Robert Adams, whose earnest photographs and eloquent writings underscore the necessity of art in people’s lives, has written: “It is the responsibility of artists to pay attention to the world, pleasant or otherwise, and to help us live respectfully in it.” One could easily substitute the word “museums” for “artists” and make a similar claim. Many of us still believe art matters in a moral sense. The act of engaging with works that spark curiosity, wonder, outrage, disgust, adoration, pride or shame can be transformative. Though museums struggle to find successful ways to enlarge and engage audiences, the necessity for that experience remains a vital one.

Admittedly, I am biased. For the past 12 years, I have worked as a curator of photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. I have always loved museums, but for different reasons at different times in my life. I grew up going to Storm King Art Center in New York, playing hide-and-seek amongst the Nevelson and the Noguichi sculptures with my sister, having no idea who the artists were or what the art meant. My fifth-grade teacher took my friend and me to New York City to see a very crowded Picasso retrospective at MoMA. I was riveted and repulsed by the works I saw, but also certainly changed. Seeing Seurat’s drawings at the Musée d’Orsay in art school inspired a sobering attempt at conté crayon. The Mona Lisa disappoints in person, as it does for many people. When I made my way past the Instagramming hoards while visiting the Louvre last summer, however, I studied the glorious details of Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks without interruption, which nobody seemed to notice. Kara Walker’s works never fail to stop me in my tracks, wherever I have encountered them. Her room-sized tableaux of Victorian-style silhouettes immerse viewers in raw encounters with the violent history of racism, and its insidious manifestation in visual culture. She makes it impossible to walk away unaffected.  

There are many people, of course, who have no interest in visiting art museums. Some feel out of place or uncomfortable in these spaces. Others feel excluded from a cultural conversation, believing that museum visits require specialized knowledge they do not possess, or that the institution’s collections reflect cultural values with which they disagree.

Those invested in the idea of museums as valued resources and social gathering places recognize that the terms of engagement must change if our beloved institutions are to remain relevant and vibrant. The data speaks for itself: according to the findings of a 2015 survey conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, visits to art museums and galleries by adults between 2002-2012 dropped by approximately 20%.

What does this mean for us in a larger sense? Since I began at the Nelson-Atkins in 2007, I have been helping it engage with questions such as: How has technology changed the way we interact with objects? Are museums keeping pace with contemporary cultural concerns, or are they stuck in the past? If the collections housed in museums were amassed though colonialist or imperialist agendas, whose narratives are omitted, suppressed, or misrepresented?

When it comes to institutional change, museums operate at a glacial pace compared to the tempo of our technologically-fueled culture. There are strategies to accelerate, in an effort to stay flexible and responsive to contemporary concerns, but transformations do not happen overnight. 

There are several issues to address. Philanthropic models, for one, have shifted as older generations pass on. Baby boomers have more than two-thirds of disposable income in the United States, but subsequent generations have far less. For younger philanthropists, giving to long-term capital campaigns may be of less interest than giving to exhibitions or other one-time, focused endeavors.  Arts organizations also compete with other worthy non-profit causes, such as education, international aid efforts, and the environment. Millennials in particular prioritize these areas when donating funds. The vicissitudes of the art market, particularly in the field of contemporary art, make it virtually impossible for museums to afford new works. Schools and universities starve the humanities to serve a STEM-driven agenda, which diminishes educational exposure to art and deemphasizes its significance. The demographic for curatorial and executive staff in museums remains overwhelmingly white, as was made crystal clear by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s landmark 2015 Museum Staff Demographic Survey. This lack of diversity can impact acquisitions, exhibitions, and the interpretation of art. The roots of museums, which date back to the European curiosity cabinets of kings and aristocrats, still largely rely on well-heeled benefactors and board members to stay afloat. Wealthy donors are not always eager to embrace new ways of thinking, particularly if they perceive museums as sanctified, standard-setting spaces rather than reflective or responsive to the communities they serve.

I remain hopeful. On a recent walk through the Nelson-Atkins’ contemporary galleries with my 17-year-old daughter, we stopped at one of her favorite works: Memento #5, 2003 by Kerry James Marshall, part of his elegiac cycle about the 1960s Civil Rights era. She stopped in front of it for several minutes, looking closely at the way Marshall handled glitter and paint in his depiction of a black angel, peering through a translucent curtain. It is not clear whether the angel reopens the curtain, or pulls it closed. Marshall includes the painted words, “What a Time, What a Time. Remember.” This painting is part of my daughter’s childhood thanks to the Nelson-Atkins, which has always been a part of her life.

Art can help us, as Robert Adams argues. But not all by itself, and not necessarily in the ways it has helped us before. The rest is up to us.

This article first appeared in Issue 13: The Museum Issue. Purchase here.

April M. Watson is the curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She has organized numerous exhibitions, contributing research and writing to several museum publications and artist monographs.