Looking at Art through your Viewfinder"

"Purma Special" Attributed to Raymond Loewy  (American (born France) Paris 1893–1986 Monte Carlo)

There was a time when photography was almost universally prohibited in museums. Of course, in those days, the hauling about of equipment, and the large flash units would be annoying to other visitors.

Why are people doing this, and what is it doing to their museum experience. Certainly, many want to record the time when they finally come face to face with that iconic work that they only knew from pictures in the art texts. Others may want to make a collection of references for their own use. And some want to simply record part of their vacation, posing the family in front of Whistler's Mother they way they would pose with Goofy and Pluto at Disney World.

But there seem to be others who are obsessed with recording most, if not every item they look at. During one visit to the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., a man wandered with an Ipad making a catalog of every item that was on view. And a woman was having great difficulty dealing with the reflection on a Berenice Abbott photo while she tried to photograph the photograph. What was the goal? I am sure there was a museum book/catalog that would have the images (professionally photographed under good conditions), and you could buy a postcard of the Abbott photo in the gift shop.

While visiting the Musee d'Orsay in Paris (home of some of the most famous impressionist paintings), groups of tourists moved from one to the next, photographing each. Were these mementos adding to their experience? Were they now removing themselves from their encounter with art, keeping it "at camera's length"? Is the visit not real until it is recorded? And will these digital images, like the millions of color vacation photos taken over the years, simply exist, unlooked at, not in shoeboxes, but in some computing cloud limbo?

In a Sunday New York Times Article Sept. 29,  "Hey Starry Night, Say 'Cheese' " , art critic Deborah Solomon discusses the phenomenon of picture taking, which has only grown with the availability of smartphone cameras. She feels that overall this will be good for "visual literacy", and enhance, not diminish our relationship with art. If only I could feel so sure of that.

Photo:

"Purma Special" Attributed to Raymond Loewy (American (born France) Paris 1893–1986 Monte Carlo)
Manufacturer: Purma Camera, Ltd., England 1937
Metropolitan Museum of Art, John C. Waddell Collection, Gift of John C. Waddell, 2000