Art and Public History: Approaches, Opportunity, and Challeges ed. by Rebecca Bush, K. Tawny Paul

If I had to pinpoint the one word that is on the lips of all public historians at conferences, meet-ups, and in nearly every conversation it is audience. How do we expand our audience, serve a more inclusive audience, better accommodate the audiences within our communities, and reach new audiences? In fact you could say the field of public history has become audience obsessed. To answer these questions, and achieve the goal of reaching new audiences, we must adapt and utilize new delivery methods, ones that incorporate and embrace interdisciplinary techniques. Art and Public History features nine chapters that illustrate how utilizing art in our public history work can engage new audiences and perhaps even challenge our existing audiences in meaningful ways.

The book begins with a chapter about the formation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the art gallery that is housed there. Tuliza Fleming, its curator, writes about the decision to title the gallery Visual Art and the American Experience and not use the signifier “African American art” anywhere in the gallery. This approach was adopted in order to challenge the way museums typically label art created by American artists of African descent, a practice that others these artists and their work. Fleming and her colleagues wanted the art to be part of the overall experience of the museum and to connect it to the objects and events referenced throughout the museum. Fleming encourages curators to use fine art as a way to create thematic stories about American history and to create a meaningful experience for visitors.

The second and third chapters seem most useful for public historians that work with student groups. Jennifer Black discusses incorporating images in the classroom and challenging students to look at caricatures that demonstrate stereotypes that were prevalent in the art of the nineteenth century. Black asks her students to think about how the visual culture of that period shaped prejudices and misconceptions that persist today. Similarly, the Chicago History Museum developed a program that has students study a depiction of the Great Chicago Fire and then through various arts-related activities—writing, drawing, and acting—they explain what is happening in the painting. Students, consequently, have learned about the Chicago fire, but in a way that helped them shape their own understanding of this historic event.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are particularly instructive to public historians working at museums and historic sites. The case studies demonstrate the challenges of developing exhibitions that incorporate art and that strive to reach new audiences and/or build community partnerships. These chapters also candidly discuss the criticism received from more traditional audiences as a result. Rebecca Bush writes about the challenges of her work at the Columbus Museum and of approaching history through visual representations. She discusses the We Tattooed Your Father exhibition, which explored the history and practice of tattooing, especially in non-Western cultures, juxtaposing this with a contemporary art project about tattoos. Bush spent a great deal of time observing the way people interacted with the gallery and noted the new audiences that artists and community members brought to the museum, as well as the critiques the exhibition received from longtime patrons who disapproved of the exhibition because they thought it glorified tattoos. Another case study presented in this chapter focuses on how the National Portrait Gallery in Scotland challenged visitors’ preconceived notions of who would be included in a national museum through the Migration Stories series, an exhibition for which the museum commissioned photographs of Scotland’s Pakistani community. This led some visitors to feel angry that these works of art were included, the exact opposite of the desired outcome, which was to build empathy for the Pakistani communities in Scotland. This chapter raises more questions than it answers but provoked thought.

Chapter 6 explores sharing authority with outside community groups and merging art and history in a way that is meaningful, nontraditional, and most importantly, truly collaborative. Art museums seem to have an easier time with collaboration and shared authority, and this case study could be very helpful to history museums seeking to deepen their relationships with community groups.

The last chapters of the book discuss working in new ways through the medium of art in public spaces and built environments. The chapter that is most successful and that will be most relevant to public historians is chapter 8,”Savannah’s Hidden Histories.” This chapter discusses the collaboration between the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and the Georgia Historical Society. For this project SCAD students enrolled in a course entitled Recording Local Histories, which examined Savannah’s historic markers, tourist offerings such as walking and trolley tours, and public art. Students were asked to consider what people and stories were missing from the narratives the city of Savannah is telling its visitors and residents through these objects and experiences.

As a nation we are grappling with monuments and memorials, and this chapter seemed particularly relevant. How can we as public historians help shape public discourse on this topic and bring communities together? I think adopting this approach of having people explore their city and challenge what stories are being told through public statues and memorials is a good model that could be adapted, perhaps with public historians leading the explorative process.

As public historians continue to obsess over the audiences we currently have and all the audiences we wish we had, we will need to cast a wider net and explore new modes of delivery, ones that may look different than the traditional ones we are used to. A great deal can be gained by incorporating art into our work and exploring other interdisciplinary methods such as music, theatre, and dance to tell stories of the past. Perhaps the biggest gain would be that by broadening our approach we will expand our audience, something we all want to do.