Art Fag City posted some interesting extracts from a discussion on museum photography rules yesterday. Check them out here.
The annoyance of these rules to members of the press/legitimate bloggers is understandable. The discussion at AFC involves some interesting proposals that would allow serious members of the public to take pictures under special circumstances. In general, though, 291 is fine with photography bans at museums. Museums need to make money off reproductions of their artworks, most pictures taken by tourists are by no means worth the effort/potential damage they might do to the art, and cameras seem to facilitate misbehavior in museums. I remember one particularly offensive group of tourists at the Met who took pictures of themselves in front of every piece of work in the modern wing, following what looked like some sort of trendy foreign cultural convention in every picture. They would dangle a finger or limb over each piece of work they saw, then adopt a thoughtful expression, as if to show that these works were provoking them to engage in serious contemplation. Nothing could have been further from the truth. And they were touching each work for the sake of making these ludicrous images.
There are not enough museum guards in the world.
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