A different way to approach the position - " Security should have a more meaningful role as a partner in the care and preservation of museum collections, by joining with conservators, curators and registrars in assuming responsibility for the collections." From Article, "Security as a Partner with Conservators and Small Museum Staff" http://cool.conservation-us.org/waac/wn/wn18/wn18-2/wn18-206.html
Small museums are in need of having someone who thinks about security and general protection of collections, having guards or staff who share expanded rolls makes protection easier. (same article)
* Refer to the AAM, standing committee on Security.
* Guards or Security need to consider: Physical security, intrusion security, Exhibition case and collection based protection, internal theft, and established procedures. These are all essential aspects under the AAM and are necessities for museum guards.
Munch art theft stirs debate on museum security
* Lightly guarded, and not armed, how to approach making security
* In the light of thefts, museum guards are written about
Lesbian Couple Ordered to Leave Museum For Holding Hands
Swipe magazine
A review of their exhibition in a gallery and the connection between guards and art.
Swipe, "swipe in and out of work"
mostly young people with college degrees, typically artists - at the MET
* Ask question about the boring aspect of the museum, typically move section to section.
* Gallery show: Jason, Guggenheim fellow, decided to make a show of Guards.
* Jason, a photographer and had a fulbright and needed health insurance so left as a guard.
* Had enough of the MET after 20 months.
* Insider knowledge and can learn things that no one else knows.
inner workings at the AMNH night guarding
Interesting: Have they seen the film starring Christopher Walkin and Morgan Freeman "The Maiden Heist" which is all about guards at an art museum http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1107860/
* Fred Wilson, an artist given the keys and space of the museum to speak to its work.
* Security guards, for Wilson, represent the presence of difference within the museum hierarchy. Not only are many (in large urban museums) African American, but they also reflect, he says, "a certain world view, being interested in security and militaristic matters. That creates a gap. The guards who have worked in a museum for a long time know a lot about the art‑they look at the same things every day, so in order to make the job bearable they become aware of everything. When I go into a museum to create a work like `Mining the Museum,' they are part of the process of getting to know everyone who works there." Wilson also created an installation piece on the subject, "Guarded View," at Metro Pictures gallery in New York in 1991, in which he displayed four black, featureless mannequins dressed in the uniforms of four New York City museums.
http://nashermuseumblogs.org/?p=1080
* Fred Wilson
Was a Guard once
Both on view but also invisible
Wilson tested this theory once when asked to conduct a tour at the Whitney. He dressed up in a guard uniform and waited at the designated meeting place. As the visitors arrived, he watched them “mill” around, he said, failing to recognize the artist behind the uniform. This greatly amused him. He led the exhibition tour, still dressed as a guard, which conveyed an important idea aligned with Guarded View.
You never see a guard leading a tour, talking analytically about art, he said, but they no doubt have contributions that are rarely spoken aloud.
I talked with some of the security guards here at the Nasher Museum today. Wilson’s description of their role seems pretty accurate. Shaughn Braun, acting manager of protection services, told me that guards are supposedto be invisible. No one wants you around until something calls for intervention. So it becomes this weird interaction between the guard and the museum visitor; the guard is hardly noticed, yet observes a visitor’s every move.
“You put on that uniform and you sort of disappear,” Braun said.
I spoke with guards Jack Cooper and Mary Price as they guarded the Picasso exhibition and was interested to hear their observations of art and people. They said they were not interested in leading tours. But they agreed that constant exposure to art has given them a unique perspective on it.
“You learn a lot,” Price said, “hearing different opinions.”
Wikipedia: speaks a lot to the regard of what and who the museum "attendant is"
"A museum attendant (or gallery attendant) looks after a gallery in a museum for security reasons, to help museum visitors, and sometimes to help curators in moving objects or changing the gallery displays. The position is sometimes undertaken by volunteers."
Museums' Fine Art of Protecting Masterpieces
Washington Post - LifeStyle
* Tension between accessibility and protection
* Guards and Staff are first line of defense.
* How can the guard position improve to stave off vandalism or theft
An Inside Look at the Lives and Art of those who Guard the MET Museum
* Try to get this article - "Securitology and the Art of Boredom,"
* Jason Eskenazi invented “Smart Guards,” a petition to educate the Met’s guards during off hours (he even presented the idea to management, but was “quickly shot down”);
* Interesting - Mr. Meyerowitz recounted the situation in an email. “Part of what makes moments like this special in the museums of New York is that you can have a real connection with someone who actually has ideas about works on view and is passionate about life and art. A few weeks ago we were in a museum elsewhere and the guards were, well, just guards. Their attitude was negative and miserable and our experience of the museum was colored by their shitty attitude."
* Training and engagement linked to this? Or is this related to contract versus long-term permanent guards?
* Interesting Quote - "So encounters with guards who have ideas and creative lives actually enhances one’s experience in the museum.”
* We do matter! Swipe! Magazine is born, the issue, released in the spring of 2010 with an accompanying exhibition at the 25 CPW gallery, generated a considerable amount of coverage, including a New York Times mention.
* Expanding outside of MET Artists, the third issue is due out in late 2011. They will accept submissions from artists beyond the Met’s 2,000,000-square-foot walls, since the number artists working as guards all over the city appears to be quite large.
* Artists as guards and museum staff - Since the 1960s, museums have hired artists as staff. Sol De Witt, Dan Flavin, and Bob Ryman, to name a few worked as guards at the Museum of Modern Art. Perhaps the most famous case was a 22-year-old kid named Koons, who sat behind the membership desk also at the MoMA in 1977.
* Why hire artists?
The Museum could only benefit from employing artists to watch art. A keen eye for detail translates into the observation skills necessary to detect suspicious activity. But most of all, an artist cares about the work he or she protects. Carlos Delgado, an artist, guard, and one of the editors of Sw!pe expressed his feelings on the issue. “When people get to close to the paintings, I get upset.”
* Is Guarding a waste of time, "I’m guarding the history of the world, the fingerprint of mankind.”
* How to improve the position:
If the Gardner incident proved one thing, it was that happy, educated guards with health benefits are an important part of protecting a museum.
Be a night guard at the AMNH = Video
Art Museum replaces Gallery Guards with Students
* The Indianapolis Museum of Art fired 56 of its gallery attendants Monday morning and will replace them with 100 IUPUI students on a federal work-study program.
* Issue with security cost, will save 600,000 dollars a year with students.
* The 33 full-time and 23 part-time gallery attendants who lost their jobs Monday morning earned an average of $11.50 per hour. The IUPUI students will earn $10 per hour, but under the federal work-study program, the IMA will cover just 25 percent of their pay.
Pricing, cost, and budget the main issue
UPDATE:
* Museum officials in March dropped that program, which relied on college-student labor and emphasized visitor service. The move came after IUPUI vetoed IMA’s plan to replace its old guard staff with federally funded work-study students. The museum has returned to traditional gallery guards, but they now wear polo shirts rather than the uniforms guards used to wear.
* Nevertheless, the word “guard” in the title might go a long way with future art lenders or insurers. Thompson said she asked a lot of questions about the visitor assistants, which were also trained in security procedures.
* Mixing Security and Customer Service - The university finally decided in March that the museum could use work-study students, but they couldn’t be seen as overlapping with security, Zarich said. The museum now has 11 IUPUI students working as “visitor information associates” on the grounds of the Art and Nature Park. The visitor services department, not security, supervises their work.
Merging customer service and security is common in retail—think greeters at Wal-Mart. It’s also not unheard of at museums. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis takes a similar approach.
The guard was not an employee of the museum but a contractor employed by a private security company, who had been called in to "fill a temporary slot due to staffing shortage," said Connie Wolf, the museum director, in a letter to the museum's board and staff. She said he will not be allowed to work at the museum again.
Security Guard at Cleveland Museum of Art an Artist Himself
* Clevelander Dexter Davis has been working as a security guard at the museum for nearly two decades. Visitors might get a glimpse of his quick laugh and extensive knowledge about the museum, and directions to the nearest restroom. But Dexter is not only a caretaker for some of history’s greatest art, he is an artist.
* the museum acquired a piece from Dexter for the permanent collection (see video from link)
LA Times Blog
* Senior Security Supervisor at the MOCA Museum
*
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/07/life-as-a-museum-guard-wazir-taniwal-and-jesse-ward-.html
* Hylan Booker - Life as a Museum Guard - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/07/life-as-a-museum-guard-hylan-booker-lacma.html
* “When you visit a museum, you come for a few hours, but when you are here eight hours a day, for three and a half years, your whole world expands … to be here, and indulge myself, it's almost disgusting, like if you worked in an ice cream parlor and ate ice cream every day. It just means you get more of what you love, really.”
Museum Security Guards: Lots of Art and a Little Evesdropping
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/07/museum-security-guards-dish-on-art-.html
* “One of the things is that people always forget about museums, and forget about guards, is that when the docents go, the curators go, we’re the only ones left,” says Booker, 72, one of several museum guards at L.A.’s major museums who talked about their unusual line of work for a Sunday Arts & Books story.
“And patrons are very demanding -- they don’t care if you are a curator, they want to know, and you are supposed to know because you are standing in front of this stuff,” Booker continues. “And to know a lot, more than just where’s the toilet and where’s the Picasso. They want to know about every kind of art there is. “
Moreover, these “art cops” aren’t just watching the paintings, sculptures and installations, they’re watching you -- which, they point out, can sometimes be the most amusing part of all. Philly Museum - New contract
* Raising wages
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMVXKLIj7v8
Escopus Magazine, Guarded Opinions
http://www.esopusmag.com/archivesubright.php?Id=3795&pID=3785
LA Times - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/01/art-museum-guards-fantasies.html
* Podcast of what Guards think about while guarding
http://badatsports.com/2011/museum-guards-make-art-heres-where-to-find-some-of-it/
