Audiences — big audiences — are on everyone’s mind in the museum world, way too often, and way too much, if you ask me. Sure, they count for something, but striving for a huge gate with exhibitions about cars (too many to mention), and jewelry (ditto), and pop culture (e.g., Here Come the Brides at the Newark Museum a few years ago), and nine months of King Tut artifacts (as at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco, and as if a four-month tour of this questionable show were not enough!) isn’t, in my opinion, the way to cultivate a culture of museum-goers.
So I was delighted this morning when I opened my You’ve Cott Mail to find that Thomas Cott had linked to a blog post by management expert Seth Godin titled “Driveby culture and the endless search for wow.”
Godin talks about impact of the Internet, saying that
We’re creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not).
Imagine if people went to the theatre or the movies and stood up and walked out after the first six seconds. Imagine if people went to the senior prom and bailed on their date three seconds after the car pulled away from the curb.
A bit later, he continues:
My fear is that the endless search for wow further coarsens our culture at the same time it encourages marketers to get ever more shallow. That’s where the first trend comes in… the artists, idea merchants and marketers that are having the most success are ignoring those that would rubberneck and drive on, focusing instead on cadres of fans that matter. Fans that will give permission, fans that will return tomorrow, fans that will spread the word to others that can also take action.
He doesn’t make the specific connection to museums and other arts institutions, but I do. They should want “fans that will return tomorrow” and again next month and the months thereafter. And become members, of course.
The expansionism of the last two decades is pushing many museums in the wrong direction, toward more audience and less real art.
As Godin points out, the kind of audience matters, too. The worse part of all this is that what he says is far from new. It simply needs repeating. His post is here.