Digital Photography in Museums...

These tourists enjoyed posing in front of Andy Warhol's Cambell's Soup Cans, 1962, at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.  My museum visits are ultra enhanced when I can use cameras.  The Metropolitan Museum and MOMA both allow no-flash photography and it makes visiting the museums fun. Think of how these people will enjoy sharing this photo.  They can capture the moment of standing in front of a cultural symbol.

More museums should allow this.  I'd love to see a good debate on the pros and cons but as we move into digital, the art as a tangible object becomes less so digitally and more available.  If these two museums can lower the barriers between art and art appreciators, others should follow suit.  Most don't, though.

I just found a site today, Strictly No Photography, that publishes photos from places that ban them like galleries and museums (or the Kremlin). The site has the mission of organizing the forbidden visuals to increase accessibility and usability.  Warhol is going everywhere, 20 years after his death.

Comments

[susiej]

They should allow them!! You're right!

[pj]

Totally cool. Thanks for the art links! Can you believe when I visited the Louve in Paris, they let us use cameras -- flash no less. I have a photo of the Mona Lisa!!!!