A Quarterly Newsletter for Small and Mid- Sized Art Museums April 2013
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
museummuseumA quarterly newsletter VIEWSVIEWS for small and mid- sized art museums April 2013 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Model for the Lion on the Four Rivers Fountain (detail), c. 1649–50. In “Bernini: Sculpting in Clay” Kimbell Art Museum, TX 1 museumVIEWS AprilIn 2013 this Issue: ThE DIlEmma of SocIal mEDIa Page 3 John Well-Off-Man, Cree Elder. Acrylic on canvas. In “Recent Acquisitions,” ContemporAry or Missoula Art Museum, MT old Master…In or out? Page 4 mISS la la Á la DEgaS: The story of a painting Page 5 Notes from ThE amErIcaN allIaNcE of museumS Page 6 fEaTurES Mickalene Thomas, Lovely Six Foota, 2007. C-print. In “Exposing the Gaze,” newsbriefS Nasher Museum of Art, NC Pages 7-9 spring VIEWS Pages 10-17 Chuck Close, 5C (Self-Portrait), 1979. Five Polaroid Polacolor prints. In “The Polaroid Years,” Loeb Art Center, NY museumVIEWS Editor: Lila Sherman Publisher: Museum Views, Ltd. 2 Peter Cooper Road, New York, NY 10010 Phone: 212.677.3415 FAX: 212.533.5227 Email: [email protected] On the web: www.museumviews.org museumVIeWs is supported by grants from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Florencia Pita, Bahamas House, 2009. In and Bloomberg. “Florencia Pita/FP mod,” University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI museumVIeWs is published 4 times a year: Winter (Jan. 1), Spring (April 1), Summer (Readers are invited to share their thoughts on any of the contents of (July1), and Fall (October 1). deadlines for listings and artwork are Nov. 15, Feb. 15, museumVIEWS. Email us at [email protected].) May 15, and Aug 15. 2 the dilemma of social media by Henryk J. Behnke What is the return on your museum’s investment in social media? This is Fortunately, Facebook provides some engagement numbers (e.g. “viral- a question that haunts every marketing professional. And it was answered, in ity”), and Twitter favorites and re-tweets can be counted. Unlike the time lag part, at a recently held Bloomberg Philanthropies Social Media workshop for between the placement of a traditional advertisement and consumer reaction, small-to-medium-sized not-for-profit organizations. The team of expert advis- the effect of social media, can be measured almost immediately. Which posts ers was from Vayner Media. are effective and which are not can be seen in an instant. Working with social media for a general interest museum, as I do, is no dif- Social media experts like Vayner Media advocate for as much personalized ferent from working with the same tools at other non-profit institutions. First, feedback as possible. How to do this cost-effectively is a problem, especially we need to think of the goals of our social media strategy, which for many when the museum’s social media professional also handles all other marketing organizations is to increase attendance, participation, and financial support. and PR functions and helps with special events. Even with the right analytics, These goals determine how we use social media. All too often, we broadcast the critical question remains: How does all this engagement advance your our programs and mission and your organization? fundraising appeals in the traditional “push” approach, perhaps the returns even using the same From a financial text as in our print standpoint, I do not materials. The result see a great return on is not what we aim our investment. Who for; recipients will not knows if the people in “like” us and will not their 20s will join the “follow” us. museum in 30 years? At the Staten Island And how can we be Museum, the primary sure it was because of goal of our use of an interesting tip on social media is to raise Facebook? Of course, awareness and engage some might donate new audiences. The and come to an event, Vayner Media experts but does that justify 50 agreed: to succeed in percent of our market- social media, you want ing person’s salary? to engage with your How much should we Facebook friends and invest in Facebook and Twitter community Twitter? Should we by sharing interest- add Instagram to the ing content, tips, and mix? What about Tum- photos with them. blr and Foursquare? If the recipients like Will we be able to what you send over the keep our followers internet, they will post if social platforms it and share it with change? Just think of their friends, further the ghost town that helping more people gain awareness of your organization. myspace.com is today. In fact, the beauty of the social media is that it can raise awareness among In the end, the dilemma is the same as it has been in marketing and advertis- and engage a population that normally does not come to the museum—teens ing for decades. As former U.S. General Postmaster John Wanamaker (1838 to 30-year-olds. Often we have seen that the people who visit the museum –1922) is attributed to have said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is with their elementary school group return only when they have children of wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” their own or are much older. In addition, social media allows us to be the As for many nonprofit organizations, engaging our audience, whether resource that we envision: the museum without walls. In that way, we stay through social media or otherwise, is part of our mission and therefore not at connected with former program attendees or people that share our enthusiasm, all a waste of resources. We are agents of social change: at the Staten Island in our case, those interested in arts, natural science, and local history. Museum we want people to become familiar with the natural world, we want to share with them classic and contemporary art, and to show them how their measuring success neighborhood has changed over time. Most importantly, we want to show So, how do we measure the success of our social media? Of course, by how they can participate in improving their community. Hopefully, this counting the number of posts or better still, the increases in Facebook “likes” newly engaged citizenry will then also support the organization that and Twitter “followers.” On the other hand, says the Vayner team, a better enlightened them. ❒ way is to measure the actual engagement of your audience. Just because so many people “like” your organization or “follow” you does not mean that they [Henryk J. Behnke is Vice President for External Affairs & Advancement are engaged, that they have built a relationship with your organization, nor at the Staten Island Museum (NY)] does it guarantee that they will even see your posts (an algorithm of past reac- tions to your posts determines the percentage of your fans that will be exposed to future posts). Irving Boyer, Prospect Park, c. 1942-45. Oil on academy board. In “WWII&NYC,” New-York Historical Society, NY 3 Contemporary or old master…In or out? Are Cézanne and Picasso our new Classics? Is all the art that came before action, novelty. The older forms of togetherness—family, church, social and them becoming the product of a Dark Age? The market for art seems to say it political stability—are no longer central. Thus, the older art that expresses is so, that is, the demand for and the financial returns on the Old Masters has these values has lost its immediacy. become only moderate while Modern and contemporary sales has reached The notion of internationalism, the transference of peoples across borders, astronomical proportions. The study of older art is fast becoming a special- mass displacements and migrations tend to minimize the strength of the ized interest of art historians and elitist scholars. At the Courtauld Institute of notion of nationalism. And, since the study of the Old Masters tends to Art in London, for example, there is no longer a chair in the Art of Classical concentrate on national schools or origins, such studies begin, in the modern Antiquity while 20th-century Modernism is being expanded to include East- mind, to feel old-fashioned. ern European and Russian art. And finally, the communication revolution that has digitized and videoed Writing for The Art Newspaper, Satish Padiyar hypothesizes: “The and virtualized almost everything has placed yet another obstacle to the underlying condition of this widespread gradual demotion of older careful, face-to-face encounter with art objects: sales at auction houses are (pre-20th-century art) is the apparently irreversible rise of the value of the conducted online or over the telephone. All these techniques “…cast the contemporary in our age. The prevailing consumer choice of the contempo- virtual, ephemeral, and fast-paced, in the form of contemporary perfor- rary—among dealers, collectors, art historians, and students of art history— mance, video or film, as the experience of the real.” is producing a hermetic art world of its own, which also threatens to ghettoize those who would resist it: are we contemporary or Old Master? In or out?” How much has changed? Yet “Modern” has a fluid meaning: a small Jackson Pollock recently sold for $40 million, while a work by Mark Rothko went for $75 million at In answering the question, “How much has changed?” the writer cites the same sale. These works, according to contemporary thought, could be comments by Francis Haskell about 1840s Britain: “Modern art flourished described as the Old Masters of the future. Do Picasso and Cézanne then as never before, and the market in Old Masters collapsed. These years of fe- become Classical Modern? verish railway speculation, appalling famine and political disturbances were golden ones for the connoisseur…frenzied propaganda to persuade the new A withering taste rich to invest their money in contemporary pictures, a succession of forgery scandals much publicized in the Art-Journal and similar papers to frighten “Why is the taste for Old Masters withering?” asks the author.