Art museums have started using the term “didactics” for labels, text panels and other interpretive media in the past couple of years — and now I see it creeping into more widespread use. I don’t like it, and I hope I can explain why.
Here’s the definition in the trusty Microsoft online dictionary:
didactic |dɪˈdaktɪk, dʌɪ-|
adjective
- intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive: a didactic novel that set out to expose social injustice.
- in the manner of a teacher, particularly so as to appear patronizing: his tone ranged from didactic to backslapping. [my italics]
Note the pejorative tone in the word: used as an adjective, it contains touches of moralism, condescension, even disdain – but it’s also a snobbish, dismissive word. These meanings are very clear when you think about its opposites: open, frank, plain, sincere. Didactic” when applied to an education context, suggests that the teaching is condescending or moralistic.
With these sniffy overtones, why would art museum people use the noun form, “didactics” (always in the plural) to describe the interpretative media they present? Maybe they think it sounds elevated and “arty”.
But to my ear, it has a disdainful colour, which echoes the frequent aversion of art museum people to interpretation in art exhibitions.
This is particularly problematic because of the romantic idea – still widespread – that engaging with Art is (or should be) direct (unmediated), affective (emotional), instinctive (“natural”). In such thinking, unless visitors come to the art museum with a knowledge of art history and styles, they should not be given further information or context with which to understand the works on show. Knowledge is presumed to interfere with feeling.
In this world view interpretation is often regarded as the imposition of prescribed ideas, thus denying individuals’ responses to art. It is presented as a single truth, compulsorily forced on the unwilling visitor. This might possibly be true in a school program for reluctantly bused-in adolescents — but it’s a stupid view of interpretation available to visitors who choose to read it.
When we use the world ‘didactics’ we play into the prejudice that we are imposing some orthodox view of art rather than offering an opportunity to visitors to engage as they wish with the work. “Didactics” is a word that expresses disdain for the knowledge that “didactic” labels might contain.
It dismisses one of the oldest, most profound reasons for gathering material culture into museums. It misrepresents the agency of visitors to select what they look at and how they understand what they experience.
If you love museums and the idea that they are about knowledge, don’t use this word!
