Showing posts with label arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arts. Show all posts

Wednesday, 7 August 2019

For us and for our friends

From left to right: poet Odysseas Elytis, composer Manos Hadjidakis, theatre director Karolos Koun, Theatro Technis 1957, rehearsals of Bertolt Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle"  © Manos Hadjudakis Archive

News that Warren Kanders resigned from Whitney Museum Board left me truly pleased. After months of protests, the owner of Safariland (a company that produces “law enforcement products” – in other words, weapons, including the tear gas used against immigrants at the US border) was forced to leave, as many people felt that making money out of producing weapons and then philanthropically investing that money in culture and the arts is an oxymoron (to say the least).

Saturday, 22 June 2019

First thoughts on the National Plan of the Arts



There were two occasions for a first appreciation of the National Plan of the Arts (NPA): its public presentation, on 18 June, and the reading of the document. I'll start by sharing my thoughts on the first.


The room where the presentation took place was packed. Many colleagues, journalists, people representing private organisations that support the cultural sector and the arts. One could feel the good mood and the expectation, mixed with some distrust (“Will this be it?”). I believe that that moment of encounter and everything one felt in the air was a positive sign that the sector is made up of professionals who are still very much interested and ready to get involved in a common effort that may value, support and strengthen their work and their contribution to society.

Sunday, 20 May 2018

Cultural appropriation: less gatekeepers, more critical thinkers

"La Japonaise" by Claude Monet, Museum of Fine Arts Boston (image taken from http://japaneseamericaninboston.blogspot.com)

For Nandia

My first contact with the concept of cultural appropriation happened in July 2015 because of “Kimono Wednesdays” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA). On the occasion of the display of Claude Monet’s “La Japonaise” (a painting of the artist’s wife, surrounded by fans, wearing a blond wig and a bright red kimono), visitors were invited to put on a kimono similar to the one shown on the painting and share their photos on social media. According to the museum, this was a way of engaging with the painting. For some people, though, the activity lacked any context regarding the garment, becoming just “fun”; others criticized it for reinforcing stereotypes and exoticizing Asian Americans; for others, it was blatant racism; (read Seph Rodney’s article). 

Saturday, 5 May 2018

“Lindonéia, the suburb’s Gioconda”: my first visit to the Pinacoteca of São Paulo

"Lindonéia, the suburb's Gioconda", Rubens Gerchman, Pinacoteca de São Paulo  (Photo: Maria Vlachou)


“Na frente do espelho
Sem que ninguém a visse
Miss
Linda,feia
Lindonéia desaparecida
Despedaçados, atropelados
Cachorros mortos nas ruas
Policiais vigiando
O sol batendo nas frutas
Sangrando
Ai, meu amor
A solidão vai me matar de dor (...)”

Caetano Veloso, “Lindonéia”

One thing I noticed right from my first visits to the museums of São Paulo (Brazil) was that long introductory texts are greatly appreciated. The exhibition "Brazilian Vanguard of the 1960s – the Roger Wright Collection", at the Pinacoteca of São Paulo, was no exception.

Sunday, 28 January 2018

TS Elliot, a terrible hip-hop artist

A photo of the project Contratempos in the This is PARTIS programme.

The Guardian recently wrote about a critique by poet Rebecca Watts, entitled “The cult of the noble amateur”, where she attacks the work of a cohort of young female poets considering it “the open denigration of intellectual engagement and rejection of craft”. The text resulted in a very interesting, and welcome, debate regarding the value of “high” and “popular” poetry. The answer of Scottish poet Don Patterson (winner of the TS Elliot award and publisher of two of the young poets in question) was captivating: " You don’t have to like what people do, but I think you measure it against its own ambitions. Otherwise it’s like saying TS Eliot was a terrible hip-hop artist. True, but so what.”

Wednesday, 15 November 2017

I am a native foreigner


This was my speech yesterday at the ICOM Europe Annual Conference, which took place in Bologna, Italy. The theme was "The role of local and regional museums in the building of a people's Europe". Read more

Tuesday, 12 September 2017

That's mine too!

Eden Condoms, Esther Pi & Timo Waag, Spain. Shortlisted for the 2017 Rijksstudio Awards (source: Rijksmuseum website)

Should people be allowed to use images from museum collections on birthday cakes, sneakers, condoms or toilet paper? Who will protect the dignity of the objects from this 'assault'? And how about the income museums are losing by not charging for the images?

My post on the CIDOC - International Committee for Documentation blog on open access. Read here


Thursday, 9 March 2017

Sunday, 30 October 2016

MAAT, a generator of expectations

Image taken from the website of MAAT.
I am still amazed at the way the recently inaugurated MAAT - Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, designed by Amanda Levete, is integrated into the landscape. When I approach that area or when I cross the bridge from Lisbon, I always expect to see a huge building overlapping or hiding the Central Tejo power plant. But no... The Central Tejo still emerges majestically and the new building stands at its side as a smooth and fluid note.
My first contact with the new museum was back in June. In fact, it was the reopening of the "old" museum (Museum of Electricity in Central Tejo), after its renovation, and the MAAT brand was launched. Afterwards, I followed the campaign for the inauguration of the new building and I read some interviews of the museum director, Pedro Gadanho, thus forming an initial opinion / expectation. The various criticisms that arose with the opening of the building, as well as some discussions with colleagues, brought me more "food for thought", just like my first visit to the new building.

Saturday, 22 October 2016

Unlimited

"Uma menina perdida no seu século à procura do pai", CRINABEL Theatre (Photo: Paulo Pimenta, courtesy of National Theatre D. Maria II)

Two years ago, I was questioning here the purpose of festivals that present the art of specific groups of people (gay, black, disabled, etc). It was September 2014 and the second edition of Unlimited festival was taking place at Southbank in London. “I keep questioning myself”, I was writing at the time, “who attends these festivals, exhibitions, activities and what happens after? Do they attract the already ‘converted’ or they appeal to a wider audience? Do gay or disabled or black artists become more acknowledged by the sector and the public? Are they seen as the professionals they are? Are we moving towards an inclusive representation, where they are seen first and above all as artists, or rather curators and audiences still go to see something ‘special’, confined in a specific space and time, its ‘own’ space and time? Do these festivals help us move towards caring more and more about the art and less and less about ‘the rest’?”

Monday, 3 October 2016

Justin Bieber and the fight against islamic extremism

The Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, and the Italian Prime Minister , Matteo Renzi (Photo: Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters, taken from the newspaper The Atlantic)
A recent NPR article, entitled Italy's 'CulturalAllowance' For Teens Aims To Educate, Counter Extremism is a clear demonstration of the confusion existing, at various levels and in various contexts, in relation to access to culture and to culture as a panacea for many ills of this world.

The title is not an exaggeration of the newspaper. It was the Italian Prime-Minister himself who said, when announcing this culture allowance (€500 for every 18-year-old to spend on cultural products), shortly after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015: "They destroy statues, we protect them. They burn books, we are the country of libraries. They envision terror, we respond with culture."

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Naming the impact: it may be Telmo or Rafael or Gustavo…

Telmo Martins, member of the Orquestra Geração (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

A few years ago, I saw the documentary Waste Land. It is about the work the Brazilian visual artist Vic Moniz created together with garbage pickers at the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Moniz said that he wished to change the lives of a group of people with the same materials they deal with every day. So, together they used garbage to create large-size portraits of the garbage pickers, which were later sold in auction and the money was distributed among the garbage pickers. The works were presented in exhibitions in a number of contemporary art museums.

Wednesday, 22 June 2016

Government reflections on access to culture

"MAP - The chartography game", a performace by the association A PELE (image taken from the website of the National Theatre D. Maria II)

The Culture White Paper (published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sports in March 2016) sets out how the British government will support the cultural sector in the coming years. It’s the first document of its kind in 50 years and the second ever published in the UK.

The document opens by quoting British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who states: “If you believe in publicly-funded arts and culture as I passionately do, then you must also believe in equality of access, attracting all, and welcoming all.”

Saturday, 7 May 2016

So what?

“So what?”. A frequent question/reaction concerning our field, whether verbally expressed or secretly thought. It’s a legitimate question and one we are rarely available to discuss.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, "Retrato de Marten Soolmans" e "Retrato de Oopjen Coppit" (imagem retirada do jornal Telerama)

When I had first read the news about the joint acquisition by the Louvre and Rijksmuseum of Rembrandt’s Portrait of Marten Soolmans and Portrait of Oopjen Coppit, for €160 million, I didn’t exactly think “So what?”, but rather “Why?”. Why these two paintings? Why all that money? Once I tried to understand a bit better the importance of the paintings (whatever importance that might be, within the context of art history or any other), I was most often confronted with the adjective “rare”. The portraits are “rare”, being exhibited in public was extremely “rare, etc. etc. This brought up even more questions: Rare how? Why should they be seen more often? Why did these two public museums make such a huge (financial and collaborative) effort to acquire them?

Sunday, 24 May 2015

Post scriptum

In the week of 11 May, my inbox was full of invitations for the celebration of the European Museum Night and International Day of Museums. On Facebook, it was no less tense, with museums and their governing bodies reminding us that all roads would lead to a museum. A great party atmosphere, an enormous offer all over the country, which was also translated into numbers. The media reported that there were 140 activities on the occasion of the European Museum Night (16 May) and 430 activities on International Museum Day (18 May) across 70 different Portuguese museums. The truth is that few of the activities proposed responded to ICOM challenge to reflect on “Museums for a sustainable society”. This left me thinking how museums actually perceive this yearly challenge and if it has any impact whatsoever on their practices – on Museum Day and in the rest of the year. Having said this, the richness and intensity of the programme, as well as the celebratory mood, could make one believe that the museum sector in Portugal shows clear signs of prosperity. Thus, news on 18 May of some museum staff going on strike, contesting the reduction in the payment of overtime, as well as the fact that they were obliged to work on a Monday (the day intended for weekly rest), were something of a marginal note  (watch the TV report).

Saturday, 16 May 2015

"Ganesh versus the Third Reich" and the question that was left for next time

Photo: Jeff Busby
It’s rare these days a play that stays with us. A play that occupies our thoughts for hours and days after leaving the theatre. A play we wish to discuss with others. A play we wish to see again, looking for more, looking for everything we know we missed the first time. “Ganesh versus the Third Reich”, by the Australian Back to Back Theatre (presented at Culturgest on 14 and 15 May), is a play that did this for me.

Monday, 23 March 2015

Philippe de Montebello revealed


I´ll say it right in the beginning to get it over with: yes, I got upset reading Philippe de Montebello's two statements regarding the issue of restitution in the book “Rendez-vous with art” (p. 54 and p. 208). Having said that, the rest of the book is absolutely charming! A beautiful, inspiring, surprising series of conversations between Montebello and art critic Martin Gayford, revealing the man behind the art historian and long-time director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Following these conversations, we feel an urge to look and to look better, even if it is only a photo in a book – hoping, of course, to be in front of the original one day... As Montebello himself puts it: “(...) nothing can replace the experience, the very physical sensation of being surrounded and engulfed in the actual space.” (p. 51)

Probably one of the most touching moments comes right in the beginning of the book, where Montebello answers Gayford’s question about that single moment, that single experience that may have led him to a life in the arts. Montebello shares with us that very special moment, when he was 15, and his father took home André Malraux’s “Les Voix du Silence”. And suddenly, there was Uta...

“She was Marchioness Uta in Naumburg Cathedral and I loved her as a woman (...) with her wonderful high collar and her puffed eyelids, as though after a night of lovemaking” (p.10; image taken from Wikipedia)

I was left thinking: would he have ever put this on a museum label? How many people would have looked, looked better, looked more, should they had read something like this about a statue?

Montebello goes on to admit something we rarely hear from curators, but which is true about most museum visitors: “I have found that when I have forced myself – often with the help of curators – to look at things about which I was indifferent or that even repelled me, I discovered that, with a little knoweldge, what had been hidden from me became manifest.” (p. 59)

What kind of knowledge is needed for this ‘epiphany’ to occur, one might ask. Not facts about the artist’s life, not a detailed and dry description of stylistic elements; not in the first place, not for the non-specialist visitor (the majority, that is, of museum visitors). One seems to find all the answers in Freeman Tilden’s “Interpreting our Heritage”: “What lies behind what the eye sees is far greater than that which is visible” (p.20); (...) “the  purpose of interpretation is to stimulate the reader or hearer toward a desire to widen his horizon of interests and knowledge and to gain an understanding of the greater truths that lie behind any statement of fact” (p. 59); (...) “Not with the names of things, but by exposing the soul of things – those truths that lie behind what you are showing your visitor. Nor yet by sermonizing; nor yet by lecturing; not by instruction, but by provocation” (p.67).

Another couple of examples from Montebello’s book might illustrate these points:

“(...) it’s utterly delighftul. The shoe flying off into the air, heading for the statue of Cupid at the side, that enchanting tree so frothy and unlike a real tree: it’s all like a décor de théâtre, a theatre set. This is a gorgeous painting about having a good time and about which one doesn’t have to think very hard, just abandon onself to the sheer pleasure it provides: a picture I’d have no trouble at all living with.” (p. 81, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767; image taken from www.thebingbanglife.com)

“(...) I then focused on the deep burn marks at the bottom of the frame, obviously made by votive candles, confirming that this was indeed a devotional picture. Just a few additional details resuted from close examination, not the least of which was that the picture was in impeccable condition, a rare thing when it comes to Trecento gold-ground pictures, as most works have suffered greatly over time, mostly I’m afraid at the hands of restorers.” (p.65, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna and Child, c.1290-1300; image taken from www.theopenacademy.com)

“But I am happy just to enjoy the expression on Adam’s face, so sweet, and the way he is holding the apple branch – it is not a fig leaf – with two fingers, as well as the foliage required to cover his nakedness. Dürer has so engagingly endowed his classically inspired figures with tender sensuality; and I love Eve, Venus-like with her pretty Nürnberg fräulein’s face. You see: no art history, just my own very personal response.” (p124, Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1507; image taken from www.pictify.com)

I don’t believe most people visit museums looking for an art history lesson on their panels and labels – or physics or music or any other discipline for that matter (some do, of course, and their needs are equally legitimate, but museums usually cater for them with various other means). People do not visit museums looking for someone to tell them what they should feel or think either, as defended by Alain de Botton in Art is Therapy (Rijksmuseum), where one finds labels such as this: "You suffer from fragility, guilt, a split personality, self disgust. You are probably a bit like this picture" (regarding Jan Steen's painting The Feast of Saint Nicholas). I think that most of us are first of all looking for something that can be meaningful to us, something that may delight us, surprise us, make us feel good or richer or more conscious of ourselves and of the world. Many of us are looking for stories, stories of other people, human beings we can connect to - either those depicted or those wishing to share their knowledge with us.

Deciding which story to tell is not an easy choice for a museum; writing it in a clear and concise way is equally difficult. But it is not impossible, as Montebello shows us in his book, where he abandons his ‘institutional self’ and manages to share his enormous knowledge as an art historian in a simple and human way that is meaningful and relevant for many more people. It is not impossible, as Paula Moura Pinheiro shows us every week in her TV programme “Visita Guiada” (Guided Tour), where we discover that curators and art experts in Portugal are fascinating people, able to share with us much more than the facts usually presented on labels and make us wish to know more, to visit the museum, to be able to see the object - or to go back and see it again, after what has been revealed to us).

It is possible. It is a question of choice and skill. It doesn’t lack scientific content and it communicates.


“I’m not sure I would be thrilled because I am so focused, so absorbed and captivated by the perfection of what is there; that my pleasure – and it is intense pleasure – is marvelling at what my eye sees, not some abstraction that, in a more art historical mode, I might conjure up. It’s like a book that you love and you simply don’t want to see the movie. You’ve already imagined the hero or the heroine in a certain way. In truth, with the yellow jasper lips, I have never really tried to imagine the missing parts.” (p.8, Fragment of a Queen’s Face, New Kingdom Period, c. 1353-1336 BC, Egypt; image taken from the Metropolitan Museum website)

More on this blog





More readings

Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford (2014), Rendez-vous with Art. Thames and Hudson









Monday, 2 March 2015

What have we got to do with this?

In the last 2-3 years, it has been a pleasure seeing the way museums have been marking Saint Valentine’s Day on their Facebook pages. From objects in their collections, to architectural elements to flowers in their gardens, they’ve made me smile, laugh out loud, look better, learn something new. In a simple, imaginative, humorous way, and from a distance, some cultural institutions have marked on my calendar a day I otherwise find rather uninteresting.


Not all cultural institutions mark this day. Some might be thinking that this is not a serious thing to do, that it is something frivolous, commercial, it doesn’t relate directly to their exhibition or theatre play or concert programme. It does relate to something else, though: life.

When hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, MoMA PS1 director, posted this on the museum’s Facebook page:


How did this relate to his museum? To the temporary exhibition? It didn’t. It related to something else, though: life.

In 2014, the year of the Mundial in Brazil, some cultural institutions presented exhibitions, organized events, made all sorts of references to football. Some might have hoped to lure followers among football fans. Others might simply have thought: this is also life, let’s celebrate it!


The Charlie Hebdo attack made me once again think of the role cultural institutions have in society and the capacity they have to relate to it. And also to put their theory into practice. Theory says that culture helps us to be humans, to be tolerant towards the ‘Other’, to live together, to learn from each other, to share and defend values, to think critically. When the cultural sector comes under attack, we use these same arguments to defend it and to defend the importance of what we do for the society. But when that same society laughs, cries, falls in love, feels in despair, celebrates, mourns... then we take some time (too much time, even) to consider whether it is appropriate for us to acknowledge it, to relate to it. Quite often, we remain quiet.


So, the morning after the Charlie Hebdo attack, I expressed my dismay at the fact that no Greek or Portuguese cultural institution had acknowledged the tragedy. A tragedy that related directly to most things culture stands for. Seconds after I published my post, the Onassis Cultural Centre published theirs. Later on, the Benaki Museum. Relief.... After that, some colleagues let me know of similar attitudes on behalf of the Museu Nacional da Imprensa or the Bordalo Pinheiro Museum. Some more cultural institutions followed. On the 9th of January, the Carmo Archaeological Museum was inviting us for a debate with cartoonists and academics. Relief.... Still, I am not aware of any large / national portuguese cultural institution acknowledging the events.



A friend wrote to me at that time and asked: “But which cultural institutions do you expect to react? All of them? The ones that somehow relate to what happened? (that would be, for instance, the Museo de la memoria e de los Derechos Humanos in Chile or the Museu Nacional da Imprensa in Portugal, wouldn´t it?) The French cultural institutions? Well, I don’t want to sound naive, but I would have liked to see reacting all the cultural institutions which claim to want to have a role in forming a better society; which claim to embrace and promote certain values; which claim to want to be relevant for people; which claim to want to be part of society and to help form responsible and critical citizens.

Let me clarify here that by “reaction” I don’t mean a hasty response to an incident or a superficial association to a celebration, without consideration for what the institution stands for and with the intention of using it for cheap public relations or simply for not being “left out”. People know opportunism when they see it and they don’t appreciate it... By “reaction” I mean the thoughtful, responsible, honest and coherent response of a cultural institution that is clear about its mission and about the role it wishes to play in people’s lives. And this does not only involve programming or educational activities. It involves being constantly aware of what is going on around us and the way it affects people's lives, so that, as a result of a defined and coherent policy of intervention, the institution may promptly give its contribution towards the kind of world it aims to help build.

What is relevant and what is not relevant for a cultural institution? Well, that’s probably not the question. The question is rather: what makes a cultural institution relevant? I recently gave a course, where we discussed the place and role of cultural institutions in the contemporary society. In the last part of the session, we did a practical exercise:

Please consider:

- The Charlie Hebdo attack
- Saint Valentine’s Day
- The natural disaster in Madeira in 2010
- The big anti-austerity demonstration in Portugal on 15 September 2013.

Would your institution react?
If yes, how?
If not, why not?

Anyone?


More readings:

Monday, 16 February 2015

Welcome, neo-cosmopolitans!

Photo: Adriano Vizoni/Folhapress (taken from Folha de S. Paulo)
"Black Presence" is an action promoted in São Paulo (Brazil) by black artists, writers and activists who visit exhibition openings in art galleries in group. They arrive one by one, they become numerous and attract the uncomfortable stares of other visitors. Because the presence of blacks (as artists and public) is not usual in these contexts. Not everyone agrees with these actions (as can be seen in the comments in the Folha de S. Paulo), but to me, this act of claiming by citizens caught my attention.

And it reminded me of another. At a conference last year, I heard Sylvain Denoncin, of the French company EO Guidage, tell the story of the Louvre - Lens. The museum was designed by Japanese architecture studio SANAA. The inhabitants of the city threatened to take the project to court if the new museum was not accessible. At that point, EO Guidage was called to intervene and remedy something that should have been thought from the first moment. In an exchange of views with a colleague on Facebook, we shared the same concern: how many generations for the citizens of this country to become more demanding in relation to access to the cultural offer of public cultural institutions?

These are two cases which raise once again the question of what is meant by "access to culture"; what culture professionals mean when they say "our doors are open" or "we are here for everyone"; the difference between the concepts of "democratization of culture" and "democratic culture".

John Holden has been quoted more than once on this blog, specifically his identification of the guardians of culture in the essay "Culture and Class" - the "cultural snobs" and the neo-mandarins (see references at the end of the text).

First point: we are still suffering from the mentality of the "cultural snob", which considers the cultural offer - certain cultural offer – to be only for the initiated. In what concerns the others – the non-initiated, the non-cultured - the option (defended less and less publicly, but present in the way we programme and communicate) is to exclude, there being nothing really one can do, since neither the family of these people nor the school had the capacity to educate them, to prepare them for this experience.

Second point: the neo-mandarins have changed the context created and defended by "cultural snobs", and have come to promote access, the democratization of culture. Although it is a different attitude, more open and inclusive, in practice it also reveals another kind of guardian. The neo-mandarins defend access, but they want to be the ones to define what is worth having access to and how. In more than one meeting lately, when the issue of "inclusion" was raised, the need for cultural spaces to be more representative of the societies in which they are inserted and more welcoming for the diverse people that make up this society, the answer varied little: it usually referred to initiatives of the education service, guided tours or shows which people attend as part of specific groups (people with disabilities, seniors, immigrants, children and adults living in social institutions, people from “underprivileged” backgrounds , etc.).

Third point: the emergence of the neo-cosmopolitans in the cultural sector, willing to give up their role as guardian and to truly open the doors for a greater collaboration and involvement of "outsiders", for making the cultural offer more representative and relevant, has also come to change this relationship with people and the way they perceive and gain ownership of cultural institutions. The goal of the neo-cosmopolitans is to move towards a more democratic culture.

In order for change to occur, the contribution of various agents is required. I will concentrate on two of them: the associations representing the groups of people referred above; and the professionals of the cultural sector.

Undoubtedly, we need to have more participative citizens, who know their rights, who ask for what’s theirs, who want to have a say on cultural institutions and access to the cultural offer. The role of associations representing certain groups of citizens is crucial here, because their voice is sometimes stronger and more respected. These associations must promote and defend the rights of their members, should intervene whenever necessary, should take into good consideration the solutions they propose and those they accept. A few months ago, an actor who would represent in a municipal theater reacted negatively to the presence of sign language interpreters in front of the stage. The theater sought alternatives and asked the Federation of the Associations of the Deaf what they thought of the solution to broadcast the play in another room, from which deaf viewers could follow the performance. The Federation considered the solution to be acceptable. It was not. No solution that discriminates against citizens and their right of access to culture is acceptable and associations should be the first to defend it.

However, there must also be a movement from within. A movement that allows to counteract snobbish attitudes; a movement that allows neo-mandarins to develop and to become neo-cosmopolitans. I believe that we will not have more demanding citizens if we have snobbish cultural professionals, professionals only prepared to repeat past recipes, without questioning them, without thinking about the next step: promoting inclusion in the medium and long term.

Citizens need to feel and see in practice that there is a different mentality on the part of the professionals, a mindset that seeks to foster the relationship with people, many people, not just the initiated, and create space for this relationship to exist and to grow, to be real and lasting. We will be more inclusive if citizens, in all their diversity, feel that the programming of public cultural institutions is relevant to them; if they feel represented and the representation entails an increased involvement; if communication is developed with a view to getting accross to them, to engage in a dialogue using a language understood by all; if our action does not promote access to the cultural offer by maintaining people in segregated groups, but by taking steps every day so that people can co-exist in the same space, enjoy the same offer. If culture professionals fail to convince people of their honest intentions to foster this relationship and to work towards a democratic culture, the offer (not culture) will continue irrelevant, and therefore non-existent, for them.










Essays by John Holden:





Monday, 5 January 2015

To take 'no' for an answer

The Acropolis Museum (Photo: Maria Vlachou)
When I was last at the Acropolis Museum and while taking some photos in the sculptures gallery, I was approached by a guard who kindly informed me that I couldn´t take photos in that room and also quickly informed me of the  areas where I could take photos. No explanation was given to me as to why that distinction was made. When a bit later I took a photo of a label (not an exhibit, a label), another guard saw me and made sure to inform her colleagues that I should be watched. She also followed my every step...

All this being very uncomfortable for me – and, I am sure, for the guards too -, I took the opportunity of questioning an archaeologist who was in the room in order to answer visitors’ questions. She explained to me that some of the statues preserve their original colours, that flash could be harmful, and that, as it’s not possible for the guards to control the use of flash, the museum thought better to totally prohibit photography. I thought that I took her by surprise when I asked why the museum doesn’t actually assume its educational role and explain to visitors why flash mustn’t be used, instead of totally prohibiting photography in certain rooms (most digital cameras don’t need flash) and creating such an ambiguous policy regarding photography in the museum.

It was not something I invented at that moment. It occurred to me that, a couple of years ago, in the Workt by Hand exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum – composed of extremely fragile quilts, made in the last two centuries - the museum had chosen not to show the objects behind glass or surrounded by rope and at a distance. So, when entering the room, the visitor was asked to 

Brooklyn Museum (Photo: Maria Vlachou)
Some people might be thinking that this is a different culture, a more respectful one, but it is not the case. The Brooklyn Museum opens its doors to all sorts of visitors, with and without the habit of visiting museums, with and without specific knowledge regarding the objects and their preservation. It assumes its educational role, though, and doesn´t simply expect visitors to take ‘no’ for an answer, just because the museum said so, without further explanation.

Little after my visit to the Acropolis Museum, I read an article in the Guardian about the fundamental role of ushers in theatres, especially regarding disruptive audiences. In the article, we are given the example of Stratford East Theatre, where ushers and front-of-house staff are trained to deal with such situations. And more: at a theatre which has “a particularly high number of first-time theatregoers, who sometimes need to be helped to understand what effect their behaviour is having, not just on other audience members but also on ushers and cast members”, the management chooses to invite them back “for backstage and front-of-house tours and maybe even to meet staff and casts, so that they can understand more about how a theatre works and how their behaviour impacts others”.

I believe it is part of the educational role of cultural institutions to help people better understand the details of the work that is being undertaken, but also their own role – the spectators’ and visitors’ role – so that it may be carried out in appropriate conditions for everyone involved. I believe it can be much more effective than simply saying ‘no’ to a certain behaviour or asking people to leave and it can also make them feel co-owners of and co-responsible for that work.


More on this blog:

Say click!
Please define danger