….Curators ground individual works of art within a collection and aim to make the artwork more accessible to broader audiences. Their choices about which pieces to include and how to display them affords the viewer a template for looking at, and engaging with, the artwork, providing context with which to view, consider, question, and form opinions about what they see.

Objects in museums are never scattered about at random. Rather, they are installed after a painstaking process of reflection. While visitors may not always be able to see the work that has gone into an exhibit, curators are careful to make them cohere according to form, theme, context, and chronology, among other attributes. In this way, museums aim to intellectually stimulate their visitors and to provide an immersive sensory experience that offers a crucial respite from the wired world….

Source: Can anything be art? An art historian explains why not — Quartz