Thanks so much. I always notice, when I’m in a gallery or museum, how a great many people look at the pictures with their arms folded. It looks like a proctective, or defensive gesture to me. I wonder what they’re afraid of.
Maybe it’s respect. I tend to watch for black lines on the floor and don’t get too close to the Art – plus there are docents at every turn, it seems, watching what people are doing. I usually put my hands in my pockets. You know, look don’t touch? How’d you get away with taking a picture?
I sat on a bench doing nothing for a long time. Then I took the camera out of my pocket and took the picture while the guards were looking the other way.
Museums do say this in various ways. The exhibits have a status of a tabu (multi-layered actually, not only a sacred and thus forbidden object, but also a much expensive one etc) and I wonder if the museums’ sole purpose is to invest these objects with the neccessary prestige and authority, so they can function as such (an extreme position, I know). A tabu is something not only forbidden but dangerous as well; whoever “touches” it must die or be punished. Does this not invoke a protective or defensive gesture?
Then there is a matter of physiology: if the gaze is given a prevalent status, then touch and one of its “organs”, the human hand, stays inert, and where can we put it? It becomes something useless we have to carry around in the temple (sorry, the church, I mean the museum), so we fold our arms or put our hands in our pockets, etc.
The photo is very interesting due to the shooting angle (from below) and the fact that there are four women with apparently fixed gazes. Does this suggest that women are more prone to this defensive etc gesture? This wouldn’t surprise me, museums (and temples) are creations of men. These women are looking at miniature paintings in manuscripts or photocopies of manuscripts from the non-typography era. An object even then destined for few, monks mostly and men. It seems that this glimpse into the object from below (your view or rather your camera’s) describes accurately todays photographic gaze, which cannot but be partial and fragmented. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the photo might insinuate that women are blocking the view and make it fragmented, because then I would suggest that an all embracing gaze is possible, which is not the case. But then, of course, the object of your gaze is not the manuscripts on the wall, but these women themselves.
I really love this one!
Thanks so much. I always notice, when I’m in a gallery or museum, how a great many people look at the pictures with their arms folded. It looks like a proctective, or defensive gesture to me. I wonder what they’re afraid of.
Maybe it’s respect. I tend to watch for black lines on the floor and don’t get too close to the Art – plus there are docents at every turn, it seems, watching what people are doing. I usually put my hands in my pockets. You know, look don’t touch? How’d you get away with taking a picture?
I sat on a bench doing nothing for a long time. Then I took the camera out of my pocket and took the picture while the guards were looking the other way.
“Look don’t touch”.
Museums do say this in various ways. The exhibits have a status of a tabu (multi-layered actually, not only a sacred and thus forbidden object, but also a much expensive one etc) and I wonder if the museums’ sole purpose is to invest these objects with the neccessary prestige and authority, so they can function as such (an extreme position, I know). A tabu is something not only forbidden but dangerous as well; whoever “touches” it must die or be punished. Does this not invoke a protective or defensive gesture?
Then there is a matter of physiology: if the gaze is given a prevalent status, then touch and one of its “organs”, the human hand, stays inert, and where can we put it? It becomes something useless we have to carry around in the temple (sorry, the church, I mean the museum), so we fold our arms or put our hands in our pockets, etc.
The photo is very interesting due to the shooting angle (from below) and the fact that there are four women with apparently fixed gazes. Does this suggest that women are more prone to this defensive etc gesture? This wouldn’t surprise me, museums (and temples) are creations of men. These women are looking at miniature paintings in manuscripts or photocopies of manuscripts from the non-typography era. An object even then destined for few, monks mostly and men. It seems that this glimpse into the object from below (your view or rather your camera’s) describes accurately todays photographic gaze, which cannot but be partial and fragmented. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the photo might insinuate that women are blocking the view and make it fragmented, because then I would suggest that an all embracing gaze is possible, which is not the case. But then, of course, the object of your gaze is not the manuscripts on the wall, but these women themselves.
Hahaha, did I write all this? It’s over a year now.
One could push them out of the way, but that would be forbidden touching.