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This paper demonstrates the overall success of bringing non-traditional audiences to a New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) exhibition, "Passionate Visions of the American South: Self-Taught Artists from 1940 to the Present." It also highlights the success of some of its public programs. However, the process of attracting these audiences to the museum falls short in its attempts at developing long-term relationships with NOMA. The first chapter provides historical background on NOMA and offers an overview of the "Passionate Visions" project. Chapter Two describes, in relative detail, the project's community outreach component and implementation of its public programs. It closes with an analysis of short range and long term impacts. The final chapter further analyzes the project experience, inclusive of the management style of the project director, issues surrounding conflict of interest and ethics, and the degree of NOMA's commitment, or lack thereof, to long-term non-traditional audience inclusiveness.

My installation, "The Viewers", consists of three life-sized figures and a projected video feed. The figures are placed in and around the gallery space, and the video originates from a hidden camera installed in one of the figures eyes. The first figure that the viewer encounters upon entering the gallery space is hyper-realistic security guard. His position behind the gallery circulation desk, a space which is traditionally assumed not to be an 'art space' allows him to view those entering the gallery while remaining relatively unnoticed. A camera that is installed in his one of his eye sockets and hidden behind sunglasses feeds live images that "he perceives" to another part of the gallery where they are projected. The second figure is a male soldier, positioned covertly on a lighting ledge connected to the ceiling of the gallery. From his high-post, he can clearly view the gallery's occupants through his binoculars, while only being noticeable himself from particular angles. The third figure is a real person dressed as a gorilla. Throughout the evening, he will move through the gallery, viewing and contemplating the artworks and its viewers as well. The purpose of the gorilla is primarily to view the exhibit and the social interaction generated by the gallery setting, but inevitably, viewers will want to interact with him, drawing them into the playful drama of the piece as a whole. Together, and through their individual means of viewing, each figure alludes to the idea of playing a part: the security guard in his fulfillment of the role of a security guard, the soldier in the almost costume-like quality evoked by his camouflage attire, and the gorilla being fairly obviously a performer in costume. That each is in a sense playing a role, and that each has a particular means of viewing the people in the gallery, suggests the additional roles and importance of the fourth element, that of the viewers. My work aims to suggest that the viewers are always playing a part of sorts when viewing an exhibition: the part of the viewer. This references not only the integral nature that the viewer has in defining the meaning of an artwork, but also the role that the viewer agrees to take on – the set of assumptions and mode of viewing the art as ‘art’ – as soon as one enters the gallery space.

Rethinking the monumental suggests not only a reconsideration of Judy Chicago’s controversial installation The Dinner Party (1979)-- as displayed in the group feminist art exhibition, Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History --but also refers to an unfixing of the monumental position of power afforded the museum and a re-invigoration of the debate in feminist visual art regarding the use of the female body. I use the Sexual Politics exhibition, curated by Amelia Jones for the University of California at Los Angeles Armand Hammer Museum and Cultural Center (1996) as an indicator of the museum as feminist space. Sexual Politics’ controversial reception by both the feminist community and mainstream critics provokes discussion for how the exhibition’s contradictions are part of the exhibition’s success. I uncover that the museum has always been an important factor in the validity of The Dinner Party. Nevertheless, neither the curator nor critic (exemplified by the Christopher Knight’s 1996 review) of Sexual Politics goes far enough to exploit the museum factor as part of their re-readings of The Dinner Party . I note that the exhibition backdrop, the contemporary art museum, is experiencing a crisis in representation in regards to its audience. Guiding institutional models originally identified by Duncan Cameron (1971) in essay Museum: Temple or Forum? prove suspect as the museum embarks toward a more self-reflexive sense of power in the postmodern museum. Janet Wolff’s essay Reinstating Corporeality serves as a point of departure from which to explore the action of museum exhibition as the site suitable for corporeal reinstatement for feminism. Exhibition elements of artwork, audience and environment act as partners in a metaphoric postmodern dance. This view supposes foreclosure on the debate of essentialism in regards to the corporeal in the feminist visual arts through themes and criticisms associated with The Dinner Party. Jones sets out in her exhibition to contribute to the historicization of feminist art. This thesis looks at that initiative and suggests the museum exhibition, as the medium for this historicization, is an integral element to the success of the process.

This study examines the impact of new museological theory on museum education practice at the Vancouver Art Gallery in relation to a re-installation of Emily Carr's work. It is a case study that concerns both the negotiation of meanings around Emily Carr's work as they are situated within current and traditional art historical/ historical beliefs, and the desire to offer museum visitors a more sufficient or comprehensive educational experience. The dissertation examines the installation of Carr in a variety of galleries across Canada (National Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Art Gallery) as a means of contextualizing a range of problems associated with museum practice. The National Gallery chapter explores issues of ideology raised by the new museology. The chapter concerning the display at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria concerns the particularities of site and place (Victoria was Carr's birthplace) as well as notions of resonance and contextualization in art displays. The discussion of the Art Gallery of Ontario concerns contextualization of a different sort, the display created with a solid foundation in educational literature. A temporary exhibition of Carr's work juxtaposed with that of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun in Vancouver offers an entry point into a discussion of subjectivity and curatorial epistemic authority, while the resulting re-installation of Carr at the Vancouver Art Gallery (the case) is explored as one possible approach to issues raised in the earlier chapters, by the challenges of post-modem theorists to historical understanding, historiography, and museum practice.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Essa tese à o resultado de pesquisa sobre a presenÃa do pÃblico em exposiÃÃes de artes plÃsticas em centros culturais e museus de arte. Utilizando dados da observaÃÃo etnogrÃfica, descrevemos prÃticas sociais e interaÃÃes efetuadas entre os atores sociais durante o tempo em que estÃo em exposiÃÃes. ApÃs aproximarmos o leitor do universo da pesquisa e discutirmos conceitos da abordagem sociolÃgica de exposiÃÃes de arte, tratamos das prÃticas sociais fundamentais do pÃblico em exposiÃÃes, como estudar, brincar, conversar, observar a obra, dar uma olhada, conviver, fazer carinho e namorar. Tentamos tambÃm mostrar como a exposiÃÃo pode consistir em item de um conjunto de atividades significativas para os atores sociais. A tÃtulo de conclusÃo, apresentamos nossas contribuiÃÃes e discutimos os limites do modelo um indivÃduo / uma obra e da concepÃÃo de exposiÃÃo de arte como arena de recepÃÃo de mensagens. / The result of the following thesis was based on research upon public attendance to art exhibition in Cultural Centres as well as Art Museums. Utilizing observing ethnographic facts, we describe social practices and interactions which take place amongst social actors during the time of the exhibit. On bringing the reader to the researching universe and discussing concepts based on a sociologic approach of art exhibition, we cover the fundamental social practices of the public during exhibits on how to study, play, talk, observe the artistic work, take a glimpse, familiarize, caress and court it. We also try to show how the exhibit may consist an item of a group of activities significant to the social actors. As to conclude, we presented our contributions and discussed the limits of the pattern individual / art work and that of the conception of art exhibition as a receptive message arena.

The thesis is focused on cultural tourism, declares the importance of exhibitions of modern art in cultural tourism and the importance of marketing strategy of gallery or museum, which is described on the example of Tate Modern gallery.

This study examines the impact of new museological theory on museum education practice at the Vancouver Art Gallery in relation to a re-installation of Emily Carr's work. It is a case study that concerns both the negotiation of meanings around Emily Carr's work as they are situated within current and traditional art historical/ historical beliefs, and the desire to offer museum visitors a more sufficient or comprehensive educational experience. The dissertation examines the installation of Carr in a variety of galleries across Canada (National Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Art Gallery) as a means of contextualizing a range of problems associated with museum practice. The National Gallery chapter explores issues of ideology raised by the new museology. The chapter concerning the display at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria concerns the particularities of site and place (Victoria was Carr's birthplace) as well as notions of resonance and contextualization in art displays. The discussion of the Art Gallery of Ontario concerns contextualization of a different sort, the display created with a solid foundation in educational literature. A temporary exhibition of Carr's work juxtaposed with that of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun in Vancouver offers an entry point into a discussion of subjectivity and curatorial epistemic authority, while the resulting re-installation of Carr at the Vancouver Art Gallery (the case) is explored as one possible approach to issues raised in the earlier chapters, by the challenges of post-modem theorists to historical understanding, historiography, and museum practice. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

How much art is projected into the home and community as a result of art experiences in the school is difficult to determine without some criterion as a standard for judgement. Based upon this premise, the author attempted, with the cooperation of the art committee of the Dallas Junior League, to test the aesthetic judgement of selected groups of children in the Dallas Public Schools by evaluating their reactions to an exhibition of common household articles currently available on the Dallas market.

While new approaches to displaying art free both the art and the viewer from overly didactic forms of curation, there have been very few attempts to examine how viewers negotiate meaning from art when no goal or directive is provided. While some see difference as the critical factor, others use similarity as a way to introduce new narratives. This dissertation research takes a close look at the kinds of things people observe in visual works of art to expose the specific ways that the offerings in the work are made knowable by its viewer and how different modes of presentation might affect the process. A paired design was developed to find out how juxtaposing works on dimensions of similarity and difference might affect what people see in individual paintings and whether the presence or absence of depictive content would be a factor. In three online experiments, participants were tasked with generating as many single words or short phrase responses as they could over a two-minute time period from a selection of modern and contemporary paintings – 32 abstract and 32 representational. In the first study, paintings were presented sequentially. In the next study, the same pictures were purposefully matched for color, composition, style, and thematic content. In the third study, the same pictures were re-paired to maximize difference. Pairing effected an overall decline in number of total comments for representational paintings compared to isolated single-view sequences. In contrast, significant increases were found for abstract art when the adjacent painting was also abstract. Significant consistency in response patterns for both art types across all three studies provide quantitative and content-based evidence for a normative level of engagement, with specific processing effects relative to art type.