The role of cognitive competence in the art museum experience

The gap between the potential for works of art in museums to offer unique experiences, and the actual outcomes of visitor encounters, highlights the importance of the cultural competence of museum visitors. However, when applied to museum visiting, cultural competence should be primarily treated as perceptual and cognitive—one needs to exercise the perceptual activities that works of art require in order for a museum visit to register as some form of satisfying experience. The main part of the paper is devoted to discussion of some aspects of the perceptual basis of cultural competence required for perception of works of art—the problem of attention, the misplaced dichotomy of ‘museum viewing’ versus ‘everyday perception’, and the problem of defining the current cognitive style. It is argued that one of the greatest challenges to the museological profession is the problem of how to engage the complex issues of perception, vision and subjective experience more properly in the museological discourse, so that they can be reflected in theories of presentation and interpretation.