still, it's really bugging me that you dismissed the US sense that art isn't for the working class so facilely. i simply do not understand how you could type what you did.
why do you think, chuck, that museums were designed the way they were --with lions and gargoyles and what not "protecting" the contents? do you realize the ideological reasons for such architectural design. surely someone as well read as you are knows the history of the museum and other cultural storehouses --they were created to protect culture from the unwashed masses.
as for today. well sweetie, i worked on a community research project and one of my colleagues--a humanities student--studied the ways museums educated. you do realize that curators are [have been purposefully trained often enough] to believe that any decent museum worth it's salt does as little as possible to make the place hospitable to the masses. in those circles it's considered declasse to create an exhibit that explains much about the work in question. art is not "for the people" and there are many ways in which that message is purposefully promulgated. it is not accident that people don't go to museums or understand art and associate it with the elite. it was and is meant to be that way7
this is very real chuck and, when we presented the research in a big gala for the community, there was a lively debate over just this issue.