Spent the day at DIA:Beacon, a lovely contemporary art museum about an hour north of the city. There were a number of comfortable couches scattered about, tucked back against walls where you didn't have to worry about getting in the way. It got me thinking about the recent Times piece about how museumgoers rarely spend more than a minute looking at any one piece, and Shelley Bernstein's observation that most people stay glued to educational videos about an art piece before them, rather than looking at the piece itself.
As I sat back on the comfortable couches and casually read through the informational sheets about each artist's creative direction, I had to wonder what would happen if we installed comfy couches everywhere. We live in a very sedentary world, sitting in front of computers all day and sitting in traffic listening to the radio before getting home to sit in front of a TV. Our culture has come to associate engaged viewing with engaged sitting. Maybe the reason no one stops very long to look at art is simple: Goshdarnit, there's nowhere to sit but that hard bench in the middle of the room.
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