Should Photos Be Banned in Museums?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Should Photos Be Banned in Museums?"

Podcast: All Of It
Host: Alison Stewart (A)
Guest: Will Pavia (B), New York Correspondent, The Times
Date: November 20, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of All Of It dives into the increasingly debated question: Should photos be banned in museums? Using the Frick Collection’s strict no-photography policy as a jumping-off point, host Alison Stewart and guest Will Pavia (who reported on this for The Times) examine how museum photography impacts the visitor experience, art appreciation, and museum practices. The discussion features a range of perspectives—from museum visitors, artists, educators, and museum professionals—on whether snapping pictures enhances or detracts from art engagement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background: The Frick’s "No Photos" Rule (02:26 - 03:42)

• The Frick’s Policy:
  • Signage and staff strictly enforce a photography ban.
  • Pavia explains they briefly permitted photos in 2014, but it led to chaos with people backing into each other in the museum’s narrow corridors; the ban quickly returned.
    • Quote (B): “For a few weeks they decided it was a disaster. People were backing into each other in corridors.” (02:49)
• Comparison to Other Museums:
  • Other institutions (like the Whitney or MoMA) incorporate or encourage photography, sometimes curating exhibitions for social media engagement.

The Visitor Experience—Engagement vs. Distraction

• Frick Visitors: Art as Sacred Experience (03:50 - 04:29)
  • Visitors liken the atmosphere to a church, appreciating the enforced focus on art.
  • Quote (B): “They would sort of talk about almost being like in church and sort of communing with the art.” (04:22)
• Secret Shutterbugs:
  • Despite the ban, some visitors sneak photos in subtle ways—“shot from the hip, almost like a sort of drive by” (B, 04:02).
• MoMA & “The Mosh Pit” (04:58)
  • At MoMA, crowds gather for selfies with art, with one visitor humorously describing it as “the mosh pit in front of a Van Gogh.”
    • Quote (B): “She very proudly showed me a picture…you could see a Starry Night through three cell phones.” (05:05)

Is Photo-Banning Elitist? (04:33 - 04:58)

• Some visitors argue bans are “elitist,” particularly detrimental to smaller museums that benefit from free advertising via visitor photos.

How Camera Bans Change Experience (05:45 - 06:27)

• For Pavia, the absence of phones increased focus and presence, describing the Frick as “a very pure experience.”
• Lack of explanatory placards further encourages contemplation.

Listener Perspectives (06:49 – 17:38)

Calls and Texts Highlight These Themes:

• Distraction & Ownership (Don, 06:49):
  • Difficulty “living in the moment” as people seek to own and share their experience.
  • Comparison to concerts: phone-users block views and alter the communal experience.
    • Quote (C): “To me, it seems kind of sad. It's great that they're sharing the event, but it's not great that they're not taking it in as much as they could.” (07:31)
• Generational Shift (Jack, 07:49):
  • Older patrons, former MoMA staff, value the “ambiance” and see photography as a distraction.
• Photos as Personal Research (Text, 08:59):
  • For some, taking photos is like “bookmarking” pieces for later study.
• Impact on Memory (09:14 - 09:45):
  • Pavia cites studies: people remember less if they just snap a photo, but remember more if they zoom in and engage with a detail.

Safety and Art Protection (09:45 - 10:39)

• Incidents from Selfies:
  • Reports of museum accidents—from Florence to the Frick—underscore photo bans as partly protective, especially in cramped galleries.
  • Quote (B): “At the Louvre…there's lots of room in front of the Mona Lisa...but certainly at the Frick…we don't have people waving around selfie sticks.” (10:15)

Museums as Active, Conversational Spaces (10:43 - 11:54)

• Not Everyone Wants Silence (Max, 10:43):
  • Pushback against the idea museums must be as quiet as churches; encouragement for discussion is viewed as vital.
• Phones as a Form of Engagement (11:20 - 11:54):
  • Pavia: “Some people now…react with the phone. And some of what art does is the same thing that someone does when they put something on Instagram…”

The Case for Allowing Photos

• Access and Equity (Sarah from the Bronx, 13:44):
  • Photos allow for personal archives without expensive catalogs.
  • Not about social sharing; about accessibility and deeper enjoyment.
• Education (Eric, professor, 15:17):
  • Pictures help students study and remember art for projects.
    • Quote (C): “As an educator, I would only support students taking pictures to study the work afterwards…” (15:56)
• Experience of Details (Jeff, 16:29):
  • Large, intricate works (e.g. Bosch in the Prado) are hard to appreciate fully without the ability to photograph and zoom in.
  • Some museums offer digital aids, but personal photos allow tailored engagement.

Artistic Inspiration and Use Cases (17:42 - 18:23)

• Pavia reflects on how creatives like restaurateur Keith McNally derive inspiration from museum visits—sometimes from a mere tile or sculpture—making personal photography a creative tool.

Self-Reflection by Host and Guest (19:52 - 20:43)

• Both Stewart and Pavia admit to taking photos for work or study, but feel conflicted when others’ photo-taking impedes their personal art viewing.
• Quote (A): “I'm really frustrated by the people taking pictures. It's an interesting dilemma.” (19:48)

The Selfie vs. the Snapshot (20:43 - 21:15)

• Distinction drawn: casual photos of art versus selfies “for the ‘gram” provoke different responses.
• Quote (A): “This is a good text, it says it's the selfies that are the problem.” (20:43)

Marketing & Museum Reach (Cheryl, former museum marketer, 21:24):

• Banning photos can drive “FOMO” and word of mouth, its own form of advertising.
• Museums can curate online experiences, controlling what’s shared.
• For some, scarcity creates demand.

Small Museums Need Photography (Christopher, Museum of the Dog, 25:11):

• User-generated photos are vital free marketing and community engagement, especially for niche or smaller museums.
• Social media content showcases unique visitor experiences.

Etiquette and Compromise (26:24 – 24:55)

• Texts and callers suggest that the real issue is etiquette—respecting others’ space—rather than simply documenting art.
• Suggestions arise for “photo hours” or specific times when photography is permitted, similar to dog hours in public parks.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Sneaky Photography:
  “She kind of shot from the hip, almost like a sort of drive by kind of thing.” (B, 04:02)
• On “The Mosh Pit” at MoMA:
  “You could see a Starry Night through three cell phones.” (B, 05:17)
• On the Value of Presence:
  “I suppose at the Frick, you have to put your phone away and so no one texts you and you just look at the paintings … I think it is a very pure experience in that respect.” (B, 05:45)
• On Museums and Marketing:
  “If you are a museum in Dayton, Ohio, it's really helpful if people are going around taking pictures of themselves with the artwork… it functions as a way of advertising what they have.” (B, 12:49)
• On Selfies vs. Art Photos:
  “Is there a difference between a selfie and taking a picture?” (A, 20:49)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Frick’s Photography Ban and Reasoning: 02:26 – 03:42
• How Visitors Experience Bans: 03:50 – 06:27
• Listener Calls & Perspectives: 06:49 – 18:23
• Host/Guest Self-Reflection: 19:52 – 20:43
• Selfies vs. Art Photos: 20:43 – 21:15
• Museum Marketing Take: 21:24 – 22:53
• Artist/Small Museum View: 23:04 – 26:24
• Etiquette & Compromise Ideas: 24:46 – 24:55
• Guard Perspective: 27:00 – 27:25

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Conclusion

The debate around museum photography is anything but trivial. While some argue photo bans foster a meditative, focused engagement with art, others champion the accessibility, memory, and creative potential unlocked by personal photos. The episode is a lively survey of the full spectrum of opinion—from museum marketers to practicing artists—hinting that the solution may not be an all-or-nothing rule, but nuanced options that respect both art and audience. As Stewart observes, the dilemma is real: “I'm really frustrated by the people taking pictures. It's an interesting dilemma.” (19:48)

Bottom line: There’s no single approach that works for every visitor or institution. But respectful etiquette, clear policy, and creative compromise may yet bridge the “small stakes, big opinions” divide.

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Transcript

[A]

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show, actors Michael Urie and Grantham Coleman will be here to talk about Starring in the new production of Richard II will mark the 25th anniversary of Erykah Badu's classic album Mama's Gun with musician Jane Poyser who produced the album. Yes, you may know him as a member of the band the Roots. Plus, we'll continue our coverage of the documentary film festival Doc NYC with filmmaker Ernie Bustamante. He joins us to talk about street smart lessons from a TV icon. He is talking about Maria. That's the plan. So let's get this started with a debate about taking pictures in museums. You've probably heard the idea of the Instagramable museum places that encourage the use of smartphones to take pictures so you can upload them to social media and encourage other people to visit places that are sometimes maybe more experienced than traditional museum. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have places like the Frick Collection, which reopens this year with its long standing prohibition on pictures. Will Pavia is the New York correspondent for the Times and he wrote an article called Inside Inside the New York Gallery that bans photography. He joins me now for another installment of our small stakes big opinion series, Museum Photo Bans. Yay or nay. It is nice to meet you, Will.

[B]

You too, Alison.

[A]

Listeners, we would like you to weigh in here. Are you four, are you against museum photography? Are you for it or are you against it? Have you been to the Frick or any other exhibit that didn't allow photography? How did it change your experience? Should it be allowed or should it be banned? Our Phone number is 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. You can call in and join Will and I on the air or you can text to us at that number as well. How does the Frick explain their policy of banning photography?

[B]

Well, they do it on signs as you walk in. No phones, no photographs. And there are also people stationed, a bit like bouncers all over the place who will jump in if they see you taking pictures and they'll call you out. So I think in their case they allowed photography very briefly in 2014. For a few weeks they decided it was a disaster. People were backing into each other in corridors. The Fricks are a former house, a former mansion. It's quite narrow. There's not a lot of space for people to sort of stand back and take a good selfie. So that's what they do. They said, well, this isn't working for us. And so they banned it.

[A]

How unique is the Frick's policy?

[B]

Well, we thought it was very unique and we thought it was interesting to go there because it felt like you were going back to a time before there were cell phones when, you know, you walked around an art museum and you just looked at the art and you didn't take pictures of it or you didn't take pictures of yourself with the art. So other museums allow it and some of them engage with it. You know, I remember there was an exhibition of Andy Warhol at the Whitney which almost was geared for mobile phones. It had, you know, very bright sort of backgrounds and it was made for people to go and take selfies. I think they even had a selfie room. I mean, Warhol is kind of an artist who very much would be engaged with that kind of thing.

[A]

This text says, no photos engage with the art. You interviewed people at the Frick. What did they tell you?

[B]

Yes, so a lot of them said, I suppose predictably that they thought this was good and that they were communing with the art. I did catch the odd person taking a photograph.

[A]

You did?

[B]

I felt like an undercover police officer. I mean, I was a bit wary of almost sort of confronting them because I was worried that I would look like the police. Sometimes they sort of, you know, I remember watching this lady kind of glide past. I think it was a Renoir and she kind of shot from the hip, almost like a sort of drive by kind of thing.

[C]

And.

[B]

But most people at the Frick obeyed the rules and they would sort of talk about almost being like in church and sort of communing with the art. And this was the way it ought to be seen as.

[A]

Did you talk to the people who did sneak a photo here or there?

[B]

I got one. Yes, I did, I did, I did. And I also went to moma straight afterwards to catch people there taking pictures of the art. And there I thought some people were a little bit sort of gingerish about talking about it, but. But a lot of people said, no, it's an elitist thing to ban photography. And there are some smaller museums that really need people taking pictures of the art and putting it on Instagram. It's free advertising. You don't need that if you're the Frick or moma. So it was very much divided opinion and Some people really liked. One lady described it to me as the mosh pit in front of a Van Gogh. She said, you know, I wanted to mosh. You want to get to the front. And she very proudly showed me a picture of. It was her taking a picture of someone in front of her taking a picture of someone in front of them taking a picture. You could see a starry night through three cell phones.

[A]

Oh, that's actually kind of artistic when you think about it.

[B]

Yes. It was like. It was like a little work of art in itself. I was quite impressed. And I must admit, in order to report the story, I surreptitiously took pictures of people taking pictures, and I wandered around with my phone filming them. And I felt slightly like I was going to get pulled up at any moment by the museum. But of course, at MoMA, they don't do that.

[A]

How did the camera ban at the Frick? How did it affect your personal experience?

[B]

Interesting. So how did. I suppose. Yes. I think whenever we go into museums, or certainly whenever I go into museums, I'm not an art expert. So when I go in, I'm always slightly wondering, am I doing this right? Am I engaging properly with the art? I suppose at the Frick, you have to put your phone away and so no one texts you and you just look at the paintings. The other thing about the Frick is they don't have those little placards that tell you what it is. And so you stand there looking at it once or twice. Someone said, oh, no, that's actually a Rembrandt. But I found it very interesting. And you do look at pictures sort of straight off without wondering how this might look on your Instagram feed or whether you should take this down, you know, on your phone. So I think it is a very pure experience in that respect.

[A]

My guest is Will Pavia. Am I saying your last name right? Will Pavia from the New York Times. We're talking about photo bans in museums and we're taking your calls. It's a small stakes, big opinions episode of our series. Let's take a couple of calls. Let's talk to Don. Hi, Don. Thanks for calling in from Brooklyn. You're on the air.

[C]

Hi. Yeah, I think there's. There's a couple issues going on. The first is that I think people do actually have a hard time living in the moment. And then the other is that I think that people want to take ownership those moments so they can share it with other people, either through social media or just showing somebody on their phone. What they have seen. I'm a musician and I noticed, I went to see a concert at the Brooklyn Conservatory. The other day was an outdoor concert, a big event, very interesting. And I. And I could not see the band because people were in front of the ensemble that was on the street with their phones taking pictures. And it's. To me, it seems kind of sad. It's great that they're sharing the event, but it's not great that they're not taking it in as much as they could.

[A]

Thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Jack, who is calling in from Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Jack, thanks for making the time to call all of it.

[C]

Oh, thank you for taking my call. And this is a great topic to Discuss. And I'm 63 years old, so I'm an old man that just never took pictures at museums. And I worked at MoMA back in the 90s and people weren't really into taking photos. And I've been to every, you know, major museum from Philly to New York up to Boston, and I, I just think it with today that it just takes away from the, the ambiance of enjoying the Frick Museum. I've been there many times to go into Frick without a. Thinking of a photo. You're thinking of, of this beautiful architecture and the work. Same with other museums. You know, I'm not. When I go into Mom, I'm not thinking about, oh, let me get my camera. You know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I was there. I saw them post hang the, the, the Port Van Gogh's Portrait of a. Of a Sailor. I was there for when they, they, they got that in. They hang. Hung it. I wasn't thinking about taking a picture, you know.

[A]

I'm sure not. This is an interesting text that says sometimes I take pictures of pieces that I like to delve into later. Either the actual particular piece or the artist. It's almost like bookmarking. That's an interesting point.

[B]

Yes. I think we use phones now as diaries and so we like to go back and look. There was a study done, I think, about 10 years ago where they looked at how people took pictures of artwork and tried to work out whether they remembered it more. If they took a picture of it, they remembered it less if they took a picture of it. But if they zoomed in on an element of the picture, they remembered it more. So I suppose in the sense of this person texting in, they were trying to focus on something in particular that moved them. And so perhaps that, that made the art stand more with them than it would have done so.

[A]

The New York Times reported on a series of museum accidents over the summer that were caused by selfie attempts. One guy in Florence tried to pose in front of a Medici and he bumped into it. When you think about photo bans, are they there to protect the artwork?

[B]

Oh, yes, Good question. I suppose if you are in a museum with lots of room, then I guess you can have people taking selfies. If you go to the Louvre, you know, there's lots of room in front of the Mona Lisa and it's like, you know, you're at the Met gala and she's Kim Kardashian. Everyone is like snapping away at her. And it's kind of almost. I don't know if we see the painting differently. It's almost. We look at it differently. It's more of a scene, but certainly at the Frick. I think it's for your own protection, possibly that we don't have people waving around selfie sticks.

[A]

Let's talk to Max in Brooklyn. Hi, Max, you're on the air.

[C]

Hey, thanks so much. Appreciate your coverage. Been to museums with photo bands and without. I'm fine either way. But when you talk about communing with the art, I do have a bit of an issue when people treat museums like they're churches and therefore they need to be church mouse quiet. When I'm in a museum, I like to talk to the people I'm with about the art. I think it's good to have discussions. That's part of the experience. I feel like some people think silence is mandatory in a museum. I know it's not photography, but where's your experience? Where do you come down on that? How do you feel?

[A]

What do you think, Will?

[B]

I think that's very, very interesting. Yeah. I always think of there's a Donna Tartt book, the Goldfinch, and towards the end of it, a character says something like, art is not legit. Art is like a whistle down a dark alley that kind of draws you in. And I think there's something about that and engaging with the art and reacting to it. And some people now, because phones are such a big part of how we react to things, are, I suppose, react with the phone. And some of what art does is the same thing that someone does when they put something on Instagram that goes viral. It's something that's eye catching, that draws you in. So, yeah, I do feel a certain sympathy with that idea.

[A]

This text says absolutely for the ban. Let's paid skilled photographers to do it while no one is there, stop ruining everyone's experience with your blurry, terribly exposed pictures and selfies. This one says, I was at the Frick and surprised by no photos. The guard did tell me that you can. You could use their website and use their QR code to get more info about the art. So how they determine what you're doing with your phone is complicated.

[B]

Interesting. One of the readers underneath the piece that I wrote over the summer, I should say I work for the Times of London, not the Times, but anyway, they sort of said, why doesn't a museum, as part of your entry fee, give you six postcards of your choice at the end so you don't have to take pictures of those things.

[A]

One of the people you spoke with argued that allowing photography can be a form of advertising or advocacy for the museum. How did she explain that idea?

[B]

Yes, I think that was a French teacher who'd come from Ohio and we were at moma and I was talking to her and she said, you know, it's alright for moma if they wanted to ban cell phones, people would still come. But if you are a museum in Dayton, Ohio, it's really helpful if people are going around taking pictures of themselves with the artwork and saying, this is a great place, everyone should come here. And so it does function, I think, for smaller museums, especially as a way of advertising what they have.

[A]

My guest is Will Pavia, New York correspondent for the Times. We are having a small stakes, big opinion segment. We're talking about photo bands in museum and we are taking your calls. Are you forum? Are you against them? Tell us why. Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Let's talk to Sarah who is calling in from the Bronx. Hi Sarah, thanks for making the time to call all of it.

[C]

Okay. I will try to be succinct, which is not my forte. I love taking pictures because I have orchestrated vast storage of paintings, sculptures, textiles, etc. I'm not going to buy a $75 book all the time to be able to look at pictures again or things that I think are so incredible. And the idea of posting, I knew when Facebook came out and Instagram came out that I didn't want to be part of it. So that has nothing to do with my taking pictures. I think it is, it is wonderful to be able to. It's like owning a book. You can go back and look at it and enjoy it and have a real deeper appreciation. I do some art so I can also use it as a resource. Many books don't have the pieces that I love in them, so that it's inaccessible once the show disappears. And that's as brief as I think I can be.

[A]

You did well. Thank you so much, Sarah, for calling in. Let's talk to Harris from Brooklyn. Hi, Harris. Thanks for calling in. Harris is listening. Harris is listening. He's gonna find out that we're talking to him. He's in Brooklyn. Hi, Harris.

[C]

Hi, it's Eric, not Harris.

[A]

Oh, sorry. Eric. Eric. Go for it.

[C]

It's Eric. Hi. So I'm a professor, and I take students, you know, to look at the artwork, to study the artwork. And it's, you know, it helps them when they can take a picture of things. It helps them remember what they're looking at. They have something to defer to at home or when they're studying or for a project. There's an argument that it enhances their experience in the museum. And that is. I certainly understand the whole concept of in small spaces. It may endanger the art that's real and that has to be discussed. But overall, as a educator, I would only support students taking pictures to study the work afterwards, to use it for projects, to defer to it when they need to and to appreciate it when they want to see it.

[A]

Again, Eric, thank you so much for calling in. And let's go to Jeff in Astoria. Hi, Jeff. Thanks for calling all of it.

[C]

Sure. Hi. Good afternoon to the both of you. You know, perhaps an interesting perspective in that I was fortunate enough to be in the Prado about 12 weeks ago, and they have the singular largest collection of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, including the Garden of Earthly Delights. And if you know anything about Bosch, and particularly that painting, the beauty of it really is in the details. And the details are incredibly small and very hard to see, even though it's a very large piece of work. So I would have found, having been able to take a photo, which I was not allowed to do, to be very beneficial to myself. So I could have zoomed in and seeing all the little sort of creatures or characters that Bosch put into the painting. And to be fair to the Prado, they did have their own video monitor that sort of worked you through the piece and did highlight some of those elements in it. But again, it was sort of their selection, their piece, versus my ability to sort of take in the whole picture and sort of zoom in, zoom out, and see the details that. That I wanted.

[A]

Thank you so much for your comment. Did you Want to respond to anybody who called in?

[B]

Well, I think the interesting thing actually with all of them is that it made me wonder if the people who do take pictures specifically of details of paintings might have sort of an artistic bent themselves in a sense. I interviewed Keith McNally recently, the restaurateur, and he was talking about how he designed all his restaurants. And very often it was something he'd seen in an art museum. He'd seen like a tile or he'd seen a bit of sculpture. And he thought, actually I want, I want to build an entire restaurant around that theme. So I don't know, I mean, I suppose you could argue that if you were an artist going to museums, you know, great artists steal and all that, then, you know, you might, you might want to take pictures of specific details that you want to come back to.

[A]

We're talking about photo bans in museums and taking your calls. It's our small stake, big opinions. My guest is Will Pavia from the Times who recently wrote about the Fricks collection banning all photography. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Will Pavia. He's a New York correspondent for the Times. We're talking about photo bands in museums and we're taking your calls. It's a small stakes, big opinion. My guest is Will Pavia and he wrote about it for about the Fricks collection, their ban on taking pictures. You know, it's interesting because of what I do. I take a lot of pictures in museums. I go to museums all the time and I'm a lot like what the college have said. I go take small images I see in a big picture or I take them from memory so that I can write a question about them. I think I took pictures at the Frick during, before they were open. I know, I know it was just a few of us and I find it very helpful. But I will say when I go to see an exhibit because I want to go see it on my free time, I'm really frustrated by the people taking pictures. It's an interesting dilemma.

[B]

I'm very familiar with this. I do the same, especially when I'm doing it for work, if I'm covering something and I'll take pictures of all the little placards because it's like, oh, the research is right here. And then I'll forget which placard is for which. And so then I'll take pictures More pictures. Do you go back and look like if you go to an art museum, do you then go back and look at the pictures on your phone, do you think?

[A]

Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. I just did the Wilfredo Lamb.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I took a ton of pictures because the jungle is so huge and I needed to look at parts of it to talk about it.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. I don't know. I went to the Vatican when I was 16 and I think I had a little point and shoot camera. And I was with my sister and we had tremendous arguments about what we should take pictures of and what. What we thought was absolutely vital to record. I don't think I've ever looked at any of those photos. Well, maybe once, you know.

[A]

This is a good text, it says it's the selfies that are the problem.

[B]

Ah, yes.

[A]

Rather than, I guess, is there a difference between a selfie and taking a picture?

[B]

Yes, I think there is. I want to say, when I was at the MoMA, lots of people just taking pictures of a starry night, but then occasionally someone would come forward and stand in front of the crowd and, you know, either have their picture taken or take their own picture in front of it and them sort of pointing at it in the way that you now do on social media. And I suppose they were doing it for the gram. Right, rather than for themselves. Maybe.

[A]

Yeah, probably. Let's talk to Cheryl. Cheryl is in the business. Cheryl, thank you for calling all of it.

[C]

Hi there. How are you? A big fan. Yes, I'm Cheryl. I was head of marketing for the museum the City of New York for quite a while. And it's funny, as both a museum goer and as a marketer, I think you can stand on both sides of the. You know, you could be on both sides of the table. What I will say, as I actually think it creates a better visitor experience, and I think that it creates, you know, prohibiting photography. I think it creates, you know, an opportunity for the visitor to be present, more present to the content, which I think all in all creates a better experience, overall experience at the institution. And I think that also creates a little fomo, so. And drives more word of mouth. So, meaning you had that experience, you'll have experience in a museum or an exhibition, and you'll share that verbally with a friend and you'll talk about that. And I think that's kind of the New York way, if you will, because we always want something we can't have and you want to go and experience it yourself. And I think it creates more demand for the institution. So I was just in Japan, I was at several museums that don't allow photography and I actually enjoyed that experience. And I think for the institution itself, for the museum, you can create a curated experience online. So you're not giving away the kitchen sink, if you will. But I don't know, I think actually I'm for it as a marketer.

[A]

Thanks for calling in. We appreciate it. Let's talk to Davis in Miami, who's calling in. Hi, Davis, thanks for making the time to call all of it.

[C]

Oh, well, thank you. I just wanted to say I'm in my studio in Miami painting as we speak. And I go, I do photograph details in paintings because it's instructive. And I've had guards say sometimes why don't you just buy the book and then you can take it home and look at it whenever you want.

[A]

And.

[C]

If you're looking at a book and you get closer and closer in a magnifying glass, you end up seeing the dot pattern of the printing of the book. You don't see details. The only way you can see details is being there at the museum, looking at how the artist twisted the brush as he made that move across the canvas. Or, you know, it's just, it's an instructive learning experience that you are able to take home with you. You're able to grow with it. And maybe there's a way of having the best of both worlds where a museum has a time of day when you can photograph. I understand that if somebody is not a painter, they want to just stand and look at the entire painting and they don't want somebody in front of them taking a detail. Maybe a museum can have photography days for artists.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting. We thank you for calling. We got a text that says how about having no cell phone hours at museums? Kind of like Fridays photo free Fridays.

[B]

Yeah, like, like dogs off the leash in Central Park. Everyone go for it for an hour.

[A]

Speaking of dogs, let's talk to another museum exec from the Museum of the dog on 40th and Park. Christopher, what say you?

[C]

What a fun perfect segue into this. Hi everybody. Thank. I'm loving this conversation. I think it's so important to talk about it from our perspective. We are a small kind of niche ish museum with the largest collection of dog related art and artifacts in the country, maybe the world. We rivaled the King of England. But aside from that, I love when people take photos in our museum for two reasons. One, we have a very tight marketing budget. So it's great when we see things go viral on social media and all of that and we get the name out about the museum because I bet most people listening didn't know we existed, as I didn't before I worked here. But also I love seeing how people experience our collection and we get to see that on social media when we're tagged or when people share it. It's so, so fun for me to see how people interact with, you know, if they have a breed that's represented in the art and they're there with their dog. We get some really fun, wonderful content that really just kind of enriches our own conversation. We also have a constituency across the country of people who show dogs. Right. We're affiliated with the akc, so many of the people who are interested in our content are all over the country and world. So we use photography and other people's photos to kind of communicate and make people feel included.

[A]

Thank you for calling in. Love your museum, by the way. This text says this seems to be more of a question of the public's etiquette about other people in space and being respectful and less about documenting the art.

[B]

Interesting. I have been to the Museum of the Dog, by the way, and at the end of it, there's a screen where you can put your face into it and it will tell you what dog you are, which I think is another use of cameras, I suppose.

[A]

I have a question for you. In reporting this, did you talk to the people who have to be the bad guys and say, put down your camera?

[B]

Yes, I think I did. I talked to a couple of guards. I mean, obviously they're holding the thin blue line or whatever. And I think they said, you know, most people, especially the Frick, which is one of the few places that does it, that people are just very like, oh, sorry, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, yeah, it's a good question. I don't think they feel bad about doing it. I think they, you know, they're just men with a job to do. Or women, I should say.

[A]

The last text we got. I'm a painter. I actually like to take photos of people taking photos of paintings. My guest has been the New York correspondent for the Times, willpavia. Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

[B]

Thank you so much for having me.

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