High & Low

In the book For the Love of Music: A Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening the author made the point that a lot of the programming that orchestras do these days is erratic, and while they like to promote the work of young composers they sandwich it in between more popular hits. It also made me think about the un-curated way that we look at art these days on screens. I prefer that someone has spent a lot of time thinking about the context and relationships among works.

Most people see art as entertainment, and most artists see art as an inner exploration. and it stands to reason that it is this way. Because we see the world through our own senses, and so we concentrate on our own senses, we concentrate on our own thoughts, it is interesting for us to do these inner explorations. It's the best we can do, because it's hard to understand with any clarity, the minds of thousands of people. But once an artist has a lot of followers and fans, it's easier to get an idea of what the fans want. And so an artist has to pander to an audience. This is not unlike having your own Google ranking system, prioritizing what is trending or trendy. This is really more of a marketing thing, but museums and orchestras for the most part (so far) have taken the high road.

Back in 1991, Kirk Varnedoe, then director of MOMA curated the High & Low exhibition, which was a melange of works from different periods. It didn't go over well with critics or the public. It was too jarring--as the internet is now with the most popular information more highly ranked.

Imagine going to a museum and seeing only the works supported by donors--or works on loan from collectors--regardless of era and it's not organized in any logical way. You wouldn't need separate galleries or wings and would be more like an art expo. (I actually like expos, but the galleries are the "Wings").

But there had been a slow, almost glacial paradigm shift, now accelerated in a post-pandemic world that is looking at art on mostly smaller screens and music on smaller speakers and earbuds. The most popular art right now is digital, so dimensionality and scale aren't important, and neither is the gallery or museum wing. If the metaverse wish materializes this will be the future art-viewing experience. Viewers will adapt and they won't know any different world, and might not have ever been to a museum or experienced a live symphony.
 
Generally speaking, I think there has to be some kind of continuity in art exhibitions. I always liked the threads woven in a carefully curated show. I want to know the history: If there's a musician that i like I want to know what they listen to. When i read books I want to know the books that they read, and so on.

It used to be that we let others provide the basic context. Museums and galleries are the primary frameworks, and they should be physical places, even if the art within them is digital. It's better to have the screens on the wall instead of in your hand. I see that as an interesting evolution of art-viewing. Perhaps museums will expand accordingly with Wings devoted to early 21st century art, circa 2065, the centennial of pop art. The auditorium will also be a more eclectic yet curated space drawing in younger audiences. But it has to be finely finessed which I think will an an overall exalting effect.

3/21/2021 

PS:

Also see the responses to the Quora question "Why do people go to art museums if seeing the photos of the paintings offers you exactly the same experience?"