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It is currently part of the mission of art museums to actively involve children in learning experiences and empower them through a variety of programmes – including developing text panels specialized for children. To date, we have only a limited understanding of the semiotic resources in audience-sensitive exhibition text panels. Drawing upon Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper analyses and compares 56 text panels in an exhibition from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. They are comprised of two versions of text panels for 28 artworks, targeting different groups of audiences, respectively (children and adults). It is found that the children's texts have been recontextualized to evoke interest in learning to paint, while the adults' texts focus on aesthetic appreciation. The comparative analysis shows that audience-sensitive text writing is interrelated with its social context in view of field, tenor, mode, and genre. This paper further explores how the production of audience-sensitive text panels contributes to the pedagogic, commercial, and community value of art museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Do they read? Oh, yes, they do," was the conclusion of a paper identifying the proof of label use in visitors' in-gallery conversations versus the difficulties of observing them reading. This paper -methodologically refines this research question by asking how exactly exhibit labels are used. Answers are derived from an empirical study that analyzed viewing behavior both before and after the reinstallation of a museum's collection through mobile eye tracking (MET), subjective mapping, and questionnaires. As the introduction of interpretive labels was one of the major changes implemented, the paper demonstrates differences in visitors' responses to the artworks with or without contextual information. Analytical emphasis rests on the exploration of patterns in the process of decision making (differentiating between visitors' reading affinities); visual engagement (analyzing the combined activities of looking and reading); and memory (echoing label texts in visitors' artwork reflections). Our findings show that all visitors read, albeit to very different extents, the majority being medium-affinity readers; that the basic viewing pattern "art-label-art" becomes more complex with more text and more -visitors on-site; and that art interpretations deepen and differ through additional information. The power of labels to guide eyes and thoughts suggests their intentional use in museum and curatorial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for the design of interpretive media in art museums. These have been developed based on a review of the literature and the study of current practices of interpretation design in art exhibitions. The study supports the urge to promote design for experiences that resonate with the visitor and that increase diversity in the art museum. Practitioners who design interpretation strategies integrated into art exhibitions often omit visitors' voices from the process, resulting in practices which do not reflect visitors' contexts and needs. This practice-based research project aims to be used and adapted by art institutions in the design of interpretation strategies for their exhibitions, in collaboration with visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The main purpose of scheduling exhibition projects for art museums is to provide the visitors with more exhibitions and to utilize the galleries as fully as possible. Because the combinations of possible exhibitions for all galleries at any given time are numerous, it is difficult for the art museum’s planner to make an optimal decision. Therefore, this paper developed a decision support model with genetic algorithms, called SCHEMA ( SCH eduling E xhibitions for M useum of A rt). In the model the galleries are the resource which the exhibitions utilize in the sequence of their priority values. The model’s evaluation shows to be significantly effective in planning time, percent usage of the gallery, and the number of exhibitions scheduled. Because all the complex computations are done by the model, the decision making process of the scheduling stage is speeded up considerably. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper, which takes the form of a case study, focuses on the conflictual relations between two particular agents, the curator and the local artist, which became prevalent in public art museums in Japan from the 1970s. These two agents had affinities to different sets of culture, and their conflict was intensified over the use of regional museums. I discuss the most controversial example of such conflicts, which took place at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, and I show the complexity of these agents, their struggles and their outcomes. For this purpose of the analysis, I combine Pierre Bourdieu's field theory and the conceptual framework of transculturation. Field theory explains the mechanisms of ongoing struggles between the agents associated with different cultures over the boundaries of the field. The perspective of transculturation is useful as way of expanding Bourdieu's theory and as a means of understanding the complexity and fluidity of the field structure. Originally developed in relation to postcolonial studies, the concept of transculturation highlights both the hybridity of modern Japanese culture and the interactions between different cultures in the artistic field. The case of Tochigi shows that regional art museums in Japan have been developing not as 'frontiers' or 'fortress' of the curator but as 'contact zones' -- i.e. the sites where the curator and the local artist interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art has the power to activate learning and emotion in unique ways—this is true of humans generally, and museum visitors specifically. Yet art galleries are often overlooked in the museum field as forums for dialogue and sites of learning about climate change. This article investigates the significance of artist-led projects and art museum exhibitions in engaging visitors with issues of climate change and greater planetary change through the lens of the Art Gallery of Ontario's Anthropocene exhibition featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier and the related Anthropocene Project by the same trio of artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the accepted ideas on the subject of the museography of fine arts, there is one that constantly recurs: visitors almost never read displayed texts. What is worse, their presence tends to distract visitors from the contemplation of masterpieces. Does the systematic observation of public behavior in a very large museum in Paris and interviews with small groups of French and foreign visitors confirm this suspicion? To answer this question, our team undertook two parallel series of investigations: one on the techniques employed in written signage design within this museum, and the other using observation and semi-directed interviews conducted with a random sample that distinguished between French and foreign visitors. Many categories of comments emerge from this research, all of which concern types of relationships between written signage and activities the public may undertake to appreciate works of art. This inquiry allows us to: (1) identify the elements of complexity in the museum's written materials; (2) describe the way these materials are used; and (3) understand the role they play in the social aspects of the museum visit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]