Die Rahmen­grösse der Arbeit plasti­city I entspricht mit einem Meter Kanten­länge der Basis­grösse der Länge im Inter­na­tio­na­len Einheits­sy­stem. In der Mitte des Rahmens verformt eine Beule die Fläche und springt dem Betrach­ter entge­gen. Im Abstand von 17–27,2 Sekun­den blitzt rando­mi­siert die Projek­tion eines Würfels auf und nimmt Bezug auf die ermit­telte Betrach­tungs­dauer von Kunst, beschrie­ben in der Publi­ka­tion Spen­ding Time on Art ^[1] von Jeffrey und Lisa Smith.

[1] Spen­ding Time on Art

Abstract

Conven­tio­nal wisdom among museum profes­sio­nals is that art museum visi­tors do not spend much time view­ing works of art. The purpose of this study was to empi­ri­cally inve­sti­gate that question as well as to look at the rela­ti­on­ship that age, gender, and group size have on view­ing times. Visi­tors to The Metro­po­li­tan Museum of Art were obser­ved as they looked at six master­pie­ces in the Muse­um’s coll­ec­tion. A total of 150 indi­vi­du­als looking at six pain­tings compri­sed the sample for the study. The obser­va­tions were of natu­rally occur­ring stops at the works of art. The gender, group size, esti­ma­ted age, and time spent at the work of art were recor­ded for each encoun­ter. The mean time spent view­ing a work of art was found to be 27.2 seconds, with a median time of 17.0 seconds. View­ing time was not rela­ted to gender or age, but was stron­gly rela­ted to group size, with larger groups spen­ding more time. There were also signi­fi­cant diffe­ren­ces among pain­tings. Results are discus­sed in terms of how diffe­rent types of looking patterns may be rela­ted to the amount of time spent in front of works of art.

Jeffrey K. Smith, Lisa F. Smith
First Published July 1, 2001