his/her intimate viewpoints while the intellectual learner wants all the historical
details and so on. It is important that the information provided targets a combination o f
learning styles for “...when complex information is presented in a way that is enjoyable —
intrinsically rewarding — the person will be motivated to pursue further learning.”6 2 The
viewers’ learning style directly influences the medium in which they prefer to receive
information. “Exhibition makers [need to] provide within exhibitions the contexts and
resources that enable audiences to choose to recognize their knowledge.”6 3
Information as well as suggestions on how to deal with abstract art can be
provided by the museum’s physical installation, written materials, education/resource
centers or public staff. Not all o f these media can break down a visitor’s misconceptions,
empower the visitor to analyze art, encourage them to look, answer questions and provide
information, nor reach all visitors, but in combination they can be very effective in
helping the average museum visitor understand and appreciate abstract painting.
CzikszCTtmihi lyi in Insights, p. 59. See a lso , Jane Peirson Jones, “Communicating and Teaming in
Gallery 33: Evidence from a Visitor Study," Museum. Media, M essage, p. 261.
Ibid, p. 35.
6 3 Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics o f Museum Display
(Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 22.
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VI. Implementing Changes
There is no absolute formula that art museums can apply to the problematic issues
facing visitors who have difficulty with abstract painting. Art museums have an infinite
number o f choices and combinations o f options available— installation formats, resource
centers/education rooms, labels, extended wall texts, laminates, exhibition guides and
gallery attendants— that can help comfort, orient viewers, direct attention, answer
questions, provide information, confront myths and encourage personal interpretation.
The museum’s task is to leam about its audience, work with available resources, find a
middle ground between educators and curators, compromise habits and professional
opinions, and most importantly, test and evaluate various exhibition strategies.
As discussed in section four, an exhibition’s physical installation— room color,
ground covering, size, shape, positioning o f benches and paintings— has the most
immediate impact on its visitors. The design o f the installation creates the first
impression and this atmosphere can make a visitor feel welcome or uncomfortable. In
the case o f an abstract painting exhibition, where the work is intimidating, it’s imperative
that the space not be. The number and placement o f paintings, as well as the positioning
o f benches can promote or inhibit the amount o f time spent looking at the work. Too
many paintings on one wall is visually overtaxing and the absence of benches causes
*
jL
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physical strain, but the strategic placement o f paintings— in doorways, in front o f benches
and in alcoves will revive the tired and frustrated viewer. “No one functions well
perpetually gasping for breath. Learning [and interest] require “way-stations” where we
can stop and think about an idea before moving on to the next.”6 4
The placement o f an education room or resource center within an exhibition can
also offer a visitor a place to take a break, but more importantly, it has the ability to
confront all o f a novice viewer’s concerns with abstract painting. In 1991, Judith Zilcher,
curator at the Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture Garden, introduced an exhibition entitled
Comparisons, which presented thirteen pairs o f modem paintings and sculptures with
wall text and pamphlets posing questions. This experimental exhibition revealed that
almost everyone interviewed wanted to see some gallery space devoted to an educational
resource room.6 5 The visitors were interested in having a place to ask questions and
gather information. As with the Comparisons investigation, the novice visitors polled for
this study also expressed an interest in having a resource room within an exhibition,
specifically before entering the exhibition. One of the visitors from the Seattle Art
Museum made reference to some of the French art museums that used introductory rooms
to orient the viewer. ‘They were filled with all kinds o f information, that set me up for
6 4 Wurman, p. 139.
6 5 A. Bickford, Z. D. Doering, and E. K. Ziebarth, Appreciating Art— a Study o f Comparisions: An Exercise
in Looking a t the Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture Carden (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution
Institutional Studies, 1992), p. vii.
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my experience in the exhibition. The rest o f the time, I could just take in the art and if I
needed more information, I could refer back to the room.*'6 6
A resource center’s position within an exhibition is, indeed, extremely crucial.
Some museums have resource centers, but many are not utilized by museum visitors
because the physical distance between the exhibition and the center creates a disconnect
between the art and the information. For die most part, these resource centers intend to
serve the whole museum and not a particular exhibition. A perfect example is the Seattle
Art Museum’s education room. It is a beautiful space that is comfortable and has the
opportunity to provide needed information, but it is removed from the gallery space and
is essentially invisible to visitors. A well located resource center and/or an information
outlet attached to the exhibitions can offer an appropriate compromise for educators and
curators. They can be neutral places to answer questions, provide information, confront
myths, and encourage personal interpretation without altering or disrupting the
exhibition’s concept
A conventional education room is typically stocked with exhibition related books;
museums should strive to extend beyond the traditional and experiment with various
4 6 Alison L. Grinder and E. Sue McCoy note that many museums in Mexico have orientation rooms in The
Good Guide (Scottsdale, AZ: Ironwood Publishing, 1985), p. 17. And the Insights study revealed that
orientation films are interesting, informative and helpful,” Insights, p. 20.
t
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materials, such as non-art, but issue related books, videos, interactive computers and
additional written materials provided by the curator or educator. Misconceptions about
abstract painting and suggestions on how to approach abstract painting (such as those I
used in this study) could be addressed directly by the education department via a
notebook, laminate or one page take-away. Notebooks or laminates could also deal with
paintings in an exhibition that do not have extended labels or wall texts by offering a
color image o f the painting, basic object description and additional information. Related
videos could be useful, especially a short video for the novice viewer o f artists
commenting on abstract art or advising the viewer about how to confront abstraction. An
education center is an excellent haven for the novice viewer and an ideal place to gather
feedback, experiment and determine the effectiveness o f educational materials.
Although most exhibitions o f abstract p a in tin g omit extended labels and wall
texts, 74% o f the visitors interviewed for this study would like to see written material
within the exhibition that provides additional information. We learned from the Getty
Insights study that museum visitors are curious about the artist's life, they want to leam
about a painting’s historic and artistic significance, the school o f art, the background on
the time period and culture presented, the artist’s technique and the method o f creating
the object and the tools used.6 7 And the Comparisons exhibition revealed that ’Visitors
6 7 Insights, 22.
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appreciated explanatory exhibitions and wished to see more o f them.”6 8 Wall texts and
extended labels are a familiar form o f communication that can make a work more
accessible. They can provide relief when a visitor is struggling and provoke people into
learning and looking more on their own by answering and posing questions.6 9 Labels
encourage visitors to slow down and see the art and help them make sense o f confusing
works.
When written materials are made available within exhibitions they are used
extensively and can greatly influence the visitor’s overall impression o f all exhibitions.
As such, wall texts and labels should be written clearly, concisely, in a language that is
readable to visitors at all levels. As Ivo Maroevic writes, “The museum message,
constituted in every individual visitor according to his/her interest, knowledge and
imagination, is transferred at exhibitions to the users by means of museum
objects/documents.”7 0 Too often exhibition texts ignore the average museum visitor,
making references to unknown art movements and artists. Label writers, whether they
are educators or curators, need to respect the position o f average museum visitors, avoid a
condescending tone, and be more concerned with the quality o f their experience, than
with the sophistication.
6 8 Ziebarth, p. viii.
6 9 Margaret Krug and Jill Rullkoetter, head o f education, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
7 0 Ivo Maroevic, “The Museum Message: Between die Document and Information,” Museum, Media.
Message, pp. 35-6.
i
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59
Museums have the option of presenting information at multiple levels o f
complexity so visitors can select at their preference level.7 1 During an interview with
Stephen Weil, he recalled an exhibition he saw at the Museum o f Mankind in London
which made the information people received optional:
In the case in the center o f the room were Inca ja d e masks with no material about
them a t all, but i f you turned around, the wall in back o f you had large type
signage with very basic information. Below that in interm ediate type was som e
more detailed information, still pretty much readable from where you were
standing and i f you wanted more information, then you left the case and went over
to the wall and in sm all type you could fin d very specific information. I t was left
up to the viewer to decide what level o f detail they wanted and it didn’ t interfere
with the objects71
Labels for abstract paintings could implement similar presentations, first presenting the
most basic information for people and then providing a greater level o f detailed
information for those who need it
A successful way o f making labels active instead o f passive is to present them in
the form o f questions. “Questions serve to empower visitors and sensitize them to the
relative ‘authority' of the text. Questions can cue the visitor's behavior. Visitors are
expected to be active participants rather than passive receivers... .More than half o f the
visitors reported they enjoyed having questions.”7 3 Zilcher’s Comparisons exhibition
7 1 Jones, p. 261.
7 2 Interview with Stephen Weil.
7 3 Jones, p. 261.
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60
posed questions with the intention of interrupting viewer’s normal patterns of passive
seeing and to motivate and help the visitor establish confidence when encountering
modem works o f art Seventy-eight percent o f the people in her exhibition read the text
panels and most found the questions extremely helpful in their interpretation o f this
work.7 4 Most educators agree that the use o f questions on labels or laminates is an
excellent idea to encourage visitors to be active instead o f passive.7s The only downfall
of posing questions in a label is that viewers want answers with which to compare their
conclusions. CzikszentmiMlyi and Hermanzoon in their article on intrinsic motivation
stated that involvement is unlikely to be sustained unless there is some sort of feedback.7 6
So, perhaps instead of a label posing a question a laminate could be available in a box or
near a bench which posed questions on one side and offered a variety o f answers on the
reverse.
Extended labels can provide endless information in various formats that stim u late
interest and encourage looking. In a number of investigations, Insights, Comparisons and
this study, visitors have requested visual information such as photographs of artists, or
images of paintings related to the text. Although most curators are opposed to visual
information on labels, a poll taken by the Hirshhom found that visitors would like to see
7 4 Bickford, p. viii.
7 5 Educators that agree include: Jill Rullkoetter, Susan Badder, Margaret Krug, Cynthia Nachmani and
Stephen Weil.
7 6 CzikszentmiMlyi and Hermanzoon, p. 59.
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61
pictures o f the artist7 7 And in this study a visitor commented that if a label referred to
another painting, she wished it would provide an image on the label.
Another form o f written material that would be extremely helpful for the average
museum visitor trying to cram everything into one visit is a series o f self guided sheets
that would group together five or six paintings and pose questions. This would be
especially useful with enormous exhibitions like the one at the National Gallery. A card
which suggests that the visitor choose four or five objects, or actually groups four or five
objects together by theme for the visitor and then asks pertinent questions, would
encourage the visitor to spend time with the works and be helpful and consoling. The
museum needs to assure its visitors that they do not have to see every piece in the
museum and should furthermore assist them in setting up some goals. Perkins stated,
“H alf the trick o f expanding perceptions might be...set[ting] yourself a mission.”7 8
“Helping visitors set manageable goals, both for the entire exhibitions and for each stop
at an exhibit is one way to make the experience more enjoyable.’* 7 9
Interview with Stephen Weil.
7 8 Perkins, p.52.
7 9 Czikszentmihalyi and Hermanzoon, p. 59
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62
Written materials can provide direction and information, but the most effective
way to alleviate the average museum visitor’s anxieties, provide information and answer
questions is by providing them with an individual who is knowledgeable about art. The
majority o f art museums have volunteer tour guides or docents, trained by the education
department to take visitors on thirty minute expeditions o f the collection or exhibition
highlights. Exhibition guides are significant resources o f information and, according to
Alison Grinder and Sue McCoy, co-authors o f The Good Guide, can provide “the greatest
potential for enhancing learning, understanding objects in their larger context, and
discovering new avenues o f exploration.”8 0 Clearly, a guide’s intuitive abilities to gage
the audience, determine the various levels o f experience, talk about preconceived notions,
offer answers to questions and suggestions on how to approach abstract art, are more
effective than written materials. The dilemma is that they are only available for specially
scheduled tours or at selectively specified time slots and the average museum visitor is
typically unwilling to commit to a tour unless it begins at a convenient time and place.
The ideal solution is to have an educated gallery attendant stationed within the
exhibition. During the 1960s, Stephen Weil initiated a program of gallery attendants at
the Hirshhom who engaged visitors in conversation, provided information and answered
8 0 Grinder and McCoy, p. xiii.
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63
questions. Weil hesitantly mentioned during an interview that these attendants were
referred to as “art hookers:”
It was a very sexist thing, but it was the early 60s and nobody noticed. These art
hookers were extremely pretty, highly educated young women who would strike
up a conversation with anybody in the gallery and had this technique o f talking
ju st loudly enough to entice others to listen. When things went w ell they could go
from having a conversation with one person to having an entire circle o f people
around and then they would slowly reveal that they were sta ff members. They
involved people who were not prepared to sign up fo r a lecture orfollow a tour.
Unfortunately, the strain on the "hookers ” became intolerable after fo u r or fiv e
weeks; they were saying the same things over and over again and they became
bored. Eventually the program ju st fa d ed out. That was a disappointment,
because it was an innovative idea that attempted to see where dialogue would go
rather than ju st providing a canned lecture.
Indeed, the idea o f using “beautiful” women to lure the public into talking about modem
art is sexist, but the concept o f having a dialogue, providing information and answering
questions is important.
The Henry Art Gallery in Seattle is currently piloting a new program o f gallery
attendants with the intention o f providing a positive art experience for the general public.
These gallery attendants, armed with artist and exhibition information from the curatorial
department, are stationed throughout the galleries to answer questions and provide
information for the visitors. As the thread that connects the visitor, the art and the
museum, the attendant, if used properly, is an extremely important resource for the
novice viewer who feels uncomfortable with modem or contemporary art Claudine
8 1 Interview with Stephen Weil.
. i i
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Brown, in the Insights study, made an analogy between museums and libraries,
commenting that people seek librarians when they need to leam to use the card catalogue
and the numbering systems.8 2 So why shouldn’t museum visitors have access to a gallery
attendant? Properly educated, trained and visible gallery attendants can provide
desperately needed information for novice viewers perplexed by abstract painting.
8 2 Insights, p. 88.
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VII. Conclusion
Abstract painting has endured a long history o f public opposition. This resistance
is the result o f fear and misunderstanding which is cultivated from a viewer’s
unfamiliarity with abstraction and misconceptions about art in general. Although most
museum visitors prefer representational painting, many are curious and express a desire
to leam about abstraction. Unfortunately, museums, such as the four surveyed for this
study, perpetuate the anxiety surrounding abstraction by declining to: provide
information, answer questions, address misconceived stereotypes, create a manageable
environment and, in general, make the visitor feel comfortable. Though many museum
studies conducted over the last decade have investigated the educational needs of the
average museumgoer, numerous museums continue to ignore the public’s frustration with
abstraction. Art museums must actualize their self-imposed responsibility to educate the
public. Those which present challenging art such as abstraction need to regularly audit
their audience, consistently experiment with modes o f presentation and evaluate those
experiments to accomplish this task.
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66
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' Interviews
Badder, Susan. Curator o f Education, Corcoran Gallery o f Art, Washington, D. C.
July 17,1996.
Benezra, Neal. Chief Curator and Director o f Public Programs, Hirshhom Museum and
Sculpture Garden. July 17,1996.
Conkelton, Sheryl. Senior Curator, H airy Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington. July 3,
1996.
Krug, M argaret Lecturer, Whitney Museum o f American A rt New York.
July 12, 1996.
Moats, Tamara. Curator o f Education, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington.
July 29, 1996.
Nachmani, Cynthia. Coordinator o f School Programs, The Museum o f Modem A rt New
York. July 10,1996.
N esbett Peter. Curatorial Associate, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington.
July 5,1996.
Nozkowski, Thomas. A rtist New York. July 10,1996.
Rullkoetter, Jill. Head o f Education, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington.
July 24,1997.
Weil, Stephen. Senior Scholar Emeritus, Center for Museum Studies, Smithsonian
Institution.
July 22, 1996.
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R e p r o d u c e d w i t h p e r m i s s i o n o f t h e c o p y r i g h t o w n e r . F u r t h e r r e p r o d u c t i o n p r o h i b i t e d w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n .

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Creator Howard, Rhonda Lane (author)

Core Title Avoiding abstraction: An investigation of the average museum visitor's difficulty with abstract painting

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Art History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Art History,Education, Art,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

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Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-17650

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