More Museum Musing
TAoN No. 172: Revisiting advice for reinventing the museum visit. Plus a new Missing Word, and more.
My post the other day on Get the Picture author Bianca Bosker’s museum-visit advice reminded friend of TAoN Austin Kleon of some of his museum advice. For example: drawing some of the art you’re looking at. He writes:
I always visit a museum with a pocket notebook and a pencil or two with me. (Many museums don’t let you use pen or marker in the galleries.) I stand and I copy the art I like, often just swiping a detail here and there from different pieces.
It’s a subscriber post but if you’re among Austin’s paid subscribers, more here. Or get a quick version of his advice — plus his thoughts about how a museum visit can jolt your creative urges — in this short video he made for the Blanton. Recommended!
All this advice reminded me of the time I got to lead a tour through the Dallas Museum of Art — deploying some of the tips and advice on museum visits from The Art of Noticing book. I wrote about that tour at the time — but that was when this newsletter had a much smaller audience (I was still using Tinyletter!), so I hope you won’t mind if I repeat some of that old post here.
This tour was unusual for several reasons. One was a partial emphasis on noticing things other than the art. Also notable: the fact that I knew almost nothing about the DMA collection, and in fact could barely find my way around the actual space. But The Art of Noticing includes a set of museum-specific unconventional attention strategies, and the idea was to try a few. I was excited (=scared) to learn how they worked in practice.
There were 32 people on the walk, and my voice had to be amplified through a speaker on a cart wheeled and maneuvered by the heroic DMA intern Valerie Chang. I was, frankly, terrified! During the hour or so I had spent familiarizing myself with the space, I kept getting lost. How could this work?
It worked. I made everyone look out windows; peer over balconies and imagine stories about other patrons; look up instead of at the art; listen for and even record the museum’s unique sounds; and seek out flaws like scuffed walls and dust.
On a couple of occasions I declared objects such as a curiously located chair to be works of art. I read to the group from a Wikipedia entry about why one museum donor’s collection was displayed in such a distinct manner.
And we played “Buy, Burn, Steal,” a game borrowed from the terrific folks at Museum Hack. (More on that below.)
As I recall, we also asked museum guards about their favorite works.
The whole thing was a real leap of faith on the part of all concerned, and it wouldn’t have worked without help from Valerie, as well as a veteran docent who happened to be on the tour and actually knew her way around the space. And, of course, a really game group of tour participants.
But I knew the experiment was working when at one point we all had to pile into a big elevator car — and everyone started critiquing the way it looked and felt! Before I could say anything somebody observed aloud:
“Once you start paying attention this way, you notice all kinds of things.”
Exactly! It was in the end an incredibly gratifying experience.
Thinking back on this, I dug up the tour sheet that we distributed that day, as well as a DMA blog entry that spelled out some ideas partly inspired by the book, and overlapping somewhat with ideas I used on the tour. Here are some highlights from that post, mixed in with items from the tour sheet:
PLAY “BUY, BURN, OR STEAL”
Challenge yourself to examine all the works in a particular space and decide which of the artworks you’d be willing to buy, which one you despise so much you’d like to burn it, and which one you love so much you’d steal it. (Concept courtesy of Museum Hack.)
STUDY EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE ART: A museum is a space carefully designed to direct your attention; while here, devote some time to studying what is not intentionally “on display.”
LOOK FOR FLAWS: A sense of reverence we feel towards museums is a big part of the design of them to direct your attention. Challenge that
CONSIDER THE GUARDS: What they’re wearing, their expressions, what they’re looking at. (Don’t be rude about this, just open.)
PAY ATTENTION TO THE NAMES OF DONORS: You’ll encounter various displays thanking specific donors and patrons, as well as the names given to individual galleries and halls within the museum. Research these people
STUDY THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER MUSEUMGOERS: Discretely observe other people and, somewhat secondarily, their relationship to displayed works. Some categories could be “People Reading Captions” and “People Wearing Outfits that Subtly Match Artworks.” Invent your own categories.
LISTEN TO WHAT OTHER PATRONS SAY TO ONE ANOTHER OR WHAT THE STAFF SAYS TO THEM
CONDUCT AN UNRELATED ACTIVITY
Maybe it’s worth playfully accepting the notion of a museum as mere background, an environment we inhabit incidentally, as we do other spaces. At the DMA, we suggest walking and meditating. Come up with your own suitable physical and mental health regimens.
MAKE IT ART
Grant yourself the superpower of making “art” wherever you go, and see how that changes what you perceive. Art is everywhere, if you say so.
In retrospect, I’m kind of amazed that the DMA let me lead a tour that included looking out windows, searching for flaws, declaring random stuff to be works of art, and otherwise focusing attention on the “wrong” things. It was so much fun!
If I ever do it again, I’m definitely adding Bosker’s idea to extend a museum visit to include one more thing outside the museum — and maybe even push a step beyond that, riffing on Austin’s thinking, to include some creative activity when you get home.
Feel free to add your museumgoing practices in the comments.
My reiterated thanks to all involved in that DMA tour, and in particular to the wonderful Carolyn Bess.
PS: Want me devise an unconventional tour of your museum or other space or place, or give a talk or workshop with a similarly curious vibe? Get in touch!
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THE NEXT FREE EDITION IN TWO WEEKS
Dictionary of Missing Words is an exercise in paying attention to phenomena you encounter — sensations, concepts, states between states, feelings, slippery things — that could be named, but don’t seem to be. More here and here.
This week’s missing word is from me:
The vaguely uncertain feeling the first time you use, out loud, the proper pronunciation of a word that you had comfortably mispronounced for many years, until someone finally corrected you.
Describe your Missing Words in the comments, or send them to my email below.
IN OTHER NEWS
NYT Q&A with novelist and friend of TAoN Jami Attenberg, who writes the popular Craft Talk newsletter.
Completely fascinating collection of past U.S. military uniform experiments with unknown purposes or motives, gathered into a book by a photo editor. NYT gift link.
Museum guards discuss their favorite art works. NYT gift link.
The opposite of declaring something to be art? Art mistaken for trash.
Interview with Don Norman.
The “I Couldn’t Vote” sticker.
People Standing in Front of Danzig’s House (volume 1). Via BoingBoing.
Excellent Max Thalmann woodcuts.
New Orleans’ nine most endangered sites of 2024.
Reminder: The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has published a book of 20 of my columns for them on cities and technology. City Tech is for an audience interested in urban policy and planning, so if you or someone you know might be into it, more here.
Eyebombing, from Rubi. A laughing matter.
OKAY THAT’S IT!
As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.
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And thanks for reading …
rw
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All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032. Send me mail!
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In only the week since I discovered TAoN, Rob, it has truly enhanced my experience of being alive.
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PS: I love how generous you are in referring your readers to other people's blogs and websites.
Oh man I love the idea of asking museum guards about their favorites. I could devote a whole newsletter to this!