NOTES ON THE ART GALLERY/MUSEUM
Mark Cousins (Director of General Studies & History and Theory at the Architectural Association, London)
The Gallery as a Building Type
There is a puzzling aspect to the history of the art historical
museum or gallery. Insofar as it was one intertwined with the
princely palace, its new incarnation in the 19th century did
little to throw off its history as a palace type. Indeed however
paradoxical it seems, the gallery/museum continues to develop
an imaginary palace which can also accommodate art and exhibits.
It is as if it has never shaken off its origins and now continues
to be the sole supplier of palaces, long after the princes have
fled. The very term 'accommodate art works' betrays this hybrid
phantasm. It is instructive the extent to which new galleries
of the 1970's to 1990's can be looked at as survivals of palaces
rather than as organisational frameworks for exhibitions.
Perhaps this is the moment to insist, firstly, in a polemically functionalist sense, that the gallery is a machine for exhibition, as opposed to the container notion of the palace. Talk of 'accommodation' of works of art is a redundant compromise with an imaginary function; it is an unconscious regression to the social origins of the gallery and inconsistent with its contemporary social and political function. Secondly, the gallery is a machine for exhibition that is addressed to and conceived for a future public. This requires a conceptual act that prises away the elements of exhibition from the shell of a palace. It is paradoxical and unconvincing to pretend to bring works of art to a wide popular audience while at the same time clinging on the remains of palace deserted by the princes. This contradiction is at the heart of a continuing popular scepticism that the museum embodies an elitist deformation, even of radical works of art.
Exhibition
Once the fact that the exhibition of works of art addresses an
audience is understood as a function of the gallery, a number
of other issues can be cleared up.
It is still assumed that there is one best, most neutral way to exhibit the work. This argument was exploded in the 70's with the critique of the white cube insofar as modernism had conceived of white surfaces and spaces as inherently neutral, and at the same time conceived of aesthetic experience as disinterested, so that the observer perceives the work and as little as possible of anything else. The same argument dominated discussion of light conditions: they were to approximate to a natural/neutral point (whether achieved by natural or artificial means) so that nothing from the setting interfered with the object. The object and its integrity called forth a designed vacuum. What the critique of the white cube entailed, amongst other things, was that this was not possible. There was not such a thing as spatial neutrality, no such architectural thing such as 'no setting'. The white cube represented the positive ideology of the gallery in the disingenuous form of pretending to be neutral.
At which point, perhaps one should move
from an unrealizable absolutism to a constructive pluralism.
There is no one way to exhibit an object, there are many ways;
spacing, lighting, etc. The same object can be shown in many
ways without any of them being 'the' right way.
Therefore, architects should admit that the way to do it, 'how
to show this object now' is the decision of the artist/curator.
Unless the architect has been asked to jointly curate the exhibition
(it happens more and more often), this decision belongs to the
curator and the artist.
The confusion between the respective roles of architects and curators lies at the heart of one of the most common conflict arising between artist/curators and architects. Curators and artists often complain against the architecture of museum in the sense that according to them, architects often usurp their role, imposing their view on how the work of art should be exhibited, whereas architects more or less ignore what they consider as the curatorial interference with the architecture. What makes it worse for the curator, is that as the architecture is fixed, unless the curator view is permanently in agreement with the architect's, a great deal of an exhibition's preparation is wasted on finding tricks that can ultimately mask the architect imposition in order to allow the curator to express his own view on how to exhibit the works of art.
The architect's responsibility in designing the museum is to understand its function and provide spaces that best meets the functional requirement. Namely, to be a support for as many various possible ways of showing of art and to offer spaces to receive a wide audience of visitors.
Staging
The fundamental metaphor of the exhibition can now move from
'containing' objects to 'showing off' objects. It is a move from
the palace, container of beautiful objects, to the theatrical
stage for the work of art. It is a move from the princely discretion
to popular variability. At this point, elements of the logic
of stage design (as opposed to set design) become pertinent.
The architectural design of stages seeks above all to provide
for the maximisation of the variability of possible sets. To
design a stage and its machinery is in fact to create the most
variable means for generating spatial effects, even special effects.
Insofar as it is interested at all in walls (which can be let
down), floors (which can be rise up, rotate, segment) it is interested
in them not as permanent architectural elements but as potential
generators of 'effect'. The same is true of lighting which now
steps into a much more productive and complex role. The important
point is that within the space of exhibition, which needs no
general architectural limit, architectural elements are subordinated
to the techniques of generating effects.
This requires a specifically 'exhibition' based analysis of architectural elements. Terms like window, wall, light, floor, and no longer function in a generalised architectural context. They are all elements to produce spatial stage effects. A wall has function only in the terms of the service of an exhibition - it may be the support for hanging picture, it may be a screen onto which there is projection, it may be a division of space to render elements of the exhibition concealed from each other. It may be part of the organisation of circulation through the exhibition, but the one thing it need not be is a 'wall'. As a series of functions, these might be realised by lowering walls from above. There is no need to mimic a structural wall. Indeed, one could say that the maximum number of elements should be moveable, an in becoming so, lose their connection with traditional architectural elements. The space of an exhibition is a 'set' conjured out of one possible ensemble of staging elements.
Accommodating
The architecture of the museum till now has been unconcerned
with the activity of people. Its traditional attitude is the
'accommodation' of art objects. People are reduced to habits
of respectful reverence, silently progressing in ways that they
learnt from churches, hospitals etc. Perhaps, it is time for
today's museum to now stimulate people and provide them with
space to be, not spaces to queue, spaces that give them control,
not controlled spaces, spaces to act, not spaces to behave. There
is a complex but important difference between conceiving spaces
that seek one effect and conceiving spaces that seek various
possibilities. The first one is a frame for people to behave
in, the second a space to be used.
Perhaps we need to consider architectural elements in the museum as element having more than a visual existence. The floor is more than an abstract surface one can see. It is a surface one can walk on. It can be flat, but it can also have slopes. It might need an effort to be wandered over. The gallery should not be only seen. One should be able to feel it with all his senses. Only so can the sacrality of the space be broken and given back to visitors as a desublimated space.
Temporary / Permanent
The distinction is often drawn between temporary exhibitions
and permanent collections. This frequently has the depressing
consequence that the space of temporary collections consists
in a permanent architectural space with shoddy forms of temporary
divisions. The permanent collection makes not even this concession
to adaptation. For many museum this constitutes a massive and
unnecessary immobility. Even when, as with the Tate, the decision
was taken to circulate its own permanent collection within itself,
the 'permanence' of the exhibition rooms condemned the intellectual
and aesthetic possibilities of such circulation. Any exhibition
space ought in principle to abolish as far as possible the temporary/permanent
distinction. Both temporary and permanent collections should
be exhibited in as variable a range of settings.
This commitment would also introduce a paradoxical effect. If no distinction is made architecturally between the permanent and the temporary, the original architectural design ought to include the design of exhibition vitrines, furniture of various scales, plinths etc. This should logically become part of the brief since the temporary/permanent or moveable/immovable distinctions are being abandoned. What is offered is a consistency in variation.
The Curator
In a way all these remarks tend towards an intervention in current
arguments about the nature of the gallery and its resolution
at a more interesting level. Negative criticisms of recent galleries
including the Guggenheim in Bilbao have contrasted the creative
or intrusive gallery in which the architecture overwhelms the
exhibition of work, or which is thought inimical to the work.
Some galleries, like the new art historical museum in Berlin,
have deliberately sold themselves as an act of modest withdrawal
in the face of the real (art) work. This is obviously a false
dichotomy but it is also a common one. There is no one correct
form of exhibition. Withdrawal and intrusion are simply two possibilities.
The objective must be to maximise the conditions of variability.
This is supported from within contemporary aesthetics - art objects
are no longer seen as possessing finality, which require a neutral
void in which to exist. Exhibiting an object under dramatically
different conditions can be said to enrich its potential.
All this points to the enhanced possibilities of curating, and the relation between the curator and artist. Indeed these remarks can be seen as a principled justification for the enhanced creative decisions of the curator. We might say that the curator is still living under a regime where the choice of works and the elementary acts of hanging and placing work almost exhaust this side of the work. The solutions argued for here would massively enhance the possibilities contained in the term exhibition - to show off an object according to a curatorial interpretation as to the effects. Since all exhibitions in this sense become more temporary, there need be no arguments about dogmatic interpretations, because the object can be shown again differently.
Above all the focus is upon the machine exhibition, rather than the gallery, upon variability rather than the illusory pursuit of aesthetic truth, upon staging the object rather then enclosing it, upon creating a space of activity rather then the sacred sanctuary of a transcended art. It is recognition that the new gallery space must follow a logic of exhibition rather than of architectural inhibition.