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This might not raise even a ripple here: for, in our own blessed land, museums have always had such little connection with visitors. But, everywhere else, apart from engaging in thoughtful self-examination about their true role, museums are beginning to worry seriously about their visitors. It is not so much a matter of numbers — great museums still remain crowded, and there are still massive turnouts whenever major exhibitions are mounted: it is the profile of visitors that is a matter for concern, and the quality of relationship that museums have with those who enter their portals. Everyone knows that some people will always come to museums — the older generation that has grown with "museum art", for instance; and tourists — but what is it that can succeed in bringing the young to art? And what can museums offer them in terms of an experience of art that is in consonance with their new, youthful view of life? A debate rages, and thoughts are constantly being tossed around. Are museums only repositories, or should they be in the business actively of affecting thoughts, and lives, through the art they hold and spend millions upon? The more forward looking among world museums are starting to create websites that reach beyond the norm. The usual museum website works like a database, where scholars and even casual visitors can access the works of art, or gather information about museum programmes and publications. But these innovative websites, some of them ‘virtual museums’, connect with users differently: they are visually exciting, constantly changing, interactive, capable of engaging young minds, and making art fun without trivialising it. Designing such websites is not easy, but some designers have gone about it with flair and imagination, drawing inspiration not only from art but also from the world of ads and commerce. There are even projects online that extend beyond the confines of museum galleries and gift-shops. The idea is to get people to become interested in art, and to begin to see things differently. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, for example, has a website called "Every Object Tells a Story", built in collaboration with TV’s Channel 4 and Culture Online. On this anyone can log on and tell personal stories about objects important to them, or about any museum object, like the golden throne of Maharaja Ranjit Singh that it houses. At the same time, one can go behind the scenes through this website, and go to "Research & Conservation" to check out how the museum does things like move large statues and fragile mirrors, or keeps displays clean of skin cells and fibres and pollen that visitors bring in. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has a site called "Red Studio" that it developed with the help of high school students, and raises questions that everyone asks: "What is Art?", for instance; or "Who decides?". The Tate Gallery’s "Net Art" actually commissions artwork that exists exclusively online. It also has an online gift shop that sells paint-it-yourself kits: pre-stretched, deep frame canvas with printed designs that you colour in; a small site called "Art on Demand" lets you choose your favourite images from a selection and order them printed in the size you want. For a price, of course. But things are beginning to look different in the museum world. Everyone who knows anything about modern art, of course, knows Vincent van Gogh. So it is no surprise that the website of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam starts by using those intense tones, hot yellows and cobalt blues, that one associates with him. But then slowly, and gently, it leads you into that troubled genius’s world, and into the way his mind worked. While describing his famous "Potato Eaters", for instance, the note tells you that, while painting it, van Gogh wanted to give the faces of all the poor figures in it "the colour of a good, dusty potato". It is unlikely that the viewer who reads this will ever forget the description. Then the site features works by artists whose work is not in the museum, but who had a connection with van Gogh: Toulouse-Lautrec, for example. And, naturally, his friend/companion/rival/antagonist, Paul Gauguin. As far as Gauguin is concerned, the site uses selections from the personal letters that he and van Gogh wrote to each other, providing insights into the way they thought about art, and went about making it. Even 15 minutes spent on the site begin to make the art and the period come alive. And if you get excited enough by the website to want to visit the museum, the site enables you to book your trip to Amsterdam online, and even makes it possible for you to bed down for a night in the very inn in which van Gogh spent his last days. Are these, as the cynic
might suggest, simply ways of luring visitors for profit? Or, as a
thinking person would see it, ways of sensitising people to art and
making a difference in their lives: the true function of a museum? |
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