The Toledo Blade digs deep into the populist philosophy that guided the
expansion and reorganization of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Excerpt:
"What we're doing here is a little revolutionary and that's causing
heartburn in some quarters and joy in others," said Beal, 60, a Detroit
resident and native of Stratford-on-Avon, England.
He previously led reinstallations at museums in Omaha and Los Angeles.
"That was where I began to realize that we were not reaching people,
that they weren't going away loving art the way that we wanted them
to," he said. "I realize now I was still using the old paradigm of
having the curator and the educators work together to present what is
essentially still a lesson in art history. And although I love art
history and have degrees in the stuff, I came to believe that it was
actually still more of a screen, more of a barrier."
Read the entire article here.
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