For the longest time my art practice has evolved around the ‘art audience’, which varies from country-to-country, city-to-city and from venue-to-venue. My work is “audience specific” meaning I fully conceptualize and realize my ideas in relation to the audience. I usually introduce multiple points of entry in the work, to facilitate the reading process for the viewers. Besides, the ephemeral qualities of the work contribute significantly towards controlling the timeframe the work is being viewed and by whom. The “Art and Audience” research investigates the contemporary art audience in the attempt to study the viewer by introducing the audience’s experience as a supplementary source of information that can be constructive for the artist’s practice. Since 1999, I have discussed the art-artist-art audience trinity subject with friends, fellow artists and professors, in South Africa, United States and recently in Greece where thoughts and experiences were both shared and argued upon.
Even so, I needed a way to record the preferences, patterns, and experiences of a heterogeneous group of art-exhibition-goers by collecting “testimonies” that would substantiate my hypothesis. The questionnaire was meant to be dispensed via electronic mail; hence the particular format was implemented. It was structured to reach and to communicate itself clearly to a broad range of audiences. I received eighty-nine questionnaires from contributors who have been active in the art-industry for nearly thirty years and also from those who sporadically attend art-events. I thank them all for their time and contribution - the experiences shared in over 200 pages, at times confirmed and others challenged my own presumptions.
The contributors’ diverse profile met the objectives of the research and presented me with material I can found opinions on now. This material represents a segment of the art audience in Greece, South Africa, United States, Great Britain, Turkey, India, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Belgium1. Making sense of the contributions has been a task I had much anticipated, but for now I would like to approach this as a report.
I will discuss and comment on the responses in “The Art of Artist Statement encounter and other experiential accounts of audience members” paper, I will present at the “Artist Statement: Artistic Inquiry and the Role of the Artist in Academe” workshop/symposium in Kamloops, Canada in November. I will treat and consider all responses equally in the effort to bridge the gap between informed and uniformed2 viewers, whose art views are often dichotomized. I would like to present each section’s overall propensities instead of approaching the material as data in a statistically manner. The emotional, cultural, and academic attributes of the responses impede the mechanical handling of this material. For those who are not familiar with the questionnaire, and would be interested in reading through it, Adelheid Mers has also posted it under the “Early Adopters” project, http://adelheidmers.org/earlyadopters/tp.htm
Athens, Athens/ Georgia Kotretsos survey
I thank Mers for supporting the Art & Audience research from beginning to end as well as for creating an online platform where notions on art audiences could be shared and exchanged. The six Art & Audience sections of inquiry are the following:
1. Art preferences
As the introductory section, it was important to establish from the beginning what brought each one of the contributors to an art event and tête-à-tête with an artwork. Evidently, aesthetically pleasing, contemplative, and artworks that challenge the art tradition either formally or conceptually determined the type of art that currently draws viewers. In most cases the participants communicated their art discipline preferences but rarely that of an art period or movement. Painting, sculpture and new media work continuously came up. In the contrary the “art that incorporated technology” selection, was checked the least amount of times.
2. Art event attendance patterns
This group of audience finds itself in the presence of artworks regularly and depending on each individual, some interact with audience members, visit shows more than once, attend opening receptions and others don’t. The ones who did not attend opening receptions happened to be art professionals involved in the art world for the longest period of time. The motives and reasons behind the crowds we often see at opening receptions are social, cultural and networking. Supporting the artist, or intellectually desiring to engage with art was also evident but not nearly as frequently checked as the reasons I mentioned earlier on.
3. Views
This section covers the a) expectations viewers have when confronted with art, b) whether there is a “right” way of looking at art and c) if they are confident in shaping their own opinions. By including selected responses of part a) I hope to shed some light on this shaded area. Each quotation in no particular order will be followed by the number I have given each contribution: “To be challenged, to think differently about something” #59, “Communicate with the artist and through him/her, with myself” #35, “Pleasure, intellectual stimulation” #4, “To be challenged, stimulated and to leave with considerations and questions still ringing in my head, to have my mind changed…: #31, “Art-High” #78, “Strong emotional responses/transportation/contemplation” #81, “A sense beyond the mundane” #44, “To change my previous perceptions. Expand my experiences. To be given a moment of hesitation.” #10, “Wonder, inspiration, bliss, education, humor…” #51, “To be surprised” #84, “To be arrested in the sense that the artwork forces me out of the usual clutter in my head” #86, “Fulfilled” #30, “To be enriched” #67, “To be captivated and transformed”, #89, “To loose myself in the experience” #19, and the list goes on.Most felt confident shaping their own opinions, yet while the majority believed that there is no “right” way of looking at art, they were many, who suggested a particular frame of mind for the viewer, a firm posture, to view artworks in solitude, in silence and after having a significant knowledge of the specific genre of art or being familiar with the artist’s previous body of work.
4. Art experiences
By forming a series of questions about the most memorable, positive and negative art experiences the contributors might have had, I was hoping to understand the manner in which they come to value these experiences. I did not think that a number of works would be mentioned and discussed over and over again. Mona Lisa, was the protagonist of this section along with the Haystacks, the Pieta, works by Rothko, Vermeer and Warhol. The one work that was equally mentioned as the most memorable, positive and negative experience was Mona Lisa. They were numerous accounts of contributors who expressed their disappointment with the “master piece’s” size, color, fame and frustration about the crowds and its display.I was also interested in finding out the role the exhibition space plays in these experiences. Although, the majority supported that “art is art” and it should and could hold its own anywhere, those who support otherwise were categorical about the fundamental role of the space. Contemporary art rarely provoked a personal pilgrimage for the participants of this group, as the rule the stimulus of these journeys had been archaeological sites and architecture.The three elements that resonate with the audience the longest is the visual, the emotional engagement and the memory of looking at the artwork.
5. Sources of information
There is plenty of information available for viewers at exhibition spaces although most who have made use of these materials, did not hesitate to express their discontent with artist statement and acoustaguides. They think, problematize, enjoy, converse about art with friends and colleagues but many made sure to make a note that do not engage on that level with family members. It was even more intriguing when I noticed that most of them were art professionals.6. ClosingThe fact is that people do support the art world by attending and experiencing art exhibitions, by buying artworks, by making donations and most importantly by making art. This report outlines the responses I received between June 24, 2005 and September 18, 2005.