OK, continuing the thought I started earlier (which was: why doesn’t the museum put up plexi-glass or otherwise make it impossible for patrons to touch the items, which was responded to very well by a poster detailing the expense of such a course of action): Lissa, you should really be mad at the museum and not the touchers. Here’s why:
A certain number of people are stupid and will touch items in museums. This is just a natural fact; it doesn’t make it OK that any individual person touches things, but it’s a fact nonetheless.
Now, assuming the board that runs the museum are rational actors (which may be a large assumption), the board has essentially made a decision that the cost of people touching the items is less than the cost of installing barricades so that it is impossible for people to touch the items.
The upshot of all this for you is that the museum wants you to encourage people not to touch the items, and you would do so yourself even without the museum’s encouragement. Therefore, what’s essentially happening is that the museum is shitting upon you; you reallly can’t get mad at the stupid people for being stupid because that’s like getting made at rain for being wet; get mad at the museum instead.
The cost may be prohibitive. A few cases are cheap. A museum full(it is possible to literally get lost in the Philly art museum) is easily in the millions, and more likely in the tens of millions. Lighting may have to be redesigned so that patrons can see the pieces behind plexiglass. When placing a masterpiece in a sealed case, it is an absolute necessity to install temperature and humidity monitors. Again, a few are cheap. A musuem full are not. I’m sure there are other considerations.
BTW-One of the works Duchamp contributed has a part which is meant to be touched. He gave the piece to the Philly museum on the condition that they seal it in a small chamber, leaving only two holes for patrons to look through. Countless noses have worn down the wood between the holes as folks crane their necks or push forward to get a better view.
** Guinastasia** I will endeavor to explain my subtle argument better to you (instead of insulting you back like I did in the first draft of this post).
The museum can choose between two courses of action:
Course of action #1: Spend money on plexiglass, better barriers, alarm systems, etc.; have fewer exhibits by increasing the floor space for each exhibit; or do similar things to make it impossible for the patrons to touch the items.
The costs of this course of action include the following: expense of plexiglass, alarms, etc., and installation; decreased revenues from patrons because they won’t like the museum as much because they can’t see the exhibits as well; and decreases prestige (resulting in fewer donations) because the museum will have fewer items.
The benefits of this course of action include the following: reduces expense of cleaning soiled items and replacing broken items.
Course of action #2: don’t put up such barriers and instead clean items when people touch them.
The costs of this course of action include the following: manpower and supplies to clean items; decrease in value of items because of constant cleaning; replacement of items due to people breaking them.
The benefits of this course of action include the following: ability to have more items; ability of patrons to see items up close.
Now, the fact that people are stupid and will touch shit is a constant; it’s like gravity or the speed of light, it just IS. The museum has made a cost-benefit analysis by deciding that it is less costly to go with option #2 instead of option #1, which really sucks for Lissa because she cares about the items in the museum and doesn’t want them to get ruined.
I’m not “shifting responsibility”: the people are still stupid and responsible for their own actions. Instead what I’m doing is examining how the museum decided to respond to the fact that people are stupid, and positing that it is the museum’s response to this fact and not the fact itself that is the real cause of Lissa’s duress.
It’s a complicated world out there, Guin. Let’s endeavor to understand it in all its fullness instead of reciting slogans and :rolleyes: ing all the time.
Right, which is exactly what I said: it must cost less to clean the items and replace broken items than to make it impossible for people to touch items in the first place.
I think what some of y’all are missing is the fact that there are costs involved with NOT putting up plexiglass, etc. You are only thinking about the costs of putting up the plexiglass and saying “Oh, well that’s too expensive” without examining the reduction in other costs such costs would save.
Well, there’s an important reason behind this. The ancient Egyptians believed that you would have eternal life if the Gods could read your name somewhere. A lot of the “graffitti” you see in Egypt was a serious attempt at ensuring immortality, not just the work of snickering kids.
I’ve read that in some of the tombs of important nobles, archaeologists have found hidden carvings of names. If the workmen had been caught trying to do it, they would have been in very serious trouble, but they were willing to take the risk because having your name written in such an important place would be a little extra insurance that the Gods could find it.
In the long run, yes, but for a lot of museums, raising the capital for such a project is incredibly difficult. When the Board is split over whether to spend the money to repair the old vaccuum cleaner or buy a new one, you just don’t have that option. In our situation, the decision was to invest our money in a new addition which was sorely needed than to refit the old building.
I see that Lissa beat me to it, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyway. What it comes down to is the bottom line. I’m only speaking for the museum that I was working at, but money was tight, and we were a non-profit organization. Our goal was to break even, and that was tough at times. The problem was, when boards portion out the money, they like to see nice solid figures. So saying you need $10,000 for new cases will get you a yea or a nay quickly. The problem with a “cleaning cost” is that it is not fixed, and it is next to impossible to determine how much you would save with the plexiglass installed. Essentially, a curator can say “it will cost $10,000 dollars for display cases”, but when questioned about the gains, in the form of money saved, he or she will be pressed to put forth accurate figures. In other words, we know the cost of installation, we don’t know what we save. Without knowing that, boards are hesitant to hand out money. It’s all about doing as much as you can with a little as possible. In the end, it isn’t the museums fault, it is the addled brained types who simply must grope everything within a fifty foot radius.
Basically, what it boils down to is not, “if we don’t have protective cases, people will touch the items, and that is okay, because it’s cheaper in the longer run”. It’s more a case of “Well, we can have nifty display cases, without money to display anything, or, display things, and hope that our patrons are intelligent enough to keep their hands off when requested to”.
Plus, as I said before, aesthetics count for a lot in the museum business. An incredible amount. Before I worked there, I never realized how much design work goes into an exhibit before it is even set up. Every thing right down to the fonts used for information signs are considered, in order to determine what will have the best overall effect. One of the rules is, display cases do detract from the overall quality of the display, for reason that have all ready been covered.
I’ve been :eek: the whole time I’ve been reading this thread. But it has also brought up an unpleasant memory.
Let me say at the outset that this is not about me touching something.
I was about eight years old, on a historical tour with my mom. We were in the house of some Founding Father or other. Now, I was interested in this stuff, but in the way that an eight-year-old is interested. I wanted to look (not touch) at things, not just listen to the tour guide babble about whatever she was babbling about. She saw me looking at (not touching) something, and snapped at me, then continued her spiel.
A few minutes later, my attention was caught by a figurine on a table. Since I was eight, and small for my age, it was not far below my eye level, so I leaned down for a (slightly) closer look. My hands must have been behind my back, because they were always behind my back. I was not touching jack shit.
Didn’t matter to the tour guide. She broke off in the middle of a sentence and screamed at me. I don’t remember the words, but she was screaming. I ran out of the house in a panic, and ended up sobbing at the base of a tree. Then my mom wouldn’t buy me the doll she’d promised, because “you should have thought of that.”
I repeat: I wasn’t touching jack shit. I was fucking looking. I didn’t know there were rules against looking.
Look, I’m open to the possibility that she’d seen a great many people touch things, or try to. Ditto that she might have had problems with kids before. And that she didn’t know me, and that that figurine had astronomical worth, and so on. But did she not realize that screaming could have startled me into falling forward, onto the figurine? Especially since I did have my hands behind my back!
I know y’all have a very trying job. But I hope that none of you, nor your colleagues, ever reacted to what only might have been a bad situation, in that way.
If the underlined passage really reflects their logic, then they’re dumb. What the hell are they contributing for, if they don’t appreciate the worth of the artifacts?
And that’s what killed me about the OP: you know those old ladies have their stuff that they protect in that manner!
My mother-in-law did that at the Norman Rockwell museum! “Ooo, look at those big lumps of oil paint [poke poke]!” I thought Mr. Rilch was going to have a stroke.
“To be without a camera is to be free.” —Inspector Wexford, by way of Ruth Rendell.
To all the people who suggested preliminary speeches: Wouldn’t work. Well, maybe the ones that would include visual aids or demonstrations, but even those would depend on people listening and taking them seriously.
Case in point: When I was 14, six years after the figurine incident, I was on another tour with my parents which included a stop at the Ballantine House. Before we started, the guide gave a discourse about flash photography and touching stuff: the damage it could do, exposure to light and skin oils, the attrition of 1+1+1 that people have outlined here…Well, I was paying attention to him, because I thought he was cute :), but I know at least one other person wasn’t.
About ten minutes into the tour, we stop in front of a huge painting. I’m listening raptly while the guide tells of its acquisition and previous history when from behind me, I hear the shikok of a flash camera’s shutter.
Well, he was still cute while he was going off. Kind of reminded me of Roger Rees as Nicholas Nickelby…
Yes, the amount of work is staggering. I had the honor of helping to design a huge new exhibit this year, and it took us most of three months. However, despite how hard it was, I enjoyed it immensely.
Wow, I didn’t know we had so many museum and historic house Dopers. Hi, all!
In the short time since I’ve been in museums, I’ve seen some amazing things along these lines. Working in education departments, I always kind of expected kids to be our worse offenders…but, time and time again, the grownups manage to surprise me.
[ul][li] Like the two older ladies who repeatedly ran their hands down a fabric display as museum staff stood on the opposite side of the gallery explaining to a school group the importance of not touching.[/li][li] Or the group of school teachers who picked up a work of art that had just been handled by the staff. Who pointed out how EXTREMELY fragile the work was. (It was made of paper, for pete’s sake!)[/li][li] The schmoe on the tour who kept leaning against the Rodin sculptures.[/li][li] And, yes, major donors are sometimes the worst: During a recent opening, I had the pleasure of requesting that several major donors not enter the galleries with their food and drink.[/li] donor points to name tag I paid for this gallery, miss.
in moi’s head Well, la-te-da and thankyouverymuch. But how firkin elitist would it be to just let you and your golf buddies in with your merlot and to tell the confused plebes that you’re the guy with the big bucks so it’s okay that your crumbs get on the art???![/ul]
I dragged my hapless BF to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC last week , where he patiently endured my oohing and ahhing over Byzantine chalices and medieval brooches. When we went to the Egyptian wing, I made a beeline for the Temple of Dendur, built during the reign of Augustus Caesar (circa 5 CE). And you know what we saw on the sides of the temple? The names of 19th-century European visitors to Egypt, people one would expect to have some reverence for antiquities, carved right over the hieroglyphs. Some things never change.
I know, it’s so much fun. The best experience I ever had was setting up a model of one of these guys, a mamenchisaurus
Did I mention that it was a full sized skeleton? And that it was myself and two thers putting it together? It was a blast. I always got those little wooden dino skeleton models when I was a kid, and put them together. Never did I imagine that I would get to build something that big. It is about 70 ft. in legth, with 45 of those feet being neck alone. Very cool
This was my first experience with this phenomenon.
I was once giving a tour to a very nice couple. The woman was passionate about a certain period in history and was thrilled when she saw we had a very rare item. She fumbled for her camera, but I gently interceded before she could snap the picture, saying that pictures weren’t allowed. In her excitement, she had forgotton, she apologized. I told her I’d talk to our curator and see if I could get permission for her to photograph it.
While I was trying to track him down, I saw a man busily snapping pictures. He wasn’t with a group, which gave me pause. I smiled at him, and said that I was sorry, but we didn’t allow pictures. Haughtily, he informed me that he was Mr. So and So. Irritated that I was apparently not struck down with awe at his important personage, he informed me that he was a major donor.
I remember being struck at the crass nature of such a statement. Not really knowing how to handle it, I just walked away. I met up with my curator who just sighed and told me to let Mr. Donor take his pictures. I secured permission for my history buff to take hers, and went back to my tour.
Later, when I was leading the couple out, the woman spotted Mr. Donor busily clicking away. She just gave me a puzzled look. I didn’t know quite what to say, so I just kept quiet. How was I to tell her that Major Donors are above we lowly mortals who must obey the rules?
But even ordinary members can be proprietary. Membership at our museum is relatively cheap, and it’s not an exclusive club, but you wouldn’t know it from the way some members act.
Just last week, I was conducting a massive tour of our facility. Two hundred kids from a local elementry school were being led through the museum. We had every docent the museum employs on staff that day, trying to keep the numbers of kids at a manageble level. Groups were weaving an intricately timed dance through different parts of the museum to avoid bumping into each other, or stalling the smooth flow.
Now, these were great kids. They were so interested and curious. I fielded questions left and right, dashing to each item as another kid would cry out, “What’s this?”
The door opened, and in marched a man and woman. I had all of my kids sit down on the rug, and pulled out the Emergency Kid Tamer, which is a light-and-shadow show which projects all around the room. (It used to be powered by candle light, but we have a lightbulb in it now. Once switched on, and the drum is given a spin, kids are instantly hypnotized.) I rushed over the the couple, and explained that all of the staff were leading tours at the moment, but they were welcome to join up with the school tour, and that we’d come back and get everything they’d missed.
The woman grimaced like I’d suggested a snail sandwich for lunch. “How long will you be?” she demanded. “I’m a member!”
“It will be at least an hour,” I said apologetically. “We’ve just started.”
“I don’t want to go with the kids,” she said, and then pointedly continued: “I’m a * member.” *
I nodded to show I understood. “I’m sorry, but everyone’s tied up with the school tour, and it’ll be at least an hour before we’re free. If you’d want to come back . . . .”
“No,” she said shortly. “We’ll wait here.” She proceeded to sit down on a bench in the lobby.
There wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t let them wander around alone, nor would they go with me. My light show was beginning to lose its efficacy, and the natives were getting restless. I had to walk away and return to kids.
Another fellow docent entered the area after we’d vacated it, and saw the woman and her husband sitting there glowering. He approached them and made the same offer, thinking I must not have seen them. The woman growled at him that she was a * member * and she did not * want * to go on a tour with a bunch of kids. My co-worker was at much at a loss as I, and had to leave them still sitting there.
A few minutes later, they were gone, fed up, angry, and probably railing about us. I felt like saying to the woman, “You’re a member? Bully for you, toots! So am I!” Did she expect me to kick all of the kids out, and cancel their field trip because she had shown up and didn’t want to go along with them? What did she want me to do? Unfortunately, we docents have not yet mastered the technique of replication by cellular division, and our attempts to exist in two places at one time have not been successful.
Mine was an exhibit approximately 1500 square feet, involving about twenty seperate display areas of all sorts of artifacts with one central theme. We had to locate the artifacts, assess their condition (are they tough enough to be displayed) clean them, and then position them, make signs, and so on. Clothing needed to be placed on dummies. (One particularly fragile dress alone took us five hours to place on the dummy.)
But it was wonderful to get to express my creative side. Our curator gave us incredible leeway. We would have a morning brainstorming session of what was in the collection, (which is sometimes difficult to ascertain, because, in the past, very poor records were kept–a lot of times, we went by memory alone as to what was in storage) what we could do with it, and how it should be displayed. Then we would do the locating, assesment, and cleaning, and place the item in its appointed spot.
It really was like a treasure hunt. I’d know we needed a certain item, go in search of it, and discover something equally wonderful that must be used as well. (Which, of course, necessitated some re-designing, but it was well worth it.)
A lot of our decisions were subjective . . . does this item look better placed neatly, or casually, as if it’s in use? All of the others who were in on the design team would come over and debate the merits. A poll would be taken, suggestions thrown out, and then we’d do what we felt looked the best.
I feel such a sense of pride when a visitor comments on one of my ideas. One area was completely mine . . . designed totally by yours truly. I have an immense sense of accomplishment, and I even managed to position the barriers so that nothing is within reach!
I do agree with you here. I don’t see how flash photography would harm statues. If there is a sign, however, I trust there must be a good reason. I’ve been allowed to take photographs of most of the statues I’ve ever wanted…the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, even David. I don’t think statues present a problem. People touch statues as well, and the guards don’t seem bothered with that. Hell, people sit on and lean on Winged Victory.
I’m going on vacation to philly in a few weeks, since the art museum is first on my list, hearing all these horror stories has definatley reminded me to keep hands off, even though I have yet to eve touch a display case, velvet rope, or anything withing 2 feet of a velvet rope
