Would you see it?

I came across this piece from the New York Times, “The Manly Art of Curating” and thought it was most certainly worth sharing.

This article looks at the new “Arts of the Samurai” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has brought in an otherwise lacking demographic to the museum; middle-aged men.  The tone of the article is not too serious, but the author brings up some very real museum issues – for instance, a question we all come up against, how do we entice under-represented audience segments?

The author also jokes about other potential exhibition themes which would bring in middle-aged men, which makes me wonder how seriously we should take these mock exhibitions… it’s fun to laugh off these ideas and joke about ‘what if’, but are these a viable direction institutions should be taking, or would they be sacrificing some level of integrity in doing so?

My favorite suggestion from this article is “Stuff that Blows Up”; who wouldn’t want to see that exhibition?!