And now… this is art because…

I was with my friend IK in the distillery district going around taking photos on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Lots of people were there and many of the galleries were open as well. We stopped in to many of the galleries to see what they have. In one gallery, there was a woman there with two girls both around 10-12 years of age. This woman was telling the girls to look at this photograph and continued to tell them why she thinks it is interesting. Moving to the next photograph, she again, told the girls what she thought of them. In my head, I was thinking, why on Earth are you bringing children to look at art, if you don’t let them form opinions of their own? Yes, it’s one thing to offer suggestions on how to interpret art and model responses, but it’s going a bit far if there isn’t even an opportunity to make any comments. There is no point in allowing people to look at art if they can’t provide their own understandings of it. STOP telling people what YOU think, start asking other people. OY!