December 1st, 2008 | SEE Blog:
Is it possible that what disturbs me about the phenomenon of cell phone photos in museums is related inextricably to consumer attitudes we find in our theaters on both sides of the footlights? In the theater, high box offices prices contribute to the sense of ownership and entitlement on the part of the audience and the subservience assumed by the artists. The audience buys a product. If the product does not meet their approval and/or expectations, these consumers feel righteous in leaving with alacrity and noise. After all, they have bought this right and attitude towards the product. And we artists feel that we are serving up merchandise rather than sharing a process.
What disturbs me on both counts, in theaters and in museums, are the consumer attitudes adapted in relation to the art experience. In the theater, the attitude of righteous ownership deprives the audience of the potential for immediate encounter with the unfamiliar. In the museum, the act of taking cell phone photographs distances the viewer from any dangerous direct communion with a work of art. Perhaps the impulse to take these photos is an attempt by the viewers not only to distance themselves from the potential danger and violence of the present moment but also it allows them to store the experience for a safer moment in an uncertain future.
The playwright Alan Bennett wrote in his diary after seeing a Vermeer exhibit in Delft: “I have a sense of vertigo, though, in the presence of great paintings, as when standing on a cliff and feeling oneself pulled to the edge.”
I do not imagine that Alan Bennett arrived at the exhibit equipped with a cell phone camera. Why take a cell phone photo of a work of art except to make the object smaller, more controllable and less threatening? The action of taking a photo of an artwork stimulates the feeling that you are the owner and master and that it will keep you from being pulled to the edge or knocked off balance.
3:02 PM
Dilettante Archives