Selected Entry 23:
Museums as Editorials:
Having touched on this before, I want to make more defined statements about the role of museums in shaping the dialogue of art and art theory. It’s an uncomfortable concept; the idea that museums attempt to shape your perception in one particular way. It’s my (possibly idealistic) perception that museums are meant to facilitate a space without making a predetermined judgement. Three exhibitions have occurred that are excellent examples of museums as editorials. I don’t know how I feel about them now, but I have to consider why they are different from the normal intentions of museum/gallery spaces.
· “Girls on the Verge” The Art Institute of Chicago
· “The More Things Change” The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
· “Crime and Punishment” Musee’ dOrsay
These exhibitions hold a strong editorial comment on culture. “Girls on the Verge” is a comment on the brief existence of girlhood in the world, as their culture strongly compels them to grow up physically and mentally. “The More Things Change” is an editorial on the “important and significant” movements within the last ten years of art. The MoMA did a similar exhibition, but prefaced that their exhibition would feature a few of many moments in art history over the decade. SFMOMA made no such claim. And Crime and Punishment is a history of torture and death in France, stemming from the recent vote to abolish the death penalty.
How does this relate to aesthetics? In Dr Greenman’s lecture, he asks us specific questions: “What do we want from aesthetic theory?” “What is significant about aesthetic theory?”
It is possible that its easier for an artist to answer those questions than an exhibition designer. But if I were pressed, I would say what I want out of aesthetic theory, and what is significant about aesthetic theory is… the questions.
What are the ethics of an objective space using an exhibition to raise their own questions about society?
I don’t know. It makes me think of the Degenerate Art Exhibitions; a space that one is invited to that has a pre-determined stigma, which it bewitches you into believing. It’s dangerous.
If patrons are robbed of their objective space… what do they have to count on?
Selected Entry 24:
The Personal is Political
The exhibition “The Personal is Political” from the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in California is one of many that one could choose when discussing the fallacy of my previous entry. Women artists, and feminist art appear every year in the 24 museums I’ve followed in the 6 year timeline. I could have referenced Adrian Piper. I could have referenced three of our lectures over this term.
Exhibiting artwork in any way is an editorial, I suppose. Feminism, and female artists are receiving more exhibition space now than every before. The more time and space that is given to female artists is another editorial on the culture of the feminine.
I am of two minds on the subject. My objective side is not interested in gender, but would rather see the strongest work regardless of sex. My subjective side cannot deny that perhaps the great transformation that has occurred in the last six years has much to do with female artists, and female curators (which have comprised of about 40 percent of my featured exhibitions).
If I’m ever smart enough, or good enough, to make any comment on art I would be surprised if the comment WASN’T something that was personal to me. If I ever manage to design exhibitions, perhaps I’ll look back on this log and remind myself
the personal is always political.
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