Hi Friends,
Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating it!
My parents are visiting from Europe this week. We went to Jackson Heights in Queens to see the apartment my mother lived in when she was a child. She hadn’t been back since leaving the US in 1964. Little had changed from the flower beds in front of the building to the blend of shiny metal and dark wood of the furniture in the lobby. My mother’s memories came flooding back. In a world that is increasingly dematerialized, I can’t help think about the importance of physical spaces as the temples of our memories.
Until next week,
Florian
Gallery Gaslighting
Museum labels frustrate me.
Instead of learning something new, I feel like I’m being talked down to.
Surely I should know what “Neo Dada” refers to. In what world does anyone not know that “egg tempera” is a technique where egg yolks and paint are mixed together?
But I’ve noticed something I had so far failed to see. Beyond the veneer of self-importance, gallery text suffers from something much more ordinary: bad writing.
Here are a few examples of museum curators violating three sacred writing commandments.
Thou shalt write like you speak
Here’s how a gallery I visited recently described the work of American painter Jasper Johns:
“In the early 1960s, Jasper Johns embarked on a new type of large-scale painting that was both synthetic and generative”.
Huh?
I don’t know about you but I have no idea what “synthetic” and “generative” refer to. The only bit of information I gained is that the curator knows something I don’t.
Also, did Jasper Johns wake up one day thinking “Today is the day I start doing synthetic and generative work”? I don’t think so.
The curators should have taken inspiration from George Orwell’s fifth rule of writing:
“Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”
Thou shalt resist the urge to hedge
The label next to Edward Hopper’s “A Woman in the Sun” described it as “almost cinematic”. I felt a strong urge to grab a marker and cross out the word “almost”.
Words like “almost”, “possibly” or “usually” give the author a sense of security. But the reader walks away with a half-baked perspective.
As William Zinsser puts it:
“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.”
Thou shalt show, not tell
Edward Hopper once said “If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint”.
It’s ironic that museum labels systematically try to interpret the paintings for us with words. But in doing so they fall into the trap of using generic epithets instead of drawing us in with vivid descriptions.
Take this line describing Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Summer Days”:
“The large scale of the bones and blossoms and their placement in the sky give the painting a surreal quality.”
Now compare this to a description of George Tooker’s “The Subway”:
“Whether closed off in tiled niches or walking down the long passageway, each androgynous, anxiety-ridden figure appears psychologically estranged, despite being physically close to others in the station. The central group of commuters is locked in a grid of the metal grating’s cast shadows, while the labyrinthine passages seem to lead nowhere, suspending the city’s inhabitants in a modern purgatory.”
Which description drew you in the most?
Bad writing in gallery text is a good reminder of its gaslighting effect. Remember that next time you read something and feel clueless and confused.
Weekly Wisdom
🧐 Remembering what you Read: Have you ever loved a book but when asked for your takeaways, felt like you were only able to give a superficial account of its content? I’m guilty of that. We assume that by virtue of reading, we’re gaining knowledge. Unfortunately, without a little extra effort, reading to absorb new ideas is the equivalent of eating soup with a fork. This article gives out really good advice on how to remember what you read.
🚫 The Roots of Self-Entitlement: I’m both irritated and fascinated by people who blatantly disregard the rules. I found a study which found that even when the punishment is severe, people with a high sense of self-entitlement will ignore the rules if they deem them unfair. It gets even more interesting. In a follow up study, the sames researchers found that self-entitlement is not necessarily a trait of character, it’s also situational. If you’ve been treated unfairly in a particular situation, you’re likely to disregard the rules in another situation to balance out the wrong you perceive has been done to you.
Lateral Thought
“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of the recipient. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
Herbert Simon