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Ethics Q&A: Access (building)
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May 2002
We want to show work by high profile artists not normally seen in a provincial art gallery such as ours. After much effort we now have an agreement with one of the country's leading artists to install a spectacular, crowd-pulling piece that occupies the entire surface area of the spaces he works with.
Our temporary exhibition space occupies one half of the first floor. The other half houses part of our permanent collection. A lift allows our less mobile visitors to get to the temporary exhibition space via the permanent displays. Our initial understanding was that the work would be wholly contained within the temporary exhibition space.
But the artist now wants to extend the installation through into the gallery with permanent displays. All visitors to the first floor would have to come up the stairs, as the installation would block the exit from the lift. For technical reasons the work cannot be installed on the ground floor.
The artist also wants less mobile visitors to see this work. But he has a good case for arguing that the work will lose its impact if it cannot be installed as he wishes. If he were to pull out of the project, nobody in our city would see this work. Also, this installation is important in attracting other high profile artists to exhibit here. What is your advice?
It is an admirable ambition to bring to regional audiences work by highly regarded artists. It will make the work of a leading artist accessible and will help establish your venue as innovative and daring.
You are right to try and accommodate artists' wishes and to understand their legitimate concerns over any loss of aesthetic integrity resulting from an inappropriate hang.
But as a public gallery you have a moral and a legal duty to ensure equity of access where feasible. It is not acceptable to deliberately install a temporary exhibition that will remove a public facility that enables access to the upper part of the building.
If the issue at stake were health and safety there would be no question that the artist would have to accommodate aesthetic concerns within the constraints of the law.
Discuss tactfully and diplomatically with the artist the constraints within which you and he have to work. Hopefully, he will see this as a creative challenge requiring an innovative solution.
This case shows the need for all venues to have a clear access policy that includes temporary exhibitions. This can form part of any written agreement with an artist or exhibition provider so that all concerns can be identified and resolved in advance.
The relevant section of the code of ethics for museums is 7.3: 'Articulate clearly intentions and expectations about projects such as commissions, collaborations and workshops. Specify agreements over matters such as funding, copyright, site preparation and maintenance. Make written exhibition policies available to exhibitors.'
If the artist is obdurate and the exhibition goes ahead despite the access restrictions, you will need to consider potential bad publicity and how this will impact on the museum.
Code of ethics: 7.3
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