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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]

This paper is based on an investigation of the visual memory of the Pinacoteca art museum of the State of São Paulo. The objective of this paper is to understand the process of association of the visual image of the museum's edifice and its graphic signature in the 1990s. The paper utilized a research approach that included identifying and analyzing visual memories and interviewing designers who worked for the Pinacoteca during the 1990s. The conclusions point to a conjuncture of political, historical and structural factors that influenced the incorporation of the visual image of the building to the visual identity of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the increase in green lighting in recent years, scholars have been trying to find more comfortable lighting methods in various fields to meet people's lighting needs. In previous studies, we found that most museum lighting was conducted in the form of subjective questionnaires, but in this study, we tried to introduce a new way to explore the impact of the lighting environment on comfort, namely eye tracking technology. This paper aims to explore the influences when viewing paintings in cold, warm, and middle tones under illumination of 50 lx, 150 lx, and 300 lx, respectively, on the visual comfort of viewers, and the use visual fatigue as the evaluation index to find the most appropriate illumination value for different painting systems in the art museum. By collecting eye movement data under different illuminance and color combination of different paintings and subjective evaluation from the subjects, this paper studies the impact of different illuminances and colors on the subjects' visual fatigue. By considering the illumination intensity of the light environment and the tone of the painting, it can be found that the warm tone painting was more suitable for 150 lx, the cold tone painting was more suitable for 50 lx, and the middle tone painting was more suitable for 300 lx. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical consideration of the proliferation of art museums situated in shopping malls in China. Creating interventions of art and the art museum within retail structures can be conceptually understood as a synthesis development model, whereby the combination of art and commerce is adopted by real estate enterprises in China. The operational characteristics of mall museums reflect a growing tendency for art to be used instrumentally to align with everyday life: an aestheticisation of the ordinary. In the late twentieth century, postmodernism placed great emphasis on the blurring of boundaries between art and everyday life, signalling the collapse of the distinction between high art and mass/popular culture [Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. Simulations. New York: Semiotext; Featherstone, Mike. 1990. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, 64–80. London: SAGE Publications]. Nonetheless, through the example of the Chi Shanghai K11 Art Mall, this paper considers public engagement practices where 'art is for the masses' within such structures to explore whether curatorial strategies and art practices are influenced through a constant adaptation into 'art museum retail'. It also aims to consider whether the development of these 'persuasive spaces' thus has the potential to include experimentation and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of private museums, contemporary art, and the emergence of private collectors has changed public museums’ room for action and placed heightened pressure on museum directors worldwide. In recent years, Norway has witnessed a surge in extensive collaboration between publicly funded museums and private collectors. Based on qualitative interviews with eleven museum directors, this paper examines how they navigate and address criticism, challenges, and demands when collaborating with private actors, with a particular emphasis on private art collectors. Additionally, the study aims to uncover the opportunities that emerge from such collaborations. Findings reveal that public – private collaborations are seen as an inevitable solution for the future, driven by factors such as limited purchasing budgets, rising costs, and concerns about diminishing public support due to reliance on oil revenues. Despite facing challenges such as external criticism and collector demands, directors maintain an optimistic outlook regarding more public – private collaborations and advocate the opportunities they bring. [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]

The discursive turn in heritage studies has made major contributions to our understanding of heritage as a set of processual practices, demonstrating how they are inherently contingent while acknowledging their role in the legitimation of specific relationships of power. More recently, there has been a related interest in the rhetorical uses of heritage, and the paper builds on these debates to explore the ways in which the National Gallery (London) mobilised a rhetoric about access as part of its scheme of post-WWII reconstruction. The popular 'Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures' (1947) sheds light on the rhetorical devices employed by the Gallery. These were a cogent example of the Gallery's intended programme of emancipatory viewership, premised on visitors' the right to look, but simultaneously reinforced the Gallery's authoritative discourses. The paper shows how photography's reportedly unbiased language became embedded in the Gallery's democratising agenda and helped shape distinctive forms of publicness which fostered a consensual view about the Gallery's practice of cleaning. Rather than seeing both episodes as mutually exclusive, the paper investigates the internal logic of democratisation and professionalisation as a series of co-dependent rhetorical operations that simultaneously enabled freedom and coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Public Art is the property of Shanghai Fine Arts Publisher Ltd. co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper elaborates on the Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Art established in 2017 in the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Culture. Paradoxically, this fund is perceived both positively and negatively by various institutions. On the positive side, from the year 2017 to 2019, the fund has allocated 41,257,888 CZK (1,517,753 EUR) for the purchase of 287 artworks by 29 institutions. On the negative side, only 29 out of 218 eligible institutions have applied for support from the fund during the three years of the fund's existence. This low application rate is attributed partly to the time consuming and complicated administration of the application for support, and partly to apprehension from some institutions regarding the likelihood of the actual realisation of the receipt of financial support. In turn, due to this low application rate, the institutions that have applied have had a high probability of receiving funding. The paper sheds new light on the lack of financing for acquisition in art institutions and opens the question of the effectiveness of the Acquisition Fund in the Czech Republic. [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]

Copyright of Revista CPC is the property of Revista CPC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with digitally mediated museum experiences of novice visitors at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and discusses them in the context of museum inclusion. Research participants included families with young children and members of minority communities in Vienna whose visit was facilitated by two app-based guided tours developed for children. The research goal was to explore the impact of the mobile guide’s digital content and modes of communication on the visitors’ interaction with the guide, with the museum space and objects, and with family members. The families’ interactions were observed, recorded and analyzed. The results suggest that carefully considered and created content on mobile guides has the potential to provide novice family visitors with experiences that support their independence and active engagement, create opportunities for mutual facilitation, and support their different identities, all of which have been considered as conducive to inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details a research study, conducted by the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) and Toledo Public Schools (TPS), outlining the impact of visual literacy interventions on pre-literacy development. Because TPS K-3 students regularly fail the state report card in literacy, the two groups co-developed a curriculum that enhanced tier two vocabulary acquisition for preschool students. Elements of the curriculum, detailed in the paper, included regular visits to the TMA and curricula interventions in TPS classrooms further promote art museums as valuable resources for learning in and out of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vital role of entrepreneurship for economic growth and its impact for job creation in mature and developing economies is widely recognized and quantified (OECD, Entrepreneurship and Business Statistics, 2015). According to Get2growth data (How Many Startups Are There?, 2015), 100 million start-ups are created each year of which 1.35% are technology-based companies, and according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (Fairlie, 2013), almost a quarter of new businesses in the USA were started by entrepreneurs aged 55 and older. Survival following failure data for start-ups are numerous and complex in the interpretation, and data presented by the Statistic Brain (Startup business failure rate by industry, 2015) show a 55% failure rate within the fifth year. Entrepreneurship is important for growth but sustainable entrepreneurship is hard to achieve. This paper, by means of a case study of a German private art museum 'Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund', analyzes the disruptive methods, both atypical and contrary to the mainstream art industry, developed to ensure the sustainable success of such an innovative endeavor. Our analyses and results contribute to the understanding of the building blocks and roadmap designed by the Kunstmuseum to successfully enter the elitist contemporary art industry, as an outsider, and provide an early indication that such methods can be theoretically replicated in other industries by other entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand management has become a key element in museum differentiation and competitiveness. When a museum's brand is associated with a particular artist, the artist is a brand in themselves, bestowing the museum added value and shaping its personality. In recent years there has been a growing trend in museum management towards strengthening their brands. The aim of this work is to determine the elements of transmission of brand identity in museums associated with an artist based on the model proposed by Aaker [1996. Construir Marcas Poderosas. Barcelona: Gestión 2000]. A qualitative methodology based on thematic analysis has been employed to draw the main conclusions from the in-depth interviews of the directors and heads of Communication and Marketing of the Picasso museums in Spain. The results reflect that the link between brand, artist and museum is not only transmitted through the product, symbolism and organisation but also through its connection with the territory and its digital sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zivot Umjetnosti is the property of Zivot Umjetnosti and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper takes part in the ongoing debate around how museums have begun to address LGBTQI+ and feminist issues in the 21st century. While Portugal is a particularly interesting country to consider, given that it has passed some of the most advanced legislation on LGBTQI+ rights in Europe (Santos 2012), this progressivism is not reflected in Portuguese museum practices, given that gender museology has been slow to emerge (Vaquinhas 2014). After briefly contextualising initiatives addressing gender in Portuguese art museums, we present as a case study Trazer a margem para o centro (Bringing the Margin to the Centre), a series of three talks hosted by the Berardo Collection Museum, which is considered Portugal's primary modern and contemporary art museum. Unlike previous initiatives in art museums, which were museum-led, the series of talks was led by the small intersectional feminist collective FACA. A sociologist (Rita Grácio) and the three members of FACA (Andreia Coutinho, Laura Falé and Maribel Sobreira) designed and conducted the three talks that constitute the initiative Bringing the Margin to the Centre. Grácio designed and conducted the qualitative study of the audiences that attended Bringing the Margin to the Centre. This study consisted of participant observation at the event series, at which an adapted version of the Personal Meaning Mapping technique (Falk and Storksdieck 2005) was applied; semi-structured phone interviews with participants were then conducted after the event (Falk and Dierking 2011). The main findings show this event raised awareness among cisgender visitors with heteronormative perspectives and provided a space for counter-narratives of the queer community, showing the role of collective curatorial activism and museums in promoting gender equality and inclusiveness, if acting as gate-leakers, rather than as gatekeepers. Hence, museums can provide lessons to other organisations interested in promoting diversity and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciência da Informação is the property of Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciencia da Informacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent studies documenting the real-time details of human interactions have revealed the way in which artefacts in the immediate physical surround facilitate the display and demonstration of knowledge. The museum setting in which physically present objects prompt and support visitor displays of knowledge is particularly well-suited for individuals managing symptoms related to memory loss as a result of dementia, especially of the Alzheimer's type. In this paper, we explore question-answer sequences taken from three hour-long guided sessions within an art gallery program involving museum guides who were specially trained to work with visitors with dementia. We investigate representative sequences 1) in which visitors exercise interactional control by posing questions to guides that relate to the visitors' own interests and 2) in which guides pose questions to visitors regarding topics that relate to the visitors' personal lives. We argue that these two discursive practices promote interactional meaningfulness, in that the former pattern affords the visitors interactional agency, while the latter pattern allows them to display their epistemic authority. Finally, we consider how insights from this therapeutic model may be translated from the museum to the home setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper elaborates on the Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Art established in 2017 in the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Culture. Paradoxically, this fund is perceived both positively and negatively by various institutions. On the positive side, from the year 2017 to 2019, the fund has allocated 41,257,888 CZK (1,517,753 EUR) for the purchase of 287 artworks by 29 institutions. On the negative side, only 29 out of 218 eligible institutions have applied for support from the fund during the three years of the fund’s existence. This low application rate is attributed partly to the time consuming and complicated administration of the application for support, and partly to apprehension from some institutions regarding the likelihood of the actual realisation of the receipt of financial support. In turn, due to this low application rate, the institutions that have applied have had a high probability of receiving funding. The paper sheds new light on the lack of financing for acquisition in art institutions and opens the question of the effectiveness of the Acquisition Fund in the Czech Republic.

This paper aims to explore whether the teaching of the abstract literary concepts of symbolism, narrative perspective and style to young readers can be made more effective by the study of art in an art museum context. The research is an interpretive qualitative case study exploring the learning of 6 participants within a class of 28 students aged 11-12. The results show that the students developed positive learning behaviours in the museum, and that these supported the students’ ability to reflect on the artists’ use of symbolism and style in narrative paintings. It demonstrates how some of these skills could be applied to the reading of texts in the English classroom. The paper hopes to encourage English teachers to question what it is they want students to learn about reading and use a cross-arts approach to adopt a more holistic pedagogy than the English National Curriculum might propose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of new museology and constructivist learning theories, the traditional unidirectional educational role of the museum has been contested and challenged. Museums have the potential to be progressive pedagogical sites and are an ideal terrain to explore educational theories and attitudes. Jacques Rancière, in his seminal book The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), proposed a different view of what education should look like. This article explores what an 'ignorant art museum' practice can look like beyond meaning-making, through analysis of key actions, such as observing, repeating, failing, trying and verifying. Theorising on literature (philosophy and educational theory) and taking international examples, it will explore the benefits and issues created by such practices. What are the tensions between the museum as the site of the expert and the space of the public? What can a new form of museum expertise look like? How can technology contribute to the development of the 'ignorant museum'? What knowledge can be created in an 'ignorant museum' environment and how can this knowledge be displayed in the framework of the museum? By attempting to resolve these questions, this paper aims to look into the 'ignorant museum' as a strategy for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the increase in green lighting in recent years, scholars have been trying to find more comfortable lighting methods in various fields to meet people’s lighting needs. In previous studies, we found that most museum lighting was conducted in the form of subjective questionnaires, but in this study, we tried to introduce a new way to explore the impact of the lighting environment on comfort, namely eye tracking technology. This paper aims to explore the influences when viewing paintings in cold, warm, and middle tones under illumination of 50 lx, 150 lx, and 300 lx, respectively, on the visual comfort of viewers, and the use visual fatigue as the evaluation index to find the most appropriate illumination value for different painting systems in the art museum. By collecting eye movement data under different illuminance and color combination of different paintings and subjective evaluation from the subjects, this paper studies the impact of different illuminances and colors on the subjects’ visual fatigue. By considering the illumination intensity of the light environment and the tone of the painting, it can be found that the warm tone painting was more suitable for 150 lx, the cold tone painting was more suitable for 50 lx, and the middle tone painting was more suitable for 300 lx.

The studies of the Louvre-Lens show how social and relational awareness can be expressed architecturally, as the architecture by SANAA is explicitly anti-monumental and seeks to relate to the site, the inhabitants, and the visitors by being adaptive and responsive to the former mining landscape and context. Inside, visitors are invited to co-create the museum experience by moving freely through the exhibited artworks in a setting that seems to re-actualise an experimental exhibition space, which was originally designed by Lina Bo Bardi fo r Museu de Arte de São Paulo. Through on-site observations, photographs, and literary studies, the paper will compare the two museum spaces by SANAA and Bo Bardi, respectively, including their relations with the urban programs. The paper will propose how architecture can condition and create affects and sensations, which immanently connect the social agendas of art institutions to the museum experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to find the implications applied to art institutions of Korea by analyzing what the content and consequences of services of the Cleveland Museum of Art provided after the Internet of Things adoption in the theoretical perspectives strengthening service marketing through the Internet of Things increases visits and participation in the museum. For analysis, journal articles, statistics, and government press releases, news articles, web pages, web page articles are collected. The results are first, the application of digital and social media is positive in visit to the museum and monetization. Second, the introduction of the Internet of Things will enhance the museum's 'Education', 'Accessibility', 'Communications' services, as well as significantly increase on and offline participation by activating experience. Third, technical support from related companies with the support of local government funds is essential to build the system. Consequently, in order to enable the participation of the spectators in the galleries it is proposed aggressive adoption of such digital technology in domestic barren market of Internet of Things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The position that feminist art holds within the art museum is complex and often contradictory. As Meaghan Morris pointed out, feminism “is not easily adapted to heroic progress narratives”. There is a very real danger that when absorbed into the museum exhibition, feminist art can become a historicising category, framed as a singular movement rather than a currently relevant set of strategies. The alternative would be the presentation of feminism as a set of living practices. Since 2010, the feminist artist collective LEVEL has been involved in a range of activities designed to reinvigorate the discussion of women's position in the art world and society more broadly. LEVEL was commissioned to provide a public program as part of theWAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT): YOKO ONOexhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in late 2013. This paper discusses the design of that project as an attempt to move beyond the script of feminism as a historical moment, and back to the lived experience of feminist art as political understanding and social engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Matéria Prima is the property of Revista Meteria Prima and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Šolsko Polje is the property of Solsko Polje and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction. The role of the visual arts in medical education has been understudied, especially with regard to program evaluation and learner assessment of complex competencies such as professional identity, team building, and tolerance for ambiguity. We designed a study to explore how an integrative art museum-based program might benefit 3rd and 4th year medical students. Methods. We piloted 6 sessions with 18 participants. Evaluation methods included post-session surveys and semi-structured focus groups, which we qualitatively analyzed using an open-coding method. Results. Seven themes emerged from the analysis related to the overarching realms of 'form' and 'function.' 'Form' themes included structural elements of the sessions that enabled engagement: (1) group format, (2) methods (e.g., discussion prompts, activities), (3) setting (e.g., physical space of the museum, temporal space), and (4) objects (e.g., paintings, sculptures). 'Function' themes included the personal and professional value and meaning derived from the sessions: (1) appreciation of others, (2) critical skills, and (3) personal inquiry. Discussion. Our results expand what is known about the role of the visual arts in medical education by suggesting that the visual arts may facilitate clinically relevant learning across a range of competencies via specific formal aspects (group format, method, setting, objects) of art museum-based pedagogical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with digitally mediated museum experiences of novice visitors at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and discusses them in the context of museum inclusion. Research participants included families with young children and members of minority communities in Vienna whose visit was facilitated by two app-based guided tours developed for children. The research goal was to explore the impact of the mobile guide’s digital content and modes of communication on the visitors’ interaction with the guide, with the museum space and objects, and with family members. The families’ interactions were observed, recorded and analyzed. The results suggest that carefully considered and created content on mobile guides has the potential to provide novice family visitors with experiences that support their independence and active engagement, create opportunities for mutual facilitation, and support their different identities, all of which have been considered as conducive to inclusion.

Copyright of Methaodos: Social Science Journal / Methaodos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicacion y Sociologia, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay analyses two texts by the Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski (1952-2015) articulating theoretical stances towards art museography. Reflecting on how they deal with psychological as well as openly political issues, I interpret and assess their joint contribution to the broader interdisciplinary field of (critical) museography. The texts are "New Museums in New Europe" and "Making the National Museum Critical". Together the texts developed Piotrowski's concept of "the critical museum" as a way of dealing with the challenges of running an old national art museum based on masterpieces while also striving to engage with pressing contemporary issues. which is a prerequisite for critical intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In extending Bernard Stiegler's conceptualizations of life as the economy of death and Alexander Marshack's historical tracings of early-human artifacts in relation to flowers, I strive to situate and read flowers as media that they carry an embedded history and infrastructure that reflects and challenges the anthropocentrism that has cultivated, commodified, and curated blooms throughout time. In looking to theorists such as Donna Haraway and Jane Bennett, I study a specific event in which flowers are presented to the public as art: the North Carolina Museum of Art's Art in Bloom. Art in Bloom offers and sustains a complex media ecology, where paintings and sculptures readily and more permanently adorn the gallery spaces, living blooms are used as accompanying pieces of floral art for four days a year, text embeds all signifying information through the museum, money gains admittance to the space, and visitors experience the collective forces of mediation - and contribute to it by documenting their experience through personal digital photography. Such a study of flowers as both media and art must simultaneously recognize the humanist structures blooms are cultivated and commodified within, emphasizing Art in Bloom as a prime instance in which the tensions surrounding nature, gender, art, and media collide - and where traditional perceptions and understandings of what constitutes art is deconstructed and reverted for the human-oriented benefit and economic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society and policy makers are increasingly expecting art museums to be democratic and socially relevant platforms that are inclusive to everyone. To manifest this shift, each institution must draw on the entire spectrum of museal knowledge, not least audience and education knowledge. There has been a history of professional hierarchy and knowledge hegemony inside the art museum, where object-based knowledge has trumped practice-based knowledge and where the education discipline has had a low rank. An important reason for this imbalance has been the great backlog in education research that, among other things, is related to a lack of institutional facilitation and adequate practice-related research methods. Research in art museums has largely operated within traditional art history, but now more and more museums are drawing on other models outside the museum disciplines to develop new research standards. One of the museums that have been transformed by a new outlook on practice and research is Tate, which has developed a practicerelated research method inspired by models within the arts and school systems. In this article I will reflect on the importance of art museums establishing a research framing that ensures efficient interdisciplinary creative processes, reflection and knowledge sharing to create the best practice for the audience. In my argumentation I draw on both the Tate model and my own experience from working at the National Museum in Oslo for over a decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent are factors that are extrinsic to the artwork relevant to judgements of artistic value? One might approach this question using traditional philosophical methods, but one can also approach it using empirical methods; that is, by doing experimental philosophical aesthetics. This paper provides an example of the latter approach. We report two empirical studies that examine the significance of three sorts of extrinsic factors for judgements of artistic value: the causal-historical factor of contagion, the ontological factor of uniqueness, and the contextual factor of appreciative environment. We explore the context of appreciation by performing studies in a museum as well as the lab. We found that contagion made a difference in both settings. However, uniqueness only made a difference in the lab setting, but not in the museum. This suggests that the context of appreciation may make a difference to judgements of artistic value. Of broader significance, these studies show the value of experimental philosophical aesthetics and the value of doing in situ empirical research on art.

An active engagement with arts in general and visual arts in particular has been hypothesized to yield beneficial effects beyond arts itself. So-called cognitive and socio-emotional "transfer" effects into other domains have been claimed. However, the empirical basis of these hopes is limited. This is partly due to a lack of experimental comparisons, theory-based designs, and objective measurements in the literature on transfer effects of arts education. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design and experimentally investigate a theory-based visual-arts education program for adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years (M age = 15.02, SD age = 1.75). The program was delivered in a museum context in three sessions and was expected to yield specific and objectively measurable transfer effects. To conduct a randomized field trial, three strictly parallelized and standardized art courses were developed, all of which addressed the topic of portrait drawing. The courses mainly differed regarding their instructional focus, which was either on periods of art history, on the facial expression of emotions, or on the self-perception of a person in the context of different social roles. In the first and more "traditional" course portrait drawing was used to better understand how portraits looked like in former centuries. The two other courses were designed in a way that the artistic engagement in portrait drawing was interwoven with practicing socio-emotional skills, namely empathy and emotion recognition in one course and understanding complex self-concept structures in the other. We expected positive socio-emotional transfer effects in the two "psychological" courses. We used an animated morph task to measure emotion recognition performance and a self-concept task to measure the self-complexity of participants before and after all three courses. Results indicate that an instructional focus on drawing the facial expressions of emotions yields specific improvements in emotion recognition, whereas drawing persons in different social roles yields a higher level of self-complexity in the self-concept task. In contrast, no significant effects on socio-emotional skills were found in the course focussing on art history. Therefore, our study provides causal evidence that visual-arts programs situated in an art-museum context can advance socio-emotional skills, when designed properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many K-12 schools in the United States face reduced time for the arts due to the time needed to prepare students for high-stakes standardized exams. Although there are advanced placement exams in art history, many rural districts lack the resources to support those efforts. Without the ability to visit large city museums, students lack access to the artworks needed to engage in high-level discussion for substantive arts literacy. This can put children behind in terms of preparation for future employment in graphic arts, digital art production, and related professions. One attempt to overcome this problem was a U.S. art museum's online art curriculum. This article reports an evaluation of the effectiveness of the digital tools developed to support the art courses based on teacher reports of their experiences during a second-year pilot program. We interviewed 12 teachers during the second semester of the pilot implementation. Teachers noted technical problems that hindered curriculum implementation into their art classrooms. Finally, we discuss these challenges' effects resulting from a failure mode and effects analysis and make improvement recommendations focused on improving early-stage developmental analysis, technology stability, products' usability, and tool alignment to pedagogical modes and outcomes for both rural and broader audiences. [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]

In this article we discuss how museums, as knowledge institutions, enable the public to use virtual reality (VR) as an instrument for exhibitions. Most current research is about integrating VR into the traditional frame of a museum to enable a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the displayed artworks. This happens because of a narrow view of the concept of 'reality'. To start this discussion we are going to broaden the concept of 'reality', and go beyond the most commonly used terms of real and virtual. We will study some case applications of VR in museums and the way it is understood, to then bring about the range of possibilities it has beyond the common use. We will work with the most widely accepted theories on museums and based on Roy Ascott's works we will present a deeper discussion on the topic of realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The research aimed to assess, through physiological measurements such as blood pressure and heart rate, whether exposure to art museums and to different art styles (figurative vs. modern art) was able to enhance visitors' well-being in terms of relaxing and stress reduction. Method Participants (n = 77) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, on the basis of the typology of the art style they were exposed to in the museum visit: (1) figurative art, (2) modern art and (3) museum office (as a control condition). Blood pressure and heart rate were measured before and after the visits. Results Diastolic values of the participants were quite stable, as expected in people who do not suffer hypertension; we therefore considered only variations in systolic blood pressure. The majority of the participants exposed to figurative art significantly decreased systolic blood pressure compared to those exposed to modern art and museum office. No differences were found in the heart rate before and after the visit for the three groups. Conclusion Findings suggest that museum visits can have health benefits, and figurative art may decrease systolic blood pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]