Building the image of modern art : the rhetoric of two museums and the representation and canonization of modern art (1935-1975) : the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Leigh, M.A.
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Leigh, M. A. (2008, December 9). Building the image of modern art : the rhetoric of two museums and the representation and canonization of modern art (1935-1975) : the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/13362
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Building the Image of Modern Art
The Rhetoric of Two Museums and the Representation and Canonization of Modern Art (1935-1975): The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam
and the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Proefschrift ter verkrijging van
de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden,
op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties
te verdedigen op dinsdag 9 december 2008 klokke 13.45 uur
door Mary Anna Leigh geboren te New York in 1958
Promotiecommissie:
Promotores: Prof. dr. C.J.M Zijlmans Prof. dr. C.A. van Eck Referent: Prof. dr. R. Zwijnenberg
Overige leden: Dr. M.R. Bouquet (Universiteit Utrecht) Prof. dr. T. van Haaften
Dit proefschrift kwam mede tot stand met steun van de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).
My ABC’s for D, E, F and G’s
Table of Contents
Preface I
Acknowledgments III
Introduction: Museums Build the Image of Modern Art 1 Studying Museums in their Shaping of the History of Modern Art 1 Rhetoric: The Art of Verbal and Visual Persuasion 3
A Comparative Study 5
Rhetoric As Analytical Model 8
Aspects of Rhetoric 9
Invention 10
Arrangement 11
Style 12
Memory 13
Delivery 14
Parameters of Research 14
Using the Rhetorical Approach in Comparing Two Stories of 17 Modern Art: Prize or Price of the Museums’ Rhetoric?
Chapter 1: The Rhetoric of Policymaking: Creating One’s Own Image 19 The Stedelijk Museum’s Goals and Ambitions: ‘a living center of visual art’ 24 The Museum of Modern Art’s Goals and Ambitions: 35
‘The Greatest Museum of Modern Art in the World’
The Development of an organization: The Stedelijk Museum 45 The Development of an organization: The Museum of Modern Art 49
MoMA’s Publications 57
Books in the Stedelijk 60
Anniversary Exhibitions as prime examples of ethos-building exhibitions 61 Anniversaries in ‘het Stedelijk’ 63
Sandberg’s Grand Finale 68 The Stedelijk’s 75th 76 MoMA’s Anniversaries 84
MoMA’s 15th 91
MoMA’s 25th Master Celebration 94 Anniversaries of a Growing Museum 101
Chapter 2: Modern Matters: Defining and Defending Modern Art 104 The Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Modern’ 107
Exhibitions Defining and Defending Modern Art 111 Didactic Exhibitions Explain the ‘Modern’ 114 The Introductory Series to the Modern Arts 118
The Stedelijk Museum’s ‘Modern’ 129 Stedelijk’s Didactic Exhibitions 134
Modern Art as Part of Modern Living: A Sign of Progress 135 The Museum of Modern Art’s Positioning of Modern Art
as Part of Modern Life and Living 136
Modern Design: Sign of the Modern 139 MoMA’s exemplary exhibition
of Modern Art as Part of Modern Life 144 The Stedelijk Museum’s Positioning of Modern Art 149
as Part of Modern Life and Living
Dutch Modern Interior Design During 152 the War
An Exemplary Exhibition of Modern Art 156 in Modern Life in the Stedelijk
Modern Art of All Times, Ages and Cultures: The ‘Modern’ Quality 159 Children’s Art in the Museum of Modern Art 161
Children’s Art in the Stedelijk 164 Ancestors and Affinities: Older, Exotic 167
and Primitive in the Museum of Modern Art An Exemplary Exhibition of Timeless Modern Art 175
in MoMA
The Older, Exotic and ‘Primitive’ in the Stedelijk 177 An Exemplary Exhibition of Timeless Modern Art 179
in the Stedelijk
The Necessity to Define Declines 182
Chapter 3: The Making of Masters, Masterpieces and Movements: 184 the Representation of the History of Modern Art
Structuring the History of Modern Art 186 The Museum of Modern Art’s Historical Series in the Thirties 189
Early Historical Exhibitions in the Stedelijk 205 Historical Theme Exhibitions in the Stedelijk 213
in the Fifties and Sixties
Historical Exhibitions in MoMA in the Fifties and Sixties 236
The Founding Fathers of Modern Art and other Classic Modern Masters 245
MoMA’s Founding Father: Cézanne 245
Van Gogh as the Founding Father in the Stedelijk 250 Monet as New Ancestor in the Stedelijk? 255
Monet’s Position in MoMA 256
Chapter 4: Adding the Contemporary to the Modern Canon: 260 the Positioning and Promoting of the Living Artist
Presenting Contemporary Heroes 262 Institutionalizing Pollock in the Museum of Modern Art 262
The Icon Appel in the Stedelijk 270
‘Inter’national Shows of New Art 275 The New American Painting Show: MoMA’s Claim to Fame 276
Sandberg’s nederlands bijdrage Show 286
The Artist’s Experiment 298
Controlled Experiment in MoMA 301
The Stedelijk’s Experimental Exhibitions 307 The Stedelijk’s Survey Show of Conceptual Artists 319 MoMA’s Experimental and Conceptual Art Shows 325
Conclusions and Outlook: The Prize and Price of Rhetoric 342 Bibliography 354
Biography 381
Samenvatting (Summary) 382
VOLUME II: List of Illustrations and Illustrations
Preface
The idea for this thesis was planted many years ago. Fascinated by the concept of a constructed art history and drawn to the powerful and intriguing museum phenomenon, I sought to understand and expose what stories museums of modern art told, why they told them and how they told them.
From my background in economics, I had learned to view museums as sites of production, distribution and reception of art; institutions in which the meaning and value of art were produced and communicated. The difficulties and possibilities museums of modern art faced in these processes seemed all the more interesting and relevant, since there was so much controversy and uncertainty about matters concerning modern art. Furthermore, the economic, social and political conditions of these museums as organizations in society seemed to influence their courses.
During my studies of art history - in which I specialized in modern art - I had delved into the creation of a modern movement and discovered the important role museums had in
determining its success.
In order to narrow down the subject, two museums of modern art from different countries (with different economic, social and political conditions) were selected. Countries which I knew well, being an American living in the Netherlands. This selection did not only limit my material, it also optimized my research by providing for a fruitful comparison: the selected museums – the Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Modern Art - were the pioneers of modern art and they respected and influenced each other.
Working through the various materials from the two Museums was an absorbing experience. I encountered an immense collection of documents and it became clear that it would not be possible to present all the Museums’ portrayals of modern art history. Besides, to retell the Museums’ stories in a historiography of the museums would not answer the questions concerning the why and how. To gain insight into the processes of meaning making through which the Museums as authorities presented their histories, rhetoric seemed to
provide useful analytical tools. What is more, the wealth and beauty of the publications and exhibitions themselves made me want to expose these rich resources: to scrutinize these persuasive presentations in detail in search of how they were constructed. My approach departing from rhetoric thus grew from the material itself.
Rhetoric has opened a whole new exciting terrain and I am only beginning to cultivate the possibilities it has for studying the communicative role of museums in society. This book therefore should not be seen as a blooming bouquet of my research on the subject, but as the first blossoming flower.
Acknowledgements
For the most part this dissertation was written in my spare time, next to teaching and raising a family. Although this did not leave much time for research, my teaching on subjects
concerning art and museums in society did bring me into contact with many creative men and women in the field, who have fertilized my ideas on presentations of museums over the years.
Needless to say, it would be impossible to thank them all personally here, but I am grateful for their inspiration.
Doing research on the presentations of two Museums has meant spending many intense, exciting hours in their libraries and archives. I would like to thank Michelle Elligott and Michelle Harvey at the Museum of Modern Art Archives for their patience and assistance during my visits over the years. At the Stedelijk Museum Archives, I received a lot of help and support from Margreeth Soeting and Maurice Rummens, and recently from the librarian Michiel Nijhoff, for which I am very thankful.
During the many years it took to write this book, there were periods of complete drought for my research: periods in which others needed to be nurtured. This accepting, and dealing with, responsibilities as they appeared, has taught me a lot. Thanks to the support of colleagues and the love and care of my family and many dear friends, I was always able to revitalize my endeavours and finally complete this book. I would particularly like to thank my mother and my father; my sister Kathy and brother-in-law Rick; and my friends Corry Donner and Jan Jacobs.
A few people need special mentioning here and cannot be thanked enough.
Without Marlein van Raalte this dissertation would not have been completed. Her friendship, moral support and actual help in reading and commenting on the text, has kept me going. I am greatly indebted to her. But most of all I want to thank my husband Fred and my children David and Emma for their continual loving support and for putting this project in the right perspective.
Introduction: Museums Build the Image of Modern Art
The history of modern art is a story created by various actors in the world of art. Artists, collectors, dealers, critics, galleries, international exhibitions and museums contributed to this construction. At different times in history, different players have been more or less decisive.
During a large part of the 20th century, museums of modern art played a crucial role in
determining the course of art history. As authoritative institutions they have shaped art history through their representation and canonization of modern art. These contributions were not only determined by what the museums collected (and of course by what they did not collect), but especially by how the collections were presented in semi-permanent presentations and temporary (and loan) exhibitions, and by their various publications. That museums have played a vital role seems to be generally acknowledged, but as to how and what they have contributed many questions still remain. To gain greater insight into the process of
representation and canonization, this study focuses on the rhetorical aspects of this process.
Modern art museums build the image of modern art: they provide the public with a visual and verbal story of modern art. This story is constructed by both conscious and unconscious effort on the part of the museum. Most often a museum consciously chooses its course of actions when outlining its policies, building its collections, and presenting the artworks in its exhibitions, but sometimes effects are created by unconscious actions on the part of the museums. Choices of content and form within museums sometimes follow
traditional expectations. One can argue that every message a museum sends out – consciously or unconsciously – is part of the picture the museum creates. The form of a presentation, the linguistic means in a museum publication or other modes in which the museum’s story is communicated, are as much part of that message as is the content. It is important that a museum is aware of this, since the style of a verbal or visual presentation can reflect the content or add on to it and therefore strengthen it, but it can also weaken the message by contradicting it or distracting from it. Non-verbal, situational factors participate in the
effectiveness of the message. The final message - the constructed story - the public receives is made up of both content and form: what is presented as well as how it is presented.
Studying Museums in their Shaping of the History of Modern Art
In the last few decades the study of museums has become a vast and booming field of
research. The great number of books published yearly on the topic of museums illustrates this
mounting interest. Within a period of only three years three colossal collections of museum studies appeared each displaying the widening and intensifying interest in and research on museums today (Preziosi and Farago 2004, Carbonell 2004 and Macdonald 2006). Perhaps there is no field of academic research which has grown so quickly and so strongly, attracting researchers from so many disciplines, as museum studies has. This at once testifies to the importance and the complexity of the museum concept and the fascination it holds for many.
With the initiation of what has been acknowledged as “the new museology” in the late 1980’s, research of museums changed its focus from a study of museum methods (“the old museology”) to a more theoretical and humanistic discipline analyzing the role of museums in society (Vergo 1989). This change of focus has been explained as part of a larger critical (in both senses of the word) development during the same period in other academic disciplines which was defined as representational critique. This critical approach in many cultural and social disciplines raised questions about representation and the construction of meaning and knowledge (Macdonald 2006).
According to Macdonald, in her introduction of A Companion to Museum Studies, museum studies has developed from both fields of the new museology and representational critique and has broadened its scope, methods and commitment. Besides the growing terrain and the expanding multi-disciplinary approaches of museum studies, a “renewed
commitment” has been detected which attempts to aid the complex practical work of museums by the insights gained from academic research.
My research can be seen as budding from the new museology and representational critique in its deconstructive approach of the museum’s presentations as representational constructions and yet distinctly as part of the new expanding field of museum studies in its use of verbal and visual rhetoric as a key to a better understanding of museums’ presentations and in its desire to contribute to the challenging museum practice of today.
The acknowledgement of the museum of modern art as authoritative institution which shapes the image and the history of modern art serves as point of departure for this book. As Preziosi states: “The museum is one of the most brilliant and powerful genres of modern fiction, sharing with other forms of ideological practice – religion, science, entertainment, the academic disciplines – a variety of methods for the production and factualization of
knowledge and its sociopolitical consequences”.1 Various studies have established the crucial position of the museum as an educational body of authority. These studies, which departed
1 Preziosi, “Collecting/Museums”, p. 407.
from Foucault’s concept of institutions and their power-knowledge relations, have contributed to a better understanding of the museum as an institution of power that produces knowledge (Crimp 1985, Hooper-Greenhill 1992, Bennett 1995, Preziosi 1995 and 2003).
Besides the research on museums as producers of knowledge and narratives, numerous books have focused on exhibitions as constructions of meaning. Prompted by the growing multi-cultural community and aided by the representational critique of many disciplines, exhibitions have been exposed as constructors of political, social and cultural identity (Karp and Lavine 1991) and as “vehicles for the production and dissemination of knowledge”
(Greenberg, Ferguson and Nairne 1996). My research focuses on a wide range of presentations of modern art museums of which the exhibitions are a crucial component.
Exhibitions are indeed an important vehicle of communication between the museum and the audience, but there are other forms of communication that shape and transmit the museum’s stories and which have previously not received the necessary attention. They are to be found in all the verbal and visual presentations including for example: catalogs, bulletins, wall labels, as well as posters, pamphlets and press releases. These vehicles are included in my research.
To deconstruct and analyze the museums’ constructions of modern art, I use rhetoric as a tool to expose how, with what means and for what purposes, the museums’ presentations were formulated. Previous studies have pointed to rhetoric as an approach to “museums as discourse” and exhibitions as “utterances within discourse” from the perspective of discourse analysis.2 Patin in his Discipline and Varnish. Rhetoric, Subjectivity, and Counter-memory in the Museum (1999) focuses on the rhetoric of the museum space and the power of framing devices for art history and aesthetics. I have taken the use of rhetoric further in actually analyzing the discourse the museums themselves have produced in their whole range of presentations, and providing a new reading of the two museums’ approaches to modern art and its history in order to expose their representational strategies and deepen our
understanding of the construction and content of their stories.
Rhetoric: The Art of Verbal and Visual Persuasion
The choice to use rhetoric as a model to investigate the presentation of the story of modern art by museums, is based on the insight that museums of art are communicators. The museum’s
2 For example Ferguson, “Exhibition Rhetorics, Material Speech and Utter Sense” and Bal, “The Discourse of the Museum”. Thomas Patin combines rhetoric and subjectivity to explain modernist domestic architecture, formalist art theory, and modernist museology, in Patin, Discipline and Varnish.
goals are to communicate their story and to persuade the public of the importance of their message. This is the case for all museums but for modern art museums the demand for persuasive communication is especially pertinent. One has to convince an audience of the greatness of works of art which for many initially are of “my child can do better” quality. In the slippery field of modern art, the public has to be guided, has to be persuaded because modern art is perceived to be difficult and controversial. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion.
The use of rhetoric is as old as our civilization. The theory of classical rhetoric was developed over centuries and the use of rhetoric as a meta-science is still developing. The range of rhetoric is wide and it includes practice, theory and meta-theory. The theory of classical rhetoric was first based on observation of effective speaking and writing, describing its means and merits. The theory became prescriptive – written down in systematic treatises - for those who wanted to learn the discipline of rhetoric and practice it. The meta-theory as a self-reflective feature of rhetoric analyzes aspects of the theory of rhetoric such as its status, goals and usefulness and is a growing field of study.3
For centuries, in some countries well into the 19th century, rhetoric was an important component of one’s academic education. It occupied a central place in the Greek and Roman curricula, in the medieval trivium, and flourished in Renaissance humanist education. From the 18th century on, rhetoric came under increasing attack and even though it was to be prevalent in the lives of most educated West-Europeans and Americans into the 19th century, it lost its central role in education. In the 20th century rhetoric often became associated with propaganda and advertising and its more pejorative senses – as “mere rhetoric”, decoration and deception – were emphasized. This view that rhetoric is a manipulative science that can distort ‘the truth’ was not new. Rhetoric has always been criticized; the ancient philosopher Plato was already convinced that rhetoric was superficial, deceptive, perverted the truth and steered human relations towards selfish manipulative behavior.4 Although rhetoric’s position had been deteriorating over the past centuries, in the late 20th century a renewed interest can be detected for the theory and practice of rhetoric. Once again rhetoric is entering the high school curricula through, for example, debating competitions.
Towards the end of the 20th century rhetoric is welcomed back into the human sciences. As a meta-science - together with many other movements such as structuralism, poststructuralism and hermeneutics - rhetoric questions the objectivity of scientific discourse
3 For example Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives and Simons, Rhetoric in the Human Sciences.
4 Other influential, strong opponents to rhetoric were John Locke, Immanuel Kant and B. Croce. See Vickers, In Defense of Rhetoric.
and the concept of ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ in science. From various perspectives rhetoric approaches the discursive practices focusing on the concept of persuasion. Any form of discourse is persuasion and can be examined as such. In a time when the concept of ‘reality’
is questioned - in which reality is viewed as perception that has been constructed by means of communication – rhetoric, as the art of persuasion, gains importance.
All perspectives on rhetoric, from ancient times until today, share the idea of rhetoric as effective expression and take into account the role of the rhetor, language, audiences, contexts and situations, and means of discovering and evaluating materials to be presented.5 In the late 20th and early 21st century the interest in the role of images in rhetoric is awakened.
With the growing dominance of the image in our society, a new field of interest within rhetoric developed: visual rhetorics. Publications such as Hill and Helmer’s Defining Visual Rhetorics (2004) and Prelli’s, Rhetorics of Display (2006) show that the scope of rhetoric is being widened and the connection between visual images and persuasion is of special interest today.6
Rhetoric, then, can apply to any genre of inducing discourse. Given a rhetorical situation - a situation that asks for persuasion due to ambiguity and uncertainty - rhetorical creativity can aid successful persuasive communication, for instance. In the past rhetorical theory was most often used prescriptively as a set of guidelines for anyone who wanted to convince an
audience in a certain situation. In my research it will be used as an instrument with which to analyze the communications of institutions in a rhetorical situation: two museums of modern art.
A Comparative Study
Two museums of modern art have been selected to research the influence of museums on the creation of modern art’s history: the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A comparative method is chosen since comparison is particularly apt to generate information on the different mechanisms and instruments of representation and canonization. For the selection of the two museums it is essential that both are internationally acknowledged as influential and trend setting. And yet, in order to have a productive
comparison, the two museums selected are also sufficiently dissimilar: especially through
5 For a clear introduction to the nature of rhetoric see Prelli, A Rhetoric of Science, pp. 11- 32.
6 For the roles of classical rhetoric in visual persuasion in the arts and architecture of early modern Europe, see Van Eck, Classical Rhetoric and the Visual Arts in Early Modern Europe.
their different goals and circumstances, their various strategies, means of persuasion and contributions to art history can be explained.
The Museums’ contributions were determined by what they collected and how they presented art in their semi-permanent presentations, temporary exhibitions and publications.
Furthermore, the physical space of the Museums had its effect on the development of modern art: the Museum of Modern Art’s ‘white cube’ and the Stedelijk Museum’s opening up the museum walls to the street. This study focuses on the whole range of the Museums’
presentations of modern art: the presentations of the collections, the temporary exhibitions along with their accompanying catalogs and through the other publications and
communicative actions which convey the Museums’ programs. The stories as they were presented to the public are object of study here: the research material therefore consists of the publications available to the various audiences and the installation photographs of the
exhibitions which show what the public had been confronted with. Since the objective of this research is to reveal the Museum’s stories as they were presented and to expose how the Museums communicated, I have chosen not to look for the story behind the scenes via, for example, interviews with living museum officials.
The period of research runs from 1935 to 1975 because during this period museums seem to have had a particularly dominant role compared to the other actors in the field of modern art.7 Before 1935, the role of private collectors and art dealers, for example, was significant. Due to economic decline, especially in Europe, private collections were sold to or institutionalized into museums. In the forties and fifties the museums’ authority grew as educational institutions. The sixties provided new challenges and opportunities due to expanding democratization and the changing role of modern art in society. In the seventies and eighties the powerful position of the museums of modern art was starting to fade: the role of galleries and the art market grew and the living artists sought other ‘spaces’ to experiment.
Furthermore, the concept of modernism as a progressive development was being confronted and the belief in the modernist museum - in which the knowledgeable museum dictated the true history of art - was starting to crumble and make way for the ‘post-museum’, in which the many histories of modern art were to be admitted.8
During the period of research the Stedelijk Museum became a significant voice in profiling modern art, especially under directorship of Willem Sandberg. It developed into a
7 For both Museums the period prior to 1935 is discussed whenever relevant to provide the necessary
background information. A few pre1935 examples of exemplary exhibitions and publications are highlighted.
8 See Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture. Hooper-Greenhil speaks of
‘modernist museums’ and ‘post-museums’.
new type of museum: an open, living center in which art was created. Although it was comparatively small and ‘poor’, it was respected throughout the Western world for its daring and its creativity. In this same period, the Museum of Modern Art developed into what would be considered the archetype of a modern art museum with a ‘comprehensive’ collection of what was to be considered the canon of modern art. The two Museums respected and influenced each other.
That these two Museums have played a crucial part in creating modern art history seems undisputed, but as to how they have fulfilled their roles, much is still unclear. Both Museums have been object of research in the past decades, but never in comparison to each other. Through this comparative study of the two museums, more becomes visible of each individual institution.
Of the publications on the individual museums, a few need mentioning here. On the Museum of Modern Art, there are – of the many publications - two that come closest to my own research. Staniszewski’s The Power of Display: a History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (1998) has contributed greatly to the surfacing of the “ephemeral”
stories constructed by the Museum’s exhibitions. Her book has called attention to installation design as an aesthetic medium and historical category and has pointed to the influence of exhibition design on the interpretation and viewing of the works of art. My research analyzes the installation design of the exhibitions, from a rhetorical stance and considers it as part of the whole persuasive entity of an exhibition including its positioning in the museum space and museum history, and the verbal and visual presentation in the form of wall labels, catalogs, press releases, posters, pamphlets etc.
Patin’s Discipline and Varnish: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, and Counter-Memory in the Museum (1999) argues the power of the Museum of Modern Art’s architectural and curatorial framing in modernist art history. In his discussion of the rhetoric of the Museum of Modern Art, the museum space and the arrangement of rooms and its relationship to modernist domestic architecture is prominent. He focuses on the rhetoric of domestic architecture, formalist criticism and art theory in relation to the ‘permanent’ display. Although there are similarities in our research, our use of rhetoric and focus of research are different. Patin’s approach to rhetoric is meta-theoretical and his focus is mainly on the museum space and theory. I use rhetoric as a ‘reading’, an analytical tool to expose the Museums’ positions, strategies and stories and focus on the whole range of museum presentations.
Research concerning the Stedelijk Museum is not as abundant. On the Sandberg era in the Stedelijk, Roodenburg-Schadd’s excellent Expressie en ordening: Het verzamelbeleid van
Willem Sandberg voor het Stedelijk Museum 1945-1962 (2004) provides a comprehensive study of Sandberg’s collection policy for the Stedelijk. Not only does her book modify the
‘myth’ that Sandberg neglected the collection of the Stedelijk in favor of only exhibiting
‘new’ art, it also clarifies the role the Stedelijk’s second man, the art historian Hans Jaffé, had in collecting and exhibiting in the Stedelijk. My book presents a larger time-period of the Stedelijk and focuses on the presentation instead of the collection. My rhetorical approach dissects rather than modifies ‘the myth’ - analyzing the image of the Stedelijk itself and the image of modern art it created.
Rhetoric As Analytical Model
In this study rhetoric is used to analyze the process of the creation of the stories of the two Museums: to expose and deconstruct the Museums’ authority and their stories of modern art.
Aspects of rhetoric are used as entries into exposing the Museums’ communicative actions and their effectiveness. These entries can be seen as parts of an analytical approach focusing on rhetoric as a system of communication to be found in the Museums’ presentations and as a method to study the workings of the Museums as image-builders of what was and is to be valued as modern art: as creators of modern art history. This research uses rhetoric as an analytical model to expose themes of art history, such as the definitions of modern art, the positioning of the modern and contemporary masters – and master movements - and the conceptualizing of the historical development.
This study’s use of rhetoric also goes beyond the traditional boundaries of rhetoric as verbal expression, for museums do not communicate solely with words. In this approach the museum’s displays and exhibitions are studied as forms of visual rhetoric for which the components of rhetorical theory are ‘translated’ to expose the workings of these visual presentations. In this way, a part of this research fits in the developing theory of Visual Rhetoric examining the visual images provided by the Museums such as charts, photographic displays, posters, catalog design, as communicative artifacts, and analyzing the
communicative aspects of the visual displays.9 This study, however, also approaches Visual Rhetoric by analyzing exhibitions as visual stories and dissecting them as discourse.
To analyze the rhetoric of the Museums, I go back to the base of classical rhetoric.
This base developed by men as Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian is still very much alive in rhetoric today. For the outline and aspects of, and approaches to classical rhetoric, I have used
9 These two definitions of Visual Rhetoric are distinguished in Foss, “Framing the Study of Visual Rhetoric”, pp.
304-306.
Vickers’ In Defence of Rhetoric (1989) and Leeman and Braet’s Klassieke retorica (1987).
Sloane’s Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001) and Lanham’s A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (1991), I have primarily consulted for the definition of rhetorical terms.
Aspects of Rhetoric
In order to persuade the public, the museum must reach them, win them over by convincing them of the museum’s authority (ethos), arouse their emotions (pathos) such as empathy and curiosity and guide their appreciation, teach them and encourage their understanding through convincing argument (logos). These ‘strategies’ are principal elements of classical rhetoric, the three types of persuasive means - ethos, pathos and logos - distinguished by Aristotle in classical antiquity and acknowledged by many authorities after him. Linked to the three persuasive means are the three duties of the orator (officia oratoris): to delight or to win someone over (delectare/conciliare), to arouse emotions (movere) and to teach (docere).10 The three persuasive strategies – ethos, pathos and logos - are the main entries into this research. By analyzing our Museums’ presentations – publications and exhibitions – through these means of persuasion, the Museums’ strategies and stories are identified and the different approaches of the two Museums (and their ‘duties’) are highlighted.
My point of departure is therefore, that when exposing an audience to modern works of art through exhibitions and publications, a museum is in fact dealing with extreme
rhetorical situations: situations of communication in which persuasive means are especially called for due to the uncertainty and ambiguity as how to appreciate and understand the works of art and the artists’ intentions.
The rhetorical situation we are dealing with here – the communicative action of modern art museums - comes closest to being a form of ‘epideictic oratory’, which has praise as its general aim.11 And although my approach looks beyond the scope of this category, it has been taken as a starting point for approaching the museums’ persuasive actions.
Important for this research are the five major categories or ‘canons’ of rhetoric:
invention (inventio), arrangement (dispositio), style (elocutio), memory (memoria) and delivery (actio). As rhetoric itself, these categories have served both purposes of generating and of analyzing discourse. Especially the value and use of the first three - invention,
10 Leeman and Braet distinguish between conciliare, movere and docere/probare (p. 51), whereas Vickers lists Cicero’s officia oratoris as delectare, movere and docere. (pp. 35, 57).
11 In classic rhetorical theory three types of rhetorical situations were distinguished for which three types of oratory were assigned: judicial (forensic), deliberative (legislative and political) and epideitic (ceremonial or demonstrative) oratory. To each category certain purposes and appropriate topics were linked with which to succeed in the different categories.
arrangement and style - has been consistent over time, although there has been disagreement on the relative importance of each one; the categories memory and delivery have most often received less attention, but they will be relevant here.
Invention
Invention has always been a central category in rhetoric. It deals with the content of the discourse: the coining of the best arguments to address the issues involved. Modern art has many different issues on which there is uncertainty and controversy. It is the museum’s task to impress the public, to convince them of the great importance of modern art and to induce a compassionate and admiring attitude towards modern art. To do this successfully the museum will have to identify the issues involved and find the appropriate arguments to convince its public. This can of course be done intuitively but traditional rhetorical theory also
distinguishes a method for finding the issues involved: stasis analysis.12 It is a systematic way in which a communicator can find what the issues are in rhetorical situations. The issues usually involve one or more of the following problems with the related questions: problems of fact (Is it?); problems of definition (What is it?); problems of nature or quality (Of what sort is it?) and, problems of action (Is action appropriate in the given case?).13 In our case especially the first three problems are relevant. Once the important issues are identified, topics to
support these issues have to be explored and screened for their appropriateness and
persuasiveness. This finding of topics (topoi/loci) is called invention; it is the discovering of the best available arguments of persuasion. The use of topical invention is clearly connected to logos, the persuasive strategy built on argument, on the content of the discourse. To be effective the discourse must be reasonable. Only then can understanding and appreciation be achieved.14
Just like the coining of the relevant issues, discovering relevant topics or topoi (headings that identify lines of thought) can be done intuitively or systematically. The systematic approach involves the use of different classes of topics, most often divided in common or general topics and specific or particular topics. There are whole sets of common topics from which to work; lists of general collective concepts can be used to discover aspects of issues that would otherwise be overlooked. These general topics are dependent on one’s culture. There are also specific topics. These can either relate to a specific type of discourse,
12 Stasis is the Greek term. The equivalent in Latin is status and in English issue.
13 Prelli, A Rhetoric of Science, pp. 44-45.
14 Prelli, A Rhetoric of Science, pp. 27-28.
for example, epideictic rhetoric calls for certain relevant topics of praise, or they can relate to a certain subject or field of study: in our case, topics related to modern art and modern art history.15
As to how both classes of topics – the general and the specific topics - should be used in this case, depends on the nature of the audience which has to be persuaded and the
aspirations the different museums have. If, for example, a general audience is to be reached, this will have to be done with fewer ‘technical’ field-specific topics, than when an audience consisting of specialists is being addressed. Or, for another example, if the goal of the museum is to also contribute to the core of art historical research – as was the case with the Museum of Modern Art - the topics will have to be appropriate to the field of modern art and to art history as academic discipline. In order for scholarly discipline – and in our case art history – to be convincing it must be credible, its argumentation should be in accordance with the conditions of the scientific community.
In this book the topics selected by the two Museums will be identified, analyzed and compared, in relationship both to the Museums’ goals and the various audiences the Museums catered to.
Arrangement
The second rhetorical category, arrangement, deals with how the message consisting of the selected topics, the arguments, is organized. Whereas in classical rhetoric arrangement referred to the order of an oration (spoken or written), it can now refer to the order of any form of discourse. In our case, not only the arrangement of the Museums’ publications are considered, but also the arrangement of the Museums’ exhibitions is studied as cases of visual rhetoric. The arrangement of an oration in the ancient tradition varies through the ages
depending on the occasion and type of oratory. Most often though it consists of an introduction (exordium) followed by a body of argumentation (narratio, partitio,
argumentatio: confirmatio and refutatio) and then a conclusion (peroratio).16 In order to be a convincing oration each part of it is connected to a particular persuasive appeal; in the
introduction it is advantageous to establish one’s authority on the subject (ethos), in the main body of the discourse argumentation (logos) is necessary to build one’s case, and in a strong
15 In the case of scholarly discourse related topics could be relevant Prelli distinguishes three classes of topoi in scientific discussion: 1. problem-solution topics, 2. evaluative topics, and 3. exemplary topics.
16 Leeman and Braet, Klassieke retorica, pp. 91-97.
conclusion one uses emotional appeals (pathos) to win the audience over. The structure of the Museums’ written and visual presentations have been analyzed accordingly.
Style
When using the category style (elocutio/lexis) to study the Museums’ presentations, the emphasis is not on what is being expressed but on how it is being expressed. Style is an essential aspect of rhetoric for it is the embodiment of thought in language. It is by no means mere decoration; there is no such thing as style-less language. The form in which discourse is communicated is as much part of the message as is the content. In my case both the style of the texts as well as the style of the visual settings in the museum presentations (catalogs, posters and exhibitions) have been studied. The Museums’ presentations are analyzed through two aspects of style traditionally distinguished in rhetoric: the so-called levels of style and qualities of style.
Through the ages various levels of style have been distinguished which were deemed appropriate for the various types of oratory and for the different sections of a speech.
Generally three levels of style were recognized: the grave (grande, sublime) style: a style of impressive words in a rich setting; the medium style (mesos): a picturesque style for pleasant historical writing; and the humile (subtile, humile) style: a simple style made up of regular words in simple constructions. 17 Needless to say, the spectrum of style types which can be recognized today is more diverse. These three style levels have served merely as a framework to help make a basic identification of the Museums’ own styles.
More important for this research are the so-called four cardinal virtues of style: correct grammar (‘latinitas’), clarity of language (perspicuitas), ornament or splendor of language (ornatus), and appropriateness of language (decorum).18
Of these, especially the last three have been used for analyzing the style of the
Museums’ presentations. It may be noted, however, that there are examples of the first value, the use of correct language, such as the Museum of Modern Art’s providing of the correct pronunciation of the difficult, foreign artists names in phonetics, and the Stedelijk Museum’s denying of the rules of correct spelling in Sandberg’s deliberate use of only small letters.
The desire for clarity is evident for modern art presentations. In explaining or expressing thoughts on modern art - which by nature seems difficult, to some even
17Ibid., p. 100.
In later antiquity the three traditional levels of style (genera dicendi) were adapted and added on to; in the second century ad seven types were distinguished. Ibid., pp. 100-101.
18 Ibid., pp. 101-117.
incomprehensible, and has often seemed to evoke complex and woolly language - the necessity for clarity is of real importance in order to reach one’s audience. The Museum of Modern Art seemed especially aware of the necessity of clarity, whereas the Stedelijk’s poetic language often mystified the message.
Ornamentation, as a quality of style, is not superficial decoration. It is the choosing of effective language to adequately express one’s thoughts in order to reach the intended result of one’s message. The tools of ornamentation are tropes, figures of speech and composition.
When studying the style of various museum publications, the use of these tools has been examined and juxtaposed to employment of the other qualities of style.
This leads to the quality of decorum, which is not actually a separate quality of style but rather a prerequisite for the success of all the qualities of style. For it calls not only for the choice of an appropriate style to match one’s own intentions but for a style that will be fitting in the given context and for a selected audience or audiences. Sandberg’s poetic style of language, graphic design and installation techniques, for example, fit the image of Sandberg’s Stedelijk perfectly.
Memory
The two last categories of rhetoric – memory and delivery – have not always received the same attention as the others due to the fact that they relate to the actual presenting of a speech and not to the written text. For my purpose however, they are of special interest for the analysis of the Museums’ presentations as forms of visual rhetoric.
Memory could be interpreted not only as an aid to the rhetor but also as being
concerned with the ways in which an audience remembers the message. This focusing on the public is of particular concern here. Ancient rhetoric explains how the memory works: more than words, sensory perceptions leave the sharpest imprint on our memories. Of the sensory perceptions, the visual perception is said to have the strongest impact.19 This, of course, is relevant for museum presentations. To help the memory, the concept of space (regio) is used.
Within this space certain points, the loci, are selected in which images can be stored. The points or loci need to be noticeable and neatly arranged to function well. All the rhetor has to do is move around the space and touch on all the loci to recover the information stored there.
This conceptual framework can be translated to the museum setting. Where ( in which loci) and how (with which visual aids) displays are made – or certain works of art are hung - in the
19 Ibid., p. 119.
museum are important for the imprint they make on the museum public. In the Museum of Modern Art where the historical component of modern art is important, its semi-permanent presentation of the historical development of modern art feeds the public’s memory, whereas the constant changing of the presentations in the Stedelijk underlines the desire to focus on the ever-changing present and future.
Delivery
The last category of rhetoric is the delivery of the discourse, the actual presentation itself.
Like style, delivery has to do with how the content of the discourse is presented. The meaning of the message and the effect of the message are partly determined by the way in which it is constructed. Here, delivery consists in the public presentations of the Museums’ ideas and works of art in publications, posters and exhibitions. These presentations have to project authority on the subject (ethos) in order to convince the public and appeal to the public’s emotions (pathos) to make them accept and admire modern art.
As in the case of this last example of delivery, each category of rhetoric is linked to the three strategies/means of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos, and in the analysis of the
presentations of the Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Modern Art which lies ahead, the categories of rhetoric are used together with the persuasive means to analyze and expose the Museums’ strategies and discourse: the Museums’ rhetoric.
The above explanation of the use of rhetoric as an approach to analyze the different modes of presentation of the two Museums should be seen as a framework. From this framework different entries have been chosen to study various examples of presentation and to expose a selection of stories and strategies. One of the intentions of this study is to show how the mechanism works by studying a variety of museum presentations from different rhetorical angles. In some examples the exhibition catalog is dissected as text, whereas in other examples it is analyzed more generally, focusing on its visual message, and again in others, the installation of the exhibition has been accentuated. Necessarily, the availability of the material has determined a number of the choices made.
Parameters of Research
The body of this research is the Museums’ historical material itself. This corpus, representing different forms of presentations, consists of a great diversity of materials ranging from, for example, letters, press releases, posters, educational materials, bulletins, policy reports,
catalogs, wall labels to exhibition installations, which includes lighting, hanging and other elements of installation design.20 The rhetorical approach is used to bring out the wealth of this rich material, a lot of which is hidden in the Archives and Libraries of both Museums.
The many exhibition catalogs, collection catalogs, Museum bulletins, journals and reports, as also the priceless installation photographs of exhibitions, which are never again to be
experienced, are all of immense value for a better understanding of how the Museums functioned, how they presented themselves, what they had to tell and how they told it. I have tried to do justice to the material itself by calling attention to – and often analyzing at length - the visual and verbal wealth of the various forms of presentation and their persuasive
strategies. This also accounts for the many citations of the Museums’ own ‘words’ in their various publications and the prolific use of visual materials.
Although an attempt has been made to provide a representative picture of both Museums, this study is in no way exhaustive and is necessarily limited. It has not been the intention to cover all the Museums’ important presentations or discuss all the promoted masters and masterpieces; presentations of important artists such as Picasso and Matisse, for example, or exhibitions of ‘Bauhaus’ and ‘de Stijl’ have not been included in this analysis.21 The necessary selections have been made so as to especially highlight the differences between the two Museums and their communications in their efforts to build the image of modern art.
It is important to realize that there are some issues to consider when analyzing the Museums’
discourse from a rhetorical perspective: the consciousness of the Museums’ efforts, the awareness of - and interaction with - the multiple audiences of the Museums, and the political, economical and social parameters in which the Museums operated.
In the beginning of the introduction, mention was made of the fact that museums act consciously and unconsciously and that both have their effect. As to how consciously or unconsciously each of our museums set up their communicative strategies to persuade their audiences is not always easy to distinguish, especially when the choices made were not explicitly stated in policy documents. For a certain part the Museums’ actions and messages they sent out – made up of both content and form - were determined by tradition of what was expected of museums in terms of their buildings, their exhibitions and their catalogs and by their given situations. Of special interest here is when the Museums consciously changed their
20 The use of television as a medium of presentation is not analyzed in this dissertation, due to the necessary limiting of the materials, but would be an interesting focus for further research of the rhetoric of museums.
21 A good analysis of Picasso’s position in the Stedelijk is in Jan van Adrichem’s De ontvangst van de moderne kunst in Nederland 1910-2000, 2001.
course. This goes for all policy changes pertaining to the Museums’ presentations. For example, when looking at the choice of museum building and spaces, the modernization of the 19th century Stedelijk by the whitewashing of the walls and the commissioning of the Appel murals and the building of the Sandberg wing are important, just as MoMA’s new housing and experimentation with exhibition installations and wall coloring. The same type of examples can be found for choices in exhibitions, displays and catalogs.
As to how the two Museums announced their strategies and communicated these changes, there are definite differences. These differences in the explicitness in the spelling out of certain policies and choices is reflected in the rhetoric of the two Museums. The Museum of Modern Art was very aware of its task to persuade right from the start. In the early years of its existence, MoMA was dependent on its persuasive qualities for its actual existence. It had to create a large public interest for modern art in order to acquire the necessary funds. The focus on the different audiences the Museum had to reach is visible in the chosen rhetoric.
Who are the audiences of the museums? In rhetorical theory, an audience has been defined as the ensemble of those whom the rhetor wants to influence by his argumentation.22 The ensemble can be a composite audience with differences in character, loyalties and functions, but it can also be a specific audience: a smaller, more uniform group.
The Museums had to deal with multiple audiences such as: the concept of the universal audience (the objective, ideal audience) - the ‘general public’, and subgroups of artists, patrons, trustees, sponsors, subsidizers, students, school audiences, art historians, critics, children. These audiences were not the same for both Museums; they each had their own groups to accommodate. As will become clear in the following chapters, each audience required a different emphasis and for each audience the chosen communicative strategies would work differently. That caution was needed when approaching the general audience becomes clear when one realizes that argumentation considered persuasive for one audience could cause opposition in another. For example, Sandberg’s poetic explanations would seem to appeal to the artist and elite population, but would be considered highbrow to the more general public.
The different political, social and economic situation in which both Museums operated obviously also explains their rhetorical discourse. For example, for the Stedelijk Museum the occupation of Holland during World War II, the democratization of society in the sixties, and the dependence on local government support, account for part of the Stedelijk’s rhetoric. As
22 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, p. 19. For an extensive explanation of ‘audience’, see the entry in Sloane’s Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, pp. 59-75.
for the Museum of Modern Art, America’s leadership politics and Cold War propaganda have influenced the Museum’s rhetoric, as has their dependence on trustees and patrons for
financial support.
Using the Rhetorical Approach in Comparing Two Stories of Modern Art:
Prize or Price of the Museums’ Rhetoric?
For both Museums I attempt to deconstruct the images they built of themselves and the stories they created of modern art, which reflect their ideologies. This dissertation, therefore, is not a historiography of the Museums and their histories of modern art. As a deconstruction of the Museum’s constructed stories, it provides a new view through rhetoric – a rhetorical reading - with which I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the processes of ‘image- building’, representation and canonization of modern art.
In the Museums’ attempts to persuade their audiences of the value and position of modern art in society, they had to deal with the paradox that the rhetoric of museums as traditional, historical, and authoritative bodies clashed with the character of modern art which by nature broke with tradition, history and authority. How did both museums of modern art deal with this paradoxical situation? What type of ‘orators’ were they? And, what was the prize for their persuasive communication or was there perhaps a price to be paid for their rhetoric?
In the first chapter, The Rhetoric of Policymaking, an analysis is made – in which ethos has a predominant position - of how the two Museums created their own images by setting their goals and developing their policies and organizations to meet these goals. Their presentations reflect and underline the images. They approached their different audiences in appropriate styles. They boosted their authority by amplifying their qualities and due to the fitting decorum of each museum, they became persuasive institutions. Each museum displayed a different type of orator. A closer look is taken at the Museums’ Anniversary exhibitions as prime examples of ethos-building manifestations.
As authorities on modern art, both Museums defined what was to be considered as such and defended it. They both presented modern art as progressive and revolutionary and provided for the appropriate metaphors. In defining and defending modern art, both promoted it as part of modern living and as an art which transcends boundaries of time and culture.
Using logos and pathos to define and defend, the Museums hoped to win the public for ‘the modern’. Although their approaches were sometimes similar, their methods and arguments
often differed. In chapter 2, Modern Matters, these divergent styles of the Museums as educators come to the fore. The Museum of Modern Art considered it its primary duty to teach (docere), whereas the Stedelijk’s duty was seen to be to delight (delectare) and to arouse the public’s emotions (movere).
In The Making of Masters, Masterpieces and Movements (Chapter 3) the ‘writing’ of the history of modern art is explored in the presentations of both Museums. The
argumentation of the relevant topic of coining ‘founding fathers’ is scrutinized and the logos and methods of structuring the development of modern art with its masterpieces and
movements are compared. The use of metaphors, antithesis, series and repetitions prove to be effective analytical and persuasive communicating devices. Here the Museum of Modern Art presenting itself as champion of modern art, acts as an ‘historical orator’ teaching its public the history of modern art using rhetorical devices effective in the sciences. The Stedelijk Museum, however, as a laudatory orator attempts to delight and move its public with diverse stories of modern art.
The last chapter Adding the Contemporary to the Modern Canon considers the Museums’ positioning and promoting of the living artist through relevant persuasive means.
How do both Museums deal with the artist’s presence and experiments? The Museums’ roles as orators are challenged and the call for a different use of the persuasive strategies in the Museums is apparent. The tables seem to turn for the two Museums.
In the Conclusions and Outlook, The Prize and Price of Rhetoric, some wider observations are drawn from the results of this rhetorical analysis of two major actors in modern art history. What has been the benefit and detriment of the rhetoric of both Museums to their image and their stories? And finally, how has this all affected the Museums’ further development and their positions today?
Chapter 1: The Rhetoric of Policymaking: Creating One’s Own Image
The authority of both the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam during the period 1935 and 1975 was established by their individual positions in the art world. Their authority as influential, guiding institutions was acknowledged by the other actors in the field of art, their images however differed. Each of the authoritative images was backed by its own ethos: the honorable characteristics of each Museum were to help in winning the public’s trust.
During this period, the Museum of Modern Art’s image was to become one of leadership, of authority based on excellence displaying the established decorum: an
authoritative educational institution housed in a steadily expanding modern museum building which owned a representative collection of what was considered to be the masterpieces of modern art history – a history which was presented and explained in commanding exhibitions and scholarly publications by the Museum itself. The Stedelijk Museum’s image, on the other hand, was to be one of a different authority with its own fitting decorum: a living center for modern art in which the director’s and the artist’s input was dominant, housed in a grand old building that had been modernized and added on to with an exemplary exhibition hall, in which “spécialités de la maison” and new experimental art were presented in a way in which art appreciation dominated.
Both museums liked to present themselves as laboratories; their experiments however were of a different nature. The Museum of Modern Art experimented with exhibition types and educational methods, the Stedelijk experimented in art. Both museums encouraged
looking as the major component of art appreciation and education, but the Museum of Modern Art also stimulated knowledge as important aspect, whereas the Stedelijk did not - and even encouraged the public to forget whatever they had learned before entering the Museum.1
The authority of both museums was strengthened by the fact that the characteristics and styles of their presented policies fit their images perfectly, which made them convincing authoritative institutions for their different audiences. But, how were the Museums’ images created? What type of ‘orator’ were the Museums? And, how was their ethos established and strengthened?
1 Sandberg, “some reflections on the organization of a museum of contemporary art”. An English translation of the French article: ‘réflexions disparates sur l’organisation d’un musée d’art d’aujourd’hui’ from Art
d’Aujourd’hui, 1950.
To answer these questions, first the rhetoric of the Museums’ goals and ambitions needs to be exposed by analyzing the policies of both Museums. Further insight into the establishment of the Museum’s images will be given by examining the development of both Museums’ organizations. Through the analysis of the goals and ambitions and of the
organizations it will be possible to characterize each Museum as a certain type of orator which will help further analysis of the Museums’ stories of modern art and modern art history. A brief comparison of the position of the Museums’ publications will show how they fit and fed the Museums’ images. And finally, the anniversary exhibitions (and publications) of both Museums will be analyzed as prime examples of ethos-building presentations.
The Museums created their own images by presenting what they stood for in their feats and fictions. To meet their goals the Museums developed policies in which plans were set up on important museum issues, primarily: collections, exhibitions, publications and education.
These policies became visible in the presentations of the Museums: the Museums’ physical space, their exhibitions and publications.
They worked towards goals that were partly determined by their ideals but also by their practical possibilities. The goals the Museums explicitly voiced in policy statements were good indications of their plans and ambitions. These goals, however, were neither unambiguous nor static and were therefore bound to vary depending on circumstances in which they were written and on who was in charge at a certain point in time. Behind the policy proclaimed by the Museums, complex webs of personal and communal ideals and private and public interests were hidden. These ideals and interests come from different actors within the Museums’ organizations.
The images of both Museums were for a large degree created by their directors.
Especially in the Stedelijk, the directors determined the Museum’s image. The actors within the Museums were subject to a hierarchical order set by the structure of the organization and by the channels of funding. There were bound to be conflicting interests and perhaps opposing ideals between the different parties involved. Even within one person a conflict of interests could arise. When studying the policy statements in their different modes of expression – exhibitions, reports, articles, interviews etc. – it is necessary to take all this into consideration.
What counts, however, is what was presented and how it was presented to the outside world.
The portrayed policies disclosed ‘real’ motives, but also depicted the museums’ dreams as actual facts. Despite the fact that the web of ideals and interests is difficult to untangle and the
language is colored by propaganda and a lot of wishful thinking, the various policy statements together – over a period of time – have shaped the Museums images.
The Museums’ goals helped determine the structure of the organization of the museum; the choice and growth of departments and the organizational hierarchy often reflected these goals. The Museum of Modern Art and the Stedelijk Museum are very different organizations: founded under different circumstances and based on different
principles, structured differently with different lines of decision making and built on different methods of funding. All these factors explain the different methods of policymaking and the variety of forms in which the policies are presented. The strategies employed to reach their goals and build their images reflect these differences.
Central in both Museums as instruments of policymaking were exhibitions. The amount of exhibitions held by the Museums already displayed their policies: the more exhibitions held in a year, the livelier the museum was to appear, as in the case of the Stedelijk Museum. The number of objects in a single exhibition was either to show the superiority of the museum as surveying institution as in the case of the Museum of Modern Art, which often boasted of hundreds of objects on display, or to present what the museum stood for: a concentrated, pleasant visit viewing no more than eighty or ninety works, as Sandberg stated: “all a visitor takes home from an exhibition with hundreds of items is a headache.”2 The choice of type of exhibitions and the messages relayed in them mirror the Museums’ intentions and desires. The self-congratulatory anniversary shows will obviously present the Museums’ positions as they want them presented. But, in less obvious ways, so will other types varying from one-picture exhibitions or one-man shows to historical survey shows, theme exhibitions or experimental shows of work made in situ. The balance between the different types of exhibitions displays the Museums’ intentions. The exhibition catalogs equally expose the Museums’ goals in many ways. Either explicitly formulated in the text or implicitly portrayed by, for example, its sheer size or lettering.
Instruments through which the policies were displayed varied in both Museums. This had to do, as we shall see, with the diverse audiences which were to be reached. For example, in the Museums’ verbal presentations different types of publications were used. The Stedelijk Museum defended its policies in annual reports after the fact, which - although they were not confidential - were not written for the general public but for the local authority: the
2 W. Sandberg, ‘some reflections on the organization of a museum of contemporary art’. An English translation of the French article: ‘réflexions disparates sur l’organisation d’un musée d’art d’aujourd’hui’ from Art d’Aujourd’hui, Serie 2, no. 1, October 1950, printed in: Petersen and Brattinga, Sandberg, een documentaire/ a documentary, p. 115.
