Monday, February 4, 2013

Seeing Like Barnes

On a recent trip to Philadelphia I had the chance to visit the new Barnes Foundation Museum.  As a visitor to the Barnes I would be invited to see art in a new way.
Between 1912 and 1951, Albert C. Barnes assembled one of the world’s most important holdings of post-impressionist and early modern art, acquiring works by avant-garde European and American artists. Barnes continually experimented with the display of his collection, arranging and rearranging the works in ensembles, symmetrical wall compositions organized according to the formal principles of light, line, color, and space, rather than by chronology, nationality, style, or genre. The ensembles changed as Barnes made acquisitions, trades and new visual connections between the holdings, which diversified with the addition of African sculpture, antiquities, Asian art, Native American ceramics, jewelry, and textiles, manuscripts, old master paintings, and European and American decorative and industrial arts. Integrating art and craft, and objects from across cultures and time periods. (barnesfoundation.org)
When you go to the Barnes Museum, you notice many things that are different. There are no titles for the paintings. There are no curator’s notes. The only verbal description is the name of the artist. Barnes wanted the student to see the art for themselves. He wanted them to experience the excitement he had experienced. He wanted to encourage students to develop an artistic eye-to gain the capacity to work with the key elements of a painting.

Looking for Themes
At the Barnes, a gallery wall may have two pictures with great perspective and depth juxtaposed with two paintings that are very flat. Barnes also moves beyond the boundaries of the canvas and uses a world of antique metal hardware to accent designs that exist in the ensemble.  Foreshadowing the “found art” movement of last 50 years, he collects all manner of metal knobs, hoods, and latches and places them above the painting like exclamation points. He collects antique chests and places plates, cups and candelabras on them. He book ends these walls with antique chairs of all shapes. He may highlight a narrow elongated figure by Modigliani with a pair of tall clippers. In contrast, he highlights the soft ample full-bodied bottoms of Renoir nudes with an oversized chair and a double U shaped piece of hardware.
Barnes challenges students to look for emerging themes. Why was the antique chest chosen for this wall? On further inspection, one may see that the green of the chest is present in all the paintings. The three emblems also suggest the way the figures are organized in the painting. The sketch below illustrates Barnes’s design to create a museum wall using his “ensemble technique”.  Barnes was relatively neutral about which painting a student might like best. He was deeply invested, however, in the students learning to gain capacity in the managing the tools of art (line, color, light, space etc.) that would lead to art appreciation.

Barnes came from humble beginnings in New York. He became a scientist, moved to Germany and invented the leading antibiotic of his time. He made a fortune and became a great art collector. To some of the established art community, he seemed an unwelcome intruder. In 1923, a public showing of Barnes' collection proved that it was too avant-garde for most people's taste at the time. The critics ridiculed the show, prompting Barnes' long-lasting and well-publicized antagonism toward those he considered part of the art establishment. Barnes was stung by the criticism. When you innovate, you take the risk that people will not respond. Many do not want to stir the pot, reimagine the elements or look for new themes.

The Art of Synagogue Strategy
When synagogue leaders begin to think strategically they can feel as welcome as a post-impressionist show at the Philadelphia Art Institute in 1923. Luther Snow (The Power of Asset Mapping: How Your Congregation Can Act on Its Gifts, Alban 2004) argues that congregational leaders can find innovative solutions by listing synagogue strengths and assets on cards and placing them on a wall. Leaders then move these elements around until they cluster into a theme.

They might take the social connections of their men’s group and connect it to the synagogue’s social justice agenda by creating a bike race to raise money for their cause. They might connect their commitment to more bar mitzvah tutoring support with potential several potential tutors from the men’s club. They might take note the baseball diamonds near the synagogue and organize and parents/kids softball game and picnic. Asset mapping helps leaders see all of the potential building blocks of synagogue success and to rearrange them into new programmatic clusters.

USCJ's new Sulam for Strategic Planners program is designed to help leaders think strategically. Just as Barnes helped art students to become literate in the use of color, light and shape, so too, we hope synagogue planners will become literate about the use of need assessments, vision, emerging themes, strategies and goals. In the end, we are not trying to create a specific strategic outcome.  Like Barnes, we are not providing curator’s notes that describe a specific holiday program or fundraiser. Like Barnes, we are very intentional about the exercises we want planners to go through to build their strategic capacity.

Parker Palmer once said of the master teacher, that they helped their students learn to make the connection by showing them how they as teachers made their connections.
“Good teachers possess the capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that the students can learn to weave a world for themselves.” (Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach, p. 11)
With Sulam for Strategic Planners, we hope to juxtapose articles, case studies, planning tips and exercises in such a way that it encourages planners to think holistically- to make their  connections. Just as Barnes provides ensembles for artists, we will provide frameworks for planners. Our mission is to help them learn to put a frame around their synagogue situation and to imagine their next chapter as an emerging  work of art.
 


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