Art Historian John-Paul Stonard Criticizes Audio and Video Intrusions in Museum Exhibitions

Key facts

• John-Paul Stonard is an author and art historian.
• Stonard co-curated the 2014 Tate Britain exhibition Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation.
• Wartime recordings by Myra Hess, Elena Gerhardt, Kathleen Ferrier, and Benjamin Britten were the only part of that exhibition to receive written complaints.
• The Burlington Magazine reviewer criticized the recordings as 'that scratchy music'.
• The exhibition James McNeill Whistler runs until 27 September.
• A re-created Peacock Room at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC, plays a loud argument between Whistler and Frederick Leyland every five minutes on a loop.
• Visitors and guards have complained about the audio intrusion near Whistler's Nocturnes.
• Stonard will speak about his book The Worst Exhibition in the World: Degenerate Art, 1937 at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on 14 October.