The museum sector also has to look at itself in terms of its own inclusiveness in its ability to make people feel welcome. I am beginning to rename going to an exhibition in the U.K. as “posh people have discovered colonialism” Too many exhibitions in museums are patronising, badly told, badly thought out narratives by people who appeared to
find out yesterday the Empire and white male supremacy wasn’t always a good thing.
The recent Post Impressionist exhibition (for all its many great features) at the National Gallery in London and the disastrous rehang at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, a place whose intended audience appears to be people with a joint degrees in critical theory and art history but the IQ of inebriated toddlers, are two examples I have recently witnessed.
The sector would do well to visit Germany and see how difficult stories are told while
not assuming the audience is as shocked as the curators, nor as stupid as many U.K. curators seem to believe.
Thanks for offering your thoughts, really interesting and I think you definitely speak to an important point: what do people actually want to see or get out of a museum visit. I think museums often struggle to meet multiple needs and lean too far in one sort of direction. Interesting about the Hunterian in haven't visited but now am pushing it up my list to see what they have done
This reminds me a complaint on Nextdoor, "Why are they fixing the sidewalk when there are potholes in the street?"
It's simple: there are different budgets for different agencies. There isn't one pot of money where the government constantly has to ask itself, "Let's see: shall we give this money to the Olympics program, or the National Gallery?"
This way they don't have to constantly re-litigate "whose mission is more important?" They each have a pot of money to spend, and it's theirs to spend on their mission. The relative importance is already decided when the money is allocated annually.
good point! and of course multiple organisations and groups are going to think they are more deserving. As you say, perhaps the argument should be why the UK government is not giving the Culture + Sport Department more money full stop?
The museum sector also has to look at itself in terms of its own inclusiveness in its ability to make people feel welcome. I am beginning to rename going to an exhibition in the U.K. as “posh people have discovered colonialism” Too many exhibitions in museums are patronising, badly told, badly thought out narratives by people who appeared to
find out yesterday the Empire and white male supremacy wasn’t always a good thing.
The recent Post Impressionist exhibition (for all its many great features) at the National Gallery in London and the disastrous rehang at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, a place whose intended audience appears to be people with a joint degrees in critical theory and art history but the IQ of inebriated toddlers, are two examples I have recently witnessed.
The sector would do well to visit Germany and see how difficult stories are told while
not assuming the audience is as shocked as the curators, nor as stupid as many U.K. curators seem to believe.
Thanks for offering your thoughts, really interesting and I think you definitely speak to an important point: what do people actually want to see or get out of a museum visit. I think museums often struggle to meet multiple needs and lean too far in one sort of direction. Interesting about the Hunterian in haven't visited but now am pushing it up my list to see what they have done
This reminds me a complaint on Nextdoor, "Why are they fixing the sidewalk when there are potholes in the street?"
It's simple: there are different budgets for different agencies. There isn't one pot of money where the government constantly has to ask itself, "Let's see: shall we give this money to the Olympics program, or the National Gallery?"
This way they don't have to constantly re-litigate "whose mission is more important?" They each have a pot of money to spend, and it's theirs to spend on their mission. The relative importance is already decided when the money is allocated annually.
good point! and of course multiple organisations and groups are going to think they are more deserving. As you say, perhaps the argument should be why the UK government is not giving the Culture + Sport Department more money full stop?