Hi Adrienne, I appreciate your comments to my earlier post. Truly, it furthered my thinking and I hope it furthers this debate. A little call and answer below.
Adrienne: “I appreciate the larger debate here about the balance between leading and serving the cultural audiences we work with in the visual and performing arts. Key to this debate is indeed striking a true BALANCE rather than swinging to one extreme or another. As ‘popular’ trends influence everything from programming to funding, the importance of an expert’s assessment of an unusually talented, creative and valuable artistic voice is essential.”
Me: I agree, but it can’t stop here.
Adrienne: “It is STILL the role of the presenter to be able to discern extraordinary skill, quality, and creativity in order to bring this to the attention of the less experienced audience.”
Me: Bring this to the attention how? Once audiences are attentive, then what?
Adrienne: “In the age of blogging and social media where opinions are published on an equal playing field without regard to differences between ‘expert’ and general public there is a true liability of dumbing down quality.”
Me: I don’t agree here. Audiences are more discerning if given the opportunity to engage in the dialogue. If connections are made at levels that are accessible, a lot can be achieved. And isn’t this also the role of the presenter?
The way I see it, experts are poised perfectly to best engage in the dialogue. They have depth of knowledge that is uniquely valuable. They can lend themselves better (than anyone else) to an enrich engagement with the audience and the work of art. So why as art institutions do we miss this opportunity more often than not?
Adrienne: “The reticent, non-blogging artist who is not suited to personal outreach with the general public is confined to obscurity if the measurement of their worth is fully dependent on the kind of general personal appeal that the blogging artist elicits with the general public. Having such artists cut out of the cultural landscape would be an enormous loss. We can all imagine how malnourished our souls would be without some of the greatest artists in history who were, by nature, highly private or reticent people whose hearts and souls were given to their audiences only on stage, or in their writing or through the creation of their visual worlds. These people are now far less likely to reach the public eye at all because audience preferences are being overly influential.”
Me: Has it swung this far? Is this why some cling to the other side? Perhaps the means are insufficient, especially for organizations. The practice of traditional marketing, pr, communications, outreach—all have limits. And with the rush to embrace technology, have we lost our ability to ask, what is this all for? Practicing asking a series of generative questions (why?, why?, why?) may help us understand how best to reassess and simplify. It may also clarify one’s intentions and sense of purpose. I hope it better serves us all to engage with art and engage the people with the art.
Adrienne: “If we only use the criteria of audience preference, the audience would never have the opportunity to discover less known artists who could well be some of the best and brightest throughout the world. I implore arts leaders to continue to choose their presentations based upon their own best judgement of exciting and important talent, even if the artist’s assets include the kind of depth, complexity, and obscurity that might be less accessible to some members of the audience. The legacy of our cultural future is dependent on this kind of leadership. Thank you for your continued courage !”
Me: Agreed, but again, might we do more, take the next several steps, be the inventors and creators of new organization practice that better suits? One way is with language. Language matters here. It conveys one’s bias (we ALL have them) and general orientation to any engagement. Others notice. Audiences notice. We need to notice more as we take steps to bridge the gaps.
And how are we defining engagement between statement 1 (organization/artist) versus statement 2 (audience/public)? Are we debating which merit ruler to use? Perhaps this is wrongheaded. I see engagement as a continual dialogue in pursuit of understanding and meaning.
