Ansel Adams and LIFESTYLE: Making a Difference Through Art

LIFESTYLE is a term often used in psychology to indicate the stages of development in an infant human beings. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), the five stages in a development cycle are birth, early development, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Lifestyle is the general attitudes, interests, behaviors, and orientations of an adult, group, or society. The word was first introduced by Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler in his famous article, The Case of Miss R, with the vague meaning of “the basic character of an infant”. In this article, he suggested seven characteristics of a personality type which are differentiated by their level of development in human beings:

The seven Lifestyle types are described by their level of personal importance to an individual or society. Adler believed that there were seven fundamental differences between these seven Lifestyle types. These Lifestyle types can be classified into two main groups. These two groups are described by the following figures: HOUPLIKES and EURIPHERS.

The two major forms of Lifestyle are HOUPLIKES and EURIPHERS. Houplikers are individuals who are highly sociable and enjoy a great social life. On the other hand, EURIPHERS are individuals who prefer a more solitary life style. This group can also include middle-aged retirees, artists, actors, and writers. In order to better explain the differences between the lifestyles of these two groups, Adler introduced the concept of LIFESTYLE.

The concept of LIFESTYLE was developed to help human beings to understand the differences between Lifestyle groups. These differences in Lifestyle groups are then translated into terms such as “hippies” and “bohemians”, and so on. Adler’s belief is that each of these seven lifestyles has to be chosen as per one’s individual and communal temperament. Adler believes that the purpose of a museum is to exhibit people’s art, lifestyle, and other characteristics, in order to let the public know how diverse a person is.

According to Adler, LIFESTYLE exhibits many elements of traditional museums, mixed with elements of social media culture and museum culture. As such, LIFESTYLE strives to exhibit people’s unique creative talents, artistry, and lifestyle choices. For instance, you would be able to see photos of people at a party wearing the latest fashion, or photographs taken at a skate park. As such, Adler believes that this exhibition should be accompanied by a Polaroid camera. The use of a Polaroid camera allows the audience to become more involved in the exhibition.

In a sense, the idea behind LIFESTYLE is not so much about collecting objects but about making people interact. To some extent, the curators at LIFESTYLE understand the problems inherent in buying objects from the market, as they have to deal with a multitude of agencies. Adler and co-curator Marina Sechi, who is based in Milan, has devised a way of working through these agencies to ensure that the objects collected go back in the community. For instance, if an object goes missing from a shop in Milan, the agency contacts the shopkeeper and arranges for its return. Similarly, once an object goes missing from a museum in Milan, the museum contacts the relevant authorities and tries to find the object. Such interactions between agencies and art collectors, Adler argues, can add an element of real interaction to a collection.