WEBVTT

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Hi, I want you to indulge me
for just a moment and I want you

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to close your eyes and relax.

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Sit in your chairs.

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And I want you to think

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about your earliest memories
of an art museum.

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What are the things
that come to your mind?

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Is it the building?

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Is it the architecture?

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Is it the people that you were with?

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Is it the objects?

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So I want you to keep that
in the back of your mind

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as I talk with you today
because we'll come back to it.

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But for now, open your eyes.

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I first fell in love with art museums

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when I was a little girl.

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And my father would take
my twin brother and I

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to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
in Kansas City, Missouri,

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on the family free days.

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And I remember going through the plaza,

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sitting in the back of the car.

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And he would drive us through

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and I would see the sculpture garden.

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And I would get so excited

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because I knew what was about to happen.

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And we would go and as he would
try to find a place to park,

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the excitement would well up in me.

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And I would see Rodin's "The Thinker"
sitting outside of the museum

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with his hand underneath his chin,

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his body tense in concentration,
his elbow on his knee.

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And we would walk by him

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and go underneath these beautiful columns

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and these front doors
that just beckoned me in.

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And we must have been there quite a bit.

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We must have spent some time there

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because I remember becoming very familiar

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and finding these really beautiful things

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that I connected with including
Jan van Huysum's floral still life.

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It's a memento mori
called "Vase of Flowers".

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And I remember thinking that if
I could stand there long enough,

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I could hear the buzzing of the bees

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or I could touch the softness
of the petals

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or I might even be able to, you know,

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smell the flowers themselves.

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I also remember the exquisite
beauty of a Caravaggio painting

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of St John the Baptist.

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And I remember his soft skin
and his hair and his red cloak.

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And I remember the cake
of dirt underneath his toenails.

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Like these are the things I remember?

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And I just think back and can't believe it
because I thought

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that they had put
all of these things here just for me.

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I was a six year old kid

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and they had put them there just for me.

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And now, I've spent twenty years
working in art museums

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creating opportunities for people

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to engage with one another
and with art and with culture.

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And I've thought a lot about the reasons

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that people love to go to art museums.

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And I've also thought
an awful lot about the reasons

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that people don't like to go.

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And I'm really interested
to see what will happen

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with art museums
in the twenty first century.

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Now I have a quiz for you.

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Museums in the United States
are often compared

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to two other kinds of institutions;

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can anybody guess what they are?

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Just shout it out.

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Audience: Banks.

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Dana Kletchka: Banks, okay,
well that makes sense, anything else?

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Audience: Libraries.

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DK: Libraries, okay we have
churches and libraries.

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And this makes a lot of sense.

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All three of them
are repositories of culture.

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They all have very specific locations.

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They all have inspiration
and knowledge that we're seeking.

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They represent the richness
of our culture intellectually,

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spiritually, and creatively.

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But for an awful lot of people,
they are places of boredom

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and stillness and quiet, right?

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We all know the rules.

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No talking.

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No touching.

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No food or drink.

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No photography.

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I could go on, but I won't.

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And these rules are there
for a reason, right?

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To keep things safe, you know,

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you've got to have things all ready to go.

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However, they also tend to alienate people

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and that also makes sense.

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Even in the United States,
art museums are the repositories

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of culture that are descended
from kings and queens.

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They are housed in these
intellectual spaces

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and in these incredible
architectural buildings.

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They represent experiences
that most of us can only dream of.

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They are representative
of the power of community

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and of countries even.

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So it's no wonder to me
that a lot of people find museums

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to be boring and elitist
and perhaps even unnecessary.

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But I'm here to argue that art museums
cannot exist without you

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in their current iteration.

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And I would say that
because we live in a world

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where people are driven
to seek new experiences,

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to find out new information,
and to connect with one another,

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that you cannot exist without art museums.

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Now, the National Endowment for the Arts

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came out with a study a few years ago.

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And it basically said
that participation in the arts

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is down dramatically
over the last twenty years,

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whether it's ballets

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or orchestra concerts or exhibitions.

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People are not walking
and getting their behinds in seats

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and they're not walking
through the galleries.

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And on one hand that's really distressing.

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But on the other hand,
we kind of know why.

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There are people who have said

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that even though they
aren't going to these kinds

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of cultural things
they would otherwise like to go

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and they gave three big reasons.

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And the first one is time.

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We don't have enough time
to do the things that we need to do

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much less the things that we want to do.

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And there are some people
that even more it's difficult

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for them to find
the transportation to get there

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or find a way to get there.

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A second thing - and if you have
young kids you know

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what I'm talking about.

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If you have kids under the age of six,
it is very difficult

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for you to find the time
to get your kids, get them ready,

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put them in the car,
schlep them over there,

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and then once you get there
there's nothing for them to do.

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And I know that as a parent
I am not going to go through that

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because I don't want to hear
the whining once we get there, right?

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And the third reason that people
are who would otherwise

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want to engage with culture,
the reason that they're not

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is because of social experiences
and the lack thereof.

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And for me this
is the most poignant reason.

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They don't want to go
to these things alone.

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Even in situations where
money is a difficulty,

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that's something that can be overcome.

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But the social part
of not being with anybody

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is not something people want to overcome.

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So I'm not going to do that yet.

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Okay so the National Endowment
for the Arts

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also had another study that came out,

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so this is really paradoxical.

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They actually said that people
are engaging with culture just

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as much as they did before.

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And I know you're probably
sitting there thinking

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"Dana you just told me
that people aren't going

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to art museums, so what's up?"

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And what's up is technology.

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People are interfacing with technology.

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They are downloading podcasts.

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They are watching videos of concerts.

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They are pulling up Google Art.

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They are looking at exhibitions online.

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And they are engaging
with culture in a way

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that makes the most sense
to them in terms of time,

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in terms of space, in terms of safety,
and in terms of cost.

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Now, I think that the problem with this

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is that it doesn't give people
the kind of experience

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that you can get if you go
to a rich, social, interesting place.

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There is no replacement
for actually going to a space

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and being with other people
and having a relationship with them

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and the discussions that can happen.

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Art museums occupy
a rich space in our culture

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and there's a reason for that.

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You can go there and you can see things

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that you've never seen before.

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You can learn about times
and places and other people

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that are otherwise unimaginable.

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Museums inspire us.

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They help us to think
and they help us to consider our place

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in the world, in a world

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that I would argue right
now needs a lot of that.

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However, you have to go.

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You have to be there
in order to experience this.

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The NEA study that I initially
told you about actually said

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that the main reason people go
to museums is because they want

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to spend time with friends
and family and they want

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to learn something new
but you can't do it unless you go.

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Right now you can look up
anything you want online.

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There is no shortage
of the information that you can find

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on artists and paintings
and sculptures and exhibitions.

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But you can't experience it
unless you are there physically

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in person.

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I want to make sure that everybody knows

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that I'm not a luddite.

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I am just as addicted to my iPhone
as everybody else in this room -

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and I know some of you in this room, 
so you know what I'm talking about.

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And I really think
that there are some amazing things

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that museums are doing
with technology right now in terms

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of educational engagement.

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It's working.

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However, I want you to go back
to your original thought

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about being in a museum that I asked you

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to conjure earlier today.

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I am willing to bet
that that thought does not include

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interfacing with a screen.

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Right now, art museums
are doing a million different things

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to bring you in, whether it's K-12 tours

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or university experiences,

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whether it's musical performances
or poetry readings.

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Sometimes we have little kids
coming in with Pre-K groups

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and reading groups and visits.

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And all of these require you.

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Your thoughts, your ideas,
your understandings of the world,

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your friends and your family
all belong in an art museum.

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And if a six year old girl
from Kansas can be so inspired to go

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into this grand museum
and the things that I see can inspire me

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to want to work in an art museum
for the rest of my life,

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just think about the experiences

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that you can have in an art museum.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)