London’s iconic National Gallery, which receives some 3 million visits a year, has announced new security measures that will require more advance planning from travelers—and other museums are tightening their policies, too.
On October 17, the Gallery said that visitors will no longer be permitted to carry liquids with them during visits.
“Since July 2022, the National Gallery alone has been the victim of five separate attacks on iconic paintings such as Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, John Constable’s The Hay Wain and Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus,” the Gallery’s curators said in a statement. “Two of these attacks have happened in the last two weeks, and that is why we have taken the difficult and unfortunate decision to change the way we operate for the foreseeable future.”
The Gallery is warning guests “to bring minimal items with them including no large bags. All doors into the gallery have walk-through metal detectors where we will inspect bags and rucksacks.”
The revised security policy places additional planning burdens on tourists, who must now spend more time in security inspection lines, find lockers to store their items, or leave behind the water bottles and other supplies they usually carry to get them get through a long day of touring.
The only liquids that now permitted inside the National Gallery are baby formula, expressed breast milk, and prescription medicines.
The international museum world has seen the rise of a frustrating trend of young political and environmental protestors taking out their concerns on our shared heritage instead of on the politicians and corporate magnates who are actually responsible. At the National Gallery alone, works have been doused in soup, plastered with posters, and had protective glass smashed with hammers.
The National Gallery in Washington, DC, and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa have suffered damage to their collections and facilities by flung paint (in Canada, it was washable) and graffiti. In Stockholm, environmentalists smeared red paint on the protective glass of a Monet; in Oslo, Munch’s famous “Scream” painting was unsuccessfully assailed with glue; and in Paris, protesters hurled pumpkin soup at the glass-enclosed Mona Lisa to (I’m not making this up) protest the inaccessibility of food.
That masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci got off easy—in 1987, a drawing by him was shot at the National Gallery.
A history of art vandalization
The tradition of damaging antiquities as a form of protest seems like a strange one—after all, what does a deceased nineteenth-century impressionist have to do with climate change? But there’s a long tradition of it, especially in Europe, where a century ago, British Suffragettes became notorious—and became the stuff of protest legend—for even more destructive attacks on prized artworks.
In 1913 and 1914, the United Kingdom suffered a veritable crime wave at its galleries, which at the time were viewed as social spaces where unaccompanied women could generally enter freely without suspicion. London’s Royal Academy of Arts suffered three attacks, including when Mary Wood hacked at John Singer Sargent’s portrait of novelist Henry James with a meat cleaver. The same year, there were more attacks in Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and at London’s National Gallery, Mary Richardson slashed Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus to protest the imprisonment of women’s rights leader Emmeline Pankhurst.
Perhaps signaling that they view themselves as inheritors of the protest legacy of the Suffragettes, climate agitators chose to target the same Velázquez’s painting in 2023.
A century ago, only the onset of World War finally quelled the drama, but that tumultuous period did yield one positive outcome: London’s beloved V&A museum abolished admission charges in 1914 in the hopes that increased crowds would provide more witnesses and therefore a deterrent to further destruction. That museum, and many more in London including the National Gallery, are free to this day.
The rash of destruction in 1914 continued despite increased security, and it’s likely that modern vandals will still find ways to be disruptive despite the new restrictions.
When you go to a museum, bring fewer things with you
The tighter security policies of 2024 will inevitably become a burden to tourists.
If your future travel plans involve visiting one of the world’s major art museums, take note: While the National Gallery’s stature in the United Kingdom compelled it to issue an announcement about the changes to its security policy, smaller museums are also watching the recent vandalism with concern, and many have revised their restrictions without public statements.
The new museum security crackdowns will affect the day bag you select and what you put in it—and the rules will be different from institution to institution.
At Paris’ Louvre, for example, small lockers are available for free. But bags measuring more than 55 x 35 x 20 cm (that’s just 21.6 x 13.7 x 7.8 inches) are no longer permitted inside, and must be placed in lockers that may require payment. Umbrellas may not enter the museum at all, and you’d better hope no one steals yours from the self-service receptacle provided.
On your next visit to a major art museum, bring a small bag with minimal items, just in case, and make sure you’re hydrated before arriving so that you won’t need a water bottle.
Britain’s National Museum Directors’ Council said that while personally, many of its members are sympathetic to the causes behind the actions, the repeated attacks on galleries are taking a toll on “the people who visit and those who work there.” London’s museum security workers are already on the cusp of striking over wage demands.
Until things simmer down again and protesters get more clever with their peaceful demonstrations, some museums won’t even let you carry your own drink of water.
This post was originally published on here
