Baltimore Museum of Art will host an exhibition curated by the museum's guards

Looks like it&#x27;s getting hugged to death: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210716193902&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;artbma.org&#x2F;about&#x2F;press&#x2F;release&#x2F;bma-security-officers-take-center-stage-as-guest-curators-of-a-new-exhibition-opening-in-march-2022" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210716193902&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;artbma.or...</a><p>I love the BMA. It&#x27;s a free museum with a great restaurant, cool exhibits, a nice park across the street. Nearby is The Book Thing, a free book store. Also another (non-free) book &amp; record store, Normal&#x27;s. And another, Urban Reads. And another bookstore&#x2F;coffee shop, Bird in Hand. And a farmer&#x27;s market. And a vegan restaurant. And the quirkiest diner ever, Papermoon. And a small rock venue. And a worker-owned co-op coffeeshop that President Obama visited. All in a four block radius.<p>Dang, I miss Baltimore.

Also notable is the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Their guards are also docents, so you are encouraged to talk to them about the art and ask them questions. After experiencing this more human interaction, it was a bit of a shock for me to go down the street to the Museum of Contemporary Art, where I asked a guard a question and they flat out rejected my asking, haha!<p>Arts workers need to be paid well and also have enriching roles in the museums. And I don&#x27;t think this sort of thing necessarily requires a 4-year degree or whatnot. I believe people are naturally curious, and we need to lean into that.

This is peculiar because it treats security guards as humans and challenges unspoken hierarchy. It also implies the museum doesn&#x27;t save on security (17 guards is a lot) and there isn&#x27;t a big turnover (unless there&#x27;s a special type of security guard that mostly works in museums). It&#x27;s borderline unthinkable in the 5th roundest country in the world where I live. They would hire students.<p>I was hoping it would be more about burglaries, stealing famous works of arts, selling stolen works etc. The law enforcement &#x2F; security perspective. Instead it appears to be a pretty standard exhibition except with an unusual method of selecting curators.

This is really fun IMO. The article makes a point that the security guards probably know the art pieces better than most people since they are constantly patrolling and looking around. Plus it gives them a chance to have some fun curating the collection.

If anybody ever visits Washington D.C., it&#x27;s very easy to get overwhelmed with the world class Smithsonian and National Gallery museums (amongst the dozens of others). But I highly recommend taking the time to go to Baltimore and visiting this museum as well as the nearby Walters Art Museum, both also very very good museums.<p>Other great places for awesome museums within a day-drive of D.C.:<p>Richmond, VA - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts<p>Dulles, VA - Udvar-Hazy Air &amp; Space Museum<p>Various National Battlefields sprinkled all over the area<p>A bit further out, but possible in a day and easily world class, the Philadelphia Museum of Art

My vacations in the before times were to go to Europe to copy paintings. I sometimes spend a week at an institution just copying paintings, so I get to know the guards. So many of them are spectacular artists in their own right.<p>In my utopian vision of the world, museum guards are given rolling pedestals and pencils and told to roam the galleries copying. They can pay attention to what&#x27;s going on around them and draw.<p>The result is that we have people there to answer questions and make sure nothing bad happens, but also is someone who&#x27;s just getting better and better at drawing and painting. Then that person can become a great artist in their own right.<p>Our society&#x27;s reward is an enormous amount of people who can paint really well. Murals everywhere. Good paintings everywhere.

This is an excellent idea. The guards are doubtlessly more in touch with the culture of the common people of Baltimore than the professional curators could hope to be.

Its nice to see my city on the front page, for a good reason.

They will probably pick some pieces that have repeated viewing quality. Most pieces become boring after seeing them day in day out. The ones they still enjoy after seeing them daily are something special. Looking forward to see the list.

A few years ago I was in Baltimore for a conference at Johns Hopkins. Decided to visit the museum. I was blown away by how good it is, and it&#x27;s completely free. Definitely recommend it if you&#x27;re ever in Baltimore.

I think guards are in a really interesting position. Art curators are going to have inherit biases that are pretty hard to get past: It takes a certain kind of person to become one in the first place, and they&#x27;re inherently affected by the state of the modern art world by being plugged in and a part of it as part of their job.<p>A guard, on the other hand, will probably not have any of these biases, while being exposed to far more art than the general public on an incidental basis. I wonder how many picked he job because of an existing love of art, vs just being a job?

I love this!<p>Something similar is the Archibald Prize&#x27;s &#x27;Packing Room Prize&#x27;.<p><i>The award is chosen by the gallery staff who receive, unpack and hang the entries, with 52 per cent of the vote given to head packer Brett Cuthbertson.</i> [0]<p>It&#x27;s almost as prestigious as winning the main prize!<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.broadsheet.com.au&#x2F;national&#x2F;art-and-design&#x2F;article&#x2F;2021-archibald-prize-finalists-packing-room-prize-announced" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.broadsheet.com.au&#x2F;national&#x2F;art-and-design&#x2F;articl...</a>

Recently visisted a &quot;staff show&quot; at Pace Gallery, in which the entire staff (assistants, front desk, archivists, art handlers, ...) was invited to submit their own art.<p>It seems to have done well!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pacegallery.com&#x2F;exhibitions&#x2F;atmospheres&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pacegallery.com&#x2F;exhibitions&#x2F;atmospheres&#x2F;</a>

This is fantastic. I hope it&#x27;s paired with a livable wage.

&gt;about ways to fulfill the museum’s commitment to be more diverse, more inclusive, and more representative of the community it serves.<p>A truly innovative and interesting DEI initiative. I hope we see more of this elsewhere.

Key quote:<p>&gt;In addition, the team is working with renowned art historian and curator Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, who is providing additional mentorship and professional development.<p>In art as in politics - nothing says grassroots like the additional mentorship and professional development by a renowned establishment member.

Reminds me of the movie The Maiden Heist [1] where three museum security guards become attached to the artworks they guard.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt1107860&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt1107860&#x2F;</a>

Similar project from 2020 at MoMA: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.moma.org&#x2F;calendar&#x2F;exhibitions&#x2F;5203" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.moma.org&#x2F;calendar&#x2F;exhibitions&#x2F;5203</a>

Ha I know a few people that work at BMA and two of the security guards (Rob and Dom) were on the same pool league team as me. If y&#x27;all see this whats up<p>Smaltimore home sweet home

I was a guard at the BMA when I was in university - great group of people, this is a wonderful idea.

I would love to see an exhibition curated by CLIP, an OpenAI neural net connecting text and images.

That&#x27;s called full-stack.

That reminds me, I really need to watch Pink Flamingos by John Waters.

It’s cool but it feels a little noblesse oblige which I thought was a faux pas in the US? I thought you’re not supposed to acknowledge class boundaries?