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Contemplating Your Role In The Community

May 27, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Kyle Bowen at Museum as Progress presented an interesting perspective on the way arts organizations can approach supporting the outcomes their visitors and participants seek. He tackles the perception that people seem to come to arts organizations with so many different problems they need solutions for, it can seem impossible to effectively be all things to all people.

We have all heard the saying that if you try to do a little of everything, you end up doing nothing well.

Kyle uses the example of the different lenses through which people view money. One person may have experienced a market crash and seeks to invest in things with which he can directly interact and control. Another seeks stable investment returns over time vs. risker bets. Another may have seen their parents fighting about money and wants to be in a position where money never harms their personal relationships. While each comes to a financial adviser with different emotional relationships with money, they all have the same desired outcome of financial stability even though they have different ideas and comfort levels associated with how to achieve that.

Bowen says financial advisors define their role as supporting clients financial security.

He goes through a similar process with examples of different perspectives people bring to their fitness goals. He defines, “Fitness professionals supporting clients who want to get healthier.”

Bowen claims that museum professional actually have a large range in which they can operate to support the goals of visitors and participants:

I’ll point out that museums are in a rather unique position — unlike financial advisors or doctors or trainers or so many other professions, museums can support a plethora of outcomes. They have the privilege of choosing from among many outcomes — whether social, personal, physical, or intellectual — where so many others have their work cut out for them by comparison. And even so, the same rules apply to other sectors — the more a financial advisor or trainer or airline or landscaping company understands what makes their customers tick, the greater advantage they’ll have.

Source

So in this context, perhaps mission statements need to be changed from something along the lines of “Providing world class experiences and artistic excellence of the highest caliber to our community” to something like “Providing opportunities for our community to stimulate their curiosity, cultivate their creativity, strengthen relationships with family and friends in a relaxing, rejuvenating environment.”

While that may be a little heavy handed, it does represent a conceptual shift from providing a product to defining the organization’s role in the community.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Working In The Arts

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Art That Will Stop Your Heart

May 20, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

I am generally opposed to promoting arts and cultural experiences as events that will make you swoon or enter some sort of ecstatic state. These aren’t common outcomes and there can be an implication of sorts that you are doing it wrong if it doesn’t happen to you. Obviously, you can have a really great time without swooning and there are many elements that can contribute to that experience that aren’t necessarily the work of art.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Aeon recently had a lengthy article on Stendhal syndrome. The syndrome is named for Stendhal, the nom de plume of Marie-Henri Beyle, who experienced

“…a fierce palpitation of the heart …; the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.’

after visiting a chapel in Florence, Italy in 1817.

While I had heard of Paris Syndrome and Jerusalem Syndrome where people experience great distress/disappointment and psychotic episodes, respective upon visiting those cities, somehow I had missed Stendhal syndrome. While it is also called Florence syndrome, it is more closely associated with experiencing great works of art than with being in Florence.

Though since it is something of an understatement to say Florence has a plethora of great art works, the hospitals of that city certainly see a number of visitors experience all types of physical distress.

Every year, a few dozen tourists to Florence are rushed to the local hospitals, literally overcome by the city’s array of paintings, sculptures, frescoes and architecture. Some lose their bearings, others lose their consciousness, yet others still, on rare occasions, nearly lose their lives. In 2018, a heart attack befell an Italian tourist, Carlo Olmastroni, as he gazed at Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi. (His life was saved by four other tourists, all doctors, who had also been standing and staring, slack-jawed, at the Botticelli.)

According to Graziella Magherini, the psychologist who in 1989 coined the term ‘the Stendhal syndrome’, dehydration and dense crowds certainly played a role in these tourists having heart palpitations and hallucinations. Yet in an interview in 2019, she insisted on another factor: ‘The psychological impact of a great masterpiece.’ Even scientists who dismiss the syndrome as psychosomatic confess that art can have this impact, though they refuse to diagnose it as a psychiatric disorder.

Source

Robert D Zaretsky, author of the Aeon piece, says that while he visits many famous art institutions a year, he has not had the occasion to swoon. He mentions that the way people consume art these days tends to insulate them from having these feelings. Not only do most people only spend a few seconds viewing art in galleries, they often mediate the experience through cameras and social media postings rather than allowing themselves the time to experience and consider the works.

But as with so many perceived problems with arts audiences today, the complaint isn’t new. Stendhal/Beyle felt the Louvre was far too crowded with visitors squeezing through the galleries back in the 19th Century.

“Their eyes are red, their faces tired, their lips tightened. Happily, there are couches to sit on. ‘How superb!’ they declare between yawns wide enough to dislocate their jaws. What human eye can remain unaffected under the assault of 1,500 paintings?”

[…]

Not surprisingly, Beyle rebelled against the crushing abundance of paintings at the Louvre, and instead believed its holdings would be better distributed among dozens of smaller museums where people might stop and engage deeply with these great works of art rather than glance at them over their shoulders as they passed at a slow walking pace.

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Arts Facilities, Audience Relations

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A Play About A Book About A Guard In A Museum

May 19, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Patrick Bringley, who wrote a memoir about his time as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an off-Broadway show based on his book.

He now stars as a version of himself in a one-man Off-Broadway show of the same name, dressed as a Met guard and regaling audiences in his soft, calming voice with meditative tales of unscrupulous visitors, the colourful backstories of his colleagues and, of course, about some of his favourite works of art.

Source

Some of the most interesting stories related in The Art Newspaper articles were about the wide range of occupations and backgrounds of the over 500 people who work as guards at the Met Museum. One of them intersected with the impact of being surrounded by all these artworks.

Bringley says one of his colleagues was a banker in Togo who fled the country after avoiding an assassination attempt. He and Bringley worked together at the Astor Chinese Garden Court, a Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden with an iconic, round Moon Gate as its entrance. When the colleague retired, he showed Bringley a picture of a house he was building in Ghana which had a replicae of the moon gate.

What caught my attention initially about the article is that I have seen a number of articles and comments from museum professionals who have recognized that their guards are often among the most popular and knowledgeable sources of information for visitors in their organizations. A couple mentioned centering programming around some of their guards.

So it isn’t terribly surprising to learn Bringley’s book about his experiences was a best seller.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Working In The Arts

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Doubling The Yield Vs. Doubling The Land You Have

May 14, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post last week that aligns with the idea that it is easier and cheaper to retain a following rather than constantly trying to acquire new customers. Aubrey Bergauer will often post on social media about the issue of audience churn in the arts along these same lines.

Godin uses a slightly different, though very applicable, framing to illustrate his point

A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has.

Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have–the ones who trust you, who get the joke, who want to go where you’re going–is far more reliable.

[…]

This is the overlooked secret of my book streak. I write books for my readers instead of trying to find readers for my books.

Source

Obviously this doesn’t mean one should abandon efforts to better connect with a broader segment of ones community which are core to the purpose of arts and culture non-profits. Since the long time base of arts audiences are dwindling there is a need to add new people.

Godin notes in part of his post I didn’t quote that it is better to double down on those that agree with you and encourage them to bring their friends than to spend a lot of effort convincing those who oppose you.

There are often segments of the community who are inclined to attend, but haven’t yet. Activation efforts focused on existing fans can envelop them as well. I had someone stop me on the street a week or so ago to tell me how interesting an event promoted on a marquee poster looked and assured me he would bring his family to see it. They didn’t attend the event. However the fact that he was engaged enough to stop me on the street and tell me he viewed one of our programs as something he and his family would enjoy was an encouraging sign. I suspect we will see him and his family in our space before the summer is over.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR

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