Teaching in the Dark, and other stories from the Hirshhorn

This past weekend (Mar. 1-2), I was fortunate enough to be able to take a trip to Washington, DC, and visit the Hirshhorn Museum to see their new exhibition The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image, Part 1. First of all, what an excellent exhibition! My experience with those works of art will truly stick with me for some time (mostly due to the outstanding exhibition design -- kudos to the Hirshhorn: pretty much the entire exhibition space was pitch black, with walls, ceilings, and floors all painted black, and the video, film, and screen-based works were really able to draw your entire attention).

Learn more about THE CINEMA EFFECT exhibition by clicking here.

This brings me to my main issue: How does a museum educator design educational programming and gallery teaching in an exhibition that is completely dark? Glow in the dark gallery guides? Docents in black-light tee-shirts?

Well, I was also fortunate enough to meet with the Manager of Interpretive Program and Curatorial Research Associate at the Hirshhorn, Ryan Hill, during my visit. First of all, the Hirshhorn is now one of several art museums in the country adopting a strategy that has docents and gallery guides stationed within an exhibition, ready and willing to answer any visitors' questions as they are looking at the exhibition. I bumped in to one of these gallery guides as I stumbled through the darkness in "The Cinema Effect," and was able to ask about the piece I had just encountered in the previous gallery. They were able to provide some excellent background and context -- so overall, this seemed successful. Yet, how many museum visitors feel comfortable asking questions about art to a complete stranger (esp. in the dark)? Are people as likely to ask questions like "how do I look at this work" or "why is this in the exhibition"? During gallery discussions or educational programs, more of these types of big questions can be covered without visitors feeling slightly dumb asking them. Or can they?

Hill also confirmed my suspicion that many of their educational programs also occur outside of the darkened exhibition space itself, but then have people enter the galleries to see works that have either been prefaced by a docent/educator, or these discussions occur after a group has time to explore the exhibition. This is also a strategy that should be increasingly more common these days in art museums, especially when an exhibition involves time-based works that require a certain block of time from the viewer (and then discussion can follow, and then perhaps a final viewing of the work to make concrete connections with the discussion).

I still like the idea of teaching with glow sticks, or asking questions with a Lite-Brite ; )