Polizzotti's Art of Communicating

I think I can safely assume that most of us have read through a museum catalogue only to be discouraged after the first couple of pages by esoteric and idiosyncratic “art talk”. In what seems like an admission that breaks the unspoken understanding between theorists, critics and art intellectuals, Mark Polizzotti, the director of publications and intellectual property at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, admits that we are not crazy and that museum catalogues have had a history of being inaccessible to ordinary art appreciators. Polizzotti comments on the nature of esoteric museum catalogues:

The scholarly content had been geared not only to win the approbation of the author’s peers but also to edify, enlighten, and even—dare I say it?—entertain the non-specialist. Such considerations might sound patently vulgar to some. But our warehouse was stacked with old titles, some of them having sat there for decades after returning unwanted from specialty bookstores—assuming they’d even gotten that far. What good were they doing gathering dust, while incurring storage charges for the privilege? And (at the risk of sounding churlish toward my predecessors) why had they been made to appear so awfully dry and forbidding?

In order to break away from this pattern, which leads to refused book deals and stunted sales, the general audience’s view of art appreciation and amateur scholarly pursuit must be remedied. Polizzotti suggests moving away from the focus on the “the finer points being made” to instead

imparting some measure of the excitement that led the author to study a given artist or period in the first place, rather than engage in one-upmanship with a handful of colleagues; in short, to recognize that the accessibility of a critical text is just as crucial as its acumen.

Essentially, Polizzotti proposes to intertwine intellectual significance and rigor with popular appeal. The MFA, he comments, has dealt with this problem by publishing books rather than catalogues. Unlike catalogues, which Polizzotti sees as a stand-in for an exhibition and too focused on particularities, books offer a holistic story that incorporates all aspects of a movement or a style, expanding on theories and multidimensional understanding of an exhibition or a piece. “[A book] can discuss art as not just a gathering of objects, but as a tale of the people and historical forces that created, inspired, or otherwise shaped them,” he says.
In the end, it is all about the art of communication. Polizzotti ends his article by asking, “For what use is scholarly excellence if few people ever benefit from it?”

Polizzotti’s ideal of course, is a perfect marriage of intellectual rigor and general accessibility, but he seems more concerned with public opinion than specialized and abstruse material. Catalogues, have an important place in the art world. They can draw attention to lesser-known artists about whom not enough might be known to fill a book. As catalogues tend to be image-focused and can include many different essays featuring a variety of scholars, the focus is less reader-friendly and in some ways leaves less room for narrative. Books tend to have a story and a thesis, which may not always be advantageous for a variety of voices. Ultimately we must keep in mind that while art books and art catalogues differ, both media serve important but different purposes.