Making art events engaging

By Patrick Muller

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Some friends ask what my favorite Iowa wineries are. I preface my answer with the fact I'm easily seduced by labels and names. Firefly. Front Porch. Behind the Shed. Barn Dance. Storyteller.

But we know not to judge wine by its label, a book by its cover, an emperor by his new clothes. And yet if we focus on the presentation - the cover rather than the content - of academic and cultural events, we can increase the value of these offerings, broadening the audience, deepening the audience, and extending the impact of our programming. As cultural centers invariably have fundraising and membership concerns and as academic arts and humanities divisions are increasingly seen as expendable in a STEMed-out world, more attention needs to be paid to the audiences attracted and to the impact the programming actually has on them. We can actually judge an event by its “cover.”

At a newly refurbished Eastern Iowa museum, I recently witnessed four visitors spend a total of three minutes in the gallery host to a visual arts exhibition. One visitor rushed up to a painting, declaring it his favorite, but then spent only five seconds admiring it. Five seconds?

My ambition that day was not to measure this group's visit; best as I can tell, however, the group spent less than 25 minutes in the building. Might as well have just skipped the visit entirely, saving the admission fee, opting for cotton candy and kolaches.

As an artist, I think seriously about audience engagement. It's part of the creation. What is a painting hanging on a wall with no substantive patron interaction beyond her gawking behind the velvet rope?

My pop-up exhibitions strive for subcutaneous participation. An art museum event of mine engaged 100 percent of the audience for two solid hours. A cultural center event attracted an audience composed of 75 percent visitors new to the enterprise. And my favorite: a historical museum event attracted an audience where 92 percent of the visitors had not been to the museum in the last year.

One of my inspirations is Thomas Ryan, president of the Lancaster County (Pa.) Historical Society and President Buchanan's Wheatland estate. Under his directorship, Wheatland has evolved from a musty 19th century yawn, visited once a generation, to something visited multiple times during an exhibition.

We ought to get together, share our optimal practices and experience Wheatland-like outcomes.

Patrick Muller of Hills serves on the advisory committee of Public Space One in Iowa City and advocates for the conceptualization of “community and neighborhood celebrant,” an advocate for neighborhoods. A longer version of this article is at http://smgs.us/3iu1. Comments: patrickomuller@gmail.com