Things That Fall

I HAVE A DREAM
by Donelle Woolford

This article was first published in Art issues no. 67, Los Angeles, in 2001. It was reprinted in Ante no. 3, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2003.

I am not troubled by the current proliferation of art museums, since they seem to be an essential outgrowth of a culture that craves both progress and certainty.

As anyone familiar with risk-taking knows, progress and certainty are not compatible goals. To make progress necessarily means to move into unknown terrain and to be uncertain about that movement. Inversely, to be certain means to focus on ground that already has been covered and to be confident about what will be found there. Historically, the former has been the job of artists and the latter the job of museums.

The question regarding museums, then, is not whether we need so many but whether it is possible for any of them to promote progress and certainty at the same time. In an effort to reconcile these contradictory goals, the museum in our time has become a place both to conduct experiments and to confirm their results; a place to give birth to ideas and to prepare them for the grave. Any tension that might ordinarily develop between the introduction of an artwork and its eventual acceptance or rejection has been squeezed into the time it takes the freight elevator to travel from the preparator's shop to the museum's designated project space. As a system of control, this act of containment is much more representative of our culture than any of the artworks our museums might display.

If any of us are startled by the fact that artists and museums have become adversaries in the pursuit of art, then this is because the framework we have built for art's reception is modeled on impatience and insecurity, an approach to culture in which few things are done and few risks are taken without first assessing their potential audience. Whether this means scheduling a time slot with one of the artists of the moment or organizing a show around the latest consumer trends, art gets subjected to the scrutiny of a value system that needs to be fairly certain of an effect before it can invest in a cause. In such an environment, art becomes predictable. All the while, museums spend more and more of their energy raising the money necessary to maintain that elaborate predictability. Larger museum shops. More time spent courting members and donors. Higher admission prices.

Thus, it should not surprise us when some museums start to behave as if artists would become extinct were it not for their protection and support. This is a mutually self-fulfilling truism, since there is no lack of artists in need of funding in order to produce their work, and the more artists need the infrastructure of museums, the more it appears that very little art would get made without the sponsorship of a host institution. Consequently, where museums once protected art from the corruption of money, they now protect money from the corruption of art, and the uncertainty to which art gives rise.

I am not one who believes that art benefits from this kind of protectionism. To the contrary, I believe that art is most progressive when it has to survive on its own, when it stands up to the tests of time and public opinion, and when, after being seen, discussed, consumed, and dismissed, it still refuses to go away. This requires the acceptance of risk, which in turn requires confidence, patience, and faith. Confidence that you're making good decisions; Patience that it will take time to find out; and Faith that you're strong enough to persevere, whether your decisions pan out or not. Building more museums as proof of the value of art demonstrates a lack of all three.

Therefore, I have a dream. I dream of a day when we will realize that the art world's greatest asset is its messy, paradoxical, glacial uncertainty. I dream of a day when those of us who really like to look at art will be given the free admission and exclusive viewing privileges we deserve. I dream of a day when museums will give up on the golem of the "general public" – that pretentious, monstrous, mythical pot of gold that never existed and never will. Finally, I dream of a day when, to paraphrase Artie Shaw, the culture industry truly will speak for itself. Please, won't you help me bring about that day?