'Art Can Change the World' for VIE November 2021
Suzanne Pollak
“Watson & the Shark” by John Singleton Copley (1778)
‘There is a difference between close looking and looking closely. I grew up going to the Art Institute of Chicago. Then in my work as a curator, close looking was almost like a guided tour or guided meditation, where someone who knew a lot about a painting would stand and tell you all about it. At the end of the tour, people would say, “Thank you! Now I know so much more.”
In our world of social media, information transfer, and the light-speed digital revolution, most people enjoy works of art by sharing them. It isn’t just demographic; it’s not just young people—it’s everyone. “Look where I am! I’m taking a picture and I’m posting it.” You see people with their phones all the time, which even five or six years ago used to bother many people. “Can’t these people just put their phones away and look?” I have come to realize that’s actually the wrong instinct. When people share what they see in a museum, it’s because they are putting themselves in the picture. They are putting themselves in the situation of being in a museum. I’d like to do less telling and more asking, flipping the curatorial profession into one where expertise still matters a great deal, but it shouldn’t be first. My telling you everything I know about a Copley is only relevant after I’ve said, “What do you see?”’
Read more from Suzanne’s conversation with Carrie Barratt, former deputy director of the Met & first woman CEO/President of the NY Botanical Garden, in the latest issue of VIE!