Even if No sleep till... used a guitar hook, maybe 50's rock photos should be considered outside the normal populist crap for NY. I know that the white hipsters listen to... whatever the hell that is, but if you had put together an early hip hop photography show, I think it would have done better and fewer competing institutions could say that they got there first.
Essentializing the Brooklyn audience aside, museums are always brooding about what to put up 2 years before we get to make fun of them. Look to the successful shows from this article and you'd probably not want to drop your money and schedule a show about religion in contemporary art or the Indian highway system if you are hemorrhaging viewers. You might alienate someone.
But the thing is, that if the NYT numbers are correct, you are reaching 2.4 times the number of viewers over all and 2.3 times the numbers daily with Leibovitz and Mueck (love to see the numbers separately for each artist, but oh well) than you are with RnR photography exhibit. Also, as Robert Storr says, the audience of the unholy combination of Leivovitz and Mueck is more likely to return to see art, than some rock bros or mid-life crisis boomers are to return to see Kiki Smith or the upcoming Warhol.
You have to keep your museum focused on something but there is space for being open to wide programing. I love old fashioned encyclopedic institutions like the MFA Boston or Philadelphia Museum of Art. The MFA can afford to have a popular show of Egyptian artifacts as it doesn't get in the way of them having a Dürer, Harry Callahan, Toulouse-Lautrec, and a show about the women in Firdawsi's Shahnama simultaneously. Philly had up mediocre Picasso show, but was balanced with a Bruce Nauman installation and Jennifer Levonian, Martha Colburn, Joshua Mosley's work.
You have to keep your popular but questionable shows balanced with your quietly worthy shows.
I'd ask Brooklyn to consider their mission statement:
The mission of the Brooklyn Museum is to act as a bridge between the rich artistic heritage of world cultures, as embodied in its collections, and the unique experience of each visitor. Dedicated to the primacy of the visitor experience, committed to excellence in every aspect of its collections and programs, and drawing on both new and traditional tools of communication, interpretation, and presentation, the Museum aims to serve its diverse public as a dynamic, innovative, and welcoming center for learning through the visual arts.
Can you make it less generic? You might do better then.
No comments:
Post a Comment