When I art history, our teacher would reconstruct the buildings in 3d with quick sketches on the board and show where the paintings were. Because often their placement had some kind of relevance. For instance the proportions in one painting I remember were odd looking by themselves because it had in fact been meant to be placed very high above and the angle at which you saw it (perspective) made it suddenly normal. Another paining had baby Jesus looking completely horrified in his loving mother’s arms. In fact put into context it was because he had been “looking” at the other end of the room where his future laid — a painting with either the last supper or the crucifixion I can’t remember (it’s been a while).

Similarly, I remember seeing like the fall of Icarus – how in Matisse the human was so central, how in Chagall’s it was dramatic but still central (takes like half the canvas) but in the version of Bruegel, it was even MORE dramatic because Icarus just fell and got unnoticed while a farmer ploughs his field, a ship passes by without even taking notice or slowing down, some hiker’s admiring the sunshine with his back to Icarus. And it made me think of many things that were relevant to the present AND to the community: how as a community we treat others sometimes by watching them fall and trying to help and at other times we’re just selfish and we ignore anything that’s not our own need. At a personal level it reminded me too how an individual can have that feeling sometimes of being completely unnoticed or of being central stage when things happened in life.

In both cases, the “experiencial” aspect of the encounter actually had nothing to do with creating programs and hi-tech gadgets — it had everything to do with a low-tech solution: re-arranging the art-work to put it back into some kind of context.

I don’t know how to explain this well but “location” (and relative location between different art pieces) definitely seems to be a big factor in how we experience and understand and connect to art. I think it’s a shame that many collections are just so “static” and traditional with all the artwork at the same height on walls and all arranged by chronology or artist like you mentioned. It’s not just about bringing the contemporary art at the front of the museum… but maybe in like connecting it with the past by themes, or putting visitors back in the context when watching them!

Thanks for the post.