“They’ve dumbed it down,” is one of the worst accusations that anyone can throw in the museum and arts world.
Levelled at a new gallery, a redisplay or temporary exhibition, the charge implies crass unprofessionalism. Accuracy and authority, depth and sophistication must surely have been sacrificed in a frantic and grubby pursuit of visitor numbers.
Perhaps in fear of such judgement, some organisations now seem to be dumbing up instead, producing interpretation written in wilfully obscure, jargon-laced language. This is not because the text contains complex ideas too fiendish for us mortals to grasp.
It is either because the writer has not worked hard enough to express their thoughts clearly, or, I would suggest, because they feel they will be open to complaints of dumbing-down if they write text that anyone can easily understand.
In her book The Interpretation Matters Handbook: Artspeak Revisited, writer Dany Louise tackles the forces of deliberate obscurity in art interpretation.
She brings together the views of artists, curators, commentators, academics, gallery directors and owners, revealing the complex power play that often surrounds exhibition text writing.
The result, intended to provoke debate rather than provide how-to guidance, is a thoughtful tour of the factors that can make or break good copy.
For many of the artists Louise has interviewed, text is very important. Artist Emily Speed says: “There are a lot of details I want people to know about... text can be really vital to give people that extra depth.”
Another artist, Alistair Gentry, hopes that text will start conversations, asking: “Isn’t art for other people, not just for ourselves?” Curators also value interpretation. “I want to take the reader with me on a journey into the artist’s mind,” says Omar Kholeif, a curator at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London.
Gerardo Mosquera, who co-founded the Havana Biennial, says: “You need to communicate through wall text or labels... art has become very specialised and you have to know so many references to understand it thoroughly.”
But writing that text can be a battle. Louise rails against unnecessary art jargon and nonsense-speak, citing an exhibition that claimed the artist’s “creative act of dissolution combines stillness and the intimation of motion, leading us to the very edge of identifiable form and playfully subverting minimalist concerns”.
Paradoxically, when text is dumbed up, it says much less – and the problem is not, of course, confined to the arts.
In a new natural history museum, I saw an introductory panel that read: “Reptiles are amniotes, a group of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) which use a membrane called the amnion to protect their developing embryos.”
So, how can we encourage better interpretation in the arts? As the book suggests, the environments in which curators train must be one of the important factors.
I was dismayed that the article by module leaders in an art gallery and museum studies master’s course suggested “whom do we write for?” as a key question.
While I agree heartily with its sentiment, its strange format seems like an attempt to turn a simple question into an artificially academic- sounding phrase.
And this problem runs throughout the art industry. When Louise looks at the world biennial scene, she finds that some organisers of these events deliberately write in a dense and semi-academic way in pursuit of status and credibility.
Ideas are shrouded in pretentious language in order to bolster an artist’s perceived value. And the effect is that a lot of this art text ends up screaming “take me seriously”,
to use Louise’s phrase.
It is up to those in the commercial art world to decide whether or not to break that particular spell. But in the realm of public galleries, surely visitors can expect better.
Our institutions hold rich collections of objects and artworks that deserve expert study, exploration and display. The most confident curators and writers will communicate in a way that attracts more of us to share in that wealth of knowledge and ideas, rather than cloaking it with mystery.
Rebecca Mileham is an interpretation consultant and writing trainer with Text Workshop
Levelled at a new gallery, a redisplay or temporary exhibition, the charge implies crass unprofessionalism. Accuracy and authority, depth and sophistication must surely have been sacrificed in a frantic and grubby pursuit of visitor numbers.
Perhaps in fear of such judgement, some organisations now seem to be dumbing up instead, producing interpretation written in wilfully obscure, jargon-laced language. This is not because the text contains complex ideas too fiendish for us mortals to grasp.
It is either because the writer has not worked hard enough to express their thoughts clearly, or, I would suggest, because they feel they will be open to complaints of dumbing-down if they write text that anyone can easily understand.
In her book The Interpretation Matters Handbook: Artspeak Revisited, writer Dany Louise tackles the forces of deliberate obscurity in art interpretation.
She brings together the views of artists, curators, commentators, academics, gallery directors and owners, revealing the complex power play that often surrounds exhibition text writing.
The result, intended to provoke debate rather than provide how-to guidance, is a thoughtful tour of the factors that can make or break good copy.
For many of the artists Louise has interviewed, text is very important. Artist Emily Speed says: “There are a lot of details I want people to know about... text can be really vital to give people that extra depth.”
Another artist, Alistair Gentry, hopes that text will start conversations, asking: “Isn’t art for other people, not just for ourselves?” Curators also value interpretation. “I want to take the reader with me on a journey into the artist’s mind,” says Omar Kholeif, a curator at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London.
Gerardo Mosquera, who co-founded the Havana Biennial, says: “You need to communicate through wall text or labels... art has become very specialised and you have to know so many references to understand it thoroughly.”
But writing that text can be a battle. Louise rails against unnecessary art jargon and nonsense-speak, citing an exhibition that claimed the artist’s “creative act of dissolution combines stillness and the intimation of motion, leading us to the very edge of identifiable form and playfully subverting minimalist concerns”.
Paradoxically, when text is dumbed up, it says much less – and the problem is not, of course, confined to the arts.
In a new natural history museum, I saw an introductory panel that read: “Reptiles are amniotes, a group of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) which use a membrane called the amnion to protect their developing embryos.”
So, how can we encourage better interpretation in the arts? As the book suggests, the environments in which curators train must be one of the important factors.
I was dismayed that the article by module leaders in an art gallery and museum studies master’s course suggested “whom do we write for?” as a key question.
While I agree heartily with its sentiment, its strange format seems like an attempt to turn a simple question into an artificially academic- sounding phrase.
And this problem runs throughout the art industry. When Louise looks at the world biennial scene, she finds that some organisers of these events deliberately write in a dense and semi-academic way in pursuit of status and credibility.
Ideas are shrouded in pretentious language in order to bolster an artist’s perceived value. And the effect is that a lot of this art text ends up screaming “take me seriously”,
to use Louise’s phrase.
It is up to those in the commercial art world to decide whether or not to break that particular spell. But in the realm of public galleries, surely visitors can expect better.
Our institutions hold rich collections of objects and artworks that deserve expert study, exploration and display. The most confident curators and writers will communicate in a way that attracts more of us to share in that wealth of knowledge and ideas, rather than cloaking it with mystery.
Rebecca Mileham is an interpretation consultant and writing trainer with Text Workshop
