Museums Must Adapt

Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus and even Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory are easily accessible to all with an internet connection. One no longer has to travel the world to see these works of art. To attract visitors in an increasingly media saturated world, Museums must become immersive to stay relevant whether it be through the utilization of technology or through the creation of interactive installations. This is especially important after the Covid-19 Pandemic, which not only undeniably affected the plummet in the number museum-goers worldwide due to in person restrictions, but also made the world more technologically reliant. Now, Museums must make an extra effort to get people off their phones and through the Museum’s doors, or, get them on their phones in the Museum.

The Guggenheim Bilbao recently held the exhibition Like Beauty in Flames, featuring the new work of renowned artist Jenny Holzer. Holzer’s text-based art is elevated through the use of augmented reality (AR). Commissioned by the museum itself, this artwork can be accessed through a specially developed app for mobile devices. The artwork offers three unique AR experiences; two that are site specific and work together with the architecture and surroundings of the museum and a third that can be accessed across the globe. Guggenheim Bilbao thus takes the phone and utilizes it to its advantage, enhancing the museum-going experience by offering three brand new ones.

Other Museums and galleries are creating engagement by allowing you to physically interact with works, which is quite untraditional. Arter in Istanbul, Turkey’s new exhibition This Play curated by Emre Baykal begs for the audience to participate and contribute. Drawn from Arter’s collection, the group exhibition This Play revolves around the concepts of childhood and play. The exhibition aims to explore the liberating aspect of play, its defiant capacity to suspend and reconstruct reality, within the context of artworks, and the experiences they offer. One can play ping-pong on a unique looking table and throw multi-colored darts onto a wall covered with dart boards. Each visitor can participate in childhood games that in some sense is an act of art itself. You simply do not walk around this exhibition: you look, you feel, you dance, and most importantly, you play. At the Perrotin Gallery in New York City, you can crawl, swing, or walk on Paola Pivi’s 100 feet denim tunnel that wraps around the gallery space, evoking childhood memories of climbing through a playground.

These experiences encourage people to go to Museums and galleries in person because of the unique experiences they offer to engage with art, but also because of their “Instagrammability”. These exhibitions make great pictures to post on Instagram, which is not necessarily a bad thing as it creates more marketing for these art institutions.