Expert and adolescent interpretive approaches in a national art museum

Abstract

In this article we empirically investigate the ways in which curators' expert knowledge and intentions in a national art museum's exhibition of works by Edvard Munch are made relevant in young people's interpretative activity. In which ways do adolescent visitors notice and comprehend the curator's meaningful arrangement of paintings? What are the respective interpretative strategies and disciplinary knowledge that visitors and experts draw on when relating works to one another? Using mixed methods, we explore and contrast the respective interpretative approaches using two theoretical perspectives on learning in art, specifically, information-processing and sociocultural traditions. We propose that a better understanding of such tensions may contribute to bridging semantic gaps between experts and non-specialists, and is particularly relevant in view of the democratising potential of social media currently explored in museums' communication designs.