La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid. No. 6, Op. 30" by Boccherini
I love finding music and its covers by various people on YouTube. This is a wonderful expression and expansion of humanity, of pop culture and its dissemination, a faint echo of how music used to spread through sheet music and every parlor had a piano or guitar on hand for evening's entertainment. The internet lets us reverse the one way street of popular culture, where the labors of love by the amateur brings back in this time, the original meaning of the word. The subtle variations between each performer highlights their humanity. I can't help but use this as a lens to view the current condition of contemporary art and wonder what accidental structures -such as the enthusiastic democratic spontaneous embrace of the internet by sincere amateurs, linked to high and popular art- have in any way similarly affected today's art world?
Museums were created at a time when the art world was much, much smaller than it is today, I am thinking of populations of a few thousands versus the several (hundreds of?) millions of this day. This is similar to how television had evolved: once there were three competing networks, now there is a multitude within and beyond the televised bandwidth. If the mission of the art museum is to tell the story of art, then today, there are such a multitude of stories... let us consider that the art world today is so large, that the museum in the legacy of its configuration is currently incapable of doing its job, which is to tell the story of art. How can the museum evolve? How can it be the multiverse that can reflect the one we are living?
Maybe the fine art museum should emulate YouTube?
Posted by Dennis at December 10, 2013 7:55 AM
It already has/ is. Some of 'em, anyway.
B
BART!!!!