Several windows were broken and five original artworks sustained “significant, possibly irreparable damage,” when a riot broke out after a constituents’ meeting at the Golga Gallery, the art museum of Wye Sprite University. The Dimvers police also report that two people were taken to the university hospital for treatment—one a 68-year-old professor emeritus who sustained a fractured hand while allegedly punching a hole in an abstract expressionist canvas; the other a 42-year-old homemaker and philanthropist who threw out her back while attempting to push over a sculpture that turned out to be welded to the floor.
The fracas ironically grew out of an effort to placate disgruntled museum patrons and donors. According to several witness accounts, passions rose and eventually boiled over as the museum’s executive director, Herman Liftskid, tried to explain why he had agreed to participate in a study that many patrons felt made them look like fools. Anger had been rising for several weeks, since the study, which looked at ideas of originality and value among art viewers, was reported in the local media and on a number of art blogs. The open meeting followed apologies from Mr. Liftskid in the form of a letter to the Dimvers Inquirer and a video posted to the gallery’s YouTube channel failed to appease incensed museumgoers.
The controversial study was run by Professor Arturo Callado, from the university’s psychology department, and Professor Mary Gingham, from the art history department. With the cooperation of Mr. Liftskid, over the course of a year, Callado and Gingham replaced selected paintings in the museum with hand-painted replicas, and then used cameras above the paintings to observe how patrons discussed and interacted with the art. The Golga Gallery is particularly known for its “Three Little Treasures,” paintings by Rembrandt, Manet, and Van Gogh that draw visitors from all over the world and are cherished by the museum’s local supporters and friends. The fact that these three works were included in the study became the flashpoint when the news became public.
In the first phase of the study, the researchers rotated the real paintings with replicas unbeknownst to visitors. They noted no significant differences between the comments made about originals and replicas. “People offered the same banalities of appreciation, almost verbatim, especially males accompanying young females,” the researchers reported.
After observing the high frequency with which people photographed themselves and their companions in front of the Three Little Treasures, the researchers created another test. They put replicas in the place of the real paintings. Then they hung the real paintings in a nearby hallway. They then posted a sign beside the replicas, which appeared to be real, that said, “In the interest of allowing all visitors to view the paintings, please take any photos near the replicas found in the hallway.” Guards were instructed to direct people to the apparent replicas if they had a camera but not to punish those who disregarded the suggestion.
Over the course of two full months, the researchers found that 87,000 people took photos in front of the replicas they thought were real, while only twenty-eight people took photos in front of the real paintings, which were labeled replicas.
In their paper, Callado and Gingham interpret their findings as showing that people have a longing for genuine and inimitable experience, as opposed to the inundation of the virtual, the copyable, the mass-produced, that is so prevalent today. But at the same time, people do not know the genuine when they see it. They rely on the dictation of others, especially an authority like a museum, in order to know when they are having a genuine experience. The researchers’ conclusion: “When we look closely at the findings of this 12-month, rigorous experiment, we must conclude that authority plays a dominant role in defining individuals’ experience, even in a sphere often thought to be one of intimate exchange by those of a romantic temper. The clear implication is that originality and genuineness are actually socially mediated experiences, while direct experience is entirely an illusion created by institutional context. More attention in the museum studies field needs to be directed to this question of how authority determines experience.”
Callado and Gingham wouldn’t speak to The Stoneslide Corrective, but a colleague of theirs from the Wye Sprite psychology department commented on condition we not give his name because he said he frequently attends cocktail parties with many of the rioters. “This is very, very original work. And like all paradigm-shifting acts of thought, it is perceived as subversive and threatening and thus provokes a violent response. That is the way of these things. But in a world of reality TV, superabundance of cultural production, countermovements such as the slow food movement, and the opinion-on-demand availability of the blogosphere and Twitter, how can you say we don’t need this work?”
Callado and Gingham published their findings online as a working paper in February 2012. Within a week the research was summarized in the humanities blog of the Higher Ed Tribune and from there it was picked up on numerous blogs and on Twitter. A conservative commentator on Foxnews.com labeled it proof that “liberal elites don’t know their elbows from their watercolors.” Local News Eyewitness on Your Side Power Channel Four picked up the story on March 12, and that is how it became widely known in the Dimvers community and ultimately became fuel for civic disorder.
A sense of the community response can be found in the comments section of the Power Channel Four website. One commenter reflected the opinions of many when he wrote, “I’d call it a breach of contract, not research: we went to the museum, in many cases we donated significant funds, under the promise that we were seeing genuine artwork, and they pulled a fast one on us.” The Three Treasures came up frequently. “I cried when I read this. I’ve been to see the Treasures at least a half-dozen times since they had those dumb photo stations up. So all that time they were laughing at me? I feel like they killed a relative or a dear friend.”
Soon, museum friends started a petition to remove executive director Liftskid. Residents protested outside the museum, carrying signs with images of the Three Treasures and the caption “Ain’t nothing like the real thing!” Major donors to the museum stopped giving and in at least two cases demanded moneys back, saying the museum had betrayed their trust. Callado and Gingham were reportedly asked to study abroad until the furor died down.
In the midst of this tumult, Liftskid called an open meeting to explain the museum’s actions and address concerns. Though the meeting was closed to the press, this account is based on numerous eyewitness reports.
About seventy-five museum patrons gathered in the Grand Foyer, just as the sun set, spraying a fountain of rose and orange outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, like a reflection of a neon Jackson Pollock. The room was set up as if for a cocktail party, with several standing tables, wine, and hors d’oeuvres. But the people in the room were tense and quiet, the hors d’oevres and wine untouched.
Liftskid emerged from the administrative office suite. He seemed to consider trying to mingle, but instead sensed the tone of the room and went to the head of the room. He took a microphone that had been prepared for him and called, “Hello,” a few times. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit and wore French cuffs and polished shoes. “Hello,” he said again, though the room was already quiet, genuinely eager to hear what he had to say.
Liftskid thanked people for coming, and then said, “I know there have been questions about what happened here at the Golga, the reasons, the intentions. I am looking forward to answering those questions; I think you will see that the museum has been consistently acting in your interests.” He explained how he’d been approached by the researchers and developed the methodology along with them. He insisted that recordings be kept anonymous, he said, smiling as if he expected everyone to be on his side because of this. “Being part of a great university, what we do is advance knowledge, of course.”
“What you did was lie!” someone called out.
“In the interest of a higher good,” Liftskid replied. “Sometimes truth is complicated.”
“Do you think we’re fools? I own my own business, you know,” said another heckler.
“You could think of it that you’re lucky to be part of this very helpful experiment—”
“Are we lab mice?” a woman shrieked. “Is that why you serve us this supermarket brie?”
And that was the moment when disputatious words turned to disorderly acts. An unidentified man wearing a cardigan ran to the Cassat displayed on the south wall, calling, “Why should we believe anything you say. These are all fakes!” He tried to tear the frame off the wall, but instead ended up hanging from it and dangling there a moment. But his audacious attack rallied the other enraged museumgoers. A heavy-set woman in a beaded dress rushed Liftskid with her purse raised over her head. Liftskid for the first time in his life ran away from the offer of a cash donation.
Simultaneously, several other patrons attacked the art all around them. Police are still investigating what exactly happened and expect to bring charges soon. The Stoneslide Corrective can confirm the two hospitalizations and the five damaged artworks. According to reports, a phalanx of patrons was attempting to break through the locked door to the permanent collection when the police, who had been stationed outside to keep press away, saw what was happening through the windows and charged in with pepper spray and bullhorn.
