The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

You are spot on when you say that insider talk is directed only at other insiders and not for the service of the public. More and more museums are requiring their curators to be PhDs, and sanctioning this kind of writing, not because it’s necessary for the true mission of the institution (serving a general audience) but because it allows the museum to feel like they are participating in discourse at a “serious” level. It also ups the competitive/gatekeeping factor when they are hiring, all for the same misguided reason. The true challenge for a curator is to translate academic ideas into plain language and concepts, but sadly those few with the gift or the inclination to do so are often seen as too “populist.”

As for editing - in the museum I worked for there was a hierarchy of texts and didactic materials. Unsigned wall labels or wall texts would be more heavily edited, and jargon removed, for the sake of general readers. But signed wall texts and catalog essays would be less so, to retain the preferred language of the author. But in either case there was a resistance to “dumbing down” an idea, rather than a recognition that good interpretation does not require such overblown complexity.

"But the industrial strength rhetoric of so much museum writing is also, I suspect, a defense against anxiety by curators and catalogue essay writers afraid simply to say aloud and in plain English what they suppose the work might be getting at. What if they get it wrong? Better to fall back on cliches that stand in for thought without furthering it."

In my undergraduate experience as an art history student, I find that many of my peers (and some of my professors) are more worried about having the "right" or accepted answer to a work than anything else. Being right- otherwise known as being able to read and regurgitate the correct buzz words- is valued more than having than a new idea or reading of a work of art. While I cannot personally attest to whether this happens in graduate school or not (I'm not there yet!), I have been told by acquaintences and professors that this is very much perpetuated in post-secondary education. Furthermore, there is very little discussion of art theory in undergraduate study. Perhaps by encouraging independent thought, right or wrong, this problem could be addressed. A change, too, in methodology and didactic rhetoric, would be nice.

And, as ruthk suggests, creators should be reminded of their primary goal in art- they should be able to translate academic ideas into plain language and concepts for the general public. If the insiders really need it, curators can always record the jargon-filled version of an exhibition onto one of those little headsets... you know, the same way that they record information for foreign language speakers.

There is another reason that many wall texts are badly written: it is very, very hard to write about art in a clear, meaningful way. Most curators simply don’t know how to do it, and good writing doesn’t appear to be a prerequisite for getting a job at a major museum. Wouldn’t it be nice if museum directors insisted that their curators be good writers, and prioritized that skill in the hiring process?

I have to say I disagree with Mr. Calnek, and no, I am not contradicting myself. I don’t think it’s any more difficult to write about art in a clear and meaningful way than anything else. And most curators I’ve known are intelligent people with decent to fine writing skills. But the reliance on academic jargon, or rather the trend towards failing to expurgate it, is a reflection of insecurity on a personal and an institutional level. Curators want to be seen as scholars, and the academy is perceived, wrongly, as the only arbiter of that status. And the institutions don’t know what they want: Big blockbusters to increase the gate? Esoteric shows to enhance their scholarly “cred”? Personality-driven exhibition “events” that bring in the press? Lost in all this are thoughtful, engaging presentations that really illuminate the work for a broader public.

Have you read many artist statements? They parallel the curatorial language. Both have their source in the academy and a belief that legitimacy resides there. Both are cynical and pandering. They are attempts to interpret (manipulate) the experience of the work, where the work is all too often inadequate to the task.

Most of those artists and curators haven't taken an exegetical writing class since Freshman year of college; much of writing 101 is remedial in nature, and covers material that ought to have been taught in high school. Moreover, the task of exegetical writing and art commentary is quite distinct from the essentially managerial and art-appreciative qualities necessary for a successful curatorship.

This is not a problem unique to the curatorial profession.

Mr. Lacayo, you write:

[...]academics who use jargon to signal to one another their initiation into the world of.... jargon.

and then two sentences later:

[...]contemporary art centers and whatever kunsthalles

Now either that was a tongue-in-cheek illustration of the phenomena you critique, or an instance where you're guilty of the same sin.

Mind you, kunsthalles isn't as bad as dropping in an untranslated German word from Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger, which is a favourite pass-time of the October crowd, but still, it is a shibboleth that only folks who read a lot of art crit are going to be familiar with. (oops, did i do the same thing there, or does shibboleth count?)

However, I agree with the sentiments expressed here, and hold up Time's very own former critic Robert Hughes as an exemplar of how to write about art in as complex a fashion as any big T Theorist without alienating anyone, and do it with a tremendous amount of wit and flair. I didn't necessarily agree with his assessments a great deal of the time, but I always found his writing insightful about the work, I understood exactly what he said, and enjoyed the way he said it.

Expressing a fondness for Hughes has oftentimes made me the target of the condescending stares the hoity toity reserve for the hoi polloi (greek now?).

I also agree that a great deal of the academy-speak allows you to say something that isn't obviously refutable because it's so vague that it's not really saying anything, which defends you from the most horrible accusation a critic/curator could face: dilettantism (oops, that's a French one).

Though I don't claim to be a writer, or editor,I learned most about the subject from William S. Newman, an internationally known musicologist and professor at UNC. He said he learned most about it from a civilian editor for the army during WWII, a woman. He always quoted her as saying "A sentence should never be more complex than the idea it contains." But, of course, some of these curators are pretending their ideas are complex when they are not -- unless one believes digested oats is complex.

One of the advantages of unreadable writing and museum text is that it might get viewers to stop reading about art, looking at art and going to museums to absorb the "party line" like a sponge, and instead enjoy developing their own feelings and relationship to the work.

As I read it, the only disagreement between commenters is whether curators have nothing to say, or have something to say but are not able (or willing) to say it.

I think the "problem," if there is one, is a bit different. If the art itself had some clear blatant social/cultural message, it would be far too passe (or naive, wholesome, lame, etc.) to be included in the Biennial in the first place.

The curators often choose art that is self-consciously opaque (or meaningless, depending on your opinion). It follows that writing about the art will be the same.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. If art "gets something wrong," it doesn't really matter. This is sculpture, not wikipedia!

The only ones who should be worked up about curator's complex interpretations of "communication structures and systems of exchange" are those readers who care what art curators (or even sculptors) have to say on those subjects.

I think the same dynamic exists in many fields that have sort of reached their limits, and now don't know what they should be doing. Peter Wolf's "Not Even Wrong" addresses this issue in physics. (See http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/)