Every once in a while, I’m struck by how I behave in museums. I walk silently, with my arms tucked tight behind my back – as though if I don’t contain myself, a rogue arm might lash out and damage something precious and priceless. I visit museums and galleries with my colleagues here at the faculty, and I notice them doing it too: ghosting through galleries without a sound, hands trapped against their sides, arms firmly crossed.
I don’t remember how, or when, or where I was taught that this is how one comports oneself in a museum. In all likelihood it was at some point in my late childhood. And so I wonder if this is the threshold for adulthood in the museum world: adults know the rules and rigidly adhere to them, whereas children do not.
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| The Tate Modern. (Source) |
Does this then mean that children shouldn’t visit museums and galleries? Folks in the GLAM sector have been tossing this question around since 2014, when two children climbed up onto a Donald Judd sculpture at the Tate Modern. In the press, this event has been listed alongside incidents at museums that resulted in toppled statues, defeathered animal specimens, and ripped paintings, illuminating the potential dangers posed to collections on display. But more significantly, the incident at the Tate Modern – tweeted out to the world by the outraged New York gallery owner who witnessed it – instigated a heated debate that demanded, with unforgiving language, whether children should be banned from museums.
Holy crap. Horrible kids, horrible parents. @tate pic.twitter.com/6h1nuY6CfQ— THEODORE (@TheodoreArt) January 26, 2014
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| Donald Judd's "Untitled," 1980: the sculpture in question. (Source) |
The very notion seems antithetical to ongoing efforts to open up the GLAM sector to wider audiences, and it operates in direct opposition to what researchers have been advocating for the past few decades: that museums ought to increase the attention paid to our younger audiences. In an article for the BBC, Michelle Warwicker rather critically stated that “art galleries are no longer places of reverent observation and hushed whispers.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art and (interestingly) the Tate Modern offer child-friendly exhibits and activities. Leigh-Anne Stradeski, Chief Executive at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, concurs. She argues that the increase in child and family-friendly content is driven by changing public expectations regarding the role of museums in our lives as well as the more practical concern of attracting new audiences in the face of funding issues. In her opinion, “it can only be a good thing that museums have become more accessible to children, families, and other diverse audiences.”
Not everyone agrees.
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| The first children's museum was opened in 1899, in Brookyn. Children's museums have flourished since as an alternative for parents and kids. Eureka! opened in the UK, in 1985, and it was modeled off its American counterparts. (Source) |
There is a loud, oft-repeated assertion that children don’t “get” art. British artist Jake Chapman went one step further and declared that assuming that a child could understand complex works was both “arrogance” and “insult.” In his view, to insinuate that a child could understand art was to imply that “it’s as moronic as a child.”
As I said, there seems to be a threshold for adulthood in the museum. Behaviour certainly informs that particular convention, but so too does how we interact with art. But unlike many of us grown-ups, children possess no uneasy need to “get” art. Where we are uncertain, they are open-minded and spontaneous in how they respond to and interpret works. They simply need a little more support to do so. Katrina Weier explains that children as ably pick favourites among artworks and relate them to their own experiences as any adult would. In 2004 – a decade before the incident at the Tate Modern and Chapman’s remarks – the Ipswich Art Gallery (formerly the Global Arts Link) led a program wherein children led a tour for a familiar adult. They discussed their favourite objects with varying degrees of detail, gave descriptions, and explained why they liked the objects.
We’re often told that art galleries in particular are places for looking, for doing so quietly. Children in the museum loudly disrupt the ritual of museum-going to which we are accustomed, and I think that this may be what we intimidated and unsure adults need. Warwicker notes that adults “may just have to learn to share exhibition space with these unpredictable little visitors” with some resignation, but even she admits that their natural curiosity can be infectious. And when we witness how willing they are to engage without fear of being wrong, they give us permission to do the same.
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| Museums of art tend to intimidate adult visitors. What if we embraced the unrestrained curiosity of children? (Source) |
As for the risks of children running in museums and galleries, it’s worth noting that most accidental damage to collections is caused by adults, not children. In the case of the Judd sculpture at the Tate Modern, however, I think Stradeski says it best:
“If a child sees a climbing frame where an adult sees a priceless piece of art it's a matter of perspective - and if that poses a problem, the onus is on the professionals to facilitate the child's interpretation and experience of the sculpture." (Stradeski)
Kids are kids. They aren’t little adults, so we shouldn’t expect them to be. But in our capacity as museum staff, educators, parents, etcetera, it’s up to us to facilitate how a child engages in the museum space. The answer to the challenge of children cannot be to close our doors on them. If we work to understand and support children’s visits, engaging the adults who accompany them, we not only provide them with a shared, meaningful experience; in a way, we ensure the future of the GLAM sector writ large.
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