The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Living with Contemporary Art was inspired by comments from visitors to several museums of modern and contemporary art. By and large intelligent and inquisitive people, they are looking for the very things most artists want to give them: insight, beauty, mystery, metaphor, formal, poetry. Yet today there is an often impassible chasm between artist and viewer, which museums rarely bridge. Most museum professionals forget how deeply involved they are with an esoteric language, how intimidating or effete their buildings and publications can look to outsiders, how refined their arguments are. This exhibit instead respects the basic questions visitors ask.