"Argumentative exhibitions bring issues to life in a way that very much irritates traditional curators who want to see their pictures valued for themselves"
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“Argumentative exhibitions” is Miller’s sly endorsement of the museum show as a live debate, not a shrine. The phrase has a faintly theatrical snap: an exhibition that argues is staged, paced, and pointed, designed to make viewers feel the friction between ideas rather than glide past masterpieces on autopilot. “Bring issues to life” reads like a defense of curating as interpretation - the kind that insists art is never “just itself,” but knotted into politics, class, empire, faith, taste, money.
The real barb lands in “very much irritates traditional curators.” Miller isn’t gently describing a professional disagreement; he’s spotlighting an institutional temperament. Traditional curators, in this telling, protect the aura of the object. They prefer reverence: the painting as self-sufficient, timeless, insulated from the mess of argument. Miller hears that stance as a kind of status maintenance. If a picture is “valued for itself,” then the museum can pretend it’s a neutral container, not a producer of meaning.
Coming from an entertainer, the line also carries a practical showman’s instinct: audiences don’t only want connoisseurship; they want stakes. Argument gives you stakes. It turns the gallery into a public square, and it threatens the gatekeepers precisely because it relocates authority from the label and the canon to the viewer’s grappling mind. In Miller’s world, irritation is a symptom of relevance.
The real barb lands in “very much irritates traditional curators.” Miller isn’t gently describing a professional disagreement; he’s spotlighting an institutional temperament. Traditional curators, in this telling, protect the aura of the object. They prefer reverence: the painting as self-sufficient, timeless, insulated from the mess of argument. Miller hears that stance as a kind of status maintenance. If a picture is “valued for itself,” then the museum can pretend it’s a neutral container, not a producer of meaning.
Coming from an entertainer, the line also carries a practical showman’s instinct: audiences don’t only want connoisseurship; they want stakes. Argument gives you stakes. It turns the gallery into a public square, and it threatens the gatekeepers precisely because it relocates authority from the label and the canon to the viewer’s grappling mind. In Miller’s world, irritation is a symptom of relevance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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