Art Museum Visitors Research Articles

Art museum visitors: how do they perform class distinction?

ABSTRACT Previous studies predominantly used sociodemographic factors to categorize art museum visitors, overlooking an in-depth exploration of the motivations guiding their museum experiences and relying heavily on aggregated data. Building upon Bourdieu’s (1984, Distinction: A Social Critique to the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press) theory of cultural consumption and Peterson’s (2005a. “Problems in comparative research: The example of omnivorousness.” Poetics 33:257–282. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2005.10.002; 2005b. “Changing Arts Audiences: Capitalizing on Omnivorousness.” https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/peterson1005.pdf) omnivore/univore theory, this study aims to investigate the distinct segments of art museum visitors, considering their experience expectations and cultural preferences. Specifically, utilizing two-step cluster analysis, we explore the experiences sought by art museum visitors, considering their cultural preferences. Analyzing 411 questionnaires from visitors to Lyon’s premier fine arts museum, two distinct visitor groups emerge. Thus, the findings suggest that conventionally labeled ‘museum-goers’ represent diverse visitor types, emphasizing the holistic importance of considering a combination of factors. The results affirm Peterson's theory adding to the literature that these groups exhibit distinct cultural and culinary preferences, aligning with Bourdieu's social distinction theory. The study offers both theoretical and practical implications.

Movement in museums: Using movement as embodied learning

This article considers the ways that movement can be used as an affective experience for art museum visitors. In so doing, the correlation between art experience and cultural history is explored through the relationship between movement and language. This exploration can be utilized to cultivate important conversations regarding the role of the unwelcome body in the institutionalized museum space that has been difficult to recognize and articulate utilizing traditional Western histories, contexts, and methods of understanding and discussion. Here, the experience of moving with an art object, rather than around or in front of, increases the connection, or relation, between the user and the object despite unfamiliarity with museum spaces or art objects. Rather than asking the participant to interpret the art object verbally in a way that is understandable to others, this article argues that using movement allows the participants to interpret what they are thinking and feeling in a way that is specific to their minds, bodies and cultural contexts. Experimental movement might interrupt the inhibiting quality of many museum experiences by making space for visitors’ thoughts, feelings and experiences above all else.

The well-being benefits of virtual art galleries: Examining the roles of emotion, immersion, and individual differences

A wealth of research suggests that engaging with visual art and visiting art museums is beneficial to flourishing; however, less is known about the potential benefits of digital forms of engagement. An emerging literature provides preliminary evidence of the benefits of digital art engagement, but additional research on mechanisms and potential moderators of the benefits is necessary. The present study examines the impacts of repeated visitation to a virtual art gallery to address three questions: 1) Do well-being, emotion, and immersion differ between those in a digital art gallery versus those reading about art?; 2) Do personality and interest in art influence virtual art gallery visit qualities (i.e., emotion and immersion)?; and 3) Do visit qualities and individual differences predict well-being? A sample of 890 U.S. adults was recruited from Prolific. The findings suggest that: 1) People in a virtual gallery show greater well-being, immersion, and aesthetic emotion than those reading about art; 2) Openness to experience is most strongly linked with visit qualities; and 3) Immersion, positive and aesthetic emotion, extraversion, and neuroticism are associated with well-being. This work suggests that repeated engagement with art in a digital format has benefits and that future research should continue to examine the underlying mechanisms and ways digital art experiences can be best designed to be effective well-being interventions.

Touched by beauty: a qualitative inquiry into phenomenology of beauty

Philosophy of aesthetics and beauty has traditionally prioritized the sense of vision while deprioritizing the more basic-bodily and thus less “noble” sense of touch. This paper examines bodily aspects of how beauty appears in the experience of visual art and motivates the view that touch is fundamental to such experiences. We appeal to Merleau-Ponty to show the relevance given to touch in his phenomenology of aesthetics, to unfold the meaning of touch as “reversible,” and to understand how vision can be conceptualized as a form of touch. Further, we present four cases of feeling touched by beauty in experiences of visual art collected through interviews with art museum visitors. The descriptions of these experiences show that when people open themselves to an artwork they also open themselves to themselves. Based on the qualitative descriptions, we discuss how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of touch is revelatory of the meaning of feeling “touched” in experiences of beauty.

О книге Саймона Хейхо (Simon Hayhoe) «Опыт слепых посетителей художественных музеев»

<p style="text-align: justify;">The review introduces the book “The Experience of Blind Visitors to Art Museums” by Simon Hayhoe, a famous philosopher and professor at the University of Bath (UK), and presents the experience of blind visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as the experience of blind artists such as Esref Armagan and others. The author tries to answer the following questions: why do blind people want to visit art museums if they cannot see the works of fine art and cannot even touch them? How do people whose vision is impaired or absent understand the fine arts if this comprehension is possible primarily through visual perception? What are the consequences of vision loss for a sense of self-identity in a cultural space? Simon Hayhoe believes that blind and visually impaired people enter the world of fine art due to the existence of another, non-sensory dimension. And the portal which connects the materiality of works of art with the world of non-verbal awareness is outside of perceptual knowledge. This “bridge” between conscious and nonverbal knowledge is described as a transition that is provided by the museum environment and by the knowledge of the pieces of art and the whole cultural context. The very atmosphere of museums, galleries, and cultural heritage sites promotes contact between the spiritual world of visitors and works of art.</p>

Exploring omnivores and univores in art museums

This research note makes an original contribution to tourism research by reporting qualitative findings on the experiences and motivations of various art museum visitors using the omnivore-univore and push-pull frameworks. The study sample includes current visitors to two main art museums in Genoa, Italy. 400 face-to-face interviews are conducted to gather data on the definition of museums. The grounded theory approach is used to explore the experiences and motivations of art museum visitors by referring to their definitions. For this purpose, 347 useable definitions are reviewed to identify push and pull motivations by using NVivo 11. Findings suggest that Cultural Omnivores are more likely than Art Museum Univores to describe a museum using push factors involving various intrinsic experiences. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Development of Feature Extraction System for WADA Kunibo's works Focusing on Color

This study proposes a system to extract the characteristics of the works of Kunibo Wada, an artist from Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, using image analysis technology. It is difficult for young designers to learn the style of Kunibo’s works of art simply by visiting art museums and viewing his works. Therefore, we have developed a system that helps young designers to understand the style of Kunibo’s works more easily than they have been able to do in the past. The system analyzes Kunibo’s style using artificial intelligence and helps young designers to understand his style by classifying works with similar styles. In particular, we developed an algorithm to extract features related to accent colors and "Kasumi" a technique for emphasizing objects. The results of evaluation experiments showed that both the precision rate and recall rate were sufficient for young designers to understand the style, which was the objective of the project. We expect that young designers will be inspired by the style of existing works of art to transmit culture from a new perspective, and to redesign and develop their works across fields.

Examining the Flourishing Impacts of Repeated Visits to a Virtual Art Museum and the Role of Immersion.

Visiting art museums has been associated with a range of flourishing outcomes. However, there have been recent shifts towards increasing digital engagement with art, leading to a radical change in how people experience visual art. Given the now expansive virtual art viewing options, it is important to understand whether digital engagement can also lead to greater flourishing, and, if so, under what conditions. We examined the flourishing effects of viewing art in a virtual gallery in a pre-registered experiment comprising four sessions over four weeks, with varying viewing instructions designed to increase immersion. Participants were recruited from a USA representative sample on Prolific, resulting in a final sample of 687 participants. People were randomly assigned to one of nine experimental conditions. Eight art viewing conditions involved four 15 min virtual gallery visits with viewing instructions varying on two factors: slow-looking and immersive mindset framing. An active control condition involved reading about (but not viewing) art. Participants completed a battery of baseline flourishing measures in week 1, completed experimental art engagement sessions during weeks 1-4, and completed the battery again in week 5. While immersion levels were greater in the viewing conditions than the reading condition, growth in flourishing did not differ across condition. Exploratory analyses, however, showed that immersion during the gallery visits did predict some changes in specific facets of flourishing (e.g., engagement, meaning, autonomy satisfaction). We suggest a number of possible explanations for these null results and point to what is needed in future research.

Picture-Perfect – The Perception and Applicability of Facsimiles in Museums

Abstract Various types of digital and physical three-dimensional facsimile technologies (e.g., high-definition digital modelling and 3D printing) have entered the art world and have become increasingly important for research and presentation purposes. Yet, studies that go beyond the technical aspects of (3D) facsimile techniques, such as their significance for the conservation/restoration field and museum display, are scarce, especially in the case of easel paintings. Furthermore, studies that analyse the perception of these methods and, consequently, their impact on the authenticity of the original painting, do not exist to our knowledge. The aim of this research is twofold: firstly, it evaluates a viewer’s perception of various facsimiles; secondly, on the basis of this analysis, it aims to gain a better understanding and provide an overview of the applicability of (3D) facsimiles of artworks for presentation purposes and potential users (technical art historians, conservators, curators, material scientists and museum visitors). This research was executed by combining a literature review with quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data acquired through a) a questionnaire of 17 closed and open-ended questions and (b) an on-site session at the Mauritshuis museum (The Hague, The Netherlands). Based on analysis of the data collected through these activities, this paper attempts to provide an indication of the current attitude towards (3D) facsimile methods as well as to present some criteria of using these methods in a museum environment.

Flourishing Aims of Art Museums: A Survey of Art Museum Professionals

People visit art museums for many reasons—to see something beautiful or famous, to learn more about art, or to experience a sense of awe. Recently, there has been increased interest in how art museum engagement can promote flourishing. Little is known, however, about how the professionals shaping these art museum experiences (e.g., curators, educators, front of house staff) view art museums as institutions that can promote flourishing outcomes. In the present research, we examined the perceptions of 208 art museum professionals regarding the functions of art museums and their ability to impact both well-being (e.g., empathy, self-acceptance) and ill-being (e.g., anxiety, loneliness) factors. The findings suggest that art museum professionals feel that the well-being of visitors should be emphasized as a goal more strongly than it currently is, and that there are some well-being and ill-being components (e.g., empathy, helping, closed-mindedness) that should receive greater attention than others.

Art museums as institutions for human flourishing

ABSTRACT Visiting art museums is a common activity that a wide variety of people choose to engage in for many reasons. Increasingly, communities, nations, and societies are turning to art museums as institutions to enhance flourishing (i.e., reducing ill-being factors, such as depression, and increasing well-being factors, such as feelings of belonging). In this paper, we review the psychological literature examining art museum visitation and museum program participation and their associations with flourishing-related outcomes. The literature suggests art museum visitation is associated with reductions in ill-being outcomes and increases in well-being outcomes. Additionally, programs targeting flourishing outcomes in clinical or at-risk populations (e.g. people living with dementia, older adults) show benefits to participants, with visits to art museums being socially prescribed across the globe to address a variety of ill-being conditions. Implications for existing knowledge and avenues for future research are discussed.

Why Do People Visit Art Museums? Examining Visitor Motivations and Visit Outcomes

People visit museums with differing motivations. We use Falk’s visitor identity model to examine visitors’ motivations to visit an art museum. We assess (1) the prevalence of different motivation types; (2) how visit motivations and outcomes relate to visit satisfaction and length; and (3) the relation between visit motivations and fulfillment of expectations. We found that (1) visitors most strongly endorsed motivations and visit outcomes related to exploration and least strongly to facilitating another’s visit; (2) visit outcomes predicted visit satisfaction and length more strongly than did visit motivations; and (3) visit outcomes largely met or exceeded the visitors’ pre-visit expectations. The present findings suggest that outcomes of the visit matter more than motivations for visiting. We suggest that examining the entirety of a visit—pre-visit motivation and post-visit outcomes—may provide new insights about art museum visits that may be obscured when focusing on just one of these aspects.

“The Bloody Hell and Holy Cow Moment:” Feeling Awe in the Art Museum

AbstractResearch shows that awe has various positive benefits for people. Research also suggests that viewing art can elicit awe. Therefore, art museums seem well positioned to foster awe, yet there is almost no evidence that art museum visitors experience awe during their visit. This study assessed whether and how people experience awe during an art museum visit, to establish an empirical foundation. A total of 132 adults were interviewed at two different art museums in London, UK. Study results point to three key findings: (1) art museum visitors say that they feel awe, and it may be correlated with several other positive emotions; (2) art museum visitors say that they experience some dimensions of awe more strongly than others; and (3) art museum visitors mostly felt that it was aspects of the art work that elicited their feelings of awe in the art museum. Results have implications for art museum practitioners developing interpretive strategies for connecting people with works of art, and for researchers investigating the nature of museum experiences.

Social Media, Selfie Culture and Art Museums: Shifting Behavior in Art Museum Visitors

Smartphone users have a new habit of taking selfies then posting to Instagram or Facebook which will then be liked and commented on by their friends. This selfie culture influences the visitors of fine arts exhibitions and museums driving the urge to take a selfie in front of the work on display. Taking a selfie in front of a work of art seems to show the self-expression and self-identity of the performer. Selfie photos have similarities with self-portrait paintings by famous painters from the Reneisance era to the present. Selfie culture has influenced the behavior of millennials in appreciating works of art. Some applications that support selfie culture have been developed and gives smartphone users the opportunity to use it to create new interpretations of images. This article discusses the shift in exhibit behavior at the fine arts museum which is shown through photos uploaded on social media.
 Keywords: social media, selfies, art museum

Spreadsheets or Michelangelo: Going Back to School

A financially struggling administrative assistant needs information to help her decide whether she can return to school. Excerpt UVA-F-1874 Aug. 21, 2019 Spreadsheets or Michelangelo: Going Back to School Introduction Martha had trouble sleeping that night because she kept thinking about how much she was struggling with managing her finances. She enjoyed her job as an administrative assistant and worked for a firm that she really loved, but after four years she was making only $ 30,000 a year. She thought about how she wanted to do better financially for herself and for her son, Andre, who was eight years old. She loved to read about art, to visit art museums, and to draw and paint. She knew she wanted to work in the arts and somehow include her interest in business management. However, Martha also realized that her work options in the area of art history were very limited, and she didn't think she could make a good living in that field without further education. She wondered if she could possibly study both art history and business management at the same time. She knew that she needed to seek advice about her options. . . .

Exploring Encouragement, Treatment, and Spillover Effects Using Principal Stratification, With Application to a Field Experiment on Teens’ Museum Attendance

This article revisits results from a field experiment, conducted in Florence, Italy, to study the effects of incentives provided to high school teens to motivate them to visit art museums. In the experiment, different classes of students were randomized to three types of encouragement and were offered a free visit to a main museum in the city. Using the principal stratification framework, the article explores causal pathways that may lead students to increase future visits, as induced by the encouragement received, or by the individual experience of the proposed free museum visit, or by the spillover of classmates’ experience. We do so by estimating and interpreting the causal effects of the three forms of encouragement within the principal strata defined by compliance behaviors. Bayesian inferential methods are used to derive the posterior distributions of weakly identified causal parameters.

작품 앞에 멈추어 선 사람들의 이야기 : 미술관 관람자의 체험을 중심으로

작품 앞에 멈추어 선 사람들의 이야기 : 미술관 관람자의 체험을 중심으로

The role of ambiances and aesthetics on millennials’ museum visiting behavior

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for millennials’ museum visiting behaviour and to explore the moderating effects of aesthetics and ambience for visiting art museums. This study uses the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) model (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) in order to confirm the relationship among variables.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected using online surveys from millennial art museum visitors who had visited a museum within three months. In all, 287 responses were collected. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the model.FindingsKorean millennial visitors pursue hedonic value rather than utilitarian value when they visit art museums. It turns out that hedonic value accelerates visitor satisfaction and promotes visitor loyalty more than utilitarian value in the art museum setting. Both ambiance and aesthetics play stimulating roles in the art museum context and moderate the relationships among visitor-perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty. Utilitarian values are identified as unimportant elements for young Korean museumgoers.Practical implicationsAmbiance and aesthetic factors play important roles in promoting art museum visits. An art museum may elevate its atmospheric factors by emphasising the visit’s fun value (i.e. hedonic value) for millennials.Originality/valueThis study expands on previous studies concerning conceptualization of multidimensional constructs of millennials’ value for experience of arts museums in terms of aesthetics and ambiance. The results also confirm the value of the S–O–R framework in an art museum context.

Can Sensory Gallery Guides for Children with Sensory Processing Challenges Improve Their Museum Experience?

ABSTRACTChildren routinely visit art museums as part of their educational experience and family time, many of them having special needs. The number of children diagnosed with autism and sensory processing disorders is increasing. These conditions may include heightened sensory avoiding or seeking behaviors that can interfere with a child’s ability to benefit from museum visits. Environmental modifications and sensory-based treatments are commonly used to support children with sensory processing disorders, but museum environments or programs cannot always lend themselves to being altered to provide optimal results. This research explored whether museum gallery guides for sensory avoiders and seekers could be utilized with children with sensory sensitivities to help them prepare for and participate in museum experiences. Results showed combining both sensory avoiding and seeking gallery guides into one sensory friendly gallery guide can have a positive impact on a child’s museum experience. To achieve success, sensory gallery guides must be developmentally appropriate, provide structure for a gallery visit, facilitate active thinking, looking, and discussion, and showcase interesting gallery spaces providing a variety of sensory-rich objects.

Beyond the Gates: Examining the Issues Facing Early Childhood Teachers when they Visit Art Museums and Galleries with Young Children in New Zealand

EXCURSIONS TO CULTURAL CENTRES, such as art museums and galleries, can add new and valuable learning opportunities for young children. This paper presents the findings from a large scale national questionnaire that asked early childhood (EC) teachers in New Zealand about their engagement with art museums and galleries for learning experiences, outside of their EC centres. As part of a mixed methods research project, the questionnaire also sought to ascertain the degree to which the EC sector uses art museums and galleries as excursion destinations, and the ways in which they are used (or not). The findings suggest that key factors that both help and hinder visiting art museums and galleries with young children include: the pedagogical approaches EC teachers have in relation to visual art education, the ways in which teachers view successful learning opportunities for young children, and a teacher's own perceptions and fears of art museums and galleries. This study suggests that teachers have mixed views about whether visiting art museums and galleries will provide appropriate experiences for young children.