WHAT DOES CHANGE LOOK LIKE?

Change in accessibility can take many shapes and forms, but most of the solutions on the horizon follow three key principles: 1) Embrace the internet, 2) Embrace the culture, and 3) Embrace the community. According to a 2017 Arts Participation study, in a regular year, around 20% of adults will attend an art exhibit of some kind. These numbers are promising, but the same study finds that far more adults consume art through new forms of media. Here is where the internet comes in. Right now, artistic institutions are grappling with the new idea of how to embrace the internet. Some are more adaptive than others, but a first step into online culture means an online gallery of works. This way, potential visitors can be informed on the works in a musuem, as well as learning more in depth about the works than they could find in a quick visit. Embracing the internet can also mean clear and continued access to information: specific committees and programs should have social media profiles and methods of quickly sharing events and projects. Artistic institutions can provide further online resources for visitors in the form of cursory art education: as Valerie Gillespie, a local artist and educator, mentioned in our interview, "despite all the research about the importance of the arts, it continues to be the first entity that is eliminated in an educational crisis." In this view, art education does not always mean art history. An access barrier for some populations is the intimidation factor of museums; people often do not know how to interact with art. The Art Institute of Chicago has done a wonderful job in providing resources with their teen section. Young visitors can find information on free tickets and parking, as well as how to contemplate art pieces in the museum. It actually encourages talking, actively working to transform the museum atmosphere to one that is inviting, open, and comfortable. Unfortunately, embracing the internet also means addressing the barriers to internet access that are still endemic to many communities. This can look like providing downloadable transcripts of videos, offering in person versions of online workshops, and extending free wifi use to campus visitors. Embracing the internet also means embracing modern culture. This can take the form of updated docent codes, an awareness of new cultural trends, and new forms of media and artistic exploration. As Katlyn Bowen of the Amon Carter mentioned in our interview, "art museums also deal with the stigma that we are institutions of the elite and not for everyone." To embrace the culture, to move away from the stigma, artistic institutions must engage in top-down institutional shifts. This can mean a departure from the uniforms that docents typically wear, in exchange for more casual yet professional attire that feels more approachable. Shifts can also occur in the wording and enforcement of docent codes. Museums like the Fort Worth's Kimbell Art Museum list 

"treating fellow employees, patrons, visitors, and others in a professional, courteous, and respectful manner" and "refraining from behavior or conduct deemed offensive or undesirable, or which would bring the Museum, its employees, its patrons, or your own reputation into question" as important qualities in volunteers and docents, but does not offer specific guidelines on what this means. One day last year, I decided to take two young girls of color to the museum with me. We had been talking the day before, and when I mentioned that I had extra tickets to an exhibit, they bascially begged me to take them. As we stood in line, some of the docents gave us kind smiles, others careful glances. Before we went in, I had taught these girls how to interact with art, something my grandparents had done for me years before. We don't touch the art, but we appreciate it from afar. We imagine what the subject felt, why it was made, and who made it. We look for colors we like and stories we enjoy. I realized as I was talking that this was the first time these girls had heard these steps. The exhibit was full and wonderful. The girls loved every second, pulling me from gallery to gallery, bedecked in their Sunday best. I checked the time, and the permanent collection was set to open in 15 minutes. They asked to see it, so we crossed over to the other side of the museum. The doors were open, but I could not tell if the exhibit was open, so with the girls in tow, I approached an older white man who was in front of the door. Before I could finish asking whether the gallery was open, the he stared at me with a condescending, almost annoyed expression and wordlessly stuck his palm in front of my face, motioning for me to stop. It was a strange experience. Beyond instructing volunteers and docents on how to create a welcoming environment, artistic institutions must grapple with an even tougher question: who should. make up the face of the museum? In recent years, controversy has arisen as museums and galleries have moved towards a more diverse team, sometimes at the expense of the more experienced upper middle class populations and docent teams largely made up of white donors. In moving towards change,  artistic institutions must consider what is more important: pleasing current and past patrons or bringing in new ones. This diversifying also extends to the artwork itself. Embracing culture can mean embracing new mediums and artist populations. Introducing more BIPOC artists, artworks, and mediums is a more involved method of expansion that, while costly, provides more visitors with a sense of identity and belonging in the museum.

Embracing the culture also means accepting a national zeitgeist that focuses on experiences of all races, ethnicities, and socio-economic statuses; embracing the community as a whole. This can mean outreach measures like participating in local parades or forming community committees. It could also mean ticket discounts and population specific events. In preparing for this project, I spoke with a prominent trustee for the Dallas Museum of Art. We discussed the divide between high and low culture and the decisively antiquated view that high culture should be reserved only for certain populations. She confessed to me a disappointing truth: although diverse views and new patrons would benefit artistic institutions, "some people like to keep the museums exclusive." 

It is no secret that the art world has its downsides. Donations are fraught with tax exemptions and loopholes, prestige is controlled to benefit the buyer rather than the artist. But at its core, art is a collective catharsis. It is a historical mode of sensibility; a method for change and growth and new ideas. To keep this industry exclusive is to overturn the radical humanity that is at its core. I understand that art and its funding is still subject to the very societal influences that it often protests. In essence, it is dissonant. The lifeblood of art is also the cancer it appears to rebuke. As a society, as enjoyers of art, we are at a crossroads. Is art still important? Who needs to see it? Who deserves to see it? How do we change a system that is founded on exclusivity to become the bastion of knowledge and beauty that it is meant to be? But before all of this comes to fruition, museums and artistic institutions must first decide what is important. It may not be diversity and youth, but the truth is that museums will need these prinicples to continue on. I come from a generation founded in polarization, born into an inherited awareness of the world and our neighbors. Without new ideas, without new lifeblood in artistic institutions, they will become obsolete.