In Detroit, art museum loosens up

NATION

In Detroit, art museum loosens up

Institute drawing crowds after dumping turgid, jargon-filled approach to exhibits

By Stevenson Swanson | Tribune national correspondent
January 10, 2008

DETROIT - A video projected onto the top of a table demonstrates how dinner was served in aristocratic houses in 18th Century France. A free-standing panel in front of four abstract paintings of women by Pablo Picasso asks people to match the photos of the models with the paintings on the wall. Children can follow clues to find works of art in 50 galleries.

The Detroit Institute of Arts recently completed a $158 million renovation, but the most startling thing about the project isn't the fresh coat of paint on the walls of one of America's premier museums. It's the fresh approach to presenting the artwork to the public.

In an attempt to shake up the staid atmosphere of a traditional art museum and attract a broader audience, the institute is employing high-tech equipment and jargon-free language to take a much more freewheeling approach to the masterpieces it has on display.

Gone are wall labels with dense paragraphs of fine print, filled with the specialized language of art history. Gone are the rigid distinctions that previously kept art from England, say, separate from art by Italian painters. And, so far, gone are the days when the institute was nearly empty.

"We've taken our permanent collection and broken it up to tell stories about the art," said institute Director Graham Beal. "It's the general public we're trying to engage. Art specialists and curators -- people like me -- can take care of ourselves."

Biggest leap yet for museum?

Although other museums in the U.S. and Europe have moved in the same direction, art-world observers say the Detroit institute may have taken the biggest leap yet away from the prevailing museum model, in which the art is presented chronologically and by style.

But, they say, the risk in the looser approach taken by such institutions as the Tate Modern in London, the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, and the Detroit institute is that they may be "dumbing down" their collections.

"Where do you reach the point where the method of display gets in the way of the art?" said Reed Kroloff, a museum consultant and director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a Detroit suburb.

The institute's approach largely works, he believes, but adds, "It sure pushes the edge. It's OK to hold my hand. It's not OK to squeeze my fingers."

Founded in 1885, the Detroit institute is considered among the top half-dozen "encyclopedic" art museums in America, covering all forms and eras of art. With the backing of such wealthy industrialist patrons as Henry Ford, the museum built an impressive collection of Old Master paintings, including a canvas by Caravaggio, eight paintings by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, and a rich array of works by 18th Century French painters.

The institute proudly notes that it was the first American museum to acquire a painting by Vincent van Gogh, and Mexican artist Diego Rivera painted one of his most famous murals on the walls of a museum courtyard.

Hard times in early '90s

But the museum fell on hard times in the early 1990s, when state funding was slashed. Galleries were closed, and half the staff was laid off. When Beal took over in 1999, he often found himself alone in the galleries.

"People didn't engage with the art," he said. "We wanted to get people to slow down."

Based on the success of special blockbuster exhibitions, Beal and his staff hit on the notion of presenting the collection as a series of big stories.

Labels next to paintings are printed in large type with brief texts because focus groups of ordinary museumgoers said they do not want to read more than about 150 words on a wall label.

Also, recognizing the need to reach out to Detroit's black population, the museum significantly increased space devoted to its large collection of African and African-American art.

Rather than dumbing down, "I'd like to think we're smartening up," Beal said. "We're addressing our public very straightforwardly and not condescending to them. We're trying to make these works of art as eloquent as possible and as meaningful as possible."

James Steward, director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, credits the institute for taking a risk. But he calls the new approach a "one-trick pony" that goes too far in discarding tradition.

"There's a reason to seek out an art museum that's different from a shopping mall or a football stadium or Disney World," said Steward, who favors a mix of specialist and non-specialist styles of presenting artwork. "We make a mistake if we think that the way to get people in is to be like everything else."

The public's response has been enthusiastic so far. Some 56,000 people took advantage of a free-admission weekend to see the renovated institute when it reopened after Thanksgiving.