The hidden art worth millions could change our perception of museums.
Recently, I suggested to one of my daughters we visit our local art gallery. It is a contemporary space in a former tea warehouse that bows to no one in its commitment to the bleeding edge. Her reply was emphatic: she had never understood the purpose or meaning of any exhibition she had seen there.
The response, to which I was secretly sympathetic, prompted me to ask friends if they ever ventured there. The replies were uniform, ranging, at the polite end, from “incomprehensible” to “meretricious”. It set me wondering why a publicly, lottery and philanthropically funded institution was unable or unwilling to ignite the enthusiasm of the people – reasonably intelligent, reasonably cultured – one would assume to be its target market.
It begged a wider question: what is the purpose of a museum or public gallery, if not to encourage people to enter? Traditionally it was to educate, to inspire and to enthral, and to extend the consciousness or horizon of the visitor. The permanent collection in a gallery is to an artist as a library is to a writer: a place to practice, to make mistakes, to learn; to become the artist you could be.
A museum is a mecca of self-improvement. The TV philosopher Alain de Botton suggested that, in a secular age, they have replaced churches as places of “contemplation, meaning, sanctuary and redemption”. If this is hyperbolic (redemption, anyone?), de Botton understands galleries and museums help people to understand who they are. He also appreciates they must “serve the needs of modern psychology as they once did theology”.
“The unholy alliance between
art and money stretches back to the Medici”
In order to understand their purpose, museums and galleries must know how to measure success. Is it the critical success of the shows, the P&L, the number of schoolchildren who attend? There has been a shift in focus. Where once they were feted for the quality of their collections, today there is Hollywood-style talk of visitor records and summer blockbusters. It is hardly surprising. As funding is cut, they need to find new means of support – the unholy alliance between art and money stretches back to the Medici – but this has only increased the importance of big shows and philanthropists.
