In the grand scheme of life, of all that makes humans human, no subject, perhaps with the exception of religion for obvious reasons, can be said to possess the soul and to capture the imagination as art. From music to paintings to sculpture, art represents the very projection of humankind onto the physical world. In all its myriad forms, art is sought after, collected, and preserved in museums and placed in plain view of the public in order to be glorified and venerated; yet there seems to be a problem with “traditional” way of viewing art in all its beauty, static or fluid, contemporary or modern. In her essay “High Culture Goes Hands-On”, Judith Dobrzynski, (The New York Times, Aug.10, 2013), gives her own opinion of the modernization of the way people see art, and hints that museums might lose “their identity” if they continue to conform to the general public’s demands.
Dobrzynski starts off her essay by stating that “The quest for an experience has taken over a giant portion of our lives.”, which goes to imply that we as mankind have moved past the rather conventional and slightly backwards idea of satisfaction. She describes the modern ways of communication and interaction-texting, constant updating, accelerated extremity in sports, and increasing social mingling. She even goes on to say that in the search of keeping pace, some people blow past the fact of Europe’s ancient centers of culture, and simply take a few snapshots just to prove a point. She goes on to state her main point, which is that not only is the public moving past the older ideas of the emulation and the viewing of art, but the very institutions which place the art in the public’s reach have begun to modernize their ways displaying art, perhaps to their implicated doom. She says that the museums have made viewing the art an “experience”, a term she uses over and over to show that in her opinion, the majority of the public go to museums to find more than an ethereal connection to the art, but for more of a hands-on interaction with the art. This implies that man’s perception of reality may be slowly shifting from the rather mental ways of old to more of a physical and emotional connection, moving past sight and sound and inspiration in art
