What’s something you can do in the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry, but you can’t do in the Art Institute and can only do in lobby spaces at the Museum of Contemporary Art? The answer — or at least one answer — is: Use a selfie stick.
The museum world has been reacting in recent months to the growth in usage of these Bluetooth-equipped arm-lengthening devices that let people get a better photo angle on themselves. Even more than their potential for disruption of a museum experience, the fear, many say, is that somebody’s going to let an iPhone at the end of a selfie stick waver or fall and damage a precious canvas or vase.
The tradeoff of one, highly contemporary work of art for another, older one is apparently being deemed not worthwhile. So since early January, the Art Institute of Chicago has formally banned the devices of self-enshrinement.
“If you come in with one, we ask you to check it,” said Rebecca Baldwin, director of public affairs. “It’s one of a list of things we don’t let you bring in, like a full-size umbrella, for the same reason.”
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Even before the formal policy, guards at the museum had been asking people to put them away, she said.
But this should in no way be interpreted as dislike for selfies, photographs of one’s self snapped usually with a cell phone. “Last summer, Katy Perry came in, posted a selfie, and it went wild,” Baldwin said. “We love selfies. We just think the sticks are potentially dangerous.”
Perry’s Art Institute photos posted to Twitter included one of her in front of “American Gothic” with her caption, “the original goths.” The perspective in the image suggests that no selfie sticks were involved.
At the very busy MSI, however, “It hasn’t been an issue for us as of yet,” said public relations manager Beth Boston. “Of course, we always keep our eye out for things that could negatively impact the guest or museum experience, so if it becomes an issue, we will address it. We don’t allow tripod photography for that reason.”
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago splits the difference, allowing selfie sticks in the museum but not near the artwork. “In general, we allow and encourage photography in the museum — including selfies — and we allow selfie sticks in all of the public spaces such as our lobby and atrium,” media relations director Karla Loring said. “However, we are not allowing selfie sticks in the formal galleries.”
The sticks, which retail for about $20, are banned at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and at University of Chicago’s Smart Museum “for the same reason that umbrellas, large backpacks, pens, flash photography, etc. are not allowed in the galleries — to protect the art,” said a Smart Museum spokeswoman.
So the takeaway seems to be clearer than, say, a photo snapped remotely via a smartphone at the end of a pole: If you want to shoot yourself amid fine art, be prepared to extend your arm.