TY - JOUR

T1 - Is this Art?

T2 - An Experimental Study on Visitors' Judgement of Contemporary Art

AU - Tröndle, Martin

AU - Kirchberg, Volker

AU - Tschacher, Wolfgang

PY - 2014/9/1

Y1 - 2014/9/1

N2 - ‘Is this art?’ is a question often raised by museum visitors when encountering contemporary artworks. But what factors influence museum visitors’ judgement on contemporary art? To what extent do visitors’ prior knowledge, socio-demographic background, emotional experiences, and specific aspects of the artwork itself, influence their judgements? In the context of the Swiss National research project eMotion – Mapping Museum Experience, we investigated these questions experimentally. The site specific intervention created by the renown artist Nedko Solakov in the St. Gallen Fine Arts Museum allowed us to conduct such a concrete experiment. We interpreted the findings by statistical analyses of the data gathered from entry and exit questionnaires (n=291) in view of sociological art theories dominant in the last few decades. Against theoretical expectations, we found that the judgement art/non-art was driven by several factors not anticipated by those theories.

AB - ‘Is this art?’ is a question often raised by museum visitors when encountering contemporary artworks. But what factors influence museum visitors’ judgement on contemporary art? To what extent do visitors’ prior knowledge, socio-demographic background, emotional experiences, and specific aspects of the artwork itself, influence their judgements? In the context of the Swiss National research project eMotion – Mapping Museum Experience, we investigated these questions experimentally. The site specific intervention created by the renown artist Nedko Solakov in the St. Gallen Fine Arts Museum allowed us to conduct such a concrete experiment. We interpreted the findings by statistical analyses of the data gathered from entry and exit questionnaires (n=291) in view of sociological art theories dominant in the last few decades. Against theoretical expectations, we found that the judgement art/non-art was driven by several factors not anticipated by those theories.

KW - Cultural studies

KW - art experience

KW - art galleries

KW - art reception

KW - Science of art

KW - experimental methods

KW - psychology of art

KW - sociology of art

KW - Cultural Distribution/Cultural Organization

KW - cultural consumption

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84907210849&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1749975513507243

DO - 10.1177/1749975513507243

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 8

SP - 310

EP - 332

JO - Cultural Sociology

JF - Cultural Sociology

SN - 1749-9755

IS - 3

ER -