The pieces found here under the heading of the art tourist are written by and for people who look at contemporary art. The entries are experiences that viewers got from looking at an exhibition or other display of stuff in the art context today, thus the use of the words contemporary (of our time) and art.

If you look at contemporary art, you know you might be seeing video, stuff laying around, drawing, painting, crafts, photos, and more stuff arranged around you somehow, and you might be asked to do something with this stuff or smell or just hear. You probably have heard the current period, or Post Modernism, described as “anything goes.”

If you look at contemporary art, you are probably like any of the art tourists who wrote here about their experiences with art who you left a museum or gallery thinking precious time was wasted again, or you were confused and wanted someone to just give it up and explain it, or you talked for the next few minutes, hours and days about stuff you saw.

Attempting to understand other humans' experiences and thoughts joins us as a species and make each one person more than just the stuff inside a fleshy shell. Art is a conductor, a facilitator, an aether where we can experience some of this joining. The art tourists' texts attempt to crank up some energy about looking at art, and to reflect on how well art enterprises do the job of communicating to a regular viewer.

By regular viewer I'm thinking of someone who openly chooses to look, but who hasn't seen the lifelong movie of an artist or listened to a black box inside the head of the curator. If art is made to communicate, then a regular viewer should be able to see an exhibition or a piece of art and get something from it. If it needs explanation, if we must know the title, if we need 3-D glasses, then somehow that art enterprise should reveal that, just as they reveal when and where.

The Art Tourist is not an investigative reporter who finds out why someone made the art, or how difficult the show was to transport or acquire, or assemble, or how much it means to the curator or cost an institution, or if anything is selling – unless that’s part of the art and is presented to the ordinary viewer.  The Art Tourist reviews what you and I can get from seeing the show. Hopefully, these pieces will add something of their own to our human experience, and you will talk about it for a minute, or hours later.

If you look at contemporary art, we invite you to write an Art Tourist's review of what you've seen. Please contact terry@unsafeart.com for more information.