Ethics, Art, and Museums

Abstract

principle of respect for autonomy is often difficult to apply, but it is a useful guide in conjunction with detailed supplementary ethical ideas.13 One such supplementary idea is the notion that the central relationship in an art museum is between artists and public. We might compare this view to Michael Walzer's view about schools as expressed in Spheres of Justice, that the teacher-student relationship should be central in schools and that there should be some social acknowledgment of schools as a sphere for the distribution of goods which operates according to its own distributive procedures and is in important ways not controlled from outside. Something similar is alleged here about art museums.14 The allegation is both vague and controversial. From our point of view, the main function of an art museum is the obtaining, occasional relinquishment, preservation, and appropriate presentation of works of valuable visual art to an appropriate public. Whenever other purposes (e.g., corporate or governmental designs or the career ambitions of museum professionals) bulk large in explaining what an art museum is doing, there is reason to doubt the justifiability of the venture. The claim supported here implies that art museums are not appropriate places for the didactic general interpretation of a culture to the public, except insofar as the art speaks for itself and about that culture. The research function of large museums is secondary. (Some artists, e.g., Christian Boltanski and Joan Fontcuberta, satirize the didactic tendencies of museums by including patently fraudulent informative material with their work.) Nor, obviously, are art museums properly institutions that should pursue ambitious programs of expansion, or selling off of artworks in their collections, where these programs are motivated primarily by economic considerations. A more difficult issue is the role of art museums in the education of prospective artists. This seems innocent enough. Yet even if sometimes defensible, there are reasons for worrying about the practices of museum-related art schools. Take as an example an aesthetically marvelous recent Art Institute of Chicago exhibition of work by Ed Paschke, a Chicago artist who is a graduate of the museum's school.15 Paschke's work is wonderful, and yet there are questions about this sort of exhibition because of possible conflicts of interest between the aesthetic obligations of the museum and its concern to advertise its own art school, bid up the value of This content downloaded from 157.55.39.162 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:44:43 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms