the next day Amazing jewelry heist at the Louvre In Paris, officials at Washington’s world-famous museum were already discussing, assessing and planning ways to strengthen their security.
“We looked into the incident,” said Doug Beaver, a security expert at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, who said he participated in Zoom talks with nearby institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. “Then we developed a game plan on the second day and started planning on the third, fourth and fifth day.”
Of course, similar conversations are occurring in museums around the world, with those in charge of art conservation asking, “Can this happen here too?” At the same time, many recognized the inherent, even painful, tensions of their mission. Museums are there to help people engage with art, not to take them away from it.
“The most important thing in a museum is the visitor experience,” Beaver says. “We want visitors to come back. We don’t want them to feel like they’re in a fortress or a restricted environment.”
This is a question that many people are grappling with – first and foremost, of course, Laurence de Cases, the director of the Louvre. Admitted ‘terrible failure’ in security Similar measures taken by French police Members of Parliament.
It was embodied in letters of support from 57 museums around the world to the Louvre and its beleaguered leader. “Museums are places of communication and wonder,” the letter said. Published in Le Monde. “Museums are neither fortresses nor secret repositories,” the magazine said, adding that the essence of museums is “openness and accessibility.”
The Louvre was not built as a museum.
Many museums declined to comment on the Louvre robbery when contacted by The Associated Press, not only to discuss security but also to avoid criticizing the museum at a sensitive time.
French police admit major security shortcomings: Paris police chief Patrice Fauré told senators on Wednesday: Museums were weakened by aging systems..
François Chatillon, France’s chief architect of historic buildings, pointed out that many museums, especially in Europe, are nevertheless located in historic buildings that were not built with the purpose of securing art objects. After all, the Louvre was a royal palace, a medieval palace.
“In the face of criminal infiltration, we must find solutions, but not in a hasty manner,” Châtillon told Le Monde. “We’re not going to put up protective doors and windows everywhere just because there’s been a robbery.”
The architect added that requests for museums come from a variety of sources. “Security, conservation, climate change adaptation, they are all legitimate.”
Museum focuses on a different kind of danger
Even within security, there are competing priorities, said lawyer Nicholas O’Donnell, a global art law expert and editor of the Art Law Report, a blog about legal issues for museums and the arts community.
“In security, you’re always fighting the last war,” O’Donnell said. For example, he said museums have recently focused on security measures because of the “unfortunate trend that occurs all too often of people attacking the art itself in order to get attention.”
O’Donnell also noted that Louvre security’s initial response was to protect visitors from possible violence. “We don’t know who these people are, so that’s a good first priority.”
But perhaps the biggest battle is finding the balance between safety and fun, O’Donnell said. “I want people to interact with art,” he said. “Look at the Mona Lisa around the corner[from the jewel]. It’s not a very satisfying experience anymore. You can’t get very close to it. The glass is reflective and you can hardly see it.”
O’Donnell said it’s true that museums everywhere are reevaluating their security for fear of copycat attackers. In fact, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin’s state art galleries and museums, Suffered from a brazen robbery in 2017said it was using the Louvre robbery “as an opportunity to review the security architecture of our institutions.” He called for international cooperation and investment in technology and human resources.
The key is to balance security and accessibility
Washington’s Beaver predicts that museums will take new measures in the wake of the Paris robberies. One area he is focusing on, and consulting with other museums, is managing access for construction teams, which he says is often lax. The Louvre thieves were dressed as workers in bright yellow vests.
The key, Bieber says, is to create the “necessary balance” between security and accessibility. “Our goal is not to eliminate risk, but to actually manage risk intelligently.”
Beaver said that shortly after taking the security post in 2014, he revamped the museum’s security, specifically adding a weapons detection system. It also restricted what visitors could bring into the area and prohibited bringing in bottles containing liquids.
But visitors’ reactions were mixed, with some asking for increased security and others feeling it was too restrictive, he said.
Robert Carotenuto, who worked as a security guard at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for about 15 years and ran the command center, said museums are becoming increasingly diligent in screening visitors as they try to deter protesters. But that approach alone won’t solve borderline risk. Thieves in Paris were able to park their truck right outside the museum.
“If you’re going to focus on just one risk like the protesters… there’s going to be a flaw somewhere in your security system,” he says. “You can stop the protesters, but then you won’t be able to pay attention to the fake workers who are going to get into the side of the building.”
Protecting the charm of museums
Patrick Bringley also worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2008 to 2019. That experience led to a book and off-Broadway show, “All the Beauty in the World.”
“Museums are great because they are so accessible,” he said. “It’s a place where things that have existed for thousands of years and are incomprehensibly beautiful are displayed right in front of the visitor’s eyes. Sometimes they’re displayed behind glass. That’s something really special.”
Bringley said the tragedy of the Louvre robbery is that events like this make it difficult for the museum to display all of its beauty in a welcoming way.
“Art should be appealing,” Bringley says. “But if people betray that social trust, the Louvre will have to tighten its procedures, and the magic of the museum will just fade a little.”
