I think it's part of the great "what is art?" debate. For a long time, various people have debated the difference between "surface" and "substance" and whether there's a difference at all, and in what combination they should be approved.
I think part of the critique is about putting this exhibition in the museum - a museum creates an intellectual context for art that doesn't necessarily exist if you buy it and display it at home, or even show it in a gallery. By putting art in a museum, you're saying it has significant cultural relevance and joins the greater social "body of art" - in effect, the museum legitimizes and authorizes art as being a part of a certain class of works. The whole reason we have museums of "modern art" is because the very context of a museum evokes the idea of classical art.
It may be that Chihuly would be better suited for a museum of modern art, or a postmodern gallery that takes less issue with a perceived distinction between surface and substance.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-08-04 11:16 pm (UTC)I think part of the critique is about putting this exhibition in the museum - a museum creates an intellectual context for art that doesn't necessarily exist if you buy it and display it at home, or even show it in a gallery. By putting art in a museum, you're saying it has significant cultural relevance and joins the greater social "body of art" - in effect, the museum legitimizes and authorizes art as being a part of a certain class of works. The whole reason we have museums of "modern art" is because the very context of a museum evokes the idea of classical art.
It may be that Chihuly would be better suited for a museum of modern art, or a postmodern gallery that takes less issue with a perceived distinction between surface and substance.