There’s some degree of assumed respect when you visit a gallery. Not to the gallery, or the other visitors. You don’t owe them anything. No. They’re walls and strangers. They can earn it like everyone else.
Respect to the idea behind the work you’re seeing. Typically that means to the artist too, but not always. They’re individuals, and you can build a relationship with them if you like, or not. But while you’re in this space, you’re with their work, and that work is presenting you with something. You can choose to hear that, or not. And if you hear it, you can give it time, or not. But whatever decision you make, it deserves to be considered, and it should come from a neutral place from the outset.
This month has been rushed. Most of the articles in this paper were not given the time to write that the work they’re about deserved. Not out of disrespect, but out of pressure. But still (and it comes through from both of us in the pages that follow) we were concerned that the time we gave them was bordering on disrespect.
For one show, I was there for an hour, but those themes deserved more time. My own opportunity to process the emotions of it, deserved more time.
Respect doesn’t mean agreeing, and it doesn’t mean holding your tongue. It means compassion whether you agree or disagree, and listening for as long as you should. The word is loaded, I know.
Every time I type it, it sounds like a narky teacher. It’s not meant to. I was sort of hoping it landed like Becky Beasley’s Gentle Man, but I’m reading it back and it doesn’t. But you know the intention, hopefully that’s enough, and sorry if it still sounds narky.
So much of the work in British galleries today is personal to the artist. Political statements, when they happen, are wrapped in lived experience. It’s no longer enough for an artist to understand and comment, they have to show you that they know it, because they were there. It’s important because it removes so much of the late 20th century poverty porn from galleries, and it stops galleries perpetuating culture wars.
But it also means that when we step foot in them, we’re bound to an assumed, basic, level of respect for the ideas the artist is sharing.
And this applies to literally every exhibition you’ll step foot in (I’ve written about this before, and I’ll write about it again) because there is no such thing as art for art’s sake, unless it’s explicitly given that context, and when it’s given that context, it’s given an idea, so it’s no longer true. If art has been created purely for beauty, there’s purpose to that, whether it’s the artist seeking solace in it, or seeking to immortalise something. If an artwork has been created for utility, there’s likely been a series of decisions, each with a purpose, to actually meet the need.
So whether you’re visiting an exhibition that’s explicitly about grief, fear, personal misconfiguration, or ancestry, it’s come from a single idea. You might not like the artist’s interpretation, you might not agree with it, but as with any debate, you’re in it now, and the only way out is to respect it.
(That seriously wasn’t meant to sound that narky).
