Althouse: "Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings."

October 5, 2009

"Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings."

"Though it contains more than two million pieces and represents a profound legacy of artistic achievement, most people remain completely indifferent to our museum... So we decided to try something a little different and give visitors a chance to experience our timeless works of art up close and personal."

22 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...: OMG I thought it was a real story!

lol

nice; 10/5/09, 7:38 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I got taken just like Lem, I hope no one reads this and tries doing it!; 10/5/09, 7:51 PM
Robt C said...: WHOA, you mean it's not real?
Color me gobsmacked.; 10/5/09, 7:59 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Very funny. Still, quite a few got taken with this gem the other day(including Andrew Sullivan).; 10/5/09, 7:59 PM
rhhardin said...: Dog picks rabbit droppings out of the art.; 10/5/09, 8:02 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: "Why did the front fall off"?

"Well.. a wave hit it".

lol; 10/5/09, 8:09 PM
Todd G. said...: Oh man, as a museum curator, if this gets popular, the rest of the month will be spent out of my office and onto the exhibit floors, whacking inquisitive visitors. We seem to have finally overcome the mind set of the "Please Touch" kids being praised for pawing exhibits, now this...; 10/5/09, 8:19 PM
daubiere said...: considering the level of whorishness to which some museums stoop these days, its almost believable.; 10/5/09, 8:25 PM
traditionalguy said...: That article seemed real at first and simply another world upside down event. But thinking it over tells you that they cannot do that and have a painting left in six months.It does remind me about the Getty Museum in LA, where the unfriendly Guards watch closely and jump anyone for getting any closer than 12 inches to their stolen art works.; 10/5/09, 8:36 PM
ricpic said...: Not good enough. If I can't lick the paintings the Met won't get my business!; 10/5/09, 8:43 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: The Onion and now McDonald's is going to be in the food court of the Louvre. What next?; 10/5/09, 9:38 PM
chuck b. said...: Instead of touching the paintings, the museum should let the patrons touch each other.; 10/5/09, 9:52 PM
From Inwood said...: Prof A.

I just got back from NYC, during which I was off the ‘net. I’ve just gone through all your threads from last Wednesday & I find that you headlined me in one. I’m flattered & honored.

I will, in some detail, answer tomorrow, at that thread, the few who replied to that thread.

I did pass by Carroll’s apartment house (there was no acknowledgement of his life or death) & stopped in the RC church across the street to say a prayer.

Now, to this amusing thread.

I also found some time to go to the Main Public Library, which had a great exhibit on the NY Harbor. After I’d left, I remembered that in ’05, even before NYC’s financial woes, several famous paintings were removed from what some referred to as “the room with the paintings” & sold to raise funds for the library, the City being made up of philistines more concerned with paying the union members working for it than, you know, art.

One of the removed iconic paintings, now temporarily on display at the Met (which I also visited) before it goes to the Wal-Mart museum soon to open in, gasp, Arkansas), is Asher Durand’s Kindred Spirits. It had been replaced last time I was there by a painting of Charles Coburn from 1910 when he was playing Hamlet. (Some of you will say “who?” (how about: the mean doctor who takes Ronald Reagan’s legs off unnecessarily in Kings Row, leading to “Where’s the rest of me”) & I never remembered him as young, but, hey maybe they’d have let me touch it.) The Colburn painting is a very good portrait, but, look, if someone from a Blue-state city mentioned this as an example of the art in his city’s art museum, zee true NYC-ite would look down zee nez. Hey, this would make a good Onion faux report if it weren’t true.

BTW, the KC Art Museum has a painting of Inwood looking toward the Bronx in its American Section (or did when I was there about 10 years ago) by someone who I’d never heard of. I did not think it worthy of a big city art museum, but it’s better than Charles Coburn.

Again, thank you.; 10/5/09, 10:23 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: One of the removed iconic paintings, now temporarily on display at the Met (which I also visited) before it goes to the Wal-Mart museum soon to open in, gasp, Arkansas)

Hey, I grew up in Bentonville and a mere 25 minutes from the future site of the "Wal-Mart museum." I'm very excited about it.

Crystal Bridges; 10/5/09, 10:42 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Oh! I take it back--I mere 20 minutes!; 10/5/09, 10:43 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: And I too was taken in. Rendered totally aghast for a moment.; 10/5/09, 10:44 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: One nice thing about living in Northwest Arkansas, there is WAY more stuff here than a population this size would normally support.; 10/5/09, 10:46 PM
From Inwood said...: FH

I wasn't knocking Arkansas. Just noting how Blue Staters look on it.

BTW, obviously, I should've said "Red-State City" in my previous post; 10/5/09, 10:52 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: I thought from the headline that it was real too.

Then again, some people might not laugh if they've not only heard, but done the joke ( or at least something similar )before.; 10/6/09, 6:19 AM
Tibore said...: It could be worse. They could allow touching at this theme park (link).

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Word Verification: nutomac. Man, in conjunction with the above link, I don't think I wanna go there...; 10/6/09, 7:31 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: LOL, I didn't realize it was fake until I started reading the story about the husband who tried to cheat on his wife for the last 42 years.; 10/6/09, 7:32 AM
jaed said...: Touching's one thing. I do appreciate museums where they let you walk up to the paintings and look up close, though (as opposed to keeping you behind a red velvet rope several feet away). There are places where you'd actually get a much better view of the work looking at a coffee table book, and that's a shame.

(I once spent quite a while at the Smithsonian looking at a Vermeer from a couple of inches away. It was fascinating to see so much detail, and they didn't try to stop me from looking that closely. A guard gave me the fish eye, but I stuck my hands in my back pockets to indicate harmlessness/not-about-to-touch and he eventually drifted away.); 10/6/09, 6:33 PM