No more longwinded labels for Tate Britain’s permanent collection! The museum’s wall texts have previously been criticized and when the new show — “A Walk Through British Art” — opens today, all the works will be left “unexplained.” Not only will the museum stop swaying visitors into interpreting the works in one subjective way or another, they will also do away with any hierarchy in laying-out the show — they’ll be ordered in chronological order.
While it’s great that the museum has leveled the playing field for “the famous and the forgotten,” but whether the absence of deliberate, educational decisions in the design of the exhibit will be missed, has yet to be seen. Probably. Too much “context” was clearly much. But is none… too little? Is the museum being passive aggressive with its public?
(Image: WikiPedia Commons)
