The following editorial article about museum fatigue comes from August 7 Monocle Minute e-newsletter (Aside: they provide a refreshing worldly perspective on news with a cultural bent and avoid giving a mouthpiece to bombastic political leaders).
The core point deals with the compulsive nature of human beings to “get their money’s worth,” or “to see everything,“ or in today’s lingo -avoid the curse of FOMO=Fear of Missing Out. As a result you can’t avoid suffering from museum fatigue. Author Tom Vanderbilt discusses a large art museum but perspectives are relevant for any heritage site or centre that contains so many potential interactions that single visits become exhausting & mind numbing (so many trails, so many must see objects, so many animal exhibits, so many rooms, so many garden landscapes…).
Do you feel overwhelmed-compelled to take it all in -can you focus and select? or move on?
Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
It got me thinking about interpretive and pricing options to better allow a positive experience that can counter this mindset. I will give you a chance to read the article first. I will share some of my thoughts after. Enjoy!
Got a case of museum fatigue? Here’s how to experience art properly By Tom Vanderbilt
Art critic Kenneth Clark once admitted that he could enjoy a “pure aesthetic sensation” no longer than he could the scent of an orange – less than two minutes. Now picture one of the world’s big art museums, an almost unending succession of aesthetic pleasures. That’s a lot of oranges.
It’s little wonder, then, that researchers have been studying “museum fatigue” since the early 20th century. Looking at paintings is pleasurable but it’s also hard physical and cognitive work. Imagine a visitor on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Louvre, wanting to “take it all in”. Faced with such abundance, most people act like contestants on the old game show Supermarket Sweep, grabbing as much as they can in what little time they have. A curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art found that people looked at individual paintings for 17 seconds each on average. Researcher Stephen Bitgood notes that we ruthlessly try to “maximise utility” in museums; people, for instance, won’t walk back to an area that they’ve already seen.
Play to the gallery: Try enjoying a game on your next museum visit
A recent spell touring several artistic treasure houses in Europe had me thinking about how to experience museums in the most engaging and pleasurable way. The first step is to admit that you won’t see anything remotely approaching the full collection – nor should you try. In his book All the Beauty in the World, former museum guard Patrick Bringley notes, “If you think of The Met’s Old Master wing as a village, it has almost 9,000 painted inhabitants.” Why would you think that you could get to know more than the tiniest fraction in a day?
Rather than a one-and-done “bucket-list” experience, museums should be treated like gyms for the mind and body, more than the soul – places that you regularly return to for upkeep. When I lived in Madrid, I would duck into the Museo del Prado (then free to enter) between appointments to look at two or three paintings (often Velázquez’s bewitching masterwork, “Las Meninas”), then return to the outside world, my mind at once activated and stilled.
But if you find your attention or spirit flagging, there are games to play. I tend to enter a room and sit. As museum expert Kenneth Hudson once asked, “Don’t we generally take things in better sitting down?” I will glance around the room, choosing one painting that calls to me. Without looking at the wall text, I’ll try to understand as much as I can about it – who painted it, the period, what the title might be. Then I’ll compare my guesswork with the curator’s information. Alternatively, economist Tyler Cowen has another strategy. “When you go through each room, ask yourself which picture you would take home (if you could take just one) and why,” he says. “This forces you to keep thinking critically about what you are seeing.”
More important than what to see is what not to see. Rather than grimly trying to absorb everything in a slog of appreciation, allow yourself the freedom to bypass works, even entire collections, until your level of interest has risen. Always leave yourself wanting more orange.
From August 7 Monocle Minute e-newsletter.
Image courtesy Bill Reynolds Which exhibit wall do you choose to wander down?
Quandary: How do we give people permission to slow down and feel it is ok to see highlights pertinent to them, and provide opportunities to return (not only physically). If museums were free to visit this compulsion to see it all at one time would be alleviated. If you bought a multiday/ weekly pass at a reasonable price that would curtail the urge to time splurge all in one day too, perhaps. Visitor type plays in here because if you are not a resident you do not have the option to easily return.
It seems to me that your visit time should relate to the price paid. If you want a short gallery hit or want to see something specific then a full day admission should be discounted. How about a timed ticket upon entry and you pay on the way out based on when you leave? Any bluesky ideas out there you want to share?
In addition, interpreters should provide more self-guided, time-viable options for visitors to choose from, based on various adventurous ways to link artwork across genres, countries, and chronologies. Pathways would be mapped out for visitors that they could follow, and if they get sidetracked so be it, but they are starting with a framework of their choosing.
One organizing way could be a range of artists’ response to certain emotions or states of mind or life situations. How about a riff on “A rose is a rose is a rose…” is it if seen through various different eyes? Substitute rose for a variety of other items. How about artistic perspectives on motherhood or fatherhood or …?