I, like many, get a large amount of enjoyment out of museums. The quiet, tranquil experience that comes from letting a visual that is right in front of you wash through your brain is very inspiring. What I don’t enjoy, is when said museums become glorified amusement parks packed full of patrons so unaware of their surroundings it makes my skin crawl. Today I saw people of [Rob Lowe] literally all ages make complete a disgrace of what would be normally acceptable behavior in society. Perhaps I could be over reacting. It could be possible that the majority of people these days simply don’t understand that you are not to walk directly up to the pieces of art, be it paintings or statues, and place your hands all over it. Surely the power of curiosity that forces one to find out what something feels like doesn’t outweigh the self control and respect one should automatically assume when entering an establishment such as a museum.
And it would be one thing if it were only the occasional bored and thus wild child doing these things before the parent/guardian could quickly and quietly tell them it was inappropriate. But I have witnessed far too many adults in many age ranges commit the same actions that would occur to an ignorant child. I’m still not sure what is worse, watching a child stomp through an exhibit, crossing lines and touching walls, or watching the parent watching it (or better yet, pretending to ignore it) and do nothing.
So what should be done? Hire more security? The workers can’t see everything that goes on and can’t really stop things before they happen. Should people be handed a copy of museum rules upon admittance? They already don’t read when it is acceptable to photograph the art, much less turn their flashes off when it is. The truth is it all comes down to education, but as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him behave like a normal human being in a museum.
