Dorota Jędruch
ART MUSEUM WITHOUT ART HISTORY?

This article aims to examine texts from a number of Polish museums (including the National Museum in Krakow, National Museum in Warsaw, National Museum in Wrocław, and MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow),¹ penned within the last ten years, as regards their association with the application of art history as a construct ordering museum collections and practices. The objective of this paper is thus not to discuss an academic discipline, but the functioning of its paradigms within specific curatorial and popularisation practices followed by institutions. As the subject of my inspection I take major public institutions which target their programme and mission at very wide audiences and predominantly mount exhibitions of their collections or art, ancient and contemporary alike, assuming that the purpose of popularisation is one of the pillars of the activities of such institutions. It should also be stressed that I have become aware of the matters under discussion partly from my own experience that has involved the preparation of or consultation on such panels, and that this article has not been intended to level criticism at the selected examples, but to consider the possibilities of expanding the pathways of interpretation they contain in the future.

I shall begin with a text that was prepared for one of the panels that accompanied the #heritage exhibition hosted by the National Museum in Krakow in 2017.² This was probably the most overlooked part of the project (possibly because of its being situated on the margins of the main curatorial message): at the preparation stage of the exhibition, we held a number of meetings with people associated with the Museum, though not professionally, talked to them about how they understood the concept of heritage and came up together with captions to go with exhibits, later presented at the exhibition.

Has it ever occurred to you that there are different ways of looking at a painting in a museum?

1. Is this really a work of art and if so, why? To find out, an analysis must be carried out based on expertise in art history.

2. Can I like a painting displayed in a museum even though I know nothing about it? Many people believe that a lack of familiarity with art history is disqualifying…

Is that really so? In my opinion, it is not. Being ignorant about music does not mean you cannot go to concerts, we know from experience it is emotions that matter the most.

A visitor to a museum experiences the same emotions. First‑year art history students were already told by Professor Karol Estreicher his own definition of an artwork, among a great number of others: “a work of art is a piece that gives you a punch in the face.”

From the first steps I took on my path to becoming an art historian I have been experiencing a duality of sorts:

1. As a person who describes, qualifies, and does everything else in accordance with science…

2 As a person who makes her own catalogue of what gives…

Only exceptionally ARE these parts indisputably compatible.

The above was written by a former employee of the Museum, a retired curator.³ It seems particularly important within the context of my study as it reveals a certain ambivalence in museum practices, stretched (intellectually and emotionally) between art history playing an ordering role in museums and the notion that there is a unique and individual relationship between a work and a viewer that defies scientific discourse. Such ambivalence accompanies not only the development of more or less abstract ideas about what the needs of museum‑goers are. Museum workers experience it every day as well, their professional assignments ranging from cataloguing, classifying and describing to being around, feeling and discovering for themselves the significance of museum exhibits. This uncertainty is reflected in the deliberations on what the relation between a written commentary and a work displayed in a gallery should be, what rules govern it, how far its influence reaches, where it ought to stop, leaving room for a reception unmediated by word or commentary, and where it is beneficial, or even a requisite for reception. Art history as it is applied in museums, based on the categories of genesis and style, analysing the form of an artwork, searching for attribution and provenance, provides a certain objectifying framework for such doubts. As an ordering method, it is relatively rarely questioned both in regard to building up, arranging and inventorying museum collections, and to curatorial, communications and educational strategies. This is predominantly true about museums devoted to old art or large “universal” institutions such as national museums, but also seems to be common in all art museums. Giving priority to these traditional categories, largely connected with the “object,” a material item, being the main focus of attention (as much as fetishised) along with how it is stored, preserved and protected, tends to lead to overconcentration on a fairly anachronistic interpretation model. Such discourse is perceived as “neutral,” leaving room for the artwork to exert its own impact, yet this neutrality is only apparent as the work is embedded in historical commentary, which in fact removes the work itself from the information provided by the museum. This causes unwillingness to offer an interpretation, clearly evident in texts accompanying exhibitions which centre on the historical context of an artwork and the figure of its creator or the person who commissioned it, decoding their intentions and indicating stylistic features displayed by the piece. As a member of exhibition development teams, I often had the impression that interpretations which were too bold (for instance, giving voice to non‑professional viewers or accepting a diversity of potential readings apart from the established ones), even provided as an accompanying text, were sometimes viewed as an attack on the integrity of an exhibit. Paradoxically, it is the strong position of the curator‑art historian who deals with the development and cataloguing of collections on a daily basis, usually with a high degree of expertise and occasionally acting as a curator, that is decisive in asserting the dominance of the seemingly “neutral” type of display in which the unquestionable value of an artwork, seen as unique and original, is to determine its message. In reality, rather than producing a “transparency” effect, such discourse refusing to perform a critical analysis of old materials retains all the historical drawbacks of art history (referred to by Mieke Bal as “its paranoid recesses”),⁴ including visual essentialism, societal and cognitive elitism, class divisions, hegemonic and patriarchal relations, as well as a specifically Polish type of colonialism and aggressive identity discourse. Interpretations tend to be categorical and unassailable because their objectifying nature is taken for granted. They are thereby not without an ideological and political element which renders them somewhat anachronic under the pretence of scientific trustworthiness.

It would seem that both the shift towards social issues that occurred in museums more than thirty years ago, brought about by the New Museology Movement, and the opening of art history to a revision of discourses, institutional criticism and an aesthetics of reception have successfully redefined the tasks of contemporary museum. However, the predominant model of exhibiting and the status of the curator have undergone only minor modifications. Moreover, in museum teams that operate “close to the audience,” for example in promotion, communication or education departments, interdisciplinary competences of employees from a vast area of ​​humanities are put to good use, while in those operating “close to objects,” the traditional approach is upheld as if they had to be so protected against some impending danger. According to Marcin Szeląg, gallery texts provided by Polish art museums which continue to favour original curatorial projects tend to play up art history as an academic discipline: “In the museum practice, art historians think highly of their profession, they are convinced of a special responsibility for the public image of the science they represent. This translates into the way in which they achieve the educational objectives of exhibitions. Primarily, they focus on providing high‑quality knowledge in the field of art history, which is addressed to an educated person who is prepared to learn it. Education is directed more towards what and how it is provided, not to whom it gets.”⁵

Considered a minor component of exhibition scenarios in the past, panels designed to educate or popularise knowledge have recently been attracting considerable interest among museologists. In Poland, the subject has been discussed by Katarzyna Barańska⁶ who investigated gallery text as the communication component of an institution’s management strategy, and by Mirosław Borusiewicz who provided a semiotic perspective on textual messages in museums.⁷ In 2016, an international conference looking at various aspects of “text” in the museum took place at the National Museum in Krakow.⁸ Reflected in studies devoted to texts in museums, both theoretical⁹ and practical “instruction manuals” on writing such messages,¹⁰ were the shift towards the viewer, the awareness of museum audiences having different expectations and of visitors’ special needs arising from, for example, various forms of disability or perceptual barriers. However, many of these guidelines concern the structure of the text, its length and the language that is used to write it. The reference point is usually the message itself, its purpose and effectiveness in reaching the viewer. Therefore, the focus is on the circumstances and ways of reception, target audiences, and the need to precisely define what purposes a given text should achieve. Seldom are methodological assumptions as to the message conveyed by an artwork given the same amount of attention.

A silent object or a speaking form

Two types of texts are typically found in gallery space – texts related to curatorial concept (wall texts) and texts assigned directly to works (tombstone labels). In temporary exhibitions, wall texts customarily highlight key themes and interpretive guidelines. Tombstone labels, even if they contain a detailed commentary, rarely follow the logic of the exhibition; they are where a work is given a voice of its own. In many museums, texts accompanying permanent exhibitions are regarded as “neutral.” Such displays tend to adopt scenarios based on art‑historical categorisations well‑tried and entrenched both in academic and popular discourse: presenting the canon in a chronological, generic order or, in more audacious shows – in thematic order with an iconographic key. In permanent exhibitions, introductory panels normally explain the guiding principle behind the arrangement of works (theme, trend, period) and give names of selected artists (which is much less frequent) as leading exponents of a particular section. Few works are provided with a separate commentary, being in this way indicated as worthy of special attention.

The Collection of Polish art from the second half of the 20th and early 21st century exhibition staged by the National Museum in Wrocław, displayed at the Four Domes Pavilion, offers gallery texts that can be “torn off” to be taken away and stored in a binder. In this way, a visitor is free to read a text whenever they choose, rather than while standing in front of a panel. The layout of the panels is like a small guide, enabling members of the audience to compile their own catalogues: each panel gives the title/theme of a room, the criteria for selecting exhibits as well as the characteristic features of the work of the leading artists in a given artistic trend.

Il. 1 Mistrzowie dwudziestolecia – jedna z plansz „zrywek” z wystawy “Kolekcja sztuki polskiej II połowy XX i XXI wieku” –w Muzeum Narodowym we Wrocławiu w Pawilonie Czterech Kopuł, dzięki uprzejmości MNWr

The text provided in the Masters of the interwar period section reads as follows: “The departure point for this gallery are works by the most eminent painters of the interwar period – forerunners of Polish modern art after World War II – whose work and artistic theories had a significant influence on 20th‑century Polish art.” The description names the basic criterion for selection – the status as an eminent creator, representing a specific trend, a pioneer. All these concepts belong among the criteria for evaluating modern art or the idea of art as a succession of art movements. In descriptions of individual artists (three are mentioned: Chwistek, Witkacy and Strzemiński), we read: “Witkacy’s (…) visionary artistic ideas related to so‑called Pure Form came to fruition in his painting as well as in theatre as he was also a highly original playwright.” The second part of the text contains more details – the names of trends (Chwistek – Formism, Strzemiński – Unism) and a list of concepts such as Pure Form, geometric abstraction, or strefizm; however, it is too synthetic to offer more than a chart of terms without a comprehensive explanation. In museum practice, such text usually contains a very limited and sometimes rather random sequence of associations from which viewers may not truly benefit (it gives either too much information – concepts, tendencies, names of trends, or too little – no elucidation). These texts seldom discuss the formal aspect of artworks and fail to aid museum visitors in looking; what they do is justify the textbook order of the display.

Il. 2. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy), Kuszenie św. Antoniego, plansza z wystawy stałej w Galerii sztuki polskiej XX i XXI wieku w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie, dzięki uprzejmości MNK

A slightly different principle was adopted in the Gallery of Polish Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries at the National Museum in Kraków. There are three narrative levels here: panels explaining the (chronological and problematic) concept of individual sections, broad contexts visually separate from artworks, and leaflets describing selected pieces. The form of each work is outlined and examined, which is followed by very brief interpretive conclusions. Here is the description of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (I quote fragments of the short text): “From a chaos of fabulously colourful splashes and winding lines numerous figures emerge, larger in the foreground, smaller on the pinnacles in the vast mountain landscape. Dominant here are an old man wearing a gray‑and‑black jacket on the left and a woman in a yellow dress the right, growing out of S‑shaped purples like God the Father does from the waves in Stanisław Wyspiański’s famous stained glass window. (…) The painting is supposed to depict the temptation of Saint Anthony. Perhaps, the woman is mockingly pretending to be in religious ecstasy. (…) The story loses its literary logic, there is action but no intrigue, the content is here but only for the sake of form – «pure form.»”

This type of description is meant to improve the visual competence of the viewer; affording insight and some literary value, it is supposed to guide their eye, stop by crucial turns of action or meaningful details, point out emerging questions and analogies (the association with Wyspiański’s work, iconography of the temptation of Saint Anthony). It seems that this description, quite unusual in museums, was inspired by the belief in the “speaking form” and an autonomous message inherent in the work – by supporting the viewer in the process of looking, the author of the text suggests certain possible interpretations. Professional expertise – the context and time of creation, facts, decoding iconography – is not of primary importance here, although it is often decisive in the final reading of a work, and neither is the play of associations (form – pure form) which comes from the repertoire of professional competences of the author of the description. Despite their anonymity, the labels bear an imprint of the writer’s individuality and authorial interpretational decisions, which may seem rather arbitrary and intrusive to readers. Even so, I believe the texts discussed above to be an important attempt at rejecting the “transparency” of museum commentary.

Much controversy was excited by the descriptions of works put on show at the permanent exhibition of the MOCAK Collection in its various forms, especially after the museum opened in 2011. Several derisory articles and a social media profile were devoted to “captions for pictures at MOCAK.”¹¹ It is worth considering what provoked the discussion about texts that seem to fulfil what is expected from this type of communication: they are very concise, avoid artistic discourses perceived by people not associated with the art world as elitist and deliberately vague. The texts use short sentences, simple grammar and an informative style, avoid qualifiers and professional vocabulary. From the description of Natalia LL’s Consumer Art we learn: “A large series of works saturated with eroticism and presenting eating as oral intercourse. This act, feared or shunned by most women, is represented in the work in a bold, even ostentatious fashion. Whatever happens is the decision of these women.”

The text is only 248 characters long, including spaces, and can be considered exemplary in that respect. The curatorial description informs us that the work is part of a cycle, states in a very synthetic way what it depicts (“eating as oral intercourse”) and suggests an interpretation (the subjectivity of the women presented, courage of producing such representation). The brevity of the message and its directive tone (stating that the works show – rather than evoke – oral intercourse is too literal in this fragment) create the impression of a complete and irrefutable commentary in which interpretation and facts are not separated from each other. The text makes no use of the vocabulary typical of feminist art analysis or the art addressing gender issues but suggests instead a simplified interpretation, which, while posing as an objective commentary, seems to be that of its author.

Other labels found both in permanent and temporary shows in the Kraków museum consistently follow a similar pattern: they cast light on the context of the creation or functioning of the work, avoid describing its form or the medium used, and fail to contain any elements of evaluation, providing information on the artist only if it is interpretatively justified. On the communicative level, they seem helpful in finding one’s way around an exhibition of contemporary art which is considered hermetic and incomprehensible if unexplained. It seems, however, that their affirmative and directive tone with a tendency towards rather simplistic and somewhat arbitrary interpretations focused on the content of the work, deprive the displayed pieces of their ambiguity and meanings brought about by their form and medium.

Storytelling

More complex theoretical issues are taken up, as mentioned above, within temporary exhibitions which much more often take a problematic, even polemical, approach or present new research findings. The vast majority of exhibitions tell a story: they present the work of a specific person, a period, or a location. The arrangement of objects, testimonies or works serves to illustrate an initial thesis.

Within this context, it may be a good idea to take a closer look at the texts that accompanied a recent exhibition of Jan Matejko’s work at the National Museum in Kraków.¹² Seemingly obvious, the subject matter of this exhibition seems particularly difficult (if not impossible) to be related in any other way than by providing extensive explanations to paintings. Despite their original myth‑making and image‑forming nature, the events they depict, the accompanying historiosophy and the circumstances in which they were produced are not sufficiently clear to contemporary viewers. As a result, panels were abundant at the show: those explaining the curator’s ideas and smaller ones by individual paintings. There was a special path for children, too. Very long texts (even over 3,000 characters with spaces), many of which had been printed in gold sans serif font on claret, navy blue and white backgrounds implied content oozing institutional authority. According to the topics elucidated on the panels, the narrative order was as follows: 1. What is the role of a painter in a time of misery? – 2. Young Matejko – 3. The birth of an artist historian¹³ – 5. Depicting history – 6. In Central and Eastern Europe, that is where? 7. A Republic, but whose? 8. Civilisation, but what kind of it?

The story was thus based on the painter’s artistic biography (from his youth to embarking on a career in art and its consequences), interwoven with more general considerations on historical context, territory and civilisation, accentuated here and there with rhetorical questions suggesting that they concern not only a historical perspective but also a contemporary (for example, the reference to the concept of Central and Eastern Europe), ethnic or class one (A Republic, but whose?).

The texts contained numerous dates and references to events more or less known from school, as well as copious facts concerning the circumstances of the creation of Matejko’s paintings. All this was presented in a textbook style, indicating the causes and consequences of events, often interspersing the argument with quotes from Matejko’s contemporaries or himself. The texts were long and many, overloaded with information, discussing complex contexts, multiplying themes and levels of interpretation (“On 2nd September, the emperor also visited Jan Matejko in his house in Floriańska Street. There he received a gift, the painting The Congress of Vienna in 1515, commemorating the agreement under which the Jagiellonians were soon to loose Hungary to the Habsburgs. It is this work that the painter shows to the emperor in Kossak’s watercolour depicting their meeting. It also demonstrates that among the pieces shown by Matejko were oil sketches for The Victory of Vienna, while a witness claimed he also presented sketches for The Prussian Homage”). The story was constructed on many temporal levels: the past as seen by Matejko, the impact of the past on the reality in Matejko’s times, Matejko as the past, the past seen from a contemporary perspective, the past affecting the present; the author of the texts made viewers constantly turn back and return to the starting point (although we have no idea whether it is a contemporary person or one living in the 19th century), and change the point of reference. Also, the narrative was interrupted by successive series of questions (we do not know who they were addressed to): “Could Jan Matejko’s work have influenced the situation of Poles living in partitioned Poland? Can it still affect the reflection on the path the Polish community should follow?,” “Does this not mean that Matejko’s work must for ever remain in opposition to attempts at changing this dependence, at building a different civilization, a new man?”

What these texts were most ​​interested in was the subject matter of the paintings, the curator rarely commented on formal solutions, compositional ideas, gestures and facial expressions, which could render them more accessible to viewers unfamiliar with historical details. He posed no questions about the painting itself, about its relevance now, possibly leaving these aspects of the work to the visual competence of the viewers. As a consequence, the curatorial concept remained illegible on the visual level, and the academic intention was realised only where it was most convenient for him – in fairly hermetic texts.

The significance of historical painting was presented in a different fashion at the exhibition Poland. The Power of Images, staged by the National Museum in Warsaw¹⁴ – the premise in the title directed attention not to the content accessible to 19th‑century audiences, but to the universal impact of the medium of image. The fact that the exhibition was targeted at foreign visitors probably strengthened the universalising tone of the accompanying texts, identity‑related themes were presented against a broad European background, and the significance of historical painting for Polish culture was shown as specific to countries deprived of political independence (“In free European countries, history was one of many elements shaping the collective imagination, while in partitioned Poland it occupied a myth‑creating role).” The curatorial selection included a reference to “the key works that shaped common sites in the imagination of Poles during the Partition period – a kind of common language of figurative formulas and stereotypes.” Attention is drawn to the attempt to situate Polish 19th‑century painting within European art of the time: “Polish art was thus included in the European trend of stylistic transformations, while at the same time retaining its specificity that resulted from the uncertainty of political existence and the threat of denationalization. This was not provincialism, rather a variety of conservatism” – and a fairly objective assessment of its character.

Defining identity

In the considerations regarding images/souvenirs connected with defining identity, the #heritage exhibition at the National Museum in Kraków also seems relevant. The exhibition was exceptional in that it introduced a very complex relationship between the visual and a multi‑layered textual narrative. Taking up three floors of the Main Building, the show incorporated, in a way, the building itself into its scenario: a substantial collection of exhibits (513 items) was put on display in the temporary exhibition room on the ground floor, arranged in assemblages and grouped into four categories: geography, language, citizens and custom; they were accompanied by text panels that expounded on the main categories, while a selection of hashtags was provided on the wall by each piece, mapping the topics evoked by individual sets of works (for example: #geography, #territory, #poland, #republic, or #for our freedom and yours). Alongside around 60 objects presented on the first floor were more in‑depth texts (written by museum curators and the exhibition curator, the panels were signed with their the names). In the lower part of the exhibition, it was practically impossible, for reasons of design, to provide a label by each work – instead, visitors could consult brochures that contained a short description of every piece, identified by a number. The impact of the highly diverse exhibits that included maps and books which always pose a challenge to anyone willing to display them, devoid of commentary, was created by sheer numbers and proportions (large paintings stood out visually from many smaller objects). A reviewer observed that “visitors’ eyes constantly move from the numbers in the guidebook to the numbers by the exhibits. As a result, we soon realise that we are at the mercy of a director so keen to impose his version of «our» memory and «our» heritage on us that he gives us almost no time to look at the exhibits, constantly bombarding us with comments included in the guide and pasted on the walls. (…) The creators of #heritage seem to believe neither in themselves and their arguments, nor in the actors, nor in the audience – and for this reason they keep coming on stage to explain what they mean.”¹⁵

It is noteworthy that – also contrary to museum practice – the introductory text, signed by its author, used the form “we,” suggesting there was a direct dialogue between “I – the curator” and “we – a cultural community” imagined by him as the model recipient of the message conveyed by the exhibition.

The curatorial comments explaining the criteria for grouping the exhibits were very succinct and relied on slogans, presenting extremely clear theses and only rarely problematising used concepts or mentioned phenomena. It was the proximity between hardly obvious combinations and curatorial comments that left no room for discussion that probably excited the widest controversy. A most heated discussion was provoked by Kazimierz Sichulski’s large‑format painting called Bolesław the Brave’s Entry into Kyiv (1928) which was accompanied by the following caption: “The first Polish ruler to be crowned, Bolesław the Brave conquered the territories west of the Oder and entered Kyiv; this was where the Polish state and culture were to develop for centuries. The history of Polish heritage is integrally linked with the areas that today are the independent states of Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova and Ukraine.”

The labels in first floor galleries provided standard information about the works: the circumstances surrounding the creation of an object and its inclusion in the collection, its generic characteristics (style, form, inspirations), interpretation of its iconography, distinguishing features, the things that determine its museum value. It is interesting to compare this type of text with statements of people participating in a workshop on heritage. Here is a curator’s description of Piotr Michałowski’s Cardinal: “(…) the oil study bears striking testimony to the artist’s fascination with the culture and art of 17th‑century Spain. The image of a peasant wearing clerical clothing constitutes a creative reference to the Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez. The unnamed model portrayed by Michałowski was dressed or rather dressed up in the robes of a high‑ranking cleric. Nevertheless, his weather‑beaten face and plain facial features stand in marked contrast to the elegant face of the pope captured by Velázquez.”

A workshop participant writes: “The portrayed figure is a middle‑aged man with a worn‑out, weather‑beaten face, a red nose and an unkempt short beard. He is wearing a biretta with hair sticking out in disarray from underneath it. The biretta is the only attribute in the portrait that refers to the cardinal. The man is not looking at the viewer – his gaze is focused and directed slightly downwards, beyond the painting. (…) This image is more of a symbol, a shortcut, giving expression to the clash and confrontation between the opposing ends of social hierarchy and encouraging reflection. Should this painting be considered part of the national heritage? Yes, definitely. First of all, it is a legacy from an outstanding painter, a reflection of a period, it is intriguing and makes you think, and will be relevant as long as social divisions are there – that is, always.”

Rather than focusing on artistic inspirations that dominate the curator’s text, the unprofessional, exact and empathetic descriptions contain reflections on social classes, absent from the optimistic vision of heritage presented in the initial part of the exhibition displayed on the ground floor of the National Museum.

Re‑establishment in discourse

As demonstrated above, popular science texts that accompany exhibitions, based on established knowledge, are rarely meant to problematise what is presented. National museums avoid getting involved in memory deconstruction processes, yet they stage exhibitions aimed to restore memory, filling in gaps or reinstalling omitted threads. Such exhibitions include, for instance, shows presenting the work of women artists. Although not a very new phenomenon,¹⁶ they each time facilitate the formulation of expectations pertaining to how established art‑historical categories ought to be modified. The recent monographic exhibition The Artist. Anna Bilińska 1854–1893¹⁷ hosted by the National Museum in Warsaw can serve as an illustration. The introductory panel uncovers the mechanisms for including works in the canon: “The exhibition presents the entire creative output of Anna Bilińska, one of Poland’s major painters. (…) The objective of the exhibition it to present Bilińska as a talented and highly educated artist (…). Bilińska appears to have been a person who consciously fulfilled the requirements of her profession. She consistently worked towards the goal of building a career as a painter in an era when artistic life was dominated by men. The exhibition also assigns a symbolic role to Bilińska – as «one of many» professional women artists of the time whose work was not included in the canon of art history”.

The text suggests a certain repertoire of means adopted by museums when including a creator in the canon: the prestige of a monographic exhibition, uniqueness, professionalism, recognition (international recognition), works in major collections, but then also being a patron of an important trend in art, representativeness – these are the categories that museum texts often use to introduce an artistic phenomenon into the canon or confirm its presence in it. The remaining panels reveal that the museum’s communication policy also involves updating its message. Quite interesting is the attempt to escape colonial patterns typical of 19th‑century social practices. A portrait of a woman was described by a workshop participant in this way: “Study of a Woman (historical title: Negress) (…) The artist’s perception of a person from a different culture conforms to stereotypes. This is indicated by the accessories that come from various foreign cultures: a golden crescent necklace, earrings, a headdress, a fan. (…) Anna Bilińska’s painting depicting a black model was exhibited by the artist at the 1888 l’Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs salon under the title Négresse. That was also how the artist referred to it in her notebook. We are aware that today this title may raise serious reservations and doubts, yet we have decided to keep it as a historical title.”

The National Museum in Warsaw has joined the debate regarding the need for a change in terminology originating in Eurocentric and colonial practices which are reflected in art but also provided the foundation for the institution of museum in the 19th and 20th centuries. The text clarified the artist’s intentions and provided a characterisation of the convention that the representation adhered to, which was consistent with the Museum’s considerate and balanced communication strategy. The changing of titles (still giving the historical one – as in this case, alongside a new and neutral contemporary one), observed in some museums, recently in the Rijskmusem in Amsterdam,¹⁸ reflects on the role of painting: it is not only an inviolable and integral historical source, but an exhibit actively affecting the viewer as well, allowing for the historical message to be updated. As can be seen here, the debate on contemporary museum is, to a large degree, a debate on text.

Summary. Text as a form of mediation

Naturally, the short excerpts discussed above necessarily constitute a selection made not only on the grounds of their content but also practicality (access to exhibition documentation). It was my intention to choose texts that referred to problematic exhibitions, addressing topics related to the debate on language (representing identity, decolonisation, feminist issues) in order to see whether popularisation practices (short text‑message written for various types of readers) are open to this type of autocritique. The language used in museums seems quite conservative, partially resulting from the previously diagnosed fear of interpretation – exhibits are treated as closed historical sources and testimonies of material value, therefore, removing them from the context of an artist’s work or a period is sometimes perceived as overinterpretation or departure from historical truth. Unfortunately, this often leads to replication of historical discourses, discriminatory and hegemonic concepts, which – especially when used in very concise and short texts – surprise contemporary audiences with the anachronism and conservatism of their message. Paradoxically, this often results in interpretations that are too arbitrary, imposing a conclusive vision of the work. Instead of providing the viewer with tools for looking and offering a wider context for discussed problems and their relatedness to the present day, which would cast the museum panel in the role of an intermediary between the museum and the viewer’s sensibility, knowledge and openness, it presents theses which are unquestionable and only reference the past, while the curator’s arbitrary judgment is not subject to negotiation.

The problem could be solved by keeping curatorial and popular science texts separate. It is good practice of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw to discuss such texts within an interdepartmental “linguistic team” which develops a long‑term communication strategy for the museum that takes, amongst other things, the accessibility and inclusiveness of the message into account. The frequent practice of editing curatorial texts to make them educational or shorter and simpler, without an overabundance of technical terms, leads to the emergence of sketchy texts produced by reducing the original art‑historical content to meet supposed expectations of a viewer with an average knowledge of art. Removing complexity from and trimming an academic commentary may not be the best method for preparing a text for a wider public. Contrary to the belief held in museums, a popular text does not have to present a problem in a simplified way, be short or written in simple language (although complex language is not a good idea either in popular or in scientific texts). It should, above all, act as a tool supporting the viewer’s cognitive competences, concentration, arousing curiosity and updating the meaning of historical message.

The closer it is to a physical object, the more active the text can be – it can be part of the mediation between the institution and the beholder. By mediation, I mean a discreet way of guiding museum‑goers that will allow them to deepen individual contact with the work, a commentary that will allow them to see an image in the contemporary context, while highlighting those elements that construct its universalising message, beyond historical categories. Accompanying the eye and other senses of audience members with skill, joint practice of focusing on a work, its form, meaningful details, seem more satisfying than outlining historical contexts and stylistic‑generic categories. Freeing art from “art history” for the benefit of, for example, a broadly understood knowledge of images, directing attention to current contexts of their functioning, also in the case of historical images, would be much more inclusive for museum audiences.