the art museum and the time of change

National Art Education Association

The Art Museum and the Time of ChangeAuthor(s): Harry S. Parker, IIISource: Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 9 (Dec., 1971), pp. 4-8Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191650 .

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The A r Mu seu m and Ih e Time .r C ha ge Harry S. Parker, llI

"If the term, 'museum', strikes terror to the heart of the average layman, it is nothing compared with the sense of panic which its sound produces in the poor innocents who spend their lives rationalizing its very existence. Going back into the far reaches of time, the word, 'museum', has succeeded in 4

meaning nothing vital to anyone in particular, yet at the same time has strangely meant all things to all men. Through a metamorphosis lasting many centuries, it has emerged from the simple designation of a temple of the muses to be the en- compassing catch-basin for all those separate elements of hereditary culture which are not yet woven into the general



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educational fabric of modern society."1 The role of the museum in society has not always been

absolutely clear, but neither has that of art education. As James Ackerman has noted, "Americans enshrine the arts in a Pantheon, isolated from the real world-where they can be at once revered and ignored. Even intellectuals speak vaguely of the humanizing power of art as if it were an optional luxury available to refine the student or beautify the environment once practical requirements have been met. The support of art education as an expendable and isolatable luxury commodity promotes segregation as effectively as outspoken opposition."2

Yet from the very beginning, education has been the avowed rationale for public and private support of the Metropolitan Museum. William Cullen Bryant, one of the Museum's founders, viewed art as a great moral and social teacher, a defense against the more flagrant pleasures of New York City in the 1870's. Indeed, Bryant said, "It is important that we should counter the temptations to vice in this great and too rapidly growing capital by attractive entertainments of an innocent and improving character."3

Over the last century, the methods and goals of the educational programs have changed, but the basic assumption that education is a good thing has not been seriously challenged. Each incoming Museum administration has proclaimed renewed dedication to the cause of popular instruction in the fine arts, and annual reports have heralded their successes. Of course, education has meant different things to different directors. For some, collecting and displaying works of art were the essence of the Museum's educational responsibility. They thought that repeated exposure to art would, by itself, refine the public's taste and uplift its spirit. Admitting art students and teachers free on pay days and supporting occasional lectures were bonuses for the more serious art lovers. Other directors have been far more aggressive in their support of formal educational activities and have encouraged an amazing variety of programs.

The results have not been universally acclaimed. One harsh critic wrote, "We have placed art, for which there is a ravenous appetite in this country, on pedestals beyond the reach of the man in the street. He believes in the museum, yes, but with the same 'I'm from Missouri' acquiesence with which he believes in the Constitution or the Republican Party. He votes appropria- tions for its support. He may even visit the museum on occasion,

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but he certainly takes from it little or nothing of what it might potentially offer him. This is nobody's fault but our own. In- stead of trying to interpret our collections, we have high-hatted him and called it scholarship. We have established a jargon of pure and arbitrary definition, making esoteric use of common words like form, color, design, so that he has no idea what we are talking about. We tell him that understanding must come from experience, and that the nude really is descending the staircase whether he sees it or not. We have wrapped him up in a cocoon of verbiage and cut-rate aestheticism that is insulting to reasonable intelligence, and we curse him for a barbarian when he says that he knows what he likes."4

Surprisingly, this attack was made not by The New York Times, but by the Metropolitan's Director in 1945, Francis Henry Taylor. His opinion was echoed by one of the Museum's assistant directors, who roundly criticized the Museum's cata- logues and explanatory labels, saying, "What conceivable bearing on art and culture have the facts that an object once belonged to the Duke of Duffleburry, that it was shown at the Sanitary Fair, that it was in such-and-such auctions, that Doctors Rosen- crantz and Gildenstern disagree as to the year in which it was made? Such stuff is neither scholarship nor learning, it is mere bookkeeping, and it is awfully dull and stupid and entirely aside from all cultural issues. The public yawns at us and goes to a movie or a baseball game. And the public is right."5

We have learned from these criticisms. Today, education is on the ascendancy. The case for an expansion of the educational role of the museum is strengthened by many factors. There is a general desire to preserve values which seem threatened, values of individuality, quality, and excellence. There is a need to train visual perception and a thoughtful sensitivity to the visual environment. There is the evolution of the museum through reviving public support into a public institution. Director Thomas Hoving has called education the major effort of the Metropolitan Museum's second century, and the facts support his claim. In the past three years, the budget for educational activities has doubled, the Museum's education staff has risen from 21 to 53, and an office for a Vice Director for Education has been created. We are in a period of attention, experimenta- tion, and emphasis.

Some of the educational activity has followed the traditional 6

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content and format-free or paid gallery talks with very com- petent staff lecturers, supplemented by recorded tours for special exhibitions, the opening of a reading room in the European Paintings galleries, and weekend seminars for college students. More radical experiments have included the use of videotape in the galleries to record and present visitors' reactions to works of art. By recognizing the validity of spontaneous responses of average visitors, we try to inspire other viewers to trust and depend on their own individual responses. We observe too many visitors who rely exclusively on the second-hand wisdom of art authorities.

With visiting groups of teenagers we have experimented with modified forms of sensitivity training as a kind of tuning-up for experiencing works of art. Initial results indicate that these techniques and exercises may become standard procedure in the future. Another new departure for the Metropolitan Museum has been-the mobile experiment in visual education, called "Eye Opener." This truck bed and van with its inflatable cover is as technologically innovative as it is educationally sophisticated. It is being sent to neighborhoods whose citizens seldom visit the Metropolitan, for the purpose of stimulating an interest in visiting the Museum itself, and also to spark visual curiosity about the world around them. The first exhibition is based on the spiral form. Ram's horns, shells, pre-Columbian pottery, and star galaxies are shown together with participatory exhibits, films, and slide sequences-all utilizing the spiral.

Museum educators are properly concerned with all occasions on which human beings encounter works of art. The nature and quality of that experience is our paramount concern, even though it is often beyond our control. We need to know only the separate qualities which the works of art bring to that confrontation, but also the widely varying characteristics of the viewers. Visitors to the Metropolitan range from highly trained art historians to squirming five-year-olds who have been brought to the Museum as a rainy-day activity. In trying to understand the needs of this diversified audience and to serve them effectively, we have moved in two basic directions.

First, where possible in the Museum, we have concentrated on increasing the intensity of people's exposure to art, usually at the expense of cutting back on the absolute number of people served. Perhaps the best example is that most sacred of all cows, the group tour. For 65 years, innumerable school

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groups have been dutifullyfiling through the galleries in the sober pursuit of culture. These tours have often been a logistical logjam for the Museum, an annoyance to other visitors, and a source of concern to nervous curators. Recently, we have also begun to question their educational value. To the extent that the tour becomes merely a sheeplike herding through Museum galleries, it becomes less and less rewarding for the children. To be effective, such tours must be carefully prepared in advance by the teacher together with a Museum staff member especially skilled in establishing a quick rapport with students.

High school tours are now being limited to small groups of students, and the emphasis has shifted from simply providing art historical information about each object to developing visual perception. Equally important, staff time has been freed to devise and maintain programs for individual students determined to pursue their interest in art. Twelve courses are being offered this Spring, on subjects ranging from Afro-American art of the 20th Century to an Introduction to Problems of Design. A film workshop is exploring this medium as an active way of perceiving the visual environment. In addition, Museum apprentices of high school age are selected each semester to work in curatorial and educational departments throughout the building. Several schools in the area already give credit for these courses.

Equally intensive programs have been developed for younger children, college students, teachers, and adult groups. The Metropolitan is now offering 33 courses at the undergraduate and graduate level for college credit. To achieve the promise of these programs, precious Museum resources of staff, time, and energy have been allocated. The effort reaches across depart- mental lines, utilizing curatorial as well as educational expertise to make the Metropolitan a center for quality education.

Yet the most complex and challenging educational problem facing the Museum is how to develop a strategy for aiding the masses of visitors who come to the Museum but do not partici- pate in any of these formal, structured activities. How do we help them really look at works of art? How much responsibility can we properly assume for management of threir experience? One approach for which the Museum's 100th birthday provided a testing ground is the special exhibition. These exhibitions have

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been the Museum's boldest attempts to structure the visitor's experiences, to focus his attention. The selection of the objects, their positioning, lighting, and labeling all affect the viewer's response.

In the exhibition, "Masterpieces of 50 Centuries," the placing of the objects suggests comparisons for the viewer to make. A 6th Century B.C. head of an ibex from Iran is juxta- posed with a 4th Century B.C. Egyptian relief plaque depicting a ram-headed divinity. Here the dating and subject matter are fairly close, but the objects are separated by geography. An Italian 15th Century bronze bust of Antoninus Pious confronts a Roman 1st Century bust of the Emperor Caligula. In this case, the objects are close geographically, but separated by over 1,000 years. In most startling juxtaposition, African Benin bronzes have been placed with Rembrandt paintings of the same date.

Such a show challenges the viewer to look, really look-and this is one advantage of the special exhibition. The same can be limited and the show designed with care so that the visitor does not wander aimlessly. The path is determined for the viewer: it is as though he were having a personally conducted tour. Moreover, the "special" or temporary nature of the exhibition allows the Museum freedom to take a particular point of view -to editorialize, and to focus communication. The message can be fortified through additional educational effort, in the form of orientation galleries, hand-out guides, recorded tours, and the exhibition catalogue.

The day is over when it is the Museum's role solely to string out the collection and expect the visitor to bring a selective eye and connoisseur's knowledge to the experience. The Museum must now discover ways of making information available and stimulating the eye-all to be done with a healthy respect for the visitor's native response and right to privacy, as well as for the educator's faith in innate human curiosity.

Yet even if these programs were doubled or tripled in number, we would still not be affecting the thousands who either cannot or will not come to our Museum, or indeed, to any museum. We further recognize that as we consciously limit the numbers educated at the core institution, we must make a counter balancing effort to reach beyond our walls. In this outreach effort, we have revitalized some activities which had been used successfully in the past, such as sending lecturers to schools or setting up exhibitions or original art in public libraries.

To reach out effectively on a mass scale requires the imagi- native use of new techniques. It means, in effect, use of the media and a facing up to the philosophical issues of reproductions versus originals. For too long, museums have been nervous about recognizing the educational validity of reproductions and the opportunities they provide for outreach to the public. This is obviously not to say a reproduction is better than or the same as the original, or that art education should be restricted to reproductions. Yet reproductions through film, TV, slides, or in print are capable of documenting works of art and even of sparking aesthetic experience. The field of art education needs more, rather than fewer, avenues of approach.

The most ambitious of the Metropolitan's efforts along these lines is the School Exhibition Service. It evolved from a two-

year pilot project, involving 18 secondary schools, in which the Museum tested the potential of panel exhibitions as a subtle, engaging way of stimulating students' sensitivity to art, its beauty, its uniqueness, its endless fascination. Each exhibition

was completely self-explanatory, requiring no previous knowledge of art or of the culture which produced it.

The pilot exhibitions were well received, and in 1970 the Metropolitan began to make the program available nationally through the Macmillan Company. Subscribing schools will receive six different panel exhibitions each year for five years. A selection of 40 slides, a recorded lecture, and curriculum integration teacher's manuals supplement each exhibition. All of the materials are retained by the schools, and can be reused or made available for community programs. Our hope is to reach over a million students through 1,000 subscribing high schools.

The School Exhibition Service does not attempt to present a textbook-like history of the world's art, nor will the selections of objects be limited to the Metropolitan's own collections or of the themes to traditional subjects. For instance, "The Tomb of Tutankhamen" focuses on the excitement of archaeology, of discovering works of art which have been buried for thousands of years. "Protest and Hope" explores the nature of political and social dissent by artists in Europe and America. In the "History of the Highway" one aspect of the aesthetics of our environment is presented. Students can view the exhibitions at their own pace and can use the manuals to delve into any topic which particularly interests them. The project is challenging to us and, we hope, rewarding for the students.

To make a few general predictions for the future, the museums will continue to move in the direction of education at an increasingly rapid rate and at all levels-elementary, secondary, higher, and continuing. In formal education, museums will be increasingly recognized as qualifying for accreditation. At all levels, but especially in graduate work, museums will become the major focus of art historical studies. At the same time, the museum experience and, indeed, all effective learning opportunities will be increasingly valued by educators and society in general. Museums for their part will learn about the processes of sensitization and will ride the wave of feeling over thought which seems to be mounting today. Finally, museums will become less a collection or a place and more an idea-an art educational idea which works in numerous spaces and ways. There will be hundreds of spaces in offices, libraries, and schools where the product and the process will share public attention-and where reproductions will find a role.

In planning its educational program for the future, the Metropolitan Museum is eager to involve art educators throughout the United States. We look to you for advice and assistance. After all, we are sharing the same boat and surely need each other.

Harry S. Parker ill is vice director for education, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

REFERENCES

1Taylor, Francis Henry, Babel's Tower, Columbia University Press (New York), 1945, p. 8.

2Ackerman, James, "Education of Vision," The Arts on Campus: The Necessity for Change, ed. Margaret Mahoney. New York Graphic Society, Ltd. (Greenwich), 1970..

3Tompkins, Calvin, Merchants and Masterpieces, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1970, (New York), p. 30.

4Taylor, op. cit., pp. 22-23. 5Tompkins, op. cit., p. 244.

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the art museum and the time of change

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