@TheMuseum: Challenges and Opportunities of Millennial Participation for Art Museums

@TheMuseum: Challenges and Opportunities of Millennial

Participation for Art Museums by

Brittany Lauren Shultz

A THESIS

submitted to Saint John International University

Turin, Italy

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of

Master of Arts in International Arts Administration

Presented July 16, 2012 Commencement May 26, 2012

@TheMuseum: Challenges and Opportunities of Millennial Participation for Art Museums

Master of Arts thesis by Brittany Lauren Shultz presented on July 16, 2012. APPROVED: ____________________________________________ Valeria Graziano, Thesis Advisor ____________________________________________ Rocío Aguilar-‐Nuevo, Second Advisor ____________________________________________ Roberto Franzini Tibaldeo, Acting Chair of the Department ____________________________________________ Roberto Franzini Tibaldeo, Dean of Academic Affairs I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Saint John International University libraries. My signature below authorizes the release of my thesis to any reader upon request. __________________________________________ Brittany Lauren Shultz, Author

ABSTRACT

My research is an inquiry into the participation trends of the Millennial

generation, and the ways in which art museums in the United States are adapting

and updating their procedures to engage this demographic. My goal was to

understand why recent studies indicate Generation Y is the least likely group to

participate in culture when shifts in technological development and social

networking would suggest we young people are in fact participating actively. To

explore this issue, I researched the current literature circulating in the arts field

relating to Millennials and participation, and questioned current modes of

involvement and connection. I proposed a 21st century framework for a

participatory arts institution, then traced back through the historical shifts in

cultural engagement to discover the change in the understanding of participation,

especially in North America. I selected this geographical context because the United

States is a wealthy nation with a legacy of generous funding in the humanities and

museums and what is done here will impact other countries; in addition, this

location provided the opportunity for my field research. Using an ethnographic

methodology, I observed and noted my experiences within two art museums as case

studies, The Rubin Museum and The Brooklyn Museum, and I proposed several

criteria for significant Millennial participation strategies as expressed by these

institutions.

KEY TERMS: Museums, 21st century, Generation Y, Curatorial, Culture, Internet

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are several people who have contributed to the completion of this thesis

through thoughtful advice, support, and guidance.

First and foremost I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Valeria Graziano, for

her unlimited support and continual encouragement throughout the research and

writing phases of my thesis. Her feedback and careful considerations truly

challenged my practice and ultimately augmented the quality of my project.

I would also like to thank Rocío Aguilar-‐Nuevo for her guidance throughout the

Master program and her insights into my final work, and Robert Franzini Tibaldeo

for his support in the successful completion and presentation of my thesis.

Finally, I would like to thank the institutions that lent themselves to critical

assessment for the purpose of my research: the Brooklyn Museum and the Rubin

Museum.

This thesis is dedicated to

My Baby Boomer parents—my father who has actively supported me in my determination to find and realize my potential, and my mother who taught me by

example that I can accomplish anything by taking it one day at a time

and

My friends and family who have diligently followed my personal blog for the past two years and have been sources of encouragement and inspiration during my

pursuit of a postgraduate education abroad.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Cultural Participation in the New Millennium......................................... 6 Cultural relevance and creative placemaking.......................................................................................... 7 Participation and cultural policy research ............................................................................................. 10 Contemporary culture and the issue of arts engagement................................................................ 13 Generation Y and the arts experience ...................................................................................................... 15

Chapter 2: Historical Perspective on Participation ...................................................17 The issue of defining and assessing participation............................................................................... 18 Building a framework for 21st century arts participation ............................................................... 21 Art museums and the shifting concept of ‘culture’ in the 19th century...................................... 24 The state of the arts in 20th century North America........................................................................... 32 Generation Y and the postmodern art museum of the 21st century............................................ 34

Chapter 3: Millennial Participation—Modes and Trends........................................41 The new participatory culture..................................................................................................................... 42 Advances in the cultural sector and implications for art museums............................................ 44 Millennial modes of participation .............................................................................................................. 46 The Millennial profile and the future of the arts experience.......................................................... 48

Chapter 4: Case Studies .......................................................................................................51 The Rubin Museum, New York, NY ............................................................................................................ 53 The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY....................................................................................................... 58 Observations and conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 64

Chapter 5: Conclusions ........................................................................................................65 Millennial impact on nonprofit arts organizations............................................................................. 67 Digital culture and the ‘new’ museum...................................................................................................... 68 The museum of the future ............................................................................................................................. 70

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................................74

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Introduction

These days it seems rare to go a week or two without reading an article or a

new study regarding the Millennial generation—those who are 18-‐29 years old and

coming of age in the new millennium. In the last two weeks of June 2012 alone, The

Huffington Post published an article on Millennial-‐evaluated “cool” brands,1 TIME

magazine reported on minority Millennials being a driving force in politics,2 and the

U.S. News & World Report discussed today’s Millennial workforce3. We just cannot

seem to characterize them with a one-‐size-‐fits-‐all definition. Parents want to know

how to reach out to them, business executives want to know how to motivate them,

industries want to know how to prepare for them, and marketers want to

understand them in order for their products to maintain cultural relevance.

Generation Y is more networked than any other generation and thus has the power

to influence and determine the success and future of an organization.4

1 Lesonsky, Rieva. "Millennials Evaluate Their "Coolness," Cool Brands: Survey Says." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 June 2012. Web. 10 July 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/survey-‐says-‐millennials-‐evaluate-‐coolness_n_1586693.html>. 2 Rooks, Noliwe M. "How Minority Millennials Are Driving Politics." TIME.com. Time Magazine, 21 June 2012. Web. 10 July 2012. <http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/21/how-‐minority-‐millennials-‐are-‐driving-‐politics/>. 3 Graves, Jada A. "Millennial Workers: Entitled, Needy, Self-‐Centered?" US News and World Report. US News and World Report, 27 June 2012. Web. 11 July 2012. <http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2012/06/27/millennial-‐workers-‐entitled-‐needy-‐self-‐centered>. 4 Martin, Patricia. Tipping the Culture: How Engaging Millennials Will Change Things. Rep. Chicago: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 2010. PDF.

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Arts organizations, museums included, are not immune to this ongoing quest

to understand Millennial behavior and motivations. Wishing to gain an insight into

their future, nonprofits have commissioned reports to determine whether or not

Millennials have a capacity for philanthropy. What these reports have found, and

what art museums are beginning to process, is a tendency toward giving but also a

desire to be involved.5

Greg Johnson, contributor to The Millennial Impact Report 2012,

pragmatically noted his experience with Generation Y

I find that it is dangerous to over-‐generalize this demographic.

We have encountered many who are thoughtful, resourceful, open-‐minded, and even visionary community stewards... Our challenge is to personalize the impact and engage them in ways that engender ownership and investment.

-‐ Greg Johnson, Chairman and CEO Damar Services

Johnson gets to the heart of the issue by stating there is no clear-‐cut definition of a

Millennial, but their relationship to nonprofits is a positive one. He recognizes a

nonprofit’s challenge in involving this demographic and suggests a personal

approach that promotes a sense of belonging. By engaging and empowering

Millennials, art museums in particular can look at this challenge as an opportunity

to follow their missions—to make their institutions more accessible and prepare for

their future.

5 Feldmann, Derrick and Angela E. White, eds. The Millennial Impact Report 2012. Rep. Indianapolis: Achieve and Johnson Grossnickle + Associates, 2012. PDF.

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Culture analyst and marketing expert Patricia Martin, author of the e-‐book

Tipping the Culture: How Engaging Millennials Will Change Things, found that

marketers who were making a powerful connection with Generation Y were doing

three things right: making a lifestyle connection, transferring knowledge by giving

customers a glimpse behind the curtain, and providing a platform that lets

customers co-‐create with the company.6 Essentially, Millennials want to be

connected, not just technologically, but they want to have a meaningful connection

with arts organizations to build a sense of belonging—they want to participate.

Along with the rise of participatory culture in the last decade, curators, cultural

workers, and arts administrators have begun to heed these reports on Millennials

and participation, taking experimental steps to help younger audiences feel at home

in their organizations, and they are sharing these ideas and experiences online via

web logs, or blogs. This medium is helpful to an extent. What is problematic,

however, is that often these cultural blogs are linked to an established institution or

private enterprise, or they are the initiative of a governmental agency, meaning the

authors, or bloggers, must be cognizant of their constituencies who are freely able to

access all published information. Although there are independent bloggers

providing much-‐needed analysis and criticism for the benefit of the field, still others

are stuck lauding best practices, ever mindful of their words, catering to a parent

organization’s sensibilities.

6 Martin, Patricia. Tipping the Culture: How Engaging Millennials Will Change Things. Rep. Chicago: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 2010. PDF.

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My research looks at Millennial participation and art museums by including

traditional references from books, articles, and reports, but also the very

information platforms arts administrators are utilizing to discuss these issues—

blogs. Albeit an unconventional source, blogs themselves are participative in nature,

providing a virtual forum for cultural workers worldwide to convene in real time on

issues pertinent to their sector. Arts administrators, curators, educators, and artists

themselves are developing a shared expectation that the current research,

developments, experiments, and experiences they collect as individuals should be

shared with the field. This was previously done through collaborative studies and

research projects, but is now practiced more informally via the Internet in the

format of an ongoing web conversation. Museum workers recognize the common

challenges facing their field and the need to expand their understanding of the state

of the entire cultural sector. The blog, in some ways limited by its public diffusion, is

a cooperative model that encourages discourse about what works and what doesn’t

work, risks that were taken, innovative project ideas, detailed breakdowns of policy

changes and current research reports.

This thesis seeks to take a deeper look into a contemporary issue that is a hot

topic in the online community—that of Millennial participation in the arts. While

successful product marketers are inviting Generation Y to co-‐create content for their

brand, art museums are struggling to maintain relevance in their lives. My research

focuses on the need for art museums to implement changes that enable Millennials. I

present current literature from the field detailing cultural participation trends for

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this demographic and modalities of contemporary engagement. I outline the

historical shift away from active involvement in North American arts institutions,

present an understanding of a 21st century participatory museum, and discuss the

Rubin Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, examples of two museums that—

speaking as a Millennial myself—have significantly channeled the needs of

Generation Y with their noteworthy engagement strategies.

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Chapter 1: Cultural Participation in the New Millennium

In recent years, the long-‐range diagnosis of cultural health (arts education,

literacy, cultural competence and cross-‐cultural understanding) in the United States

has been presented as bleak at best—aging arts patrons, shrinking audiences,

decreases in philanthropic donations1. Among the many challenges facing arts

institutions in the 21st century, and perhaps the most overarching, is the issue of

relevancy, or maintaining importance in the lives of the current generations and

future supporters, that is, the Millennial generation.

Millennial is a term coined in 1991 by generational researchers William

Strauss and Neil Howe in their book Generations: The History of America’s Future,

1584 - 2069 to refer to those born between 1982 and 2002 to Baby Boomer

parents.2 Millennials are now understood more broadly as North American teens

and twenty-‐somethings who are the first generation to come of age in the new

millennium. This generation, considered to be comprised of roughly 18-‐29 year olds,

is described by a Pew Research Study as upbeat, confident, liberal, self-‐expressive,

open to change, and—according to current census data that shows nearly 40% were

enrolled in college by 2008—they are on the track to becoming the most educated

1 Ivey, Bill J. "The Question of Participation." Introduction. Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 1-‐16. Print. 2 Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: Morrow, 1991. Print.

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generation in history.3 The data suggests that they are the most familiar with online

self-‐expression, communication, media, and digital technologies, yet this group is

the least likely to engage in the arts. This demographic has produced the most

dramatic downward trends in arts attendance.4 Arts administrators should be

aware of these trends and ask themselves how their organizations can engage an

increasingly diverse population, foster participation, and remain relevant in

contemporary society. Will Millennials be engaged by interactive arts projects? Can

iPad stations and QR-‐Code labels make Generation Y care about the arts? Should

arts administrators encourage education in the classic Fine Arts or upgrade their

infrastructure to plan and prepare for the needs of the future? My research will

focus on art museums in particular, utilizing two New York City museums as case

studies: the Rubin Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, both of which have used

innovative strategies and programming to maintain cultural relevance with the

Millennial generation.

Cultural relevance and creative placemaking

Two years ago, cultural economists delineated this need for cultural

relevance by supporting contemporary creative placemaking. This is a community

development strategy that unites public, private, and non-‐profit sectors to

3 Taylor, Paul, and Scott Keeter, eds. Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change. Rep. Pew Research Center, 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-‐confident-‐connected-‐open-‐to-‐change.pdf>. 4 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 41. Print.

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strategically shape the character of a neighborhood around arts and cultural

activities.5

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has funded creative

placemaking research since 2010, as maintaining the cultural relevance of the arts

in the United States has become increasingly complicated for arts organizations,

especially with demographics drastically shifting. Since 2006 a Baby Boomer has

turned 60 every 7.7 seconds6 and now they are outnumbered by 18-‐24 year old

Millennials who are considered the least involved in traditional art forms and least

likely to participate in culture7. The creative placemaking research, however,

indicates young people, or the future of the marketplace, are avid consumers of

culture who tend to relocate to cities that excel in quality of life measures including

cultural offerings. This would suggest that all cities need to do in an economic crisis

is attract hip Millennial artists and musicians via nontraditional modes of art

engagement such as public art and festivals and then somehow creative economies

will flourish.

Peter Linett, Chairman of Slover Linett Strategies, an audience research firm,

commented on this research in his blog, Asking Audiences, concluding creative

5 Markusen, Ann, and Anne Gadwa. Creative Placemaking. Rep. National Endowment for the Arts, 2010. Web. Mar. 2012. <http://www.nea.gov/pub/CreativePlacemaking-‐Paper.pdf>. 6 Ivey, Bill J. "The Question of Participation." Introduction. Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 8. Print. 7 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 29. Print.

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placemaking is ultimately a question of making the arts relevant and useful in

today’s society8. Clearly, art museums hold an important role in making the arts

relevant and developing a sense of belonging within their communities, and it would

seem their presence and cooperation in these types of initiatives is essential to their

future. However, this urban planning strategy seems to have been a great idea only

in its conception. As candid cultural blogger and arts researcher Ian David Moss

points out: creative placemaking has an outcomes problem9. Instead of designing an

evaluation method for the program, the NEA laid out a ‘vibrancy indicator’ system

that looks at, among other things, a community’s population density and home

values.

This leaves the 21st century art museum identity in an especially tricky

position somewhere between keystone of urban development and harbinger of

gentrification. Creative placemaking is one example of a well-‐meaning initiative of

arts advocates to assert the value of young creative culture in economy, though

proper research is lacking in order to truly make the connection of this argument. In

the meantime, art museums are left to interpret cultural studies and policy research

that inform their programs and initiatives.

8 Linett, Peter. "As the Arts Conversation Shifts to 'Creative Placemaking,' Will Large Institutions Still Count?" Web log post. Asking Audiences. Slover Linett Strategies, 27 Feb. 2012. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://www.sloverlinett.com/blog/2012/february/as-‐the-‐arts-‐conversation-‐shifts-‐to-‐creative-‐placemaking-‐will-‐large-‐institutions-‐count>. 9 Moss, Ian David. "Creative Placemaking Has an Outcomes Problem." Web log post. Createquity. Createquity, 9 May 2012. Web. 10 July 2012. <http://createquity.com/2012/05/creative-‐placemaking-‐has-‐an-‐outcomes-‐problem.html>.

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Participation and cultural policy research

Cultural policy research has considered participation in the arts of particular

relevance to the health of art education development in the United States since the

1980s. Some big name arts funding organizations provide generalized research

while others offer the kind of transparency that is a necessary example for the art

museum of the 21st century. With extensive studies and surveys by the NEA and

private state arts organizations such as the James Irvine Foundation which I will

focus on, cultural participation remains in the national arts policy spotlight.

The National Endowment for the Arts is an agency of the US Federal

Government that provides grants for arts projects throughout the United States with

the goal of supporting artistic excellence and strengthening communities around the

arts.10 Since 2000, the NEA’s Survey on Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) has

honed in on attendance motivations and social experience to understand relevance

and meaning for participants and to create informed cultural policies.11

In recent years the NEA’s research has developed a tripartite scheme

regarding participation: attendance, media-‐based participation, and personal

participation. This research has been slowly reflective of the kinds of participation

happening in the 21st century, though the data is undoubtedly hung up on

10 NEA. National Endowment for the Arts 2012 Guide. Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts Office of Public Affairs, Jan. 2012. PDF. 11 Schuster, J. Mark. "Comparing Participation in the Arts and Culture" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 53. Print.

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traditional art forms and is struggling to find a way to include nontraditional modes

of participation in which Millennials engage. This is significant because art museums

across the United States receive funding from the NEA for their projects, and if a

government agency for the arts does not have a basic framework for Millennial

engagement in nontraditional arts, not much can be done to involve this

demographic.

The James Irvine Foundation is a noteworthy example of an open and

transparent institution that seeks to take risks in pursuing the goal of participation

and remains a dynamic, relevant force in its community. The James Irvine

Foundation, among the Top 100 foundations in the United States in terms of assets

and giving, has a California-‐based grantmaking division with an arts strategy that

seeks to broaden, deepen, and diversify participation by increasing new and existing

audience involvement, specifically supporting projects that experiment with civic

engagement, and connecting diverse peoples with artistic experiences12. In 2012 the

James Irvine Foundation unveiled this new strategy stating,

It has become clear to us that the arts sector in California is undergoing major shifts, due largely to demographic and technological changes, and that these shifts pose long-‐term challenges and opportunities to nonprofit arts organizations. Our new grantmaking strategy is designed to help these organizations adapt and thrive.13

12 "Cultural Participation." The James Irvine Foundation. The James Irvine Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://irvine.org/grantmaking/our-‐programs/arts-‐program/former-‐arts-‐strategy/culturalparticipation>. 13 "New Arts Strategy Overview." The James Irvine Foundation. The James Irvine Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://www.irvine.org/grantmaking/our-‐programs/arts-‐program>.

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The foundation’s arts engagement strategy goes on to say it will ensure the arts

remain “vibrant, relevant, and accessible to everyone.”14 What the James Irvine

Foundation has concluded about California is also broadly applicable to the arts

sector in the United States and beyond. Art museums face long-‐term challenges and

opportunities due to changes in demography and technology, namely the plugged-‐in

generation that has grown and adapted along with these changes—the Millennials.

In unveiling this new strategy, the James Irvine Foundation has set an

imitable example with sector-‐wide implications for the future of grantmaking and

engagement infrastructure within arts organizations. It is one of the first arts

institutions in the United States to transform its organizational strategy to fit the

needs of 21st century arts audiences, make its mission clear and publicly known, and

be transparent to a fault. The foundation has continually invested in evaluation and

has acknowledged the main problems in the field: the lack of constructive criticism,

the tendency to say everything is a “great” idea, and the fear of taking risks. The

James Irvine Foundation is an important example of a funding entity that has

adapted to cultural changes and is looking toward qualitative evaluation to support

the broader purposes of learning and improvement.

Arts organizations and institutions continue to fight against the simplistic

‘butts in seats’ or ‘derrières in chairs’ attendance surveys to measure their success

14 The James Irvine Foundation. Engage Californians in the Arts. Josephine Ramirez. New Arts Strategy Overview. The James Irvine Foundation, 2011. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://www.irvine.org/grantmaking/our-‐programs/arts-‐program>.

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as current policy also struggles to move beyond this to new issues of audience

motivation and visitor experience. As research from the NEA and the James Irvine

Foundation shows, the aim of arts policy in the United States is shifting from tickets

sold and seats filled to individually crafted plans that meet the needs of an

organization’s constituents while paving the way for the next generation of arts

supporters.

Contemporary culture and the issue of arts engagement

Developments in technology over the past 15 years can be seen as providing

an opportunity to engage these audiences yet simultaneously perceived as a threat

of distraction from traditional art forms. The advent of the Internet has

revolutionized the availability of information. So much so that this constant

connection to the web has become a part of nearly all areas of our life –professional,

social, personal. Therefore institutions can connect with their audiences via the

Internet and create new paths to participation through Facebook updates, Twitter

feeds, published content on blog posts, even mobile apps, video games and the

production of films. However these modes of digital connection are just as likely to

divert audiences from traditional forms of art interaction. For instance, there is

always the opportunity to download music instead of viewing a live performance, or

virtually cruise a museum via the Google Art Project instead of physically

experiencing the galleries.

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Joel L. Swerdlow, professor of communication technologies at the

Washington D.C. campus of the University of Texas, indicates what arts

professionals must consider is the dependency on communication and constant

connection to the Internet. There aren’t yet substantial studies that reveal the long-‐

term effects of media exposure on our brains, one can only hypothesize whether this

makes viewers more focused or it depletes their attention spans. There is, however,

a trend toward self-‐expression encouraged by online interactivity and sharing of

ideas: individuals these days create and maintain blogs – ‘participatory journalism’–

and contribute to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia – ‘participatory scholarship’.15

Philosopher John Dewey described how much experience and interaction matters,

and electronic connection is just one way to “enrich, expand, and enliven the

experience of audiences”16. Perhaps most noteworthy for this research is

Swerdlow’s assertion: “There is no question that audience expectations have

changed along with technology and that using new media to connect with young

audiences will be a necessary strategy in the future”17.

It has been stated that research by economists, market researchers, and

cultural historians has documented shifts in consumer patterns since the 20th

century that suggest the audience has retreated from traditional entertainment to

coffee shops and nightclubs—that the audience no longer has an interest in or

15 Swerdlow, Joel L. "Audiences for the Arts in the Age of Electronics" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 228-‐29. Print. 16 Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York: Minton, Balch &, 1934. Print. 17 Swerdlow, Joel L. "Audiences for the Arts in the Age of Electronics" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 228-‐29. Print.

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intellectual capacity for the arts.18 However, Lynne Connor, theater historian and

arts consultant, proposes a counter-‐theory that audiences in the United States,

especially young people, are just as engaged in the arts as ever. According to Connor,

youth in the United States are still looking for satisfaction from cultural sources,

only via modes that have abandoned the traditional approach to arts consumption

in favor of participation in culture – what she calls ‘the arts experience.’ The

problem of Generation Y audience engagement lays with the arts institution that

doesn’t embrace changing trends in technology, cultural participation, and visitor

experience.

Generation Y and the arts experience

Connor notes the ever-‐widening attendance gap between passive forms of

culture (opera, orchestral music, theater) and active forms of entertainment that

interest young people (music concerts, slam poetry, interactive theater) to highlight

trends in cultural participation. These cultural offerings are inherently participative

and invite the viewer to involve him or herself before, after, or during the event.

The 21st century arts experience is one that encourages intellectual interaction and

emotional response from the Millennial audience—a wholly participative art

experience.

18 Connor, Lynne. “In and Out of the Dark: A Theory about Audience Behavior from Sophocles to Spoken Word” Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 103. Print.

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If arts organizations want to stay relevant in the 21st century and engage the

18-‐29 demographic segment specifically, these arts institutions must heed

participation research in the arts, consider suggestions put forth in arts

participation literature, and thoughtfully plan the development of relationships with

this segment through audience engagement and co-‐production. Chapter two will

assert this claim by underlining the historical perspective associated with

participation in the arts in order to understand how the arts attained a quasi-‐

religious status in North American society and how art museums transformed into

sacred spaces that discouraged interaction, conversation, or engagement—a

perception that persists today save those institutions that have made a conscious

effort adapt and thrive in the 21st century.

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Chapter 2: Historical Perspective on Participation

In order to comprehend the salient decline of participation for the generation

to which I belong, the Millennials, it was necessary to discover how these cultural

trends evolved. Could it be that museums and cultural institutions have always been

passive purveyors of artistic content – featuring hit exhibitions and big name

performances to reinforce the canon of high art? Or was there a moment in United

States history that squelched a burgeoning notion of cultural participation? Is the

current pull for active engagement solely a response to advances in technology, and

if so, how far does this go back? My aim in tackling these queries, and ultimately this

thesis, is twofold: to establish a chronological bedrock for understanding changes in

cultural participation, and to chip away at the age-‐old question (and the title of Paul

Gauguin’s final painting) Who are we? Where Do We Come From? Where Are We

Going? in order to understand the characteristics of my generation, what has caused

us to behave and interact with culture the way we do, and what implications this

may have for our future. The next section of this chapter will discuss the problem of

defining participation and present a characterization of 21st century arts

participation, and the following sections will contextualize the vacillating historical

notions of participation leading up to present day.

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The issue of defining and assessing participation

French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, in describing the United States of the

1830s, wrote “No sooner do you set foot upon American ground than you are

stunned by a kind of tumult. Everything is in motion around you.”1 The United States

has long held a tradition of participation by building churches, involving themselves

in local politics, and forming associations. Tocqueville noted the democratic vigor of

the United States was directly linked to the active engagement of citizens and

participatory spirit. In the 21st century, participation as a concept has gathered

interest by policy makers and intellectuals. Steven Tepper and Yang Gao, assistant

professor and researcher, respectively, in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt

University, have thusly divided methods of participation into three general

categories: political and civic participation, religious participation, and cultural

participation. Political participation concerns itself with democracy and

representation of the collective, while religious participation supports individual

well-‐being and solidarity.2 This thesis explores the final category, cultural

participation.

In arts participation studies, participation is taken to mean all of the ways

people engage with the art forms or cultural activities that are of specific interest to

1 Tocqueville, Alexis De, and Arthur Goldhammer. Democracy in America. New York: Library of America, 2004. 249. Print. 2 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 19. Print.

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the author’s research.3 Understandably, then, defining participation in the arts and

culture can have many differences—anything from creating a sculpture, attending a

Broadway show, or donating to an orchestra, to taking an informal dance class,

reading a book, or downloading music. Therein lies the problem. How can

researchers accurately assess the level at which Millennials are participating in the

arts? Is any one form of participation more valuable or notable than any other? In

terms of measuring a cultural institution’s reach, clearly there are factors that have

always determined success—numbers. Numbers of attendees at events, numbers of

tickets sold, and numbers of donations received.

Considering the endless approaches to participation in the arts in the 21st

century, this myopic mode of evaluation is, by now, outdated. Perhaps detailed

attendance figures were considered essential following the social justice movements

in the United States to determine what percentage of which race/education

level/socioeconomic status was attending fine arts performances. Nowadays

attendance is a shallow pool of statistics that doesn’t capture the qualitative results

achieved by arts institutions and, furthermore, incessant surveys with ‘declining

attendance’ results don’t provide a solid call to action. In an increasingly digital

society there is a need to differentiate the quantitative from the qualitative, and

cultural workers acknowledge the need for something different. Jasper Visser,

digital strategist for The Museum of National History in The Netherlands and author

of The Museum of the Future blog recently suggested that even digital metrics (i.e. 3 Schuster, J. Mark. "Comparing Participation in the Arts and Culture" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 52. Print.

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webpage hits, Facebook comments and ‘likes’) are generic measurements of success

that do not, however, measure impact or significance4. He suggests making

evaluation collaborative by placing online metrics people on an internship with

professional evaluators and reviewers perhaps within the same institution; or using

online user testing methodologies to measure the impact of a digital project.

Though any and all variables ought to be measured for a wide range of

purposes (namely the satisfaction of constituents), cultural workers can build upon

this suggestion and utilize a participatory model for assessment. Since current

evaluation must go beyond simple quantitative measurements to account for

qualitative, personal experiences in the context of the arts, conceivably arts

administrators could provide a multi-‐dimensional platform for conversation,

interviews, and feedback much like the one they are offered by the theoretical

framework of the blog model. That is, an informal forum for stakeholders (i.e.

sponsors, program managers, front-‐line staff, and participants) to voice their

reactions and responses to exhibition or program content, though not necessarily all

together. This could take the form of a physical meeting between front-‐line staff and

evaluators, a focus group with program managers and sponsors, and an online

platform for participant feedback and program manager responses (which may be

more easily recorded and stored for future use). This type of cyclically participative

4 Visser, Jasper. "Going from Measuring Online Success to Measuring Significance." Web log post. The Museum of the Future. N.p., 3 June 2012. Web. 10 June 2012. <http://themuseumofthefuture.com/2012/06/03/going-‐from-‐measuring-‐online-‐success-‐to-‐measuring-‐significance>.

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approach engenders trust in the organization and a sense of ownership in the

community.

Building a framework for 21st century arts participation

According to recent participation models proposed by the NEA along with

Alan Brown and Jennifer L. Novak-‐Leonard in a 2011 research report,5 cultural

participation is defined as including live attendance (observational arts

participation) and personal participation (social context and engagement). This is

an attempt to include the quantitative alongside the qualitative. It is from here that I

would like to build a framework for how Millennial arts participation can be defined.

These differing forms of cultural engagement can be fostered and facilitated in and

around the museum setting. There needs to be a varied selection of ways to

approach and access (participate in) a museum’s content, be it knitting in a painting

gallery or commenting in a panel discussion. Art museums need not simply be

venues for the passive display of cultural objects, but venues of dynamic offering

and social opportunity. Perhaps it is significant to note that this need for

participatory practices within the museum has been, in recent years, the subject of

discourse amongst cultural workers in the online community.

Nina Simon, author of the book Participatory Museum and blogger on the site

Museum 2.0 (both of which deal with participative museum experiences and 5 Brown, Alan, and Jennifer L. Novak-‐Leonard. Beyond Attendance: A Multi-modal Understanding of Arts Participation. Rep. no. 54. Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts, 2011. PDF.

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museum design using web 2.0 technology), wrote that the 2000s and web

technology boosted participation from something limited and infrequent to

something available anytime, to anyone, anywhere.6 We entered an era of

“convergence culture”7 – a term coined by MIT researcher Henry Jenkins to describe

an appropriation of cultural content by regular people in order to form discussions

and works. With the advent of multiple media connections in various gadgets and

devices, access to information and cultural content is available whenever and

however a user wants it. Jenkins argues this is not only a shift in technology, but also

one in cultural logic. Consumers are now part of a participatory culture that

interacts and shares pieces of useful data gleaned from the information overload,

which in turn creates a buzz that further circulates media content. Ultimately,

consumption has become a collective process, and this provides an opportunity and

a challenge for purveyors of cultural content.

Cultural institutions, and art museums in particular, fundamentally utilize

their collections for public good, meaning this cultural content must adapt and

become available in new and creative ways. With ever-‐evolving technological

resources, art museums can utilize their collections to provide innovative, relevant

content that meets the needs of the collective. Members of Generation Y are a big

part of these consumers of cultural content. The Millennials are the first generation

to have grown up in the digital age with web technology, limitless access to 6 Simon, Nina. "The Participatory Museum." The Participatory Museum. Nina Simon, 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 21 June 2012. <http://www.participatorymuseum.org/>. 7 Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Print.

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information, and adaptable content to suit an individual’s particular needs.

Considering this, Simon’s definition of a participatory cultural institution is a

framework around which century art museums in the 21st century should construct

or re-‐construct themselves

I define a participatory cultural institution as a place where visitors can create, share, and connect with each other around content. Create means that visitors contribute their own ideas, objects, and creative expression to the institution and to each other. Share means that people discuss, take home, remix, and redistribute both what they see and what they make during their visit. Connect means that visitors socialize with other people—staff and visitors—who share their particular interests. Around content means that visitors’ conversations and creations focus on the evidence, objects, and ideas most important to the institution in question. The goal of participatory techniques is both to meet visitors’ expectations for active engagement and to do so in a way that furthers the mission and core values of the institution. Rather than delivering the same content to everyone, a participatory institution collects and shares diverse, personalized, and changing content co-‐produced with visitors. It invites visitors to respond and add to cultural artifacts, scientific evidence, and historical records on display. It showcases the diverse creations and opinions of non-‐experts. People use the institution as meeting grounds for dialogue around the content presented. Instead of being ‘about’ something or ‘for’ someone, participatory institutions are created and managed ‘with’ visitors.8

My fondness for Simon’s definition resides in her simplified, three-‐pronged

definition of a participatory museum and her mention of personalized, changing

content to enhance the visitor experience. The realization that people approach a

museum with different needs and expectations is reflected in this definition, as well

as a focus on active engagement and creation of a collective experience of the arts.

8 Simon, Nina. "The Participatory Museum." The Participatory Museum. Nina Simon, 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 21 June 2012. <http://www.participatorymuseum.org/>.

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This proposed framework for the participatory institution speaks particularly to the

Millennials, who are used to creating content (putting forth ideas and expressions

via social media networks) and sharing content (‘liking,’ commenting on and

forwarding of ideas to ensure their dissemination). This approach can be adapted to

the museum setting, as the case studies in chapter four will show. Due to its

conciseness and emphasis on adaptability, from this point on any reference to a

participatory institution will be employing Simon’s above-‐stated definition.

Art museums and the shifting concept of ‘culture’ in the 19th century

Now that the intricacies of defining participation between audiences and

institutions have been outlined, let us consider the history of active cultural

involvement in order to better understand how and when the shift in definition

occurred. This will delineate why active engagement is now considered an imitable

strategy for 21st century art museums, plus provide a foundation for my

observations regarding effective modalities of cultural participation of Millennials

within art museums—dynamic programming and opportunities for sociability.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, North American audiences were

encouraged to become socially involved in arts experiences—they met before

performances, talked during the show, and chatted after, making deals, flirting,

engaging fellow citizens. Going to the theatre, ballet, or opera was an all-‐day affair

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and the actual event was merely part of the experience.9 Joel Orosz, author of

Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870, pointed out

that North American museums prior to 1870 had roots in egalitarian, democratic

culture, creating institutions aimed at education and research, a place for the public

and scholars alike.10 Art historian Neil Harris described the state of museums in the

first half of the nineteenth century as all but exclusive: “Paintings and sculpture

stood along-‐side mummies, mastodon bones, and stuffed animals. American

museums were not, in the antebellum period, segregated temples of the fine arts,

but repositories of information, collections of strange or doubtful data.”11 Museums

were popping up all over the country, from Niagara Falls to Pittsburgh, Charleston

to St. Louis. Audiences were visiting museums not simply to see the collections, but

to witness scientific experiments, attend lectures, and see exciting performances of

music and drama. That is, exhibitions were spurring societal discourse, and

audiences were sharing thoughts and ideas around content—which is, interestingly,

part of what Simon insists should be part of a participatory cultural institution in the

21st century. This would imply, then, that somewhere along the way the

participatory process in the arts fell by the wayside. If we consider the recently

gained importance of concepts such as participation and engagement that were

discussed earlier in this chapter, one must wonder whether history has truly begun

to repeat itself. 9 Connor, Lynne. “In and Out of the Dark: A Theory about Audience Behavior from Sophocles to Spoken Word” Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 104. Print. 10 Orosz, Joel J. Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1990. 256. Print. 11 Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. 78. Print.

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What happened to the cultural competence, cross-‐cultural understanding

and active participatory ethos? Let us first look at Europe and the exhibition

phenomenon of the Victorian age. The Great Exhibitions of the early and mid-‐19th

century—organized in England and France as vast and ornate displays of Oriental

culture—had a profound and lasting influence upon the formation of museums and

exhibition design.12 Author Tony Bennett even proposed a theory of ‘the

exhibitionary complex’,13 which argues that nineteenth century museums were

institutions of power that educated, civilized, and through surveillance, encouraged

self-‐regulation of crowds. This was a dynamic that offered up a new form of

spectacle and reinforced a capitalist and imperialist social order14 by organizing

what author TJ Mitchell calls an ‘external reality’ that based itself on viewing,

investigating, and experiencing an object. The power of arranging and ordering

things from all over the world and having them available for public view under a

controlled vision was an exercising of dominance over objects and people.15 This

theory of ‘the exhibitionary complex’ provides a basis for examining what happened

to the 19th century museum and visitor experience.

12 Mitchell, Timothy J. "World as Exhibition." Comparative Studies in Society and History 31.2 (1989): 217-‐36. JSTOR. Web. 5 July 2012. 13 Bennett, Tony. "The Exhibitionary Complex." The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London: Routledge, 1995. 59. Print. 14 Dunstan, David. “The Exhibitionary Complex Personified.” Seize the Day. Clayton, Vic.: Monash University EPress, 2008. Chapter 9. Web. 5 July 2012. 15 Mitchell, Timothy J. "World as Exhibition." Comparative Studies in Society and History 31.2 (1989): 217-‐36. JSTOR. Web. 5 July 2012.

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In the United States, changes in culture, economy, and technology during the

19th century solidified the inactive and powerless arts audience that exists today.

The Victorian era was the era of institutions in the United States. Large and small

cities across North America established parks, libraries, theatres, and museums that

formed the center of communities and which “set long-‐lasting precedents for public

institutions”16. A focus on theater history, for instance, shows how technological

changes progressively reinforced a power structure that promoted the viewing and

experiencing of an object on display. Historian Richard Butsch points specifically to

technological advancements and sociopolitical changes. In the 1830s, separate

entrances were constructed for the high-‐class box seats and the lower class pit

seats. By the 1890s, controlled lighting focused attention on actors and the theater

became a site of spectacle rather than a site of assembly.17 Essentially, the arts

began to offer a one-‐dimensional, singular mode of participation: viewing.

Further contributing to inactive audiences in the United States was the ever-‐

widening gap between high and low classes and subsequently high and low culture.

Cultural historian Lawrence Levine, in his book Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence

of Cultural Hierarchy in America, described this shift as a deliberate attempt to

create a cultural hierarchy in the United States. One amusing example of this is

German-‐born symphonic conductor Theodore Thomas who hosted thousands of

public concerts in Central Park, New York in the 1860s and 1870s in order to bring 16 Stevenson, Louise L. The Victorian Homefront: American Thought and Culture, 1860-1880. New York: Twayne, 1991. 49. Print. 17 Butsch, Richard. The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.

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European classical music to North Americans. He later wrote that his attempts to

make good music popular were for naught, as “wage-‐workers” were not sufficiently

advanced intellectually to be able to appreciate his class of music, only the “most

cultivated persons” were able to do so, not those of “ignorant or immature mind.”18

Museums in the United States went through a similar shift in social hierarchy.

Mid-‐century religious analogies sprung up in reference to art; author Henry James

wrote that “the office of art is second only to that of religion”19 and a number of his

contemporaries, artists and writers, agreed with this notion that the artistic impulse

is divine. According to Levine, fear of the mob and desire to maintain social order

was a driving force behind the separation of art and curiosity. The United States had,

in their own way, succumbed to ‘the exhibitionary complex’ by seeking to educate,

civilize, and self-‐regulate crowds, as evident by Reverend Frederick W. Sawyer who

wrote in 1860

If we want to drive far from us, vice and crime—if we want to outbid the wine-‐cup and gaming-‐table… We must adorn our parks and gardens; adorn our churches and public edifices. We must have something to claim the attention, to mould the taste, to cultivate.20

Just as Theodore Thomas had transitioned from an educator wishing to bring

classical music to New York’s masses to a conservator of pure symphonic score, so

too did art museums begin to struggle over the nature and purpose of their 18 Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. 150-‐52. Print. 19 Harris, Neil. "The Final Tribute." The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years 1790-1860. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1982. 300-‐16. Print. 20 Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. 150-‐52. Print.

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institutions. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston acquired donated works and began

to store away “curiosities” in order to dedicate its galleries to what the director in

1912 called “higher things.”21 Matthew Steward Prichard, then-‐assistant director of

the MFA Boston stated the “first great commandment of an art museum is to

establish and maintain in the community a high standard of aesthetic taste”22 and in

doing so leave behind the notion of museum as information hub for the public. In

addition, the technological development of chromolithography in the mid

nineteenth century had allowed for limitless printed reproductions of original

paintings to be sold to all segments of the population. The diffusion of prints, which

democratized art in United States, was swiftly denounced by the North American

intelligentsia along with photography, both considered mere commercial mimesis.23

It is from these observations that Levine devised his theory of the

sacralization of the arts, a deliberate shift in the cultural hierarchy of the United

States. This idea is based on Matthew Arnold’s anarchical claim of “raising the

masses through culture” via providing North American audiences with the best of

the world, the pursuit of perfection.24 The arts and culture were soon described

using polarizing adjectives: ‘high’, ‘low’, ‘rude’, ‘true’, ‘vulgar’, ‘pure’, ‘highbrow’ and

‘lowbrow’. Interestingly, “highbrow” and “lowbrow” were phrenological terms used

21 Ibid. 22 Whitehill, Walter Muir. Museum of Fine Arts Boston a Centennial History. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1970. Print. 23 Marzio, Peter. The Democratic Art: Pictures for a Nineteenth Century America. Boston, MA: n.p., 1979. Print. 24 Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. Print.

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in the nineteenth century practice of determining intelligence and race by

measuring the cranium. Higher brows indicated a civilized, enlightened Caucasian

and lower brows were indicative of apes, or uncultivated bushmen. Englishman

Arnold was a writer and critic, even called the Apostle of Culture.25 Soon Arnold’s

views became engrained in North American thought, so much so that the definition

of culture shifted. In the first half of the nineteenth century, culture was associated

with crops, cultivation and production, yet by the second half of the nineteenth

century, culture was redefined as “the state of being cultivated… refinement of mind

or matters” with similar definitions using words like “enlightenment,” “discipline,”

“civilization,” and “mental and moral training.”26

Adding to this divisive cultural propaganda was the view of the artist, who, in

the meantime, garnered his or her own elevated social position that was

authoritative and not to be questioned.27 In the arts industry, there was a move

away from production for use toward production for exchange, and this further

delineated the distinction between artist and audience. Along with this and the new

definitions of high and low art came the reeducation of North American audiences in

cultural settings. Economic elite sought to distinguish themselves from lower

classes by using a cloak of culture. In orchestras, museums, and opera houses,

proper behavior was strictly enforced, as the artistic space was now equated to 25 Raleigh, John Henry. Matthew Arnold and American Culture. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1957. 58-‐61. Print. 26 Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. 222-‐25. Print. 27 Butsch, Richard. The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.

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sacred ground where one cannot touch or talk. Manuals of etiquette were in vogue,

putting forth a doctrine to be followed in cultural arenas. By the twentieth century,

cultural etiquette was old hat and people of all social classes understood that arts

experiences were private experiences meant to be kept to oneself.

Bill Ivey, former director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public

Policy at Vanderbilt University and former chair of the National Endowment for the

Arts, discusses these drastic cultural changes in the introductory chapter of the book

he co-‐edited, Engaging Art. In 1909, more pianos were sold in the United States than

would ever be sold again in a single year.28 In the nineteenth century, being able to

sing, play music, draw and write were considered everyday skills that young people

were taught to master. This only carried over for a few years into the twentieth

century. Though the Great Depression certainly contributed to the decline in piano

sales, phonographs and radios quickly became the cultural hearth of the American

home.29 Technology revolutionized the artistic experience. Music education

embraced the trend and instead of learning to play the piano, students listened to

classical composers. Art education became art appreciation, and forms of artistic

consumption quickly replaced everyday artistic skills.

28 National Piano Manufacturers Association, "US Piano Sales History from 1900 to Present." Blue Book of Pianos, n.d. Web. 02 July 2012. <http://www.bluebookofpianos.com/uspiano.htm>. 29 Ivey, Bill J. "The Question of Participation." Introduction. Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 4-‐5. Print.

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The state of the arts in 20th century North America

Passive art appreciation and consumption began to fuel the sacralization of

the arts in North America which continued into the twentieth century despite public

funding initiatives, charitable support and the allowance of tax deductions. Words

like ‘high’ and ‘pure’ were rejected in the 1960s with the social justice movements,

denunciation of racism and cultural imperialism, and the outcome of

multiculturalism, yet the arts still held the principle of raising the masses through

culture on the backs of non-‐for-‐profit institutions.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the culture of creation and art

making was sharply divided from the culture of what Ivey calls “taking in the arts.”

In his 2008 paper on participation, Ivey points out that arts consumption (i.e.

watching television and films, buying records) was so ingrained in the North

American way of life that the age-‐old dictionary definition of participation “to take

part” had actually changed to the passive meaning “to have a part or share of

something.”30 In the 1960s, foundations in the United States began to address the

need for cultural participation by providing grants to enhance the scope of non-‐

profit arts organizations. However, cultural participation was already understood to

mean audience and consumption through attending events.31 Meaning that by the

30 New York Times, November 13, 2005. “Giving.” Webster’s Nineth New Collegiate Dictionary. 1986. Springfield, MA: Merriam-‐Webster, Inc. 31 Ivey, Bill J. "The Question of Participation." Introduction. Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 5-‐6. Print

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time the NEA was founded in the United States in 1965, attendance was essentially

the sole marker for the health and vitality of an arts organization.

Essentially the NEA was founded as an entity that ensures the

democratization of culture in the United States. What has been problematic for the

development of the diverse cultural landscape in the United States is the NEA’s

continued favoring of the fine arts (visual arts museums, classical music, theatre,

opera) over popular culture (e.g. folk arts, live music, films). As I mentioned in

chapter one, the past 15 years have greatly impacted the North American arts

experience, and the lives of North Americans in general—the Internet has

revolutionized our ability to express ourselves, access information and

communicate (or, as Simon put it: create, share, and connect around content). In

recent years the NEA’s Survey on Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) has begun

to ask questions with current cultural relevance: are young people engaged by

museums, opera, and orchestra? Are certain demographic groups participating

more or less than a decade ago? How have technological and cultural changes

affected institutions, and how might they respond to contemporary challenges?32

We now have data that shows a declining interest in traditional institutional

participation for young people, the lowest level of involvement in decades. These

studies, however, indicate positive trends in youth engagement strategies that

embrace technological advances and initiatives made by cultural institutions.

32 Ivey, Bill J. "The Question of Participation." Introduction. Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 7. Print

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Generation Y and the postmodern art museum of the 21st century

The new millennium and new century have brought about great change, with

technological advances spawning globalization, limitless access to information, and

vast developments in communication. These dramatic cultural shifts, in the quake of

cultural imperialism and multiculturalism in the mid twentieth century, have

resulted in what some theorists call a state of postmodernity. In taking postmodern

theory to be an accurate view of contemporaneity, let us can consider this current

state to be—as sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman theorizes—one of

drastic social and political change in contemporary culture that has resulted in

ambivalence, uncertainty, fragmented identities, and fluidity of meaning.33 Connor

raises an interesting point for what implications this contemporary liquidity has on

arts institutions

Curiously, although the advent of postmodernism has encouraged artists and arts institutions to dismantle the distinction among high, middle and low when it comes to defining appropriate material content or structure, postmodernism has not attempted to redefine appropriate audience behavior…The intellectual and emotional distance between public arts producers and the average consumer has never been greater.34

Considering this observation, let us again review Simon’s definition of a

participatory cultural institution of the 21st century. It is one that collects and shares

personalized content co-‐produced with visitors, a place for dialogue around content,

and instead of being ‘about’ something or ‘for’ someone, the participatory institution

33 Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000. Print. 34 Connor, Lynne. “In and Out of the Dark: A Theory about Audience Behavior from Sophocles to Spoken Word” Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 114. Print.

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is created and managed ‘with’ visitors. This is an example of a postmodern theory

and practice that intends to decrease the distance that Connor notes between

cultural consumers and arts producers, by the co-‐production of personalized

content. Here the institution is a facilitator for the experience of art, an incubator for

creativity, a vessel for new collaborations within the arts, all the while aware of the

varied needs and interests of its community.

Simon’s definition, itself a response to Connor’s challenge, provides a model

through which contemporary cultural institutions can tap into a citizen-‐centered

type of multicultural hub. By creatively utilizing contemporary technology and

participatory practices, museums have the opportunity and the responsibility to

provide a context for cultivating a cohesive, culturally vibrant civic society. If they

don’t do so, we will continue along a path of social alienation and enter into a pirate-‐

like state of not-‐belonging-‐to-‐any-‐place or any cultural history, for that matter.

Essentially, we can adapt audience behavior in the postmodern world, but we have

to change the institution from the inside out. By injecting fresh ideas into tired,

passive models of cultural participation, art museums can create and maintain

relevance in the lives of community members. Offering varied programming, later

hours, innovative exhibitions and events, and accessible content will transform the

museum into a relevant cultural hub. Working with technologically savvy

individuals to enhance and upgrade dated museum procedures and strategies will

have an immeasurable reach both beyond and within the organization.

36

As we have established in this chapter, the arts have experienced a rough

divide in the minds and hearts of patrons since the nineteenth century. This means

art museums find themselves at a very exciting time in history, one that will be very

indicative of the future of cultural involvement. Museums must seize the

opportunity to jump on board with the connectedness of the 21st century arts

participant. Granted, technological advances pose a catch-‐22 to contemporary

cultural life. There is constant connecting and sharing around content, especially

among young people, which has resulted in greater opportunity for creativity.

Planning and programming for the wealthy donor base will no longer suffice in the

21st century when access to cultural capital knows no limits and a plugged-‐in

Generation Y has a powerful say in what is popular, culturally impactful, and worthy

of dissemination. I will discuss this in further detail in the third chapter.

Contemporary digital culture has provided a model for outspoken feedback

and museums have begun to note the efficacy of this type of participation. By

providing a platform for expression and interaction, a museum is able to develop an

understanding of what is culturally impactful for its visitors. Openly welcoming

comments and feedback from visitors can also be used as a means to implement

new modes of evaluating the significance of planning and programming. Some

cultural workers are already researching these methodologies to propose a new

understanding of participative processes. InterAct, an alliance of researchers,

writers, and policymakers in the UK, has made it their mission to study and promote

participatory approaches and collaborative practices that create a vibrant, inclusive

37

civil society.35 Their focus on participation and citizenship provides my research a

significant international model with which to scrutinize North American processes

and procedures. According to a working paper by InterAct, among the outcomes of

participative activities are: changes to individuals and institutions, increased

information and understanding, increased level of trust, new relationships between

constituents, increased openness and transparency, increased representativeness of

participation. These outcomes were evaluated using case studies of participatory

processes. Ultimately the practice of participation leads to empowered citizenry and

active audiences. With these principles in mind, some museums go beyond the

simple suggestion box, employing participative strategies that encourage visitors to

leave post-‐its on the walls in response to broad exhibition-‐related questions.36

In her blog, Simon encourages the consideration of non-‐expert opinions and

visitor input in museum strategy. This method for audience empowerment is being

lauded across the blogosphere and, in some cases, embraced by cultural workers

and museums around the country. Peter Linett of Slover Linett Strategies, an

audience research firm based in Chicago, recently mentioned Simon’s methodology

in a blog post. He noted that anthropological methods like ethnography are

becoming important in arts research, and this is why participative techniques,

including treating audiences like partners rather than respondents, continue to 35 InterAct. Evaluating Participatory, Deliberative, and Co-operative Ways of Working. Brighton: InterAct, 2001. PDF. 36 Higgins, Will. "Museums Get Creative in Generating Feedback to Exhibits." Indystar.com. Indianapolis Star, 20 June 2012. Web. 02 July 2012. <http://www.indystar.com/article/20120620/LOCAL18/206210318/Museums-‐get-‐creative-‐generating-‐feedback-‐exhibits>.

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emerge in the field.37 Elizabeth Qualglieri, regular contributor to Carnegie Mellon

University’s Technology and the Arts blog, credited a recent digital program

initiative by the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Massachusetts as “Museum

2.0 in action.” Museum 2.0 being the name of Simon’s website and also describing an

initiative in which visitors become users and museums become what Simon calls

“dynamic platforms for content generation and sharing.”38 In an earlier post,

Quaglieri interviewed a museum worker at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

who referenced Simon as an important resource for museum procedures.39 The

notion of active audiences as empowered citizens continues to feature in cultural

policy studies and cultural research in North America as more and more arts leaders

recognize the need for change in participation.

The Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt completed several studies

regarding participation in the arts, one of which led to the participation disposition:

the “do more do more” hypothesis.40 That is, people who are more involved in

political, religious, and cultural life are more likely to be socially engaged across the 37 Linett, Peter. "Good Research Isn't about Asking Audiences What They Want." Web log post. Asking Audiences. Slover Linett Strategies. 31 Mar. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sloverlinett.com/blog/2012/march/good-‐research-‐isn-‐t-‐about-‐asking-‐audiences-‐what-‐they-‐want>. 38 Quaglieri, Elizabeth. "Engaging Technology: uCurate and uExplore at the Clark." Web log post. Technology in the Arts. 28 Mar. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.technologyinthearts.org/2012/03/digital-‐applications-‐ucurate-‐and-‐uexplore-‐at-‐the-‐clark-‐museum/>. 39 Byrd Phillips, Lori. "Part 2: The Proper Use of QR Codes in the Museum Setting." Interview. Web log post. Technology in the Arts. 16 Mar. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.technologyinthearts.org/2012/03/part-‐2-‐wikimedia-‐and-‐qr-‐codes-‐in-‐the-‐museum-‐setting/>. 40 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 32. Print.

39

board. This is a research experiment based on social theorist Georg Simmel’s

theory41 that stated people interact with each other for the intrinsic pleasure

associating with socializing, togetherness and amicable interaction. Although some

people are more social than others, and many factors influence sociability (age,

economic position, place, social network), there is a strong correlation between

people already involved in social activities (i.e. religion) and the desire to become

engaged in other social activities (i.e. culture, politics) –“people who tend to do more

of one thing tend to do more of everything.”42

If we take this hypothesis to be true, one could assume that engaging the

Millennial generation via relevant cultural programming would reduce apathy

regarding participation in religion and politics, and furthermore foster the growth of

the active citizen. While one might also argue that much of Millennial socializing

could be seen as time spent chatting on social networking sites such as Facebook,

which isn’t centered around cultural content but rather self promotion, this is off-‐set

by constant updates and offerings of a diverse nature. Facebook has moved beyond

being a simple photo and message platform to being a multidimensional personally

tailored information source that generates popular articles read by friends and

notices from organizations with which the user can choose to interact and follow. It

is also my opinion that Facebook users ironically utilize some of its features to

consistently boast about their social and cultural activities beyond the Internet. In 41 Simmel, George. "Sociology of Sociability." American Journal of Sociology 55.3 (1949): 254-‐61. Print. 42 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 32. Print.

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this way, arts organizations must understand the shift in technology and access, and

as a result understand the need to shift institutional efforts toward bolstering active

engagement among Millennials.

In this chapter I explored the historical impetus behind Generation Y being

statistically non-‐participative in culture. I provided a definition of cultural

participation in the 21st century that builds upon the lengthy history of active

audiences and vibrant citizenship. Despite the relatively recent North American

trend toward passive consumption of culture, it is my opinion that the same

technological changes that appear to alienate Millennials from each other also have

the ability to physically bring them together in new and exciting ways that result in

active, empowered citizens. Certainly technology has changed the way in which this

demographic processes information and interacts with one another, but the

increase in stimuli can augment the desire to be actively involved as co-‐creators, not

just audiences. Art museums should view current changes in culture and technology

as an opportunity and a challenge (not as a threat to tradition) for attracting

particular segments of the population to their institution, including Millennials,

upon which the institution’s future is inevitably based.

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Chapter 3: Millennial Participation—Modes and Trends

Over the past 30 years, institutional involvement of young people in culture

has decreased across the board; meanwhile education for Generation Y has

augmented exponentially due to an increasingly knowledge-‐based economy and

Millennials pursuing postgraduate education because of difficulty finding a job. This

is particularly disheartening since education is the biggest predictor of

participation, however, researchers find the most striking result of recent North

American surveys to be the consistent decline in participation for young people.1 It

would appear that young people are less involved now than ever before. Yet the

Louis Harris Poll indicates North Americans have a strong interest in supporting the

arts – with 87-‐93% considering the arts to be an important aspect of a good place to

live. If enthusiasm for the arts has remained constant over the past several decades,

how, then, is this not reflected in institutional engagement and participation?

Numerous societal changes can venture to provide a response to this question

(people moving more often, conditions of a demanding workplace, less leisure

time2) but technological change is the factor most affecting cultural participation for

Generation Y.

1 Tepper, Steven J., and Yang Gao. "What Counts?" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print. 2 Putnam, Robert. "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America." American Prospect 7.24 (1996): 34-‐48. Print.

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The new participatory culture

An alternative explanation for this inconsistency in enthusiasm and

institutional engagement can be the continued evolution of the term participation. I

will argue that people have found alternative ways to participate in recent years,

especially Millennials, and therefore there hasn’t been a decline in engagement,

merely a displacement of focus in evaluation. Participation is present via thriving

online communities, as blogging and sharing data across technological realms has

become second nature for the Millennial generation.

Let us take a deeper look into how technological development and ever-‐

changing participatory culture defines contemporary society. If the Internet

simultaneously gives us the opportunity to be more connected and the feeling of

anonymity and alienation from traditional interaction, then the impact on

Generation Y (which has grown up with technology) must have significant

characteristics that distinguish it from others. The 2005 Pew Internet & American

Life Project found 57% of teens that use the Internet could be considered media

creators. The study defined media creator as someone who “created a blog or web-‐

page, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed

online content into their own new creations”3. Though this thesis doesn’t focus

necessarily on teens, this data can be used as a model. The results indicate that

contemporary culture is highly participatory and most young people are, in fact,

3 Lenhard, Amanda, and Mary Madden. 2005. Teen Content Creators and Consumers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

43

creators. The postmodern world is reflected in the Millennials—blurred lines in

defining identity, amateur and professional, artist and hobbyist are now somehow

interchangeable and without distinction. Young people are embracing participatory

culture, more than is accounted for in a survey that does not (and cannot) consider

all the modes of contemporary participation.

Scholars and researchers have recently attempted to define the shifting

landscape of cultural consumption among Millennials. Vanessa Bertozzi, an MIT

graduate working for Etsy.com, a website of crafters and their handmade goods, and

Henry Jenkins (whom I previously introduced in chapter one), director of the MIT

Comparative Media Studies Program and the author of Convergence Culture: Where

Old and New Media Collide, together describe a new participatory culture. This might

be defined as:

…One where there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, where there is strong support for creating and sharing what one creates with others, and where there is some kind of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. It is also a culture where members feel that their contributions matter and where they feel some degree of social connection with each other…in such a world, many will only dabble, some will dig deeper, and still others will master the skills that are most valued within the community. But the community itself provides strong incentives for creative expression and active participation.4 This definition of participatory culture clearly fits online grassroots modes of

participation (e.g. uploading home videos, having them critiqued on a mass scale

4 Bertozzi, Vanessa and Henry Jenkins. "Artistic Exprsesion in the Age of Participatory Culture" Engaging Art. New York: Routledge, 2008. 175. Print.

44

that was previously unimaginable) but this definition can also be made to fits arts

experiences in the museum setting.

As Bertozzi and Jenkins state in their article, museum curators and arts

educators often see themselves and their content at odds with popular culture, yet

this does not have to be the case. Popular culture motivates students to do research,

read, write, learn, and create—they are not disconnected from the arts, rather

connecting in new and unforeseen ways.5 Although we are far from developing a

systematic method for quantifying these new cultural practices, both policymakers

and arts administrators within museums must be cognizant of the attitudes and

motivations of young people in regards to the arts, for what is done now to foster

this relationship will reflect in the Millennials when they become adults.

Advances in the cultural sector and implications for art museums

Technological advances have made modes for cultural consumption more

diverse, expansive, and above all more accessible. It could be argued that the sheer

amount of information available on the Internet would entice Millennial audiences

to experiment and discover new things. In fact, technology has greatly reduced the

cost of searching and locating new information on art, artists, art history, materials

and techniques, and museums and their collections. For instance, The Children’s

Museum of Indianapolis employs a Wikipedian-‐in-‐Residence, a scholar who uploads

and updates detailed content pertaining to the museum’s collections and activities 5 Ibid.

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on Wikipedia, an online user-‐generated encyclopedia. The Google Cultural Institute

helps to preserve and promote culture online through such initiatives as The Google

Art Project (virtual tours of museums, galleries, and historical houses across the

globe with ultra high-‐resolution images that can be organized into a user-‐generated

collection), The World Wonders Project (a collaboration with UNESCO, the World

Monument Fund, and Getty Images to compile and preserve information on the

ancient wonders of the world, utilizing Google Street View technology to navigate

heritage sites), the digitization of the Nelson Mandela archive, and the showcasing of

the Dead Sea Scrolls. ArtStack is a social media based art database in which users

can locate artists’ creations, upload photos of an artwork they like and “stack” it on

their profile, “follow” curators, art dealers, and cultural workers in order to see what

art interests them, comment on artworks in order to start a conversation with

fellow ArtStackers, help the community by identifying images without detailed

information, and create digital collections of artworks. Despite this shift toward

mass accessibility of artistic information, some museums hold back on making their

collections public, and even some free art database websites such as Art.sy are

“invite-‐only” and want to know if you are a collector interested in buying art before

you are asked to join.

Art museums in particular can utilize free social networking sites such as

Twitter and Facebook to create a profile, add friends, promote events, and upload

pictures and video for all users to see. Albeit a main mode of marketing and

communication, social media can also be exploited as a means of connecting with

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members, friends of the museum, and potential visitors. Photo contests, art quizzes,

ticket giveaways, behind-‐the-‐scenes videos are all methods to not only gain visitors,

but to reach them on a popular level, one that is relevant to the Millennial

generation’s means of communication. Due to the fact that people have a tendency

to rely on the recommendations of friends and acquaintances in their social network

in order to find information,6 one could conclude that an art museum’s presence on

social media sites in which ‘sharing’ and ‘liking’ is encouraged could only be in the

favor of the institution. In addition, leaders in a community, trendsetters and

mavens often play a prominent role in determining popularity and changing citizen

preferences, especially in the arena of art, culture and media.7 This would indicate

that a strong, positive presence in the social media sphere by a cultural institution

(and even its cultural workers) has the power to affect change in citizens and

influence popularity. Regardless of the avenue through which Millennials are

accessing and exploring the arts, it is clear that a social framework is vital in

disseminating cultural information that can result in participation.

Millennial modes of participation

So what exactly does participation look like in the 21st century for a Gen Y

individual such as myself? I have seemingly limitless opportunities to create, share,

connect, and interact with others by: sharing music and playlists online and via 6 DiMaggio, Paul and Hugh Louch. 1998. “Socially Embedded Consumer Transactions: For What Kinds of Purchases Do People Most Often Use Networks?” American Sociological Review 63:619-‐37. 7 Katz, Elihu, and Paul Lazarsfeld. 1955. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

47

iPods, posting articles and signing petitions via Facebook links, creating online

evites (electronic invitations) to events and activities, starting a cooking blog with

culinary tips and tricks, uploading links and pictures to share ideas with friends on

Pinterest, using Google to access any information at any time, accessing live news

via my cell phone, updating and publishing my physical location so my friends know

where I’ve been/what I’m doing/who I’m with, contacting travel hosts in other

countries for a backpacking trip, reviewing a coffee shop or restaurant on Yelp,

perusing personal profiles on KLM flights before selecting a seat partner, Skype

video chatting with my family across the world, syncing my shoes with my iPhone to

track jogging times, uploading videos of my amateur bathroom singing to YouTube

to generate followers, using Match to find a date for Saturday night, locating a meet-‐

up group that enjoys wine tastings, joining an adult kickball league, starting a Jane

Austen book club, finding a local knitting circle, going to a live concert or festival,

receiving online coupons from Groupon for new restaurants and activities I’d never

have known about or tried, following the tweets of my favorite celebrities and

organizations for up-‐to-‐the-‐minute updates on their activities and other special

deals via Twitter, etc.

With the endless possibilities for connection, interaction, and sharing listed

above, how can it be that young people are statistically the least likely to participate

in culture? In fact, many of the abovementioned modes of participation are physical

activities and outings spurred by information found on the Internet—here we can

see that online engagement isn’t merely a mode of social alienation, but it is also an

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information-‐saturated impetus to explore new cultural avenues. Constant

engagement with technology makes Generation Y arguably the most connected

demographic, albeit in a non-‐traditional sense. Fascinating is the tendency for

Millennials to not only generate content online (blogging, uploading videos, starting

groups) but to create content primarily centered upon themselves, their interests,

and their experiences. This trend has implications in and of itself, suggesting

Millennials are more generation “me” than generation “we”.

The Millennial profile and the future of the arts experience

A recent study published in March 2012 by professor Jean M. Twenge and

her colleagues at San Diego State University attempted to define the characteristics

of the Millennial generation. Their study, "Generational Differences in Young Adults'

Life Goals, Concern for Others, and Civic Orientation" concluded that Generation Y

tends more toward individualism and less toward cohesion. The positive

implications of this are more tolerance, equality, and less prejudice; however,

Twenge is convinced the broader implications of these findings do not bode well for

society at large. "Having a population that is civically involved, is interested in

helping others, and interested in the problems in the nation and the world, are

generally good things," she says. But Ms. Twenge believes this isn’t the case with the

Millennial generation. Young people are "more isolated and wrapped up in their

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own problems" which results in focusing less on the group, society, and

community.8

A future generation that has a propensity for being less empathetic is cause

for concern on multiple levels. This is an issue of psychological estrangement from

the fellow man and disconnected social relationships, as well as an issue of

development of anonymity within the collective due to online communications.

Further, one could infer from the Generation Y study that a less civic-‐minded

generation would be, then, less apt to support (both ideologically and fiscally)

organizations intended to promote the public good, such as art museums. This is a

grave situation that must be seriously considered and carefully acted upon by

cultural workers in the 21st century. If this generation isn’t engaged by relevant

content offered by cultural institutions—that is, if the “me” cannot find its unique

place within the collective “we”—it is sure that organizations, programs and

initiatives for the public good, including art museums, will winnow away into

extinction along with other traditional art forms that have gathered dust,

unchanged, and therefore become unsustainable.

Today’s young arts audiences aren’t interested in the arts, but rather the arts

experience; Millennials want to participate in interactive and meaningful ways –

“they want to retrieve sovereignty over their arts-‐going by reclaiming the cultural 8 Chau, Joanna. "Millennials Are More 'Generation Me' Than 'Generation We,' Study Finds” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 Mar. 2012. Web. 08 June 2012. <http://chronicle.com/article/Millennials-‐Are-‐More/131175/%20%20Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education>.

50

right to formulate and exchange opinions that are valued by the community.”9 In her

article on audience behavior, Connor cleverly underlines the importance of the

experience in society – sports are so popular because one doesn’t just attend, they

participate and become part of the experience. And participation doesn’t end

there—sports fans can continue to read about their team in the newspaper, watch

re-‐caps on TV, talk to their friends about the outcome and debate their opinions. But

what are the options available for arts enthusiasts? As it stands in most cases,

museum-‐goers can pay admittance, read wall labels and look at objects – sometimes

with a guide as accompaniment. For further involvement they could enroll in a

university course, buy select books from the gift shop, or create their own

discussion group. Education in the museum setting is sadly limited to young

children and the whims of sponsors and donors. Young people rarely feel as

knowledgeable and empowered to talk about arts as they do sports. But what if

museums could break that divide and redemocratize the arts experience? Some

museums are doing just that, engaging contemporary adult audiences by embracing

the changes and trends in technology and cultural consumption. The next chapter

delves into the practices of two such art museums, their programmatic offerings,

and the significance of their efforts.


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Chapter 4: Case Studies The Rubin Museum and The Brooklyn Museum

In this chapter I will employ a structured research strategy called participant

observation. This is a term used in social anthropology to describe a methodology in

which a participant studies a cultural environment and the individuals within it in

order to analyze and observe the group. Through direct observation, participation in

activities, interaction, and self-‐analysis I am able to produce a firsthand

ethnographic report which outlines the practices of two New York City art museums

and their efforts to engage contemporary adult audiences: the Rubin Museum and

the Brooklyn Museum. What follows is an example consideration based on an

experience of first the Metropolitan Opera, and then the two museums.

For a period of four months, from January to May 2012, I was living and

working in New York City and as a result I had the opportunity to explore countless

cultural centers, art fairs, museums, galleries, and historical institutions – some

infamous and some much less well known. Of these initial experiences was a

Monday evening performance of Verdi’s Ernani by The Metropolitan Opera at

Lincoln Center. I attended the performance with two acquaintances, one man in his

80s and a woman in her 50s, clearly neither one from my generation. Noting the

audience demographic, I would hazard a guess in saying less than 5% were in my

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age group. Aside from demographics, I was surprised to see the show would have

two intermissions, lasting a total of three and a half hours.

Not only did I feel like a fish out of water among my elders, I couldn’t even

imagine sitting through an epic film for three and a half hours on a Monday night.

Electronic subtitles in 19th century English helped to make this performance at least

somewhat comprehensible, but I had little if any context with which to assess and

appreciate the opera, and little patience to sit still for such a long period of time.

Considering I am an educated, white, middle-‐class female who has taken several

music and opera appreciation courses, I should be the ideal demographic for

supporting such a performance. However, I was disillusioned by the passivity of this

experience and it caused me to ruminate on the sustainability of some art forms, as

cultural economist Diane Ragsdale did in a recent post on her blog Jumper1. After

being asked if opera is a sustainable artform, Ragsdale responded that we must

consider what legitimate forms of opera enjoyment could look like in the 21st

century, and further, we must ask ourselves if the culture of preserving the longest-‐

lasting and oldest institutions instead of fostering new or experimental companies

and adapting to change is truly sustainable, or, even ‘natural.’ If my generation,

already considered to be self-‐oriented and less interested in community and the

1 Ragsdale, Diane. "Is Opera a Sustainable Art Form? Excerpts from a New Keynote..." Web log post. Jumper. Art Journal Blogs, 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 7 June 2012. <http://www.artsjournal.com/jumper/2012/04/is-‐opera-‐a-‐sustainable-‐art-‐form-‐excerpts-‐from-‐a-‐new-‐keynote/>.

53

collective2, is expected to sustain this art form, we should at least find it

approachable content-‐wise, convenient time-‐wise, and accessible as an opportunity

for sociability. Although, for me, this wasn’t the case with my experience at the

Metropolitan Opera, it was the case for the Rubin Museum.

The Rubin Museum, New York, NY

The Rubin Museum is home to a collection of art from the Himalayas and

surrounding regions. Situated in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, the Rubin

Museum’s collection spans 5 stories and includes an Asian bar and restaurant, a

bookshop and an auditorium. Every Friday night the museum is open until 10pm,

offers free admission (starting at 6pm) and special programming – all part of its K2

Friday Nights initiative. The restaurant becomes a lounge bar, K2, with Pan Asian

tapas and a DJ set that accompanies the theme of the night’s gallery tours and

programs. On 10 February 2012 I attended a K2 Friday Night event, which had come

to my attention by searching events listed in the Time Out New York website.

The first element that attracted me to this museum wasn’t necessarily an

interest in the collection (at the time I knew nothing about Himalayan art), but

rather the time. The museum and its collections are open to the public until 10pm

on a Friday night. With something as simple as the selection of a day and time, the

2 Chau, Joanna. "Students." Millennials Are More 'Generation Me' Than 'Generation We,' Study Finds. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 Mar. 2012. Web. 08 June 2012. <http://chronicle.com/article/Millennials-‐Are-‐More/131175/%20%20Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education>.

54

Rubin Museum has cleverly positioned itself as a place for community gathering

after a long workweek, for a date night, as a free weekly cultural meeting point.

Being open until 10pm removes the worry of arriving just before the museum

closes, or having only half an hour to enjoy the collections. The choice to stay open

until 10pm also allows for leisurely time spent in the galleries, at the bar, or in a film

screening – essentially, a visitor doesn’t feel rushed in their experience of the

museum.

Of course, as a student and a young person doing an unpaid internship in

New York City, I found the word “free” attractive. But beyond price, weekly free

opportunities to enter museums in New York City are usually more constrictive

times, for example: Thursday [open until 8pm -‐ July 5-‐Aug 30 -‐ Museum of Modern

Art; free admittance 6-‐9pm, The New Museum], Friday [free 6-‐9pm – first Friday of

the month – Neue Galerie], Saturday [5:45-‐7:45pm – pay-‐what-‐you-‐wish –

Guggenheim New York; free admission every third Saturday – Museo del Barrio],

Sunday [11:00am-‐1:00pm – pay-‐what-‐you-‐wish – The Frick Collection]. As you can

see, the accessible times exist, but the windows are so small, and, in most cases,

insignificant or impossible to remember.

As a young person with limited funds, my free time is important to me, and

often the way I spend it is contingent on cost. Every K2 Friday Night offers a film

screening related to the theme, and admission is free with the purchase of a drink at

the bar. Somehow, as a Millennial, spending money on adult beverages is a more

55

acceptable expense than general admission or cover charges. This is a psychological

trick that is very shrewdly carried out by the Rubin Museum. The film is also casual

in nature, and even though the screening starts at 9pm, visitors are welcome to

come and go without the pressure of being on time and staying until the ending

credits. Therefore, due to the timing and cost, a person of my age with even the

vaguest of interests in museums would find this institution accessible.

Secondly, the programmatic offerings on the evening I attended were varied

and diverse. Not only could I attend a folk concert, walk in on a film screening, or

listen to the DJ spin in the K2 lounge, but I could listen as a local psychologist and

artist give a lecture related to the evening’s theme: memory. I chose to attend the

event TalkingStick in which museum guides join a storytelling collective to explore

Himalyan art. Having attended K2 Friday Night on my own that evening, I went up to

the 5th floor galleries around 8pm and was greeted by the very friendly staff. As a

group began to gather, we were encouraged to sit on the floor of the gallery. This act

in itself is a revelation for art museums – transforming the traditionally formal,

sacral space that is the gallery into a space that feels more like a living room.

TalkingStick included spoken word, poetry readings, storytelling, comedy, and

improvised music – all of which were related to several different paintings in the

“Modern Art of India” temporary exhibition.

There were quite a few events happening at the same time at K2 Friday Night,

which meant I couldn’t attend everything, but it also meant I was able to find my

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niche within the museum context. With the variety of options, I could choose which

programs fit my interests and I was given a selection of activities in order to access

the museum and interact with the collections. The diverse offerings provide the

Millennial visitor a range of ways to own and occupy the space.

Lastly, the ambience of the Rubin Museum was open and accessible. The low-‐

key nature of the programs made the space very comfortable and conducive to

interaction. As I mentioned with TalkingStick, the museum as religious hallowed

ground for object veneration was replaced by the contemporary concept of museum

as living room space for informal pow-‐wows. After the mini-‐performances of

TalkingStick, the museum-‐goers and myself were encouraged to explore the

exhibition. In doing so, the others who had also taken part in the event were open to

informal interactions. I believe sitting on the gallery floor had broken a social

barrier (an immediate breakdown of modern museum etiquette), as well as

listening along to ‘lowbrow’ folk traditions such as spoken word and storytelling in a

‘highbrow’ environment, and laughing together at the comic content.

In fact, after Talking Stick, I continued to wander around the exhibition.

While considering one painting, another onlooker who had participated in the

program asked me how I thought the title of the work related to the composition.

With a complete stranger I had a brief but welcome conversation about the possible

meaning of an artwork. This happened twice while touring the gallery, and later on

another floor a museum worker asked me casually if I’d like a tour of that floor’s

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collection. The interaction was informal and welcome; the fact that it wasn’t

officially organized made the offer more appealing and genuine, more accessible.

After 30 minutes speaking with this museum worker (at a certain point even the

security guard joined the conversation) I was able to recite more than I’d ever

known about Buddhist culture and tradition. This is a significant example of an art

museum that is the exception to Connor’s statement “[…] postmodernism has not

attempted to redefine appropriate audience behavior…The intellectual and

emotional distance between public arts producers and the average consumer has

never been greater.”3

Beyond expanding the sociability of the art museum, the Rubin Museum has

taken steps to carefully construct a public program (and an informal culture among

museum workers) that doesn’t aim to educate necessarily, but rather to provide an

opportunity to learn and interact.

Suddenly a museum of primarily ancient Himalayan art isn’t just a place for

the passive display and observation of the past, but rather a living, breathing social

organism that offers varied modes of participation that open the door to relevant

considerations of contemporary culture. This brings to mind Simon’s definition of a

participatory cultural institution as “a place where visitors can create, share, and


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connect with each other around content”4. The Rubin Museum has not allowed the

niche specificity of their collection define their institution; the objects serve rather

as a foundation, a jumping off point, a source of inspiration for public programs in

the 21st century.

The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

The second art museum I believe deserves accolades for engagement is the

Brooklyn Museum. Located in the borough of Brooklyn, 30 minutes from the island

of Manhattan, is one of the oldest and largest museums in the United States with

collections ranging from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art,

representing a broad range of cultures. Decidedly more spacious than the Rubin

Museum, the Brooklyn Museum boasts a pavilion, lobby, Beaux-‐Arts Court, a library,

an auditorium with mezzanine seating, several bookshops and giftshops, several

café points and restaurant options as well as connection to the Brooklyn Botanic

Gardens and Prospect Park.

Every First Saturday of the month, the Brooklyn Museum presents Target

First Saturdays in which visitors enjoy free programs of art and entertainment from

5 to 11pm. The Museum Cafè points become cash bars with light fare, several DJ sets

play at various locations within the museum, as well as performances, 10-‐minute

gallery talks, hands-‐on art activities, book club meetings, film screenings and talks,

4 Simon, Nina. "The Participatory Museum." The Participatory Museum. Nina Simon, 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 21 June 2012. <http://www.participatorymuseum.org/>.

59

even a dance party, all coinciding with that month’s theme. On 7 April 2012 I

attended a Target First Saturday event, which also came to my attention by

searching events listed on the Time Out New York website.

It is worth noting that Target First Saturdays is a program sponsored by

Target Corporation, a North American retailing company. Target sponsors free or

discounted events at arts and cultural institutions all over the United States, and

taking into account the size and scope of the Brooklyn Museum’s audience, this is a

strategic move for Target to market its brand. Sponsorship is a double-‐edged sword

for art museums, as it provides funding to achieve more ambitious programming

goals, yet the danger with any corporate sponsorship is the limitations or

censorship they may put on the art. Even though Target selects programs that fit its

image, it makes a point to not involve itself in artistic content.

I see this particular collaboration as mutually beneficial between museum

and sponsor in terms of attracting Millennials. This is a clever positioning tactic for

Target to associate its brand image with the arts scene and urban culture, and it is

an opportunity for the Brooklyn Museum to provide no-‐barriers access to art,

culture, and quality programs. There is, however, an element of competition here

between the presence of the Target brand image and the artistic autonomy of the

Brooklyn Museum, as the economy of attention ensures participants encounter first

the name of the program Target First Saturdays, then the logo on all banners and

media materials, then finally artistic content.

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Interesting still is the simple fact that the Brooklyn Museum had to resort

to sponsorship from a private for-‐profit company instead of finding substantial

funds from government arts agencies, foundations, or the donor and membership

base—all of whom are supposed to have a vested interest in the accessibility of the

arts for the public. If arts leaders are following the direction of policy and research

toward a more inclusive, participative museum model, then we must wonder where

priorities lie if funds are not properly allocated to undeniably popular events that

attract Millennial visitors.

As with the Rubin Museum, I was initially attracted to the time the event was

offered. It should be noted that the massive size of the Brooklyn Museum affects its

capacity for offerings – in the positive sense, there are more opportunities for

expensive programs and big name shows, in the negative sense, accessible programs

(time-‐wise and cost-‐wise) for such a large public can only be offered once a month.

The sheer size of the Brooklyn Museum allows for the accommodation of thousands

of visitors at Target First Saturday events. The selection of Saturday is strategic for

the Millennial crowd, however, as is the free admittance period from 5 to 11pm (two

hours more than the Rubin Museum, three more than the New Museum, four more

than The Guggenheim New York). As Saturday is a primary night for people to go

out and enjoy nightlife, like the Rubin Museum, I interpret this as a positioning

scheme to become a place for gathering, for weekend fun and entertainment. The

large window of free admittance is, again, attractive for young people who don’t find

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convenience in 2-‐hour windows – especially in a city as big as New York with

commuting times varying greatly. Also, six hours remains enough time to explore

the vast collections and participate in some activities without feeling hurried.

The second factor affecting the significance of the Brooklyn Museum’s

participation strategy for Millennial engagement is the variety of programs offered.

In one evening, I could see a local art-‐punk band play live in the pavilion, sign up to

make Keith Haring-‐inspired pop art prints, make and exchange graffiti buttons, first

screen an epic dance film then have a Q&A with the director, attend an hourly

gallery talk in the Keith Haring temporary exhibition, watch a break-‐dancing

performance, hang out at a 70s-‐80s New York dance party, drop in on a book club

discussion with a New York Times writer, and peruse the galleries until 11pm. As I

said about the Rubin Museum, diverse offerings provide the Millennial visitor a

range of ways to own and occupy the space.

I chose to attend the Gallery Talk within the Keith Haring temporary

exhibition. One of the staff members lead a talk, microphone in hand, about the life

of the artist and street culture in New York during the ‘80s. Unfortunately there

were so many people in the galleries, and in the museum in general, that it was

difficult to really view the artworks. On the one hand this is very promising because

the number of visitors would indicate a public interest in the museum’s offerings,

yet on the other hand it remains difficult to navigate the space and participate in

activities. In fact, I wanted to make a Keith Haring-‐inspired graffiti button, but was

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discouraged by how long the line was. Then I wanted to see the hip-‐hop

performance in the Beaux-‐Arts Court and was welcomed by all the museum-‐goers

sitting on the floor, but I had to move twice because of not being able to see

anything. This brings up the issue of sociability within the museum.

For the Rubin Museum I discussed the benefit of informal atmosphere, such

as being invited to sit on the floor, which created an intimacy within the collective.

Despite having the same inclination from the Brooklyn Museum, I felt the group size

was simply too big to make a connection with fellow visitors. Because of the vast

quantity of space and number of people, I still felt in awe of the sheer size and

grandeur of the place – the innate reaction of sacralization was confused by the

attempt at informality and reaffirmed by lack of intimacy. Although the Brooklyn

Museum was open and accessible in terms of time, cost and offerings, I did not have

the same social closeness I felt at the Rubin Museum, and as a result, I did not feel

comfortable enough to interact with any other visitors despite attending the event

alone.

Therefore, as a means of indirectly assessing opportunity for socialization as

the Brooklyn Museum’s final noteworthy characteristic, I propose studying its

location (in the sense of physicality, space, neighborhood) as its keystone for

participatory significance. Perhaps the most surprising element of my experience at

the Brooklyn Museum was the demographic – I would say 80% fell into the

Millennial generation. These are particularly striking attendance figures until one

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takes into account the location of the museum. The borough of Brooklyn is popularly

known to be inhabited by young people, artists, and musicians who want to live in

New York City but cannot afford to live in Manhattan. Plus, there is a community

identity within Brooklyn, one that champions supporting local businesses and

products, one of youthful creativity, and one that values artistic collaboration,

experimentation, and innovation.

Like many cities, Brooklyn is subdivided within itself into niche

neighborhoods, some of which are redeveloped for ex-‐Manhattan “yuppies”

whereas others are thoroughly “hipster” and “cool.” The Brooklyn Museum is

physically located in Prospect Heights, a wealthier neighborhood, within a grandiose

Beaux-‐Arts building. Despite high attendance numbers by Millennials who clearly

appreciate the programming and content, the lack of intrinsic informality lays in the

physical location and space of the museum. For me, the clever participative

programming doesn’t make up for the physical austerity of the Brooklyn Museum

and its lack of its small, locally grown, neighborhood appeal. However, it must be

said that the Brooklyn Museum succeeds in being a space for young people to simply

hang out and have the opportunity to learn, should they choose to do so. Hence,

location must be taken into considered when assessing the contemporary

significance of this institution.

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Observations and conclusions

Overall, these two New York City institutions, the Rubin Museum and the

Brooklyn Museum, are my firsthand examples of art museums that are significantly

engaging the Millennial generation with a few common features: convenience in

terms of time and cost, varied offerings and approachable content, and informal

opportunities for sociability. However, we did see that these factors contributing to

an art museum’s accessibility do not always translate effectively to all institutions –

it would appear that, in fact, size does matter.

Perhaps the most important take away from these participant observations is

the need for a conscious divergence from the “norm” of a museum experience. That

is, the introduction of a postmodern model for accessibility that breaks the

traditional framework for museum interaction. Specifically, lowering time and cost

barriers, using the collection as inspiration for relevant and diverse programming

not simply as passive display, and providing an environment for casual and

transversal social interaction around content.

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Chapter 5: Conclusions

To summarize the research put forth by this thesis, let us underline the main

points that have been made. The first chapter addressed the growing statistical

disinterest of Millennials in cultural participation by questioning current modes of

involvement and connection. Utilizing literature from current cultural workers and

arts administrators, the thesis suggested a 21st century understanding of

participation and participative cultural institutions. Chapter two outlined a

historical perspective on participation in order to understand this change in modes

of involvement, and then focused particularly on the shift from active to passive

audience behavior and the construction of an aesthetic standard in the United

States. By looking at several scholarly studies that concern themselves with

Millennial involvement and activity, the research noted the pressing need for arts

administrators to follow technological and sociological shifts in order to engage this

demographic and embrace the ways in which these young people experience the

arts today. Chapter three proposed two case studies as examples of art museums

with significant Millennial participation strategies by employing the participant

observation methodology and noting aspects of these art museums that are

accessible and engaging.

The 21st century arts experience is not a routine arts experience with a

singular mode of approach—it is an experience beyond the ordinary that

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encourages new meaning and understanding in a moment that brings about change,

there is a before and after, and the participant is impacted through the memory and

senses; it does not force people to interact or converse, but rather provides an

opportunity for active engagement with people, ideas, and information. It is a

platform for creating, sharing, and connecting around content1. It proposes an

intellectual interaction and elicits an emotional response2. It is vibrant, relevant and

accessible to everyone3. The atmosphere is informal and open, approachable and

personal. The programming is diverse yet thematic.

More and more, these types of experiences are being offered by art museums

and cultural organizations that seem to understand the necessity of Millennial

engagement. Yet others seemed to be threatened by impending changes to their

traditional audiences and modes of participation. These shifts should be seen less as

a threat for cultural institutions and more as an opportunity to open up the

accessibility of their collections and reach a broader audience base, a part of most

arts organizations’ missions. In fact, Millennial engagement continues to be a hot

research topic for all nonprofits looking to prepare for the future.

1 Simon, Nina. "The Participatory Museum." The Participatory Museum. Nina Simon, 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 21 June 2012. <http://www.participatorymuseum.org/>. 2 Connor, Lynne. “In and Out of the Dark: A Theory about Audience Behavior from Sophocles to Spoken Word” p.103 3 The James Irvine Foundation. Engage Californians in the Arts. Josephine Ramirez. New Arts Strategy Overview. The James Irvine Foundation, 2011. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://www.irvine.org/grantmaking/our-‐programs/arts-‐program>.

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Millennial impact on nonprofit arts organizations

In June of 2012, the Millennial Impact Report 2012 was released by Achieve,

a company specializing in fundraising for charitable causes, which underlined the

massive influence of this generation on the future of nonprofits4. They found that

Millennials generally want to build personal, authentic relationships with the

nonprofits they choose to support, and strong relationships will compel this

generation to act as fundraisers. They also want an opportunity to share their

experience and skills for the greater cause and take on leadership roles within a

nonprofit organization. The report states that many nonprofits are now

experimenting with what works and what doesn’t with this generation. The

Millennial Impact Report 2012 also suggests nonprofit administrators follow this

example and take action now to create a sustainable foundation for their

organizations’ future supporters. From this report one can glean that the Millennial

generation will continue to be a driving force behind cultural changes and trends,

and that the future of nonprofit organizations, including art museums, will depend

on them. Now the necessary action is to try to understand their needs and plan for

them.

4 Fritz, Joanne. "Report Confirms Why Millennials Are Crucial to Future Of Nonprofits." About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs. About.com, June 2012. Web. 26 June 2012. <http://nonprofit.about.com/od/generationalfundraising/a/Report-‐Confirms-‐Why-‐Millennials-‐Are-‐Crucial-‐To-‐Future-‐Of-‐Nonprofits.htm>.

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Digital culture and the ‘new’ museum

Understanding and planning for Millennial involvement in an arts

organization isn’t as one-‐dimensional as being visible on social media channels by

making real time updates on a Facebook or Twitter account, or perhaps

crowdsourcing “likes” for specific content. In fact, Geert Lovink, director of the

Institute for Network Cultures in The Netherlands, stated in a recent presentation

that these social networks should already be referred to in the past tense, as they

have become nothing but “boring self promotion” and “algorithmic friendship”,5 and

that the Internet, instead, has the potential to radically alter the way in which

humans deliberate. In an interview, Lovink stated, “it should be possible for

grassroots organizations, activists, artists, and others to change the very structure of

information technologies and networks.”6 In other words, cultural workers and

organizations such as art museums can make the social interconnectedness and data

accessibility of the Internet work for them to engage makers and users, producers

and viewers. Though there exists a tension between museums and digital

participation, digital culture is adding a dimension to the ways in which an art

museums can offer up their collections for popular use. These two realms can, in

fact, coexist, as even the two aforementioned museum case studies have

incorporated elements of media technology into their procedures. The fusion of

5 Lovink, Geert. "Networks without a Cause." Face to Face with the Author: Geert Lovink. Circolo Dei Lettori, Torino, Italy. 13 June 2012. Lecture. 6 "Geert Lovink -‐ Biography." Geert Lovink. The European Graduate School, n.d. Web. 26 June 2012. <http://www.egs.edu/faculty/geert-‐lovink/biography/>.

69

digital media and curation has already begun to materialize in the form of the New

Aesthetic and New Curation.

The New Aesthetic is an art movement obsessed with digital processing, the

otherness of computer vision and how it has altered our lived experience.7 Patrick

Hussey, digital campaigns manager and writer for The Guardian, suggests

algorithms and open data could be the delivery system the arts have been crying out

for—a model for what he calls New Curation8. Until this point, New Curation has

consisted of the Genius playlist-‐creator on iTunes, Spotify’s recommendations for

new music based on what you ‘like’ and listen to, and Netflix’s suggestions for films

you may enjoy due to your personal ratings. Websites like ArtStack are already

fusing art and social media, enabling a new generation of New Curators. Perhaps

more interesting are the ‘community curation’ projects that are gaining interest. For

instance, the Brooklyn Museum held a crowd-‐curated exhibition entitled Click! in

2008 that was the result of an open call for submissions, an online public evaluation

of the photographs submitted, and finally an exhibition of the highest ranking

images and an expert evaluation of the results.

7 Bogost, Ian. "The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder." Theatlantic.com. The Atlantic, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-‐new-‐aesthetic-‐needs-‐to-‐get-‐weirder/255838/>. 8 Hussey, Patrick. "Data Culture #2: The New Curation." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 27 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-‐professionals-‐network/culture-‐professionals-‐blog/2012/apr/27/data-‐culture-‐curation-‐open-‐art>.

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Another new project that is getting the public to actively engage with art in

ways relevant to them is a competition called The Exhibitionists, within the BBC

project Your Paintings, in which 5 members of the public compete in a series of 4

episodes (aired on the BBC network and in online streaming) to curate their own

exhibition at The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. The project, although based

in the United Kingdom, has international implications for art museums. One of the

contestants, Julia Manser, states

The concept seems to indicate this programme could bring a new audience to art, the type of audience that currently thinks art is not for them and is funded for the benefit of an elite not for Jack Bloggs. I’d love to discover more about our national treasures and allow others to see my journey.9

Manser’s statement is resounding in its reflection of the current struggle of art

museums to engage an increasingly disinterested public, maintain relevance in the

21st century, and amp up efforts for accessibility. What’s more, she mentions her

desire to explore the collections and share her experience with others. Essentially,

she’s open to taking part in a participative cultural institution.

The museum of the future

Participative programming by art museums, such as those organized by the

case study museums, can be considered part of the burgeoning New Curation

alongside the BBC’s project The Exhibitionists. For example, the Rubin Museum

boasts several brilliantly creative and accessible initiatives: programs tailored to

9 "The Exhibitionists: Contestants." BBC News. BBC, 2012. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tcsrj/profiles/julia-‐manser>.

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visitors with dementia and their caregivers, gallery tours in American Sign

Language, and a new video series called Access @ the Rubin Museum with episode

content related to exhibitions, tours, and programs to accommodate all audiences.

In this way, museums offer up innovative attempts to make their institutions more

accessible, to foster an informal, postmodern audience/museum behavior model,

and to provide a platform for an arts experience around which people can share,

connect, and create.

As a recent report by the American Association of Museums stated, museum-‐

goers want to "do" in addition to "view."10 This is not only indicative of a trend in

contemporary popular culture, but it is also a gauge by which we will be able to

measure museums that want to continue to be valued, funded, and supported by

their community. Art museums that allow visitors to “do,” both in person and online,

will have a New Curation strategy that revolves around relevant and accessible

cultural content, and innovative programming inspired by the collections. Those

that stick to the traditional model of allowing visitors to only “view” will soon be

able to equate their cultural relevance to that of the cassette tape or typewriter –

provoking nostalgia yet remaining obsolete.

In fact, the title of this thesis represents this duality of Millennial

participation; @TheMuseum is a reference to digital culture and Millennial speak, a 10 Higgins, Will. "Museums Get Creative in Generating Feedback to Exhibits." Indystar.com. Indianapolis Star, 20 June 2012. Web. 27 June 2012. <http://www.indystar.com/article/20120620/LOCAL18/206210318/Museums-‐get-‐creative-‐generating-‐feedback-‐exhibits>.

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possible user name on the Twitter social network, while it can also be read as “at the

museum,” a reference to the physicality of being present and experiencing event-‐

based participative programming in the museum setting. Consider how the two

museum case studies embody this duality: the Rubin Museum’s recent collaboration

with the Google Art Project to put works from their collection online, paired with

their increasingly popular themed sleepover nights for adults in the galleries; or

take the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition Split Second that gathered data from initial

online reactions and responses to works the Indian paintings collection, paired with

Go, a new community-‐curated open studio project across 47 neighborhoods of the

borough. Both museums are employing strategies to develop innovate initiatives

that engage Millennials both online and in person.

The modalities of Millennial participation require further investigation, as

this thesis is a first step in what will undoubtedly become a larger research

endeavor on Generation Y engagement in art museums and the intricacies and

implications thereof. Analyzing Millennial involvement in museums over time would

be especially useful in tracking detailed participation data for this demographic.

Millennials want to share their opinions and experiences and help make an impact,

and art museums can focalize this energy and utilize this unique perspective in

order to receive raw feedback on their programs and initiatives, recognize and

assess needs in the community, and develop projects that help other organizations

and artists. However there does need to be serious deliberation on a systematic

mode for assessing the value of qualitative experiences within the museum setting.

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Millennials are crucial to the future of nonprofits, but the question remains—will art

museums be able to broaden their identity and become places where young people

will want to hang out, talk, learn, contribute, and socialize? How can art museums

adapt their infrastructure to meet the needs of this demographic? Does the call for

more participatory and social activities indicate a trend toward an event-‐driven

society, and what are the implications for arts organizations?

The long-‐term impact of Generation Y on the arts and culture remains to be

seen, but despite indications that this demographic lacks interest in cultural

participation, this research has shown that young people are active cultural

consumers with a desire to participate in organizations that make an impact in

society. The future is bright for those art museums that embrace the challenge of

understanding and planning for the digitally-‐fluent Millennial generation, for all

their planning will lead to not only sustaining their institution, but perhaps more

importantly, to the opportunity of enabling a new generation of arts supporters,

cultural participants and active citizens.

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@TheMuseum: Challenges and Opportunities of Millennial Participation for Art Museums

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