How do we want to experience art?

Cildo Meireles and Me from Naomi Kendrick on Vimeo.

How do I want to experience art? I think this is a good question to ask myself, before trying to understand and facilitate other people's needs or desires. I have found it a difficult question to ask myself in recent years, as I am sure other artists, educators and others working directly with galleries do. It is often problematic trying to distance yourself from the ‘day job’ of experiencing art through providing workshops/interpretation around an exhibition. Though this in itself is a fulfilling way to engage with an exhibition, revealing more about the work than your interpretation alone can, it does not really address the personal response required of my question.

Significantly when experiencing an artwork through giving a workshop on it, this removes my choice. I have to see the work through this situation, it is my job. Choice is what I feel all people should have when it comes to their experience of art. You may want to see a specific artist or arform, experience the work alone when a gallery is least busy, with friends or family, as a way of relaxing or of challenging yourself, to research for your own work, or to learn more in general about a given subject. You may want to interact with an artwork, read all the interpretation the gallery provides, speak to a gallery assistant and leave comments, or you may want to be alone with your thoughts.

These are all decisions we make as visitors to a gallery, when choosing the exhibition we want to see. For some people the choices are different and arguably more limited. Does everyone have the opportunity to engage with any exhibition? Or is an exhibition selected by the visitor because of how accessible the venue is, whether it provides audio description, signing, a workshop for specific groups? None of these things are about the art itself, about what you want to see and how, because of who you are and what you are interested in rather than your ‘need’.

One of my favourite ways to experience art is by myself, in the knowledge that I have left a whole day to drift and discover. To become absorbed by work that pulls me in and to leave the work that doesn’t. I will often document thoughts and ideas by writing notes along the way. I had an experience like this recently, visiting MOMA PS1 gallery in Queens, New York. Outside the gallery was an adult play area of sorts; people were drinking beer, lying in hammocks, and soaking up the sun and the live music provided. They were part of a scene, and enjoying it. Inside the large gallery, which is a former school, I was faced with a labyrinth of corridors and rooms across many floors, with artwork everywhere. There was a system, a map giving you a route to follow through the complex layout. I am not very good with maps, and after initially feeling frustrated not knowing where I was meant to go, I let myself wander. It was wonderful. I found work in cellars I was sure know one else had, I let the soundtracks to video art be my markers, informing me whether I had already seen this floor. I saved the films with benches provided until I was tired, found rooms I was alone in where I could close my eyes and absorb sound art completely, and stood looking out the window taking in the city where all this work was conceived. This was an exhibition of Contemporary New York Artists, and I could wander and observe freely, anonymously, and just as I had done on the streets outside.

This all sounds as if I not interested in experiencing art through the very situations I advocate, workshops and participatory artworks. Not so.  I have had many equally profound experiences as a participant in other peoples workshops. And one of the most powerful experiences of art I have ever had was participating in ‘Marina Abromovic Presents…’ for four hours one evening at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Participating has made me feel part of the work, integral and far more connected than a passive experience. Though the passive experiences have also provoked me to imagine that experiencing art must be similar to the spiritual experience for the devout.
It depends on the work and it depends on you.

The trick for galleries is to get visitors to this point while trying to make everything in between not controlling, invisible.

Many people feel comfortable experiencing through workshops, they know they have signed up for something that will cater for any needs they might have, and a workshop is undeniably a social event that extends beyond the focus of seeing an exhibition. Knowing from discussions with my workshop participants that many people feel intimidated by art, feeling they have to have a certain degree of knowledge in order to ‘understand it’ does worry me however. If there is even a tiny percentage of people who are choosing to experience art through a workshop/tour/talk because they think, they can not intellectually access the work themselves then this makes it even more important to let workshops be a platform for discovering independently in combination with a context/information giving, avoiding the more traditional academic approach of simply transferring knowledge into the student.

I want to experience an exhibition through choice, and I want others to be able to do the same. There are access-based practical issues that need to be addressed in galleries still, but it this intellectual decision that I am interested in. Yes a person can decide whether to attend a workshop, a talk or to visit alone. But in the context of the workshop itself there should be choice, diversity, and openness. A reflection of how we make choices and have experiences outside the gallery - thinking for ourselves, having discussions with a diverse range of people, not just our own social ‘category, having time to absorb, deciding whether to ‘read the label’ … or not.