They protect the art, but also gain a unique insight into the works and the visitors – Katherine McMahon meets the gallery attendants.
Museum security, above all, abides by Murphy’s Law. “If you think it’s not going to happen, it’s going to happen. You have to expect the unexpected,” said Pat Natale, director of security at the New Museum in New York. The 2013 show “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures” included an artwork made up of multiple gold bars, so the museum had beefed up security—there were armed guards, panic alarms, motion detectors, audible alarms, and even fake walls. “In the end, the security protocol became as much a part of the piece as the piece itself,” Natale said.
Going a step further, Dick Drent, former corporate security manager at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, codeveloped a new form of security for the institution in 2013 based on a type of observational analysis called the ORRI Methodology, which uses elements of predictive profiling (an evaluation of whether a person, object, or situation poses a threat). Drent considers the role of a museum guard to be a proactive one: “We prevent things from happening before they happen,” he said... Keep reading on ARTnews
Museum security, above all, abides by Murphy’s Law. “If you think it’s not going to happen, it’s going to happen. You have to expect the unexpected,” said Pat Natale, director of security at the New Museum in New York. The 2013 show “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures” included an artwork made up of multiple gold bars, so the museum had beefed up security—there were armed guards, panic alarms, motion detectors, audible alarms, and even fake walls. “In the end, the security protocol became as much a part of the piece as the piece itself,” Natale said.
Going a step further, Dick Drent, former corporate security manager at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, codeveloped a new form of security for the institution in 2013 based on a type of observational analysis called the ORRI Methodology, which uses elements of predictive profiling (an evaluation of whether a person, object, or situation poses a threat). Drent considers the role of a museum guard to be a proactive one: “We prevent things from happening before they happen,” he said... Keep reading on ARTnews