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| According to Harper’s Index visitors to art museums spend 6/10ths of a second viewing each piece of art. If this statistic is applied to all works in a collection the actual time to view the entire holdings of some of the world’s most esteemed museums would be compressed into just a few minutes.Despite the value that history or economy subscribes to a work of art, the viewer has ultimate authority to determine the power of the work by how long he/she chooses to view it. The time a viewer invests in observing a particular piece of art is not correlative to the historic or cultural importance placed upon it. For this reason the importance of the institution of the art museum is secondary to the power of the viewer. If an individual chooses not to engage with artwork, the artwork is rendered mute- the institutional space of the museum becomes irrelevant. home
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