> Pretty soon people are reading their way through the museum.
Yes. Yes that's exactly what I want to do. I want to spend a day at the museum, and read, i.e. learn, why some things are important and great art, and others aren't.
> for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work.
What? Then how is any decision made as to what art is featured in these exhibits, and what isn't? Remember, for every piece in one of these exhibits, there are 10 artists getting behind on rent who didn't make it in. Someone decides. Who? How?
If you're trying to counter my current argument, which is that this is all arbitrary and picked by some insiders at their whim, you should be aware that you're actually kind of helping my case here...
About my motivation: My wife shows her work and curates shows in the LA area. Consequently for the last 20 years I've spent a lot of time in galleries and museums. I was just trying to get across some of the thinking of the curators who decide what to put on the plaques. Not trying to get into an argument, particularly.
About "no critical consensus": Saying there's not consensus about meaning, doesn't mean curators don't know if there's value in the work.
Lots of times people know work is good, they just don't agree on why. It takes time to figure out whether it's a dead end or not, or to see where the artist goes with a line of work.
Here's another one: there's lots of work that is loved by even sophisticated collectors, but unliked by artists. (E.g.: large-scale paintings that "look like art" but are not new.) There's lots of work that is liked by curators, but not by many artists or collectors (e.g., work grounded in complex theories).
"arbitrary and picked by some insiders at their whim":
The artistic community operates outside your judgement and scorn. Go in expecting to learn something, and maybe you will.
Yes. Yes that's exactly what I want to do. I want to spend a day at the museum, and read, i.e. learn, why some things are important and great art, and others aren't.
> for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work.
What? Then how is any decision made as to what art is featured in these exhibits, and what isn't? Remember, for every piece in one of these exhibits, there are 10 artists getting behind on rent who didn't make it in. Someone decides. Who? How?
If you're trying to counter my current argument, which is that this is all arbitrary and picked by some insiders at their whim, you should be aware that you're actually kind of helping my case here...