A Tombstone for Wall Text

Tombstones at LACMA's David Geffen Galleries and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Can two data points make a trend? The David Geffen Galleries at LACMA and now the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art have adopted so-called tombstone labels for artworks. That's the kind that gives the bare basics but nothing about the work's backstory or meaning. Early reviews of the Lucas by Matt Stromberg in Hyperallergic and Maximilíano Durón in ARTnews have faulted the absence of interpretative labels. 

Interpretative labels at the Broad and the Autry

Traditionally it was contemporary art museums that favored tombstone labels. But not always: The Broad uses informational labels in its Yoko Ono show. Conceptual art usually depends on the viewer understanding the concept.

Museums showing older art, such as the Huntington or the Getty, make extensive use of informational labels. That's why the Geffen's tombstone labels have generated controversy.

It's been reported that LACMA curators have differing opinions on text panels, and the Geffen installation design is still being fine-tuned. The Geffen does announce each of its thematic installations with concise and accessible descriptions. I wish there were similar descriptions for individual works.

 

But at the Lucas… well, were you really expecting deep dives into the meaning of Motherhood, Sports, or Adventure? You just get the name of the theme, in mirrored bilingual lowercase.

Lucas senior curator Ryan Linkof, who appears to be George Lucas' second-in-command, told Hyperallergic: "The primary experience of walking through the museum is an unmediated one. We’re not necessarily telling people what to think, or how to experience it."

That's the talking point of the moment, that the museum does not structure the visitor's experience. Visitors wander rather than taking a prescribed path. They aren't told what to think.

Great, but curators are the people who decide what works visitors see. That's part of the job description. Shouldn't they tell us why they believe these works matter? 

The median museum visitor spends 15 seconds on a work of art, of which approximately zero seconds are spent reading the label. If you don't like wordy labels, they're easy to ignore.

The Geffen does without directional signs, but the Lucas has them. The Lucas signage highlights a few featured artists and refers to them by their last names. So you've got Benton, Wyeth, Rockwell, and Frazetta. Even if you're well informed about American art and illustration, as most visitors aren't, it may not be obvious that they mean Thomas Hart Benton, N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, and Frank Fazetta. There are other famous Wyeths, and "Rockwell" reminds me of Rockwell Kent, who's in the Lucas collection too, as it turns out. I suspect there are not a few American art history Ph.D.'s who can't place the name Frazetta (and whose heads would explode if they saw his stuff). 

Screenshots from the Bloomberg Connects app for the David Geffen Galleries, LACMA

Both LACMA and the Lucas are emphasizing digital alternatives to analog text panels. The Geffen has a guide on the Bloomberg Connect app, and the Lucas has its own browser-based guide, accessible by scanning a QR code on the hand-out gallery map. Once you're in the Lucas web app, you can snap a photo of an artwork to call up a description. That's more intuitive than photographing a pixel code, and it worked without a hitch the few times I tried it. But the online guides do not cover every work on display, and the write-ups are often rudimentary and English only. 

The real problem with digital labels is that you don't know what you don't know. Sure, if you see a work that flat-out gobsmacks you, you can pull out your phone and research it. Most of the time, you're not that motivated. Yet it's the nature of art to have layers of meaning that aren't apparent at first glance. The wall label is the most seamless way of conveying what you don't know enough to ask about.

Screenshots for the Lucas Museum's browser guide