Manly Curating?
Posted in Individualism, Politics on 01. Dec, 2009
Wait… what?
So, the Arts of the Samurai exhibition at Met has an increased ratio of male viewers. Maybe because of the interest in a period in history when masculinity was measured upon the integrity of one’s code of honour and that this culture appeared almost on the other side of the world.
Apparently not. This guy seems to think it must be down to the swords and violence. He then goes to suggest future exhibitions on steak, explosion, guitars and naked women.
Is this a joke? Am I not getting this? Have I missed the point a bit? A lot of people are linking to this article and yet not commenting on it.
I’m pretty sure that if this was written by a woman who went on to suggest exhibitions like “Washing Up! A History Involving Dishcloths”, “Shoes – Have Another Pair” and “Keeping Your Man”, feminists and anyone with an ounce of respect for gender equality would be ripping this to shreds. Quite right too.
Tits, violence and meat. That’s how to get men into museums. Because that’s all men would care about. Not history, not craftsmanship, not other cultures, oh no. Did you not hear? The “Manly” demographic has devolved a few millions years and European paintings will probably make you gay.
Dear New York Times, if you’re allowing any old nonsense in your paper, I’m cheap and have a backlog of all kinds of things I can offer as articles.
I also thought his other suggestions for exhibits, such as “Trains! They Just Keep On Going!,” was odd – since there are ENTIRE MUSEUMS devoted to these topics (Hello! New York Transit Museum! South Street Seaport! Skyscraper Museum! etc. etc.) I guess if it’s not at the Met, then it doesn’t count. Maybe the Met could lend them some of their art, since they have trouble attracting the ladies.
Anyone have the facts about visiting habits of men and women?
Trains in museum, who would have thunk it.
I think http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/ has written quite a lot on the subject. Don’t know/can’t remember if I agreed with it all.
OMG! I can’t believe you made me waste a couple of minutes of my life reading that rubbish and replying to you here!
I would however be interested to know whether the work of Akira Kurosawa was in any way involved in visitors (however they define their gender) interest in attending the exhibit.
Cheers, Dan
Well, imagine me having to read that rubbish and then spend a lot more than a few minutes writing this article.
Only seems fair, if you ask me.
Wow. This reminds me of Charlotte Allen’s “satirical” article in the Washington Post last year about how women are hysterical idiots that only have the capacity to support good-looking presidential candidates. Well, I guess these delightful editorials keep us on our toes, at least.
The article is definitely satirical – I wouldn’t worry too much (well, except about the state of humour in the US…)
Jeez, maybe my experience is just skewed from working in a Canadian Forces museum all this time, but we’ve never had trouble getting the menfolk into ours to have a look around. I always think of museums as a male-dominated (as a workplace and in terms of who supports/visits museums), I wouldn’t have known that this was out of the ordinary!