On this field trip, I had planned to interview people who were posing with the artworks and behaving in an exaggerated manner, but instead of seeing disrespectful photographers, I saw mostly Westerners who were carefully looking at the exhibition and reading the information cards next to the works. They looked so serious that I didn’t bother them. However, I noticed that most of the people who enjoyed taking photos with the works were Asian, a phenomenon that is obviously more common in Asia countries. As Western countries have been educated in art and culture earlier, art has been integrated into their lives and has become a normal thing. On the contrary, Asians tend to think of art as a rare and precious thing, and therefore want to take photographs to document and have a record of it. Although I did not see anyone taking photos with the artworks in this exhibition, I did see people taking photos of the artworks with their mobile phones to record them, and most of these people were Asian.
Moreover, I find that the act is not so absolute. Some people may seem to be taking pictures of the artwork, but they may go home and review each work and its information. So the question is, How do we know if someone respects art or not? For example, it’s common (especially in Asia) to see people who post photos of an exhibition on social media saying they love it, but end up spelling the artist’s name wrong, or happily smiling and taking photos with the exhibits in a serious exhibition theme, or using the museum as a photo booth for their own outfit photos, etc. We can see that the reason they go to an exhibition is not only to learn about the artworks. However, taking photographs is only one of the manifestations of disrespect for art, copying and destroying artworks can also be regarded as disrespectful behaviour. The root of the problem is not whether to take pictures or not, but whether to respect art from the bottom of one’s heart. Yet, taking pictures does not mean that one does not respect art. People can take pictures in many different ways, and there are many invisible parts. It all depends on the real attitude of the person, which is not standardized, varies from person to person and can change from time to time.