An art museum in the interest of publicness: a discussion of educational strategies at Tate Exchange

Abstract

Influenced by needs to legitimise large collections and the position as public institutions, art museums today are searching to develop rigorous public strategies in order to increase numbers of visitors and public impact. Education is part of those strategies, and the need to discuss art education in relation to publicness and criticality arises. Through a discussion of the educational strategies at Tate Modern’s programme Tate Exchange, the difference between public strategies and educational turns will be put forward, indicating an art museum ‘in the interest of publicness’. The art museum ‘in the interest of publicness’ takes Gert Biesta’s pedagogical perspectives as point of departure, where the need to acknowledge the subject-situated character of learning is balanced with the need to create a pedagogical framework based on art discourse. In this article, the relation between educational and spatial strategies is tied to the possibility for developing new and more involved publics. Further, the educational turn is described as a renewed awareness in contemporary art and curating towards a broader and more inclusive art communication, where art itself might contribute to develop educational programmes for museums from the perspective of social and artistic research, rather than income and political legitimation.

Keywords:

• Art education
• critical museology
• the educational turn
• public pedagogy
• art-based learning

Notes

1. Tate Exchange programme manager Jane Wells, Tate Learning director Anna Cutler and Tate head of learning practice and research Emily Pringle were interviewed through semi-structured qualitative interview method (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015).