Participatory Art and Museum Exhibitions

Is there a downside to making more museums and cultural institutions more interactive?

I thought the NY Times article we read by Judith Dobrzynski this week was particularly thought-provoking. While it is clear that she doesn’t exactly approve of the experiential-culture trend and she put forth some good arguments for traditional museum exhibits, it took me some thinking to figure out why I couldn’t wholeheartedly agree with her.

I definitely agree that in the last decade, there has been a huge increase in popularity for “experiences,” as Dobrzynski states. However, I think there’s a huge difference between participatory museum exhibits as described by Nina Simon in The Participatory Museum, experiential art, and experience-focused businesses. 

Obviously, businesses are trying to make money. People want to buy experiences these days, so business are scrambling to come up with experiences they can sell people. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is when artists adapt art to be more “sellable” to the public because it’s popular right now. I think the subtext of Dobrzynski’s article—what she really wants to say but cannot come right out and say—is that she thinks experiential art is not “real” art.

I can see why she might think this. Is building a transparent slide between a 4th floor gallery and the 2nd floor that visitors can slide down really art? Is sitting in a room across from a silent artist really art?

Here’s what I think: I think that when Marcel Duchamp put a urinal on a wall, most people thought that it wasn’t art and couldn’t believe what this world was coming to. When Phillip Glass wrote a piece of music that was nothing but several minutes of silence, people thought that was certainly not music. When Mozart wrote The Magic Flute, it was performed in a rowdy vaudeville theater because it wasn’t considered real art. When Michelangelo painting his figures with bulging muscles and rounded forms, people thought it was blasphemous.

So for museums, I think that there is a place for all sorts of museum experiences. Participatory museum experiences will bring in a certain type of patron while traditional exhibits will bring in another. Or the same person can enjoy traditional exhibits in one museum and participatory ones in another. The downside to any one interactive exhibit is that it will turn off some people. This is the same downside that traditional exhibits have, so in the end, I think there are only upsides to having a wide range of experiences available in many different museums.