Checking Twitter over breakfast this morning, I stumbled across a discussion about when and how to criticise another museum’s curatorial practice, and the impacts of doing so on one’s career. Although I’ve previously had discussions about how museums have a somewhat criticism-averse culture (more on that in a bit), I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of damaging career prospects before. I found this idea alarming, so I weighed in:
Could being (constructively) critical really be damaging to the careers of emerging museum professionals? And if so, what does that say about how well the museum sector handles criticism?
Unlike other areas of creative endeavour such as literature or theatre, museum exhibitions are not routinely reviewed in the mainstream media (with the possible exception being art exhibitions). Even within the realm of industry publications, relatively few regularly publish exhibition reviews (the main exceptions I can think of are Museums Journal in the UK and AAM’s Exhibitionist magazine in the US). It means there is not a reviewing culture around exhibitions. Critique happens more informally, perhaps behind closed doors. I’ve found many museum professionals (myself included) have been reluctant to openly criticise another museum’s work. Likely reasons include:
- We’re “too nice”: we appreciate how much blood, sweat and tears goes into putting together an exhibition, and the compromises that get made along the way. We know all too well what it’s like to be on the other side, and how hard it is to get everything right. Consequently, when we see an exhibition that misses the mark, our instinct is to cut the developers some slack as we’re sure there’s a back story as to why things are the way they are.
- It’s a tight-knit community: chances are, we know (or know of) someone who worked on that exhibition. It’s one thing to be critical about an exhibition in the abstract, it’s another thing entirely to feel like you’re criticising the work of a respected colleague.
Whatever the reason, the lack of a culture of giving criticism might make us even more fearful of receiving it. Rather than being philosophical, dusting ourselves off after a dud review, learning from it and moving on, criticism becomes something to dread. What if we get negative PR? A backlash from funders? Fear of criticism might be enough to stop ambitious projects from even getting off the drawing board.
In such a culture, people will make conservative choices because they fear being criticised, and existing practices will never be challenged or fully held up to the light.
As well as entrenching a sense of “we do it this way because that’s the way it’s always been done”, it creates a perfect storm for emerging museum professionals – we want (need) to make our mark but also worry about the consequences. Unless you live in a large city, you can’t afford to burn any bridges: there will be few other employment options unless you’re in a position to move. It means we could end up silencing ourselves just when we’re starting to find our voice.
In many countries, criticism (honest, informed, well-meaning expression of an opinion) is not encouraged and those who do it might actually have to face the consequences. I also believe that this is not a democratic attitude and it also shows lack of maturity. Last month, I wrote “An apology of criticism”, deeply troubled by the fact that in the middle of a very interesting (critical) discussion on facebook, someone intervened to say that we shouldn’t be speaking ill of colleagues on Facebook. Here’s my text: http://musingonculture-en.blogspot.pt/2014/12/an-apology-of-criticism.html
I hadn’t thought about cultural differences but it’s definitely a factor. Some countries favour a more direct approach, which to others may seem abrupt. Conversely, there are countries that couch their concerns in such circuitous language that others don’t catch their meaning. In ‘Outliers’, Malcom Gladwell wrote a chapter called the “Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes” about how misunderstandings arising from different communication styles can have tragic consequences.
With the example you cite, the person who censured you may have had a personal connection to the thing you were discussing, possibly using the excuse of “you shouldn’t say that on Facebook” to stop a discussion that was offending them. Or perhaps it was because the nature of the discussion thread was not giving those concerned the right of reply (maybe they felt you were criticising behind people’s backs).
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Talk to any evaluator and they’ll set you straight on criticism – that’s our job! Seriously, critical discussion is best done with *audience* goals in mind and relevant DATA, otherwise we are just talking among ourselves. Beverley Serrell did some nice work on this in the Judging Excellence in exhibitons Framework Toolkit (http://serrellassociates.org/framework.html) which means criticism (which is also an important part of organsitional learning) can be done within a context of audience outcomes, rather than curatorial ones, leading to organisational leanring and better outcomes for all.
PS You’ve now inspired my next #TBT post so keep a look out!!
I think I take it as axiomatic that audience goals are part of the mix, however I don’t think “talking among ourselves” is necessarily a pointless endeavour, so long as we know that’s the context in which we’re speaking. (I personally find it frustrating how much “visitors” are an abstracted concept in the museology literature – it’s like people forget that they are actually real people that you can watch and listen to!)
Last year Museums Australia (SA) started an exhibition club that uses the Judging Excellence framework to critique exhibitions. So far there’s only been one exhibition critiqued by the club, but I’m hoping it will gain more traction as a concept in 2015.
Looking forward to seeing your post Lynda!