Concepts of Art and Interpretation in Interviews with Educators from Tate Britain

Abstract

Educational practices in art museums are determined, to a great degree, by ideas of art and interpretation put into play, consciously or not, by both museums and educators. This article presents the results of research conducted at Tate Britain in which we have analysed the concepts of art and interpretation that underlie the discourses of the educators interviewed in this gallery. To this end we have designed a methodological device, a model that proposes four ways of understanding and interpreting art commonly found in educational contexts. This model has arranged the various conceptions from more visual or perceptual approaches to the most experientially complex as those summarised below: works of art as a visual representation and interpretation as identification; works of art as a message to be revealed, and interpretation as decodification; works of art as an intellectual, historical and cultural fact, and interpretation as an opportunity for critical reflection; works of art as the materialisation of an experience, and interpretation as an opportunity for self-development. We conclude that in interviews with educators working in the Tate Britain different narratives about the idea of art and the idea of interpretation coexist, which in many cases are complementary and in some others are contradictory. Examples of the interviews are presented throughout the article.

Defining Museums of Contemporary Art: the Phenomenon of Their Popularity in Recent Decades

“…This process can be illustrated on the example of Austria: there are four museums of contemporary art in four major cities: Vienna (MUMOK, established 2001), Graz (Kunsthaus Graz, 2003), Linz (Lentos Art Museum, 2003) and Salzburg (Museum der Moderne, 2004). It has to be noticed that the population of the country is 8.2 million, while average population of the three last cities is 181,000 1 . All the museums are being promoted on major touristic websites and are described as "spectacular architectural landmarks" 2 .…”

“…That happened partially for socio-economic reasons, but mostly because museums of contemporary art deal with living artists and art which happens now, so it is possible to provide the immediate dialogue between an artist and a visitor, overpassing years of distance in case of classical art and contemporary viewer. 1 Museum professionals often complain that museums these days have become more similar to department stores, rather than classic museum institutions and they definitely get the point. What was predicted by Rosalind Krauss has occurred.…”

“…Education these days is the primary way of serving public. This was set up by MoMA, which appeared 86 years ago with a mission to "encourage an ever-deeper understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art by the diverse local, national, and international audiences that it serves" [1]. MoMA was the pioneer museum of modern art, which had been founded specifically as an educational institution, and since that time providing various opportunities for learning has become the priority for every museum of contemporary art.…”

“…Indeed, there are a number of concepts that deal with the question of whether art has more aesthetical or informative nature, but we have to admit that every artwork creates a visual image first of all and this image is to be seen by visitors primarily. As Tate educators stress, "everything they need to know is in the work" 11 [1]. In this case the use of new technologies in museums of contemporary art is based on the common belief that this way of engaging visitors with art will make the museum experience "fun-filled" and "enlightening" at the same time and moreover, will create future audiences.…”

Knowledge and Identification of Different Artistic Practices

“…We must guide them from established ways of practicing art via modernistic approaches to contemporary artistic practices explaining the key moments and concepts to them. Positive results of this kind of approach can be found in research, which shows that learners who get encountered and acquainted with contemporary art and who get to know it have positive experience with it (Vrlic & Cagran, 2003;Zupancic, 2006;Arriaga & Aguirre, 2013). We find important the awareness of the "broader background of the emergence of a work of art, of the interlacement of the work of art with the environment, the presentation of relations between the work of art and life, connection with conceptual contents; which we find especially sensible in the presentation of conceptual artistic practices that represent the main orientation of contemporary fine art" (Vrlic, 2002: 7).…”