I like going to museums.
I like looking at works in a beautiful, quiet environment.
That said, I don't have special knowledge of painting. I'm not deep on history or technique. I don't prep ahead either.
As a student I often woke up, decided on a whim to go to a museum that day, looked up what was on, and went.
Now I have work, and with COVID a lot of places require reservations, so that's harder — but how I enjoy it is still an extension of those student days.
The other day I went to a museum I'd wanted to visit.
It was for a popular artist.
The exhibition was very beautiful.
I kept thinking how cool the design was.
Creativity must be expressing something from zero.
Someone once said, roughly: "Some people look at art and say they could paint that themselves — but art's value is in making it first; reconstruction has no value."
I remember that line every time I go to a museum. It feels universal and rich.
Every time I go to a museum that allows photos, I don't really get photographing there.
When you're looking at a painting and people around you are holding cameras (mostly phones), it's hard to move, and shutter sounds distract.
If you're going to look at a photo, isn't Google Image Search enough?
Everywhere you see people waiting for whoever's looking at a painting to leave so they can shoot it in the best composition — and I really dislike that situation.
It breaks the rhythm of looking.
Maybe museums want SNS spread and viral marketing for attendance.
I want to look at paintings freely, at my own rhythm. Crowded museums often feel like a factory conveyor — lining up and viewing works at the crowd's speed — and I dislike that too.
The more crowded it gets, the more revenue rises and customer experience falls. Not only museums — I dislike crowds in general.
Crowding on trains or shopping for groceries at a supermarket doesn't bother me as much when "being there isn't the purpose." (A train is transport; you're not paying for the ride experience. Supermarket shopping is a means to cooking.)
But when "experiencing something there is the purpose" — restaurants, museums, public baths, movie theaters — crowding is unbearable.
At a restaurant, even wonderful food feels unsettled if it's packed, loud, with a constant waiting line. Experiential value is damaged.
Same content, but I want to consume it at my pace. Even McDonald's — I'd rather take it home and eat slowly than sit in a crowded, noisy shop full of mixed smells.
In the end, controlling supply and demand with price — dynamic pricing — is probably the only way.
I think that's fine. Movie theaters lately let you upgrade for bigger seats.
People who value that experience highly will gladly pay a bit more to experience it calmly at their own pace.
Many would prefer a space limited to people who think that way (who value the experience highly).
Raise the price and not only do crowds thin — more visitors want to focus on the museum experience, so photography rates might fall too.
Beyond cinemas, concerts, sports, and other entertainment often use variable pricing.
Why don't museums apply it much? (Maybe some do; as far as I remember I've never seen it.)
Works themselves are precious — but operations overall also feel bureaucratic.
Industries where content is universal, competition is thin, and barriers to entry are high don't improve customer experience much.
(e.g. Museums showing popular artists/works are limited; the original is one, or only one is shown at a time.)
Art also has parts that conflict with the commercial side, so it's hard.
Still, preserving/protecting and improving "content" gets talked about a lot — I'd love a breakthrough on improving the experience of looking at art too.
As an aside: commercial value of artworks seems over-weighted on "content" (what) and under-weighted on "delivery" (how).
That's why it feels like a contest to show popular artists and works and pull by-name attendance. Well, this kind of half-baked opinion has probably already been debated to death into the status quo.
One more aside: teamLab, which I saw long ago, is a different flavor from what you usually picture as a museum — they rented a huge space and expressed with sound and the whole interior. It was popular and crowded, but I don't remember feeling pressed or annoyed.
Also, in Tokyo I like the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo best; it's very comfortable. Partly the shows aren't very pop — and the slightly "off" location in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa probably helps.
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