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I work part-time at an art gallery (not a museum) with 300 pieces from 300 artists, on two floors. The typical visitor walks through, looking but not stopping,

I work part-time at an art gallery (not a museum) with 300 pieces from 300 artists, on two floors. The typical visitor walks through, looking but not stopping, often not bothering with upstairs. It's rare for anyone to take more than 20 minutes.

BobaFloutist 1y ago
I will say, the quality of exhibition in even the biggest most popular art museums is pretty poor. The number of times a glare on the glass obscured the work, or I've walked through a room completely befuddled about what I'm looking at until finally on my way out discovering that I entered from the "wrong" direction and they intended that I take one very specific weird meandering path through the halls, and I get no info until the end of an exhibit otherwise, is ridiculous. On top of that, I feel like I get some history and analysis per artist or per period when what I really want is per work, explaining how they painted it, what they were thinking about or referring to (since art is almost always part of a conversation), and what's notable about that specific work. I'd also probably like fewer pieces from a given artist in a row and just have more a collection of contemporaries that drew inspiration from each other in a sequence so I can see how techniques and vocabularies developed, rather than "Here's the artist room. He was very famous and used a lot of color. We have access to these for a month, so take a good look." It's weird just how much better science museums are at exhibit building. Please, art museums, crib their notes!
prmoustache 1y ago
Problem is most museums are visited by tourists which by the time they reach the museum already have sore feets from strolling around the city and can't stand comfortably more than a couple seconds. There are a few museums that put benches which allows to actually take the time to enjoy watching a piece but there is always someone who decides to stand in front of you. I also which a normal entry fee would allows you to comeback several times in a period. I don't have the stamina to contemplate 300 art pieces in a row. Can I watch 300 movies in the same day or can I even listen to 300 music records while giving them my full attention in a day? Nope.

BobaFloutist 1y ago

I will say, the quality of exhibition in even the biggest most popular art museums is pretty poor. The number of times a glare on the glass obscured the work, or I've walked through a room completely befuddled about what I'm looking at until finally on my way out discovering that I entered from the "wrong" direction and they intended that I take one very specific weird meandering path through the halls, and I get no info until the end of an exhibit otherwise, is ridiculous. On top of that, I feel like I get some history and analysis per artist or per period when what I really want is per work, explaining how they painted it, what they were thinking about or referring to (since art is almost always part of a conversation), and what's notable about that specific work. I'd also probably like fewer pieces from a given artist in a row and just have more a collection of contemporaries that drew inspiration from each other in a sequence so I can see how techniques and vocabularies developed, rather than "Here's the artist room. He was very famous and used a lot of color. We have access to these for a month, so take a good look." It's weird just how much better science museums are at exhibit building. Please, art museums, crib their notes!

prmoustache 1y ago

Problem is most museums are visited by tourists which by the time they reach the museum already have sore feets from strolling around the city and can't stand comfortably more than a couple seconds. There are a few museums that put benches which allows to actually take the time to enjoy watching a piece but there is always someone who decides to stand in front of you. I also which a normal entry fee would allows you to comeback several times in a period. I don't have the stamina to contemplate 300 art pieces in a row. Can I watch 300 movies in the same day or can I even listen to 300 music records while giving them my full attention in a day? Nope.