"Art is special." "Science is for everyone." "Art is serious." "Science is fun!" Why are these messages so different? museumtwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-do…

In science centers, we try to combat the notion that science is complex work for a limited, rarified few. So we focus on the idea that “you can be a scientist” and that “science is fun.” Do these democratizing messages prevent us from pursuing interesting ways to present the extraordinary genius of some scientists and the incredible complexity and repetition of scientific work?

In art museums, we try to combat the notion that art is something your child can do, and if you like it, it’s art. So we focus on the idea that “artists are special” and that “art is complicated.” Do these elitist messages prevent us from exploring useful ways to honor the creativity in everyone and the simple pleasures of aesthetics?

—Nina Simon

It’s hard for me to emphasize exactly how much I love this blogpost. I’ve long been somewhat frustrated by the way that art and science is presented in the museum context. If anything though, I think the problem is that most museums seem to have one specific viewer in mind when they put together they’re programming.

Science museums are almost always aimed at kids or people who don’t really know science. This isn’t a dumbing-down issue, it’s great to focus on education. Education is a combination of “this is how to understand what’s on display” and “if this is interesting to you, you can do it too.” Which is great for kids and a fantastic way to jump right into the displays. The problem is that that there’s typically no alternative presentation available. It’d be fantastic to be able to go to a science museum and take the tour for people who have college degrees in mechanical engineering. Unfortunately, those sorts of tours aren’t available.

The best experience I’ve had at a science museum in this regard was at the Computer History Museum. My guess is that this was because the Computer History Museum caters to people who already know about the field and can count on non-experts being accompanied by a geek who is more than willing to serve as a tour guide.

As a result, science museums become places you take your kids—and which you avoid unless you want to deal with kids. Which is a shame. The idea that we stop learning science once we graduate from high school doesn’t help anyone.

The one positive though is that most science museums include a heavy local focus. Even if it’s at a gradeschool level, I still try and visit science museums wherever I go so I can learn about local history—whether it’s the geohistory of the region, whatever natural phenomena occur locally, or what kinds of fish populate the area’s waterways.* The science is still basic but I can use it to extract the story (and myths) of the area.

*Natural history museums, science museums, and aquariums are almost always partially-local. Zoos, not so much.

Science museums also typically do a good job at explaining process. Part of the “you can be a scientist” thing is selling the myth of work and dedication by explaining how a scientific breakthrough doesn’t come out of thin air. Instead it comes as a result of hard work and comes out of a lot of surrounding context. When science museums show science, this process is as much of the exhibit as everything else.

Art museums though are almost the exact opposite. Across the board. They’re hard to take kids to since there’s rarely an entry point. They’re not just about “artists are exceptional,” they also tend to require a background in art history just so you don’t feel inadequate.  And many of them don’t even focus on the local.

There’s also a tendency to push, and for museumgoers to succumb to, the idea that “this art is important, therefore you should like it.” Which is complete crap and only furthers the idea that you have to know before you go. In the same way that the museum shouldn’t assume you’re a neophyte, you shouldn’t have to be an expert before visiting either.

Most art museums don’t even provide any background on the artistic process. Sometimes you can get context from the exhibition. But you very rarely see on display information explaining how an object was crafted. SFMOMA occasionally provides ephemera to go with important exhibitions but on a per-piece level, the only museum I’ve seen really explain craft is the Fogg Museum in Harvard* which showed—right next to the objects—xrays revealing the underpainting, displays about the composition of the pigments, and diagrams detailing the different composition of stone sculptures.

*Which I saw over a decade ago so I have no idea if it’s still like this.

I’d love for museums, both art and science, to have multiple tracks for different educational or interest levels among their guests. I’d also love for them to explain how everything is made and what its function or application is. And what context, both historical and in the related field, the object or concept on display comes out of.

I wish all museums could be locally relevant and both educate locals on their history as well as enlighten tourists on what is locally distinct.

And every museum should strive to inspire all visitors to take up and participate in the concepts on display. “Anyone can do this” does not have to be inherently patronizing. If it were, photography wouldn’t be nearly as popular as it is today.

Along with Friedlander, the Cantor Center is showing a selection of Richard Misrach’s Cancer Alley photographs. It’s not the full collection but it’s enough. I only discovered Misrach last year at the Oakland Museum. At that show, looking through the rest of his work, I found that I really liked him.

Misrach’s work isn’t exactly ruin porn but definitely dances around with and touches on some of the what makes ruin porn appealing. What keeps it from being ruin porn is that it’s making a point and capturing more than just the “this is old and looks cool” esthetic. The Cancer Alley photos take this a step further to the point where it’s no longer clear what’s been ruined. There’s a balance between the man-made and the natural—are we ruining nature or is nature reclaiming and adapting to our developments.

The photos are also huge (over 4 feet by 5 feet). Some are prints from 8×10 film, others are prints from digital images. If you look you can see the difference. But it doesn’t really matter much. For almost all the images, I found myself—and noticed the people around me doing the same—constantly leaning in to look at details, stepping back, looking in again at the wall text, stepping back again.

At some point for each image, something would click for everyone and I’d hear that quick intake of breath through pursed lips. Sometimes it would be a detail in the photo while other times it would be the context on the walls which caused the reaction. Whatever the cause was, we would all gesture our museum partner over and point out what we’d noticed and felt. I can’t think of another exhibition which was quite like this in this regard.

The wall text in particular makes a huge difference in understanding the images. As do the Petrochemical America infographics. As impressive as the photos are by themselves, it’s impossible to understand how everything—the ecology of the area and our global consumption of petrochemicals—fits together without this information. The infographics are all well done. Clear in making their point and cleanly referencing the photos in the process. They only add to our understanding of things.

The main understanding being exactly how much petrochemicals are entwined in our lives. It’s tempting to look at these photos as being a red state problem,* but we’re all consuming the results and demanding the cheap prices. We all want cheap clothes, fuel, and food. So we all bear some responsibility.

*That Burtynsky is documenting the same thing in China shows that it’s a worldwide thing.

Despite all this, and as tempting as it is to be depressed by this kind of thing, that’s not the sense I got from the show. If anything, there’s a sense of “is this the world we want to keep living in” rather than, “we’re screwed.” The photos are still beautiful even though they contain so much ugliness. They’re just not showing us pristine idealized nature. This is nature after we’ve messed with it. But nature is still surviving and we can change our habits.

My wife likes to take photos from the car while someone else is driving. I can see the appeal. While shooting from the car does not result in a good keeper percentage, I’ve found that I really enjoy taking her photos and trying to find something workable in them. Sometimes this is through Photoshop. More recently it’s been processing them via the Flickr app on her iPhone.

So @cavetocanvas did an AP Art History studyguide over the weekend. I decided to keep track of the photography items. manyfacepalms.tumblr.com/tagged/ap

Eadweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion, 1878

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936

Diane Arbus, Child with Toy Hand Grenade, 1962

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (“I shop therefore I am”) 1987

Note, that's merely an observation of how photography appears to fit into the art-literacy canon and isn't a critique of @cavetocanvas.

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

@vossbrink I hope not! I tried to pick pieces that represented movements rather than subject matter- I agree photography is underrepresented

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Cave to Canvas (@cavetocanvas) May 07, 2013

@cavetocanvas What strikes me is how photography often seems to be presented as being distinct from the rest of art history.

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

@cavetocanvas But yeah, I don't disagree with any of your choices. I'm working on a reaction post though on how it all fits with the canon.

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

@vossbrink Putting together that guide over 2 days really brought it home for me how homogeneous the Art Historical canon is.

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Cave to Canvas (@cavetocanvas) May 07, 2013

@cavetocanvas No kidding. While I can't argue with what's there, I did get a very strong "this is why people don't like art" reaction.

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

@cavetocanvas It's not a reaction to art, it's a reaction to the canon. And how it doesn't really resonate with a heterogenous society.

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

.@vossbrink To me it also signifies a problem with the APAH class in general - we need to change what's actually being taught/tested.

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Cave to Canvas (@cavetocanvas) May 07, 2013

@cavetocanvas Proposal: APAH to become "things to know when you encounter Fernando Botero's work"

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nick (@vossbrink) May 07, 2013

This was interesting from both a photography point of view and a general art history point of view.

Art history-wise, the canon is homogenous and full of jargon. A lot of the questions and things you’re supposed to know are, quite frankly, boring and don’t do anything to encourage the appreciation of art. This is very sad.

I’m not enough of a generalist to comment more here, however as someone who likes modern art and photography, I find photography’s role in that canon to be particularly interesting. In every modern art museum I’ve visited, photography is always kept in its own discreet section, partitioned off and away from the rest of the works on display. It’s not relegated to an inferior status, just that it’s kept distinct from the general trends of the time.

I’ve never understood the distinction. Especially when you have artists like Jay Defeo, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Robert Bechtle, and Andy Warhol whose work includes, references, or converses with photography. I enjoy modern art and I particularly like when photography exists in context with what everyone else is doing. In all media. But this rarely happens.

Which means that I was actually somewhat surprised to see any photography get posted. And as I noted, I don’t disagree with any of these photographs being on the “photos you must know” list. All six are hugely important to both to art and to photography.

At the same time, just looking from a photography point of view, there are a lot of things missing. No landscapes. No views of the city. No still-lifes. No patterns or textures. No color studies.

No non-American photographers* and no non-white photographers.**

*Very surprising considering who’s in the canon of photography history.

**Not surprising at all as this fits in with the rest of the Art History Canon.

It is nice to see though that there were twice as many women as men. Unlike the rest of Art History, there are a lot of female photographers who have been accepted by the establishment. At the same time, yeah, yet another grouping which suggests that female photographers only take photos of people.

This weekend, I went to the Cantor Center to see photos by Misrach and Friedlander. I’m still mentally working through Misrach. Friedlander is easier to just start writing about.

The Cray photographs are an intriguing project. How often does a company hire a notable documentary/street art photographer to make what is essentially a vanity publication?* This could have ended up as a forgettable disaster, instead it turned out to be a good fit for both parties.

*I also can’t help but think of it in terms of the trend toward wedding photojournalism. 

It’s interesting. I’ve never been a huge Friedlander fan. I appreciate his humor and approach to things, I just haven’t ever been truly grabbed by his photos. At the same time, I’m reaching the conclusion that, in many ways, he’s probably the perfect photographer to really see and learn from. His approach to places and people is the kind of thing which makes fantastic advice for any new photographer.

The Cray project was a logical extension of Friedlander’s past street photography and his scenes of people hard at work in factories and data-entry centers. It includes a range of subjects shot in Friedlander’s characteristic style: sober images of shop fronts and empty streets, views of the landscape and underbrush surrounding Chippewa Falls and close-up shots of workers.

—Cantor Center

Especially his approach to people. I found something incredibly honest about how Friedlander photographs people while they’re working. The photos aren’t posed and many of the subjects are intensely focused on the tasks at hand—to the point where they’re making the kinds of faces that no one likes to see in a photo. Yet despite this, the photos don’t come off as grotesque or mean-spirited.

Treading this fine line is tough. It’s much easier to go either for humor or for something posed (or semi-posed). Instead of going for the easy or the obvious, we have something tough and honest. There’s a strong sense about how much work is involved and how much the employees care about the work at hand. This isn’t dehumanizing assembly line work, each Cray is a massive hand-constructed supercomputer. The collected photos of the workers is much more than just a photo album.

In many of the Cray photographs, he focused on the women performing fine-motor tasks such as installing the complex wiring inside a massive supercomputer. Interestingly, Cray founder Seymour Cray selected these women for their dexterity and talent in weaving and other fabric crafts.

—Cantor Center

It’s also notable how many women are in the photos. At first it seems almost like an intentional politically-correct approach to photography. But it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the case. Friedlander’s directness works well here. We’re still not used to women working in high tech yet we’re also super-sensitive to tokenism in propaganda pieces. Friedlander shows us that the women are there because they’re the best people for the job at hand. And it’s obvious that they’re working.

His photos of the surrounding area are also nice to see. In my mind’s eye,* I have a tendency to think of high-tech companies as existing in Lewis Baltz industrial parkscapes. Chippewa is not like this. The small town setting and natural surroundings don’t seem like a high-tech location. And there’s no agenda with these photos either. No sense of “despite this small town look, supercomputers are being built” or “this way of life is going to change as the future comes here.” It just is what it is and serves as a reminder to not find an agenda or a story where none exists.

The photos of Chippewa are also interesting in that they remind us of Silicon Valley’s roots as well. The traffic gods made sure that I understood this. The road I chose to take to Stanford was closed and my detour took me past PARC and Tesla as I wound through the Palo Alto hills.

Despite our tendency to think of Silicon Valley as industrial parks filled with Arrillaga tilt-ups, there is still a lot of open space here—even in the heart of things.

It’s nice to see these photos in the Bay Area and it’s good to know that they’ll have a permanent home at Stanford. Cray is not a local company* but is still part of our industry. It would be nice if the Cantor Center and the Computer History Museum* can get together and show the photos along with an actual Cray supercomputer.

*Though it did eventually become SGI.

Memorial Park. Cupertino, CA. December 2012.

In color.

And some context.

Stereotyping the 3rd World. #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

Exoticizing Non Whites #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

Travelling Far From Home #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

Copying the Masters #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

Updating our Artist Statements #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 24, 2013

Objectifying the Indigent #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

Gazing at Our Navels #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 24, 2013

And I think this is about it for this concept.

Clearly the internet needs a "Flak Photo Online Exhibition Title Generator." (Gerund + Broad Genre Category)

Capturing People's Souls #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Yes, that was black and white portraits only.

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Recording Documents #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 23, 2013

Exploring Urban Decay #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Remembering My Childhood #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Viewing Cities #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 23, 2013

Playing With Cats #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Actually, I suspect that a Flak Photo exhibition of cat photos would be pretty kick ass.

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Carefully Lighting Famous People #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 23, 2013

Creeping on Pretty Girls #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Eating My Food #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Opening Boxes #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Comparing Sharpness #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Fetishizing Archaic Processes #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Using Red Filters on Cloudy Skies #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 23, 2013

Magnifying Flowers #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator

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nick (@vossbrink) April 23, 2013

Tastefulizing Nudes #FlakPhotoOnlineExhibitionTitleGenerator #yesiknowthatsnotaverb #...yet

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Nick (@kukkurovaca) April 23, 2013

Joking around because the previous Flak Photo exhibition was Looking at the Land and the next is Making Pictures of People.

To be clear, this is about how a lot of photography seems to cover the same topics over and over again. I stopped once I found myself ending up totally rehashing [internet photographer] jokes again.

Stanford University from The Dish. January 2013.

Roble. Stanford University. January 2013.

Two photos taken just seconds apart by John Tlumacki of the Boston Globe. The first reads as determined heroic action. The second as confusion. Yet different media outlets are using both of these photos somewhat interchangeably as the iconic image of the day.

An uncropped wide view of the first shot shows both the heroism and the confusion. I think this is a better photo. Colors, framing, and mood are all perfect. At the same time, I can see why this view isn’t getting circulated as much. It’s a bit too complicated to be the “iconic” image. We like our icons to have clear messages.

Interestingly, there’s an even wider view of this exact same scene. Also by a Boston Globe photographer. From almost the same angle too, just further away. In fact, David Ryan’s photo is at almost exactly the same instant as Tlumacki’s first photo.* This photo, while not having any of the iconic punch of the other photos, is also being used a lot as a standard image for the day too. There’s less emotion in it but it sets the scene.

*You can even see Tlumacki in this photo. The officers are in almost the exact same pose and position. 

So consider this a reminder to look carefully and note the differences in these photos before they all blur together. Especially in how the meaning and message of the photo changes depending on the cropping. In a decade, we’ll have conflated the different views into one image in our minds the same way we did for the four different  Tank Man photos.

I wonder whether we’ll choose to remember this image and this day as being defined by heroism or confusion.

NOTE: I originally posted this on Tumblr but it’s worth reblogging and reworking it here.