Art historians and Goldin... why criticize him?

by Federico Giannini (Instagram: @federicogiannini1), published on 28/05/2013
Categories: Opinions / Disclaimer

A few evenings ago I was discussing one of the topics that are in vogue when you find yourself having an aperitif with friends who have the same passion for art history as you, namely, yet another gimmick of Marco Goldin, who has always been seen as the epitome of commercial exhibition and marketing applied to art.

The Goldinian process is pretty much always the same. A title is chosen that includes the names of artists who know even the stones: for example, From Cézanne to Mondrian, Gauguin-Van Gogh. The Adventure of New Color, or more recently From Vermeer to Kandinsky, Raphael to Picasso, Botticelli to Matisse. Note that the name of the exhibition often and willingly goes from someone to someone else, almost as if to trace a sort of path: a likely device to suggest to the visitor the fact that the exhibition is a real experience, something in the making, and this dynamism can only increase the load of emotions that the visitor will feel during theexhibition because, as is well known, Goldin’s main goal is to arouse emotions. Goldin himself stated in a 2010 interview, "I always fight to say that first of all this comes the emotion in front of things, the emotion that makes us experience in a different way than other people the beauty of literature, painting, music, philosophy, culture.^"1 The process then continues with the choice of a city in the Veneto region or its immediate vicinity (Conegliano, Belluno, Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Passariano, but it still happened to see Goldin exhibitions in Genoa and Rimini as well), a sign that Goldin knows deeply the audience in these areas, knows what their expectations and desires are, and therefore packages a “tailor-made” exhibition, where side by side with the big names such as those mentioned just above, it is not uncommon (indeed, it almost always happens) to find paintings by local schools, preferably landscape paintings, so that the public, in addition to getting excited in front of the paintings, can also recognize themselves in them by finding familiar places and, why not, take pride and pride in them, because a large part of the Goldinian public probably does not know that, in the sixteenth century, artists such as Moretto or Savoldo worked in their land (whether they have little -nay, nothing- to do with Picasso or Kandinsky, is not the point).

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All without any particular scientific or philological criteria, precisely by virtue of the fact that Goldin does not care much that the public, in addition to getting excited, asks questions about the paintings it sees or tries to understand their meaning or why an artist made certain stylistic choices, and so on. Maybe Goldin could also be an excellent curator of exhibitions with high scientific and philological interest: the fact is that he does not care about this because he knows what his audience wants, which is emotions. Goldin knows well the audience he is dealing with, so in my opinion the classic criticisms directed at him (e.g., Montanari: "Here is the last frontier of the betrayal of art history, reduced to a tool to oppose emotions to knowledge, and the people to the elite. [...] This rhetoric provides that scientific objections are not answered by rational and verifiable arguments, but by appealing to ineffable and uncontrollable emotions.^"2), are obviously well-founded but leave a little time to be found. First, because Goldin will continue to curate exhibitions according to his paradigm and will continue to be successful. Second, because Goldin is not the problem.

The main problem lies in theincommunicability between art historians and the public: the former are seen by the latter as a bunch of purists in bow ties accustomed to disquisition on matters that do not touch the public in the least, and the latter, on the other hand, are seen as a shapeless mass of troglodytes to be astonished with special effects. The art historian takes it out on Goldin, and from his point of view he probably does well too, but it is necessary for him to start thinking, first of all, that the problem is not so much getting the public to stop seeing Goldin’s exhibitions (also because they probably perceive well that the Goldin exhibition is a moment of entertainment, albeit falsely perceived as “cultural”), but getting them to go to see exhibitions organized with scientific criteria (not necessarily research, but also popularization). The art historian’s task is to get the message across that one cannot speak of culture just because there are old paintings hanging on a wall in a palace: not all exhibitions (just as not all films and not all music albums) can be classified as culture, not all exhibitions leave something with the public, and from Goldin’s exhibitions the public does not leave enriched, because they will probably know on the way out what they knew on the way in.

He may, however, leave Goldin’s exhibition with a stimulus, that of wanting to learn more about Moretto and Savoldo, but if no one puts the Goldin visitor in a position to deepen his or her cultural background through a work of serious popularization (which in Italy, as far as art history is concerned, is lacking at a level to reach a wide audience), Goldin will always register more success and visitors. I am convinced that this is the same audience that crowds the many Facebook pages that post dozens of images of artworks every day, being careful not to give the public information about the works other than the title and author (and sometimes museum and dating). Pages that are a bit of a virtual transposition of Goldinian exhibitions: easy-to-grasp paintings, mostly by impressionist painters, tens of thousands of fans and visitors, a riot of “beautiful,” “wonderful,” “stunning,” “gorgeous,” and “fantastic.”

With serious popularization, the Goldinian visitor will be able to be guided to more sophisticated exhibitions that can enrich him culturally as well as excite him, for it is by no means true that emotions should be pitted against knowledge ("I believe in emotions, not in knowledge for the knowledgeable few^"3 is what Goldin is said to have declared at the preview of his exhibition Raphael to Picasso), not least for the fact that knowledge in itself is already something extremely fascinating. There will certainly always be a large part of the Goldin audience that will remain Goldinian, it is inevitable, but another part of this audience will be driven to benefit from rigorous exhibitions. All this is to say that it is pointless to lash out at Goldin, as mentioned just above: perhaps it would be more useful for art historians to channel their efforts into questioning themselves, into trying to shake off the stereotypes that plague the category, into attempting communication with the audience of those who have a passion for art.

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Notes

1. Marco Goldin: larte that stirs emotions, from infoscari, October 4, 2010 ↑

2. Tomaso Montanari, Raphael to Picasso: the marketing of emotions, from Il Fatto Quotidiano, October 8, 2012. For criticism of Goldin see also Luca Zuccala, Goldin’s vulgar art circus, from Artslife, February 8, 2013. ↑

3. Gian Marco Mancassola, Raphael and Picasso at Palladio’s house , from Il Giornale di Vicenza, October 4, 2012 ↑

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