context

In chapter 2 of Practices of Looking, Sturken and Cartwright talk about the meaning given to images by their viewers, and the role that contexts that work to frame viewers' perceptions. When thinking about shifts in context, one of the first things that comes to mind is an experiment performed by the Washington Post two years ago. In the experiment, Joshua Bell, one of America's greatest violinists, played his $3.5 million violin as a busker in a Washington, DC metro station during morning rush hour. Bell typically plays sold-out concerts where seats can easily cost well over $100. In this experiment, the Washington Post wanted to see how he would be perceived by the public in a completely different context, that of a musician they rush past on their way to work.

Although expectations were not that high, the experimenters were surprised by just how little attention Joshua Bell received from passers-by. Here, context plays a critical role. To quote from the article:

"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence . . ."

The article then compares this to the role of context in visual art, by quoting Mark Leithauser, senior curator at the National Gallery:

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"

In both cases, context plays a major role in whether people perceive a work or expression of art as being worthy of their attention (although it is also true that while people who pay for concert tickets specifically set aside time to enjoy the music, the passers-by in the metro station were rushing to work). When most people enter an art museum, they put themselves into a mindset where they are ready to perceive Art. This (along with a sometimes hefty entrance fee) means that people will generally perceive such works as Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel or Kazimir Malevich's Black Square in a very different way than they would elsewhere (in an "unframed" context.



































Still, on some level, all this is to be expected. I am on the lookout for other experiments of this sort, dealing with subtler differences in context, visual and otherwise.