Page 51 - Studio International - May June 1975

buildings or erected piecemeal) present the issue in a pure way throughout so it
is hard to judge the force of this observation, but the rule generally works at least
in parts of buildings. For example, many Italian museums, where collections are
rarely systematic, are well suited to the adapted palaces and monasteries in which
they are so often housed. Treasures are given star status by the architecture as
well as a suitable historical mood. Conversely it is often in the sequences of
uniform lateral rooms and in the more banal galleries of the late nineteenth and
twentieth centuries that the tendency to chronology appears more strongly.
The ingenuity and didactic urge of curators is limited by one obvious physical
characteristic which distinguishes most paintings from many other kinds of
museum object, namely that they must be hung on a wall, not against the light,
or even directly opposite it. A picture gallery is therefore essentially an
arrangement not of spaces but of permanent or temporary wall surfaces. It is
this as much as any consideration of security which gives rise to the notorious
prison or fortress-like character of the buildings. The ideological opening up of
urban galleries to invite the public in (as in the new wing of the Stedelijk) has
proved self-defeating.
In practice the majority of art galleries are laid out in a series of rooms where
the walls constitute a kind of maze. Even if there is an unambiguous route from
room to room, the public is presented with a difficulty which may seem trivial
but which I think must affect the way they consider or react to what they find
and is an example of the problems posed. A room may well be a rectangle with a
door at the centre of each short side. Entering at one end a visitor has to choose
how to proceed. By sitting on a seat in the centre you can easily discern several
patterns of behaviour.
1) The visitor who walks straight through with hardly a glance about him.
2) The visitor who examines virtually every picture in turn clockwise or
anti-clockwise and who, having made the circuit and therefore having
finished close to where he began, has to walk across again and out into the
next room.
3) The same, except that, having looked at the first two or three pictures, he
skips one and then skips another. This visitor is likely to leave by the first
door he comes to, missing half of the works on view.
4) The visitor who takes a look around and then picks his way from one work
to another for his own reasons (this pattern seems to arise more frequently
in the case of a small group of two or three people who are discussing what
they see).
5) The visitor who seems to be looking for a specific work or sensation.
My impression is that while i and 3 are very common, 2 is rarer and 4 and 5
very rare. It seems to me clear that most people tend to treat any museum as a
linear museum while curators treat each room as a unit.
Studies have shown that in America the works most likely to be looked at are
on the right as you enter the room (left in England ?) or in certain other
favoured positions such as opposite the entry, in the middle of a wall, etc. Guide to the National Gallery
Naturally the size of the work and certain internal factors like the subject, London 1972.
affect this also. My impression is that sculpture, alas, whether in the middle or Broadly chronological but without easily
near the walls, is more often treated as an obstacle than a work of art to be looked defined circuit.
at. The average time given to works of art to which attention is paid varies
inversely with the number in the room but is nearly always short — typically a
few seconds. It does not seem possible that this can be sufficient for the visitor to A fine art museum is a tomb, not an
discern what the artist has done unless this is something quite familiar to him. amusement centre, and any disturbance of
The manner of circulation therefore does not often seem to correspond with the its soundlessness, timelessness, airlessness and
carefully considered room ensembles that the curator creates, so it is unlikely that lifelessness is a disrespect, and is in many
these are discerned at all clearly. Visitors speaking about their experience in places, punishable. The idea that art or an art
a gallery rarely show that they have noticed any order (although of course they museum enriches life or fosters a love of life or
may simply not think it worth mentioning). They are clearly affected, on the promotes understanding and love among men
other hand, by groupings which they can name, such as Impressionists, is as mindless in the East as in the West. Anyone
Surrealists, or Pre-Raphaelites. In fact, the rate at which galleries are consumed who speaks of using art to further domestic or
suggests that the visitor may be seeking a generalized art experience or even a international relations is out of his mind.
specifically museum experience and that the individual works of art are, for the Ad Reinhardt
most part, merely incidents in the whole — looked at long enough only for the
visitor to confirm his existing notions or predilections. It may be that while the
function of much of the best art has been to change people, an important role
may still remain in the elaboration of or confirmation of existing values.
I feel that curators should consider these questions more deeply and attempt
to evaluate the effectiveness as well as the purpose of what they do. At the When I began studying art I used museums
moment there is hardly a rudimentary basis for such an evaluation, but this has very much, and my fixed idea of museums as
not prevented people from dogmatic assertions. These range from places of the dead and places of study comes
pronouncements that any additional information, including that which is mutely from that time.
communicated by juxtaposition and sequence, get in the way of the work of art, Nowadays, I am comparatively indifferent
to the view that the work of art can be replaced by a reproduction in the middle to museums. The occasional hostile remarks I
of documents which will set forth the socio-economic background from which make about museums serve to emphasize the
it came. It is even believed that the latter approach would win over a working- problem of keeping a work in life, active and
class audience and that it is the former that ties us to the bourgeosie! This view useful, resisting as long as possible the
appears to me ludicrous although there are clearly social factors involved. The historical-critical suction. Or I criticize the
frequent visitor to an art museum is not so much of the bourgeoisie as the tendency of museums to lose their dignity. I
highly educated. In spite of the commoness of the assertion that the art gallery believe museums should be austere and dignified,
is irrelevant to the life of working-class people no-one knows what it is about art and packed with experts completely in love with
or about museums that makes this so or why a particular work has a general art and detached from everything else.
appeal. Certainly not because it expresses in an unambiguous way the values Claes Oldenburg

199