Just Let Gen Z Make Reels in Art Museums

A week ago at the Van Gogh 360° immersive art exhibition in Gurgaon, India, I watched a girl around the same age as me – in her early twenties – carefully prop her lavender iPhone against her lavender water bottle, tap on the front camera, turn on the timer, and quickly run to sit a few feet away as her phone snapped a bunch of pictures of her. In the background, images of Van Gogh’s many self-portraits swirled across the room. She returned to the spot, checked the pictures, propped her phone at a slightly different angle, and repeated the process. And then, once more. I had had enough by this point of time, and asked if she wanted me to take her photos instead. “Thank you SO much,” she said. “Take them in live mode, so I can make a reel later, please.”

Ever since Van Gogh 360° kicked off in January this year in Mumbai and then made its way across other Indian cities, my Twitter and Instagram feeds have been inundated with two kinds of posts: people posting photos and videos of themselves at the art exhibition, and people mocking those who posted photos and videos of themselves at the art exhibition. The singular point of criticism of those making fun of others is that art is meant to be engaged with in a more meaningful way other than capturing it as merely a backdrop or for social media cred which, according to them, is what most are going to the show for. 

This is a debate that can be traced at least as far back as the halcyon days of the Renaissance, if not long before – what is the purpose and “meaning” of art, and who gets to define and access it? Much of what is recognised as “good” in the art world is due to the patronage and attention the work received from the rich and the famous. Art has traditionally been the preserve of patrons who had the means to sponsor the work of artists of their choosing, and over time, it became a highly gatekept field further complicated by barriers of race, gender, geography, and even caste. The result has often been a narrow definition of what is considered “high art,” with certain artists and movements being deemed worthy of attention and recognition, and others being denied, denigrated, or dismissed. 

This, of course, happens across fields of art. An example is the “high art” classification of classical music over pop music or rap, wherein the ability to understand and appreciate Tchaikovsky is pedestalised over the ability to understand and appreciate Taylor Swift or Lil Nas X. The latter are deprecatingly labelled “commercial,” “too popular,” “too massy,” bringing us to one of the most common, most insidious notions of gatekeeping around art: anything that is made for, accessible to, and enjoyed by a large number of people is automatically not “high art.” High art needs to stay niche, enjoyed correctly only by a select few, its “meaning” inaccessible to everyone else.

I was first introduced to the music of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky when I was only five, through the (brilliant, in my opinion) film Barbie of Swan Lake (2003) that I loved dancing along to at the time. Not only did it introduce me to a widely well-regarded composer and captivate me enough to want to build a wide knowledge of ballet, it also taught me never to judge the way someone experiences art, because the most unexpected of doorways can lead us to the most magical creations. 

This is why the debate over Gen Z not “experiencing” immersive exhibitions of great artists “meaningfully” fascinates me. Because who decides what the meaningful, correct experience is? Very often it is people of privilege, people who have had the time and money to read up on art, art theory, and artists, people for whom the gates have always been left open. People for whom dancing to Barbie of Swan Lake would be the “incorrect” way to experience Tchaikovsky, people for whom taking photos at art shows and galleries is the “incorrect” way to experience artists including Van Gogh.

What we tend to forget is that long before we were intellectual connoisseurs, holding forth on the historical context that led to Impressionism, debating the merits of Manet and Monet without getting confused between the two, and discussing Caillebotte’s and Gauguin’s work without needing to look up the pronunciation of their names, we were people who came across a painting (or images of a painting) and most likely found it beautiful to look at.

Art educator Anika Goenka, who took her five-year-old son to Van Gogh 360° in Mumbai, pointed out that it is very tough to make “high art” seem accessible across audiences, and such shows serve as a good first step towards getting people, who might otherwise not think of visiting an art gallery or a museum, excited. “My son was SO inspired that we came home and practised Van Gogh’s strokes with our art supplies… Many people at the exhibition were listening to me break down Van Gogh’s art for my son, so they were clearly interested!” she said.

Deeper exploration of the history, theory, and technique of any subject can come only after one has first dipped in its shallow waters. If the true goal is for Gen Z to experience a “meaningful engagement” with art, then the first step towards that is to motivate them in ways that appeal to them. This can mean including opportunities to click nice pictures. And once you have them in your clutches, what stops you from giving them a healthy dose of an informative, meaningful experience?

The Van Gogh 360° setup in India, for example, while definitely expensive and hence not accessible to all, has an entire gallery preceding the main immersive exhibit, explaining the life, history, background, mental health, and technique of Van Gogh. Many may skip it in favour of the main show, but a fair number choose to stay and read about the artist before moving into the more social media-friendly zone. 

Chirag Thakkar, commissioning editor with Penguin Random House, highlighted: “It’s surreal that such an exhibit managed to get folks with smartphones in Delhi and Mumbai to engage with a Dutch painter who died 133 years ago. Even if some of them came for the ‘gram’.” The core curatorial intent is laudable, he added, “because it helps new audiences across cultural generations to fall in love with the giants of the art world that are [otherwise] limited to the big museums in the west.”

The rise of immersive exhibits is, at least in part, a response to the rise of smartphones and Instagram, and the fact that apart from cheaper tickets, a greater variety of events, and hands-on activities, Gen Z is keen on interactive and technological aspects being included in their art experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic only served to quicken this innovation, as art museums and galleries struggled to find ways to stay relevant, coming up with virtual tours and Twitter shitposts. Now, immersive shows are being set up across the world, including those of the works of Frida Kahlo, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Salvador Dalí, and yes, Van Gogh – in fact, his are so popular that they even have a separate Wikipedia page to themselves.

The point of such public art shows is to create accessible avenues for the public to engage with art, to make it more mainstream, to allow new audiences to experience art in their own way, which can, for some, involve social media and photography. Aseem Chhabra, festival director of the New York Indian Film Festival, explained, “It’s rare when one goes to an art show where we are allowed to take photographs. [Shows like these] are meant for people to capture images and share the immersive experience.”

In such a scenario, the only ones to blame for “loss of culture,” if any, are the curators. If they choose NOT to include information about the artist, their technique, their history, if they choose to simply become an Instagram backdrop, that's on them. But if they embrace the vehicle of smartphones and pop culture, they have the power to create all kinds of “meaningful engagement.” The Louvre Museum, in Paris, for example, announced a thorough “Jay-Z and Beyonce” tour after the release of the Apeshit music video that was shot in front of the paintings there. This is curation done right – to acknowledge that new forms of art may be more relevant to Gen Z, and to then leverage that interest to further educate people.

And while it is legitimate to want people to appreciate art the same way as you do, there is nothing inherently wrong with using a public cultural exhibition for a different purpose than what it was “intended” for. There are logical arguments for traditional museums disallowing photography, such as the reduction in our memories and attention span, flash photography damaging the art, and the chance of insensitivity and offensiveness, but taking photos in a cultural space needn’t be interpreted as “meaningless,” either.

And this isn’t a stupid new Gen Z problem. People have always, irrefutably, gone to places of historical or cultural importance to simply do their own thing. At any Delhi monument, you're just as likely to see a family or a group of friends having a picnic on the grounds or a couple having their pre-wedding photoshoot as you are to bump into a history enthusiast. Most Indian households have one family photo in front of the Taj Mahal and, more likely than not, another in that hilarious optical-illusion-ish pose in which it seems as if the monument is being lifted up by two fingers. And yet these ways of engagement are not denigrated as “shallow,” as ignorant of the historical and cultural importance of these architectural wonders. We reserve our mockery for Gen Z blogging about their art experiences. While placing the blame on young people experiencing art their way is disingenuous, it also reflects the superiority complex and holier-than-thou attitude of others including “intellectuals,” while ignoring the greater opportunity to appeal to the new generation that curators of art and culture now have open to them.

I went to Van Gogh 360° because I love Van Gogh. I love his story, I love his technique, I love his work. The Starry Night is my favourite painting; I can accurately recall it even in my sleep. I also love discussing his work “intellectually” with friends who have a keen interest in art. But I also went to Van Gogh 360° because I love watching people experience art in their way, and I love to see what I can do to be part of that experience. 

And that is why last week, I sank to my knees in the middle of the exhibition, lavender iPhone in hand, positioned myself in the best angle to take photos (in live mode, of course) of that girl. I waited for the portraits to fade out, the screens to go black, and then for the yellows and blues of The Starry Night to slowly begin to take shape. 

“I love this shade of blue,” the girl said. I smiled at her. This was it. The moment. And so I began. “This is actually my favourite Van Gogh painting! Do you know of this really famous print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by the Japanese artist Hokusai? See, I have a badge of it on my bag here.” She nodded yes. “So,” I said, “There’s this art history theory that Van Gogh really loved it, too. He loved the composition, he loved the shade of blue. Art historians theorise that he was probably inspired by it when he made his own most famous work, which is why his night sky and Hokusai's wave curves in the exact same way!”

She looked at my badge, and then back at the painting, iPhone momentarily forgotten. Then she grabbed her phone back and quickly typed “Starry Night Great Wave” into the Notes app. “I’ll go home and Google this,” she said. “I want to put this in the caption of my reel.”

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