The Hirshhorn Museum sent me an email a while back that boggles the mind. It was an invitation to buy tickets to the Apr. 29 “After Hours” event, running from 8 p.m. to midnight. The picture looks, to me, more like a rave than anything to do with art, but that’s not the topic I’m taking up here. It’s not even the high ticket price of $18.
What’s most bothersome about this invitation is the statement about members: “Members get in free and have access to VIP area.”
You can see that line for yourself in the picture at left.
“A VIP area”? At a public museum, an arm of the Smithsonian Institution?
For years, museum officials have been droning on about the need to dispel the notion that art museums are elitist. To me, it’s more of a museum image problem than anything real: some people think that they have to dress up, have a college diploma, or have other so-called elite attributes to feel welcome. Mostly, that’s pure fantasy — or an excuse.
And now, the Hirshhorn — no doubt in an effort to raise money (the lowest level of membership costs $100 to $249 a year ) — is creating a VIP lounge within an already questionable activity? After Hours seems to involve gallery tours as well as “music and live performances on the plaza.” Guess which is the draw?
As a subsequent press release said:
From his infamous dance parties (RAW, MIXTAPE) to his guest spots at numerous DC nightlife events, audience favorite DJ Shea Van Horn sheds his drag alter ego, Summer Camp, and returns to After Hours to stir up the dance floor and leave a trail of exhausted revelers in his wake.
Oh, btw, galleries close at 10 p.m. (maybe for protection from the revelers?).
I check the Hirshhorn’s mission statement, which says, in part:
We seek to share the transformative power of modern and contemporary art with audiences at all levels of awareness and understanding by creating meaningful, personal experiences in which art, artists, audiences and ideas converge. We enhance public understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through acquisition, exhibitions, education and public programs, conservation, and research.
I guess After Hours is a public program. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, if museum officials don’t believe that art is enough, no one else will either. (See “Museums Gone Wild.”)
But this post is more about that VIP lounge. It’s almost enough to call the SI’s Regents to task yet again — or to restructure the Smithsonian in a way that produces a better operational culture. Members’ events are one thing; a two-class system at one event is inexcusable. The Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn, are not some New York City night club with chosen ones behind a velvet rope.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum