By David Henry
This article was published in Museum News November/December 2004.
To walk into an American museum today is a significantly different experience than it was just a decade ago. Today, an equal amount of attention is given to the experience of visitors as to the works of art. Educators contributed much to this transformation by introducing new audio, visual, and digital media to interpret works of art; shorter, more general labels combined with reading rooms; and introducing a range of voices, young and old, to serve as interpreters. The impersonal, all-knowing museum voice is now just one of many, and visitors are encouraged to personalize their museum experience.
One of the most important contributions made by educators has been the commissioning of artists as collaborators in the engagement of audiences. Historically, with little voice in museum operations, artists and educators worked together in museum basements that often looked more like makeshift studios. With heightened visibility and real funds behind them, educational projects with artists have brought a new sense of vitality and wonder to museums.
Most literature on the relationship of artists to museums places artists in a reactive mode, either gaining inspiration, borrowing methodology, or taking a critical stance toward museum practice. Little has been written about collaborations between artists and educators outside of case studies of individual projects or reports to funders. Even more problematic in recent years, as these activities have gained visibility in museums, criticism has been leveled at artist/museum education collaborations as being merely “politically correct” attempts at multiculturalism that fatally compromise artistic integrity.
The art world has a prejudice in acknowledging and evaluating art work that has an educational or community concern. The artwork is assumed to be compromised, of less quality, and not even to be acknowledged. Throughout history, art was always at the service of something—the king, religion. It is only with industrialization, when art was separated from the utilitarian that a notion arose that art could be pure. Suddenly, art has become divorced from use in our daily life.—Ernesto Pujol, artist¹
During my 25-year career in art museums, I have been involved in many educational collaborations with artists. I have seen the power of these endeavors result in educational experiences, audience development, community building, and yes, dynamic, accomplished works of art.
Artists, Museums, and Communities: A New Hybrid
Collaborations between artists and museums take many forms. Sculptors, graphic designers, architects, and painters transform museum spaces into interactive learning environments often related to a particular exhibition or group of art works. Dancers, musicians, and playwrights create and perform new works inspired by art in the galleries. Filmmakers work with particular communities to capture their reactions to art. Artists are commissioned to design gallery guides, write interpretive materials, participate in audio tours, and develop curriculum materials for teachers.
Of all the collaborative forms between artists and art museums, artist residencies undertaken with specific audience/education goals stand alone in their ability to transform museums and connect with audiences. By engaging an artist over an extended period of time, a museum opens itself to a point of view that too often has been missing in the administrative corridors, thus threatening the hegemony of art history as the only lens through which art can be understood. Museums too often treat artworks as timeless masterpieces whose meanings are fixed. But in commissioning the making of new art, a museum connects its audience to a core truth of all art: it is made by people. Each piece of art in a museum’s collection was made by an artist living in and negotiating the world. Artists help us connect to the human qualities inherent in art.
In addition to challenging the “way things are done” in museums, artist residencies can offer road maps to change. Often taking place outside the museum in libraries, schools, community centers, social service agencies, and neighborhoods, these hybrid education/artist projects present unique opportunities for museums to extend their missions and develop richer relationships throughout their communities.
As with all collaborations there is much to be considered before the partners sign on to a project.
Over the course of this [collaboration], numerous questions arose about power sharing, whether one is a teacher or a learner or both, and what the chosen community gains from the collaborative process. The answers are a process of negotiation.—Indira Freitas Johnson, artist²
The Community
What does the community get out of this? It’s not about that. It is about the greater good in ourselves. . . . It is not what I am giving to the community, but what the community gives to me. —David Wayne McGee, painter³
In a three-way partnership, the community partner has much to gain, including a creative outlet, visibility, education, a new way of seeing itself, connections to others inside and outside the community, a chance to get to know living artists and to see how they work, engagement with a museum and its collections, and, not least of all, beautification and the enlivening of community spaces.
In a true collaboration, the community contributes to the most crucial components of any art project: content and perspective. To ask a community to participate in such a project requires both artist and museum to relinquish some of their authority. As Indira Johnson states, there is constant negotiation. By working closely with communities that have not traditionally been involved with the arts, museums and artists respond directly to the concerns of a particular group of people. The community provides a sort of reality check demanding that the artist and museum speak to those outside the art world.
Communities involved in partnerships with artists must take an active role. Both museum and community have to recognize that the artistic process is not always predictable and must trust the other partners. This can be very hard for communities that have been ignored by art institutions and have had little contact with contemporary visual artists. Community partners may have a very different notion of art than either artist or museum. They must be encouraged to honestly communicate their interests and needs and the resources they are willing to share while remaining open to new forms of art. And they must demand the same from museums and artists.
The Museum
For years museums acted as though they did not need to actively engage diverse audiences and artists. But they found out that artists and communities didn’t necessarily “need” them either and had to face the real threat of losing relevance. To reconnect, museums have had to find more ways to share their unique assets—perhaps the greatest of which stem from their focus on big ideas. Collaborating with a museum, whether as artist or community participant, encourages one to consider his or her situation in a more global and historical context.
Their commitment to all audiences makes museums safe spaces where people of different experiences can come together. Because museums have high visibility and a broad base of support, they can generate resources that would be hard for the other partners to equal. Perhaps most important, museums give legitimacy to artist/community projects. Artists and the public alike respect museums for their standards of excellence and educational missions.
The Artist
An artist who collaborates with a museum is taking the greatest risk. The artist must give material expression to a project that is not defined by him or her alone and do so in a way that will impart the experiences of the other participants to an unconnected audience. This is what artists do—give material expression to human experience. But in a true collaboration, the artist’s experience becomes just one of many.
Artists have to balance a number of sometimes competing interests. They must align the museum’s institutional practices and educational goals with the realities of the community partners. The community often needs to be energized and organized. The artist’s personality and communication skills go a long way toward determining the project’s success. If artists are to earn the trust of their collaborators, they must be good listeners. Finally, artists’ reputations are on the line. Whether or not the other collaborators hold up their part of the bargain, at the end there will be a work of art with an artist’s name on it.
Artists who engage audiences that are new to the visual arts are greatly undervalued in contemporary society. My own participation in such residencies has broadened my understanding of art and altered my goals as an educator. For instance, it was only by working with a sculptor that I came to understand the intensely physical nature of art in its creation and perception. And with that understanding it became an imperative for me, as an educator, to help museum visitors experience this physicality.
Just as artists can help a museum take a good hard look at itself, so, too, can artists serve as a mirror for a community. With this honest reflection comes insight, and museums and communities can move from an abstract, impersonal appreciation of each other to deeper, richer human relationships.
We are all on some level aware of the diverse realities that exist within our urban landscapes and have our own ideas as to who lives where and how. I see my role as a navigator, not as a bridge-builder between communities. At best, I can offer observations based on my experience.—Rebecca Belmore, artist4
Through community-based residencies, artists serve as ambassadors for a museum. They can open the doors to people’s homes, shops, and places of worship to illuminate interests, cultural values, and artistic practices. It is through the personal relationships developed in these settings that museums finally and truly become part of their communities. Because of my participation in artist/museum/community collaborations, I have developed friendships with people across the fault lines of race, class, and geography that tend to define our communities.
Artists also can bring non-linguistic means of understanding works of art. One particularly successful example was a project by the painter David Wayne McGee at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.5 He replaced a number of historical portraits in the permanent collection galleries with portraits he made of people at a local library. His paintings mimicked the original works by posing the sitters in the same positions and in similar clothes as in the historic paintings. Rather than providing an art historical treatise on portrait painting, McGee’s paintings caused visitors to make their own observations and think about painting techniques, style, and the politics of memorializing through portraiture. The museum’s reliance on text to share information about objects on display conveys the message that you need to know a great deal to understand art and that the appreciation of art is a linguistic rather than aesthetic experience. McGee’s project gave visitors from a wide range of backgrounds and educational levels nonverbal tools for looking at and understanding art.
Finally we should not overlook the impact of artists’ personalities. Accomplished artists have dedicated themselves to a unique life’s work and people have an endless curiosity about them. In today’s world most people do not know practicing professional artists and what they hear can be weird and misleading. The chance to meet real artists in one’s own neighborhood is all too rare. If my experience is telling, people feel this loss in their lives. While some may argue that our cult of celebrity can make an artist residency more spectacle than art, much is gained when artists move from media caricature to flesh and blood.6 As museums take an inventory of resources that might be useful to their communities, they should not forget their access to artists.
Questioning Artistic Integrity
Readers may wonder at this point why artist/museum/ community collaborations have not become the dominant activity of today’s art museums. But there are some serious questions and criticisms of these projects.
Can hybrid projects such as those suggested here be successful if the resultant artwork is not? Even a project that attains its educational goals may not be completely successful. As purveyors of excellence in art, museums have the responsibility to choose the best artists and educators for their programs. Collaboration is not appropriate for every artist. Collaborations that have educational and audience objectives are appropriate for even fewer. Fortunately, today there are a number of excellent artists committed to art and education. If a museum chooses an artist it trusts and whose work it admires, places that artist in a situation where he or she can be successful, and provides the necessary support, the museum will not be disappointed.
I felt that my role as a teacher was just as artistic as my role as an artist, and vice-versa. . . . I really don’t think one can be successful exclusively as an educator or an artist.
—Wendy Ewald, photographer7
I’m more of a humanist than an artist.—Pepón Osorio, installation artist8
By now we know that definitions of quality in art are suspiciously arbitrary. To relegate these projects as “nice but not serious art” or to a “B-list as Ernesto Pujol worries is unfair.9 A work commissioned with educational goals is no more compromised than a work commissioned to encouraged reflection in a chapel. Specific audience objectives did not impede the creation of a transcendent work on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Where does the bias against art made with educational goals come from? At times museum educators have approached artist/community collaborations with missionary zeal, empty pockets, and perhaps the self-fulfilling fear that these are marginal artistic endeavors. This can lead to working with less accomplished artists and giving the educational/audience goals greater priority than the artistic goals. Mark Rothko and Maya Lin both had sufficient resources and enlightened sponsors who made it possible for them to realize their visions. Artists involved in community-based projects must be encouraged by their museum sponsors to strive for excellence in both art and education.
The blurring of authorship is equally problematic. Does incorporating the community’s voice mean including art by the community or attributing joint ownership to an artist’s work? Without a doubt, there has been much bad art made in the name of education. The “feel good” nature of these projects can make it hard for critics and curators to assess them; it is easier to ignore them.
We don’t know what we are going to get when we commission artists and we must accept that as part of the artistic process. Still, some of my most memorable “art experiences” have evolved out of collaborative projects. Artists who can create compelling art in which engagement with others is integral to the work deserve critical attention. Museum educators need to stress the artistic agendas in these projects and cooperate with curators and other colleagues to identify the best artists available, generate sufficient funding, and give the projects the publicity they deserve.
Conclusion
Art museums are not about art alone. We are about the relationship of art and people. While we must manage our collections with professionalism we also must tend to our civic responsibilities. We cannot be concerned only with the artifacts from past cultures, we must also contribute to the living cultures in our communities. For too many of us, art has been segregated—in school curricula, on hard-to-find cable channels, on page 15 of the weekly entertainment section of your local paper—or exiled—to New York City, to academia, or to museums. While it may not be the responsibility of museums to change the world, it is their responsibility to see that their communities value art.
Collaborations between museums, artists, and communities can change those involved. Are these changes measurable? Are they predictable? Probably not. But I know that my own goals as a museum educator have been altered. I know how these projects have profoundly influenced the work of individual artists. And I have seen first hand, in public and private spaces, the life they have breathed into communities.
People hunger for connections.
People want to share their stories.
People need to reflect on their own lives.
People desire more beauty.
This is what artists provide. This is what museums provide.
References
1. Interview with the artist, July 18, 2002.
2. Interview with the artist, Aug. 16, 2002.
3. RISD Museum Exhibition Notes #16, winter 2001.
4. RISD Museum Exhibition Notes #11, summer 2000.
5. 15 Minutes: The Ballad of Then and Now at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. 2001-2002.
6. See “Issues in Museum-Based Artist Residencies” by Ernesto Pujol in Art Journal, summer 2001.
7. RISD Museum Exhibition Notes #17, summer 2002.
8. Interview with the artist, July 17, 2002.
9. See reference #1.
David Henry, former head of education at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, is now director of programs at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston.
