“Art as Therapy”

“Art as Therapy” was never going to be a critical darling. The book-cum-exhibition, which has intervened in three leading museum collections (the newly refurbished Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the AGO) this year, was positioned as a crowd pleaser, one that went so far as to flout its host institutions, in fact, to achieve that very end.

However, the extent to which the show has raised the ire of its critics—from The Guardian to Canadian Art, The New York Times, and the Financial Times, among others—was outsized. Writers issued deeply emotional responses over a book and a series of exhibitions that—were they as asinine as these critics claimed them to be—should have been easy to dismiss. What is it that has been laid bare here, and what nerve has been touched?

The British Pop philosopher Alain de Botton’s Art as Therapy, co-written with art historian John Armstrong, assumes the position of museum renegade and calls for display-culture reform. The authors trip through various collections with a dismissive wave to the art-historical didacticism of tradition, and instead frame the works (whether Monets, Judds or our very own Lawren Harris) with cheerful Post-it notes, suggesting we make art work for us, and work less hard for it.

The thesis follows on a decade of popular books that assume similar attitudes. De Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Architecture of Happiness and Religion for Atheists have adopted tones of soothing pedagogy, with the author approaching complex histories, narratives and institutional dogma from side doors and through soft screens. He encourages us to use them differently. De Botton has even incorporated this “philosophico-therapy” (as one critic terms it) into a chain of schools, where one can learn “how to spend time alone,” “how to relate better to your family” and “what is real?” This is called the School of Life.

Despite his tremendous popularity, critics have been unkind to de Botton. Terry Eagleton tore into Religion for Atheists, incensed at the author’s condescension and his “tediously neat and civilized” thesis. He’s been mocked for his simplicity, one that can appear both daffy and patronizing. He’s been cast as an uninformed populist who stems from the old guard, a runaway from the patriarchy who headed straight for the airport bookstore.

But none of his previous critics came roaring from the gates quite like they did when Art as Therapy first hit the shelves, and later, walls. David Balzer, writing for Canadian Art, called him names (“supercilious,” “obnoxious,” “appearing hateful”) and then—before launching into a well considered think piece on the value of trauma and discomfort in art-viewing—summarized de Botton’s ‘treatment’ with a resounding denouncement: “After reading the book and seeing the show, I now know that the art world hates ‘Art as Therapy’ because it’s just plain awful.”

Then another: vacillating between tones of disregard and disgust, The New York Times’s Parul Sehgal writes, “‘Art as Therapy’ is handsome and depressing. It lays bare the flaws in de Botton’s method, chiefly that he does regard his readers like ants. How dispiriting it is to be told that we cannot appreciate mystery, to see complexity cleared away like an errant cobweb. True, perverse, playful reductiveness has always been de Botton’s shtick—he’s just never done it so badly.”

What had de Botton done, exactly, and why did it make us so angry? From where I stand, the fault lay not in the provocation but the product. De Botton had asked a good question, “What is art for?” but his mistake was in answering it badly, “Therapy.”

Adrian Searle examined this conflict, though with some strained impatience and revulsion. Writing for The Guardian about de Botton’s curatorial intervention on the “crammed-to-the-gills tourist attraction” that is the newly renovated Rijksmuseum, Searle undercut the exhibition’s central conceit, writing, “de Botton is trying to mend what he sees as a disconnection between art and life, between past and present. This is an unexceptional ambition. Artists and designers do it all the time. Why do we need de Botton?” He goes on to enumerate “banality and bathos” as the author/curator’s chief stock-in-trade, and calls his effort “anodyne,” “shallow” and “obvious.” As for de Botton, he’s a “huckster” and “evangelizing.”

For his part, de Botton understands the backlash. Despite admitting in an interview that the slander does affect him, he quoted his wife, observing that “‘It’s obvious, this is a fight.’ This is a turf war and the battle is about what culture should mean to us.”

Of all the negative criticism de Botton received, Sam Knight’s piece (appearing in the Financial Times) produced a surprising, and in many ways generous, response. The author, walking through the Rijksmuseum with a coterie of press but in earshot of the common viewer, noted a variety of reactions: the Floridian insurance manager who peered skeptically at de Botton’s summary of a Dutch interior, “fragility, guilt, a split personality, self-disgust,” and simply quipped, “he didn’t talk to the painter, did he?”; and a woman named Kathy, who called the Post-it notes “brilliant” and sketched de Botton’s name down in her notebook after mistaking Knight for a guide.

The critic does an interesting about-turn, here. Following his first impressions, which are generous, he sits down with de Botton and asks him why he’s so irritating, even going so far as to quote de Botton to de Botton, and then cap that quote with his own, “Yuck. Ghastly.” De Botton does not react kindly, of course, but Knight doesn’t shy from publishing the humiliating exchange (for both parties) and allowing it to become the reviewer’s foil. It was a moment to check his prejudices, his smug dismissal, and regard the intention that underscores an effort.

Storied critic Dave Hickey (always one for a lashing) recently wrote, “Contemporary art, having lost its utopian future, now seems to be losing its usable past.” As I’ve observed my colleagues react to de Botton’s provocation with unchecked furor, it seems that Hickey’s observation stirs at the centre of this wake. Art critics are so many art historians, after all, pushing the work of our contemporaries to the courts of history, and holding it up for measure. De Botton has threatened this history, scoffed at its contextualizing directives and assumed moral truths. In antagonizing the perceived esotericism of art, he’s published what we can no longer feign to deny. We should be troubled by the issue of audience and accessibility in our museums, by waning attendance and the pandering programming that it begets. We should be bothered that 120 years ago the Parisian salons saw better attendance—from both rural and urban audiences—in a single week than our leading museums see inside a year. It should be a question asked often and sharply, “What is art for?” (and “Who is art for?”) and the answers should be many. ❚

“Art as Therapy” is on exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, from May 3, 2014 to April 26, 2015.

Sky Goodden is the founding editor of a new online art publication titled MOMUS, which promotes international art writing and journalism and stresses a return to art criticism. She was the executive editor of BLOUIN ARTINFO Canada from 2011–2014.