Guess Who’s Curating New Exhibit at Baltimore Museum of Art? Their Staff of Security Guards

March 30, 2022 journo

The security guards at the Baltimore Museum of Art get asked a lot in an average day: “Where’s the bathroom,” “Where’s the Impressionist wing,” or “How do I get back to the lobby?” are all standard.

So when their bosses asked them, “Which pieces of art were the most meaningful to you?” It was a change of pace for the 47-strong security team, but one they took to like a gaggle of artistic geese to water.

Guarding the Art is a special exhibition at the BMA curated entirely by the security detail. 17 members were each asked to select three pieces that they wanted to exhibit, and over the early days of the pandemic they were tutored on how to curate, set lighting, and write placards.

Guarding the Art was first imagined back in February 2020 when BMA trustee Amy Elias and Chief Curator Asma Naeem were talking over dinner about how to get the security guards more involved, and how to get different perspectives into the museum.

What they found is that the team had more than enough love, curiosity, and knowledge of the art profession to curate an entire exhibition.

With 95,000 pieces in the museum’s collection, and only 1,800 on display at any given period, it’s no wonder the men and women who spend all day looking at them did an excellent job.

“Our guards are always looking at the art and listening to people as they talk about the art,” Naeem told the Washington Post. “People enjoy talking to them, and their education is really a ‘hands on’ gallery experience. We wanted to see things from their perspective.”
“There are certainly pieces of art that haven’t been seen in decades,” she said, noting the 95,000-piece collection. “That’s part of what makes all of this so fascinating.”

A different perspective

Among guard Alex Lei’s three chosen works was Winslow Homer’s Waiting for an Answer (1872). He stated of the painting, “it’s strangely reflective of the experience of being a guard — a job mostly made up of waiting.”

Waiting for an Answer (1872), The Baltimore Museum of Art

“I’ve always thought that these are the best moments to create conversation among visitors, where we can have a commonality already,” said another guard, Rob Kempton, who selected two abstract paintings, Interior ‘The Creek’ and Evening Glow, as they were paintings he often felt drawn to.

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“I hope that visitors come away from this with a new experience, and that they’re sort of challenged and inspired by seeing such disparate objects in conversation with each other,” he told CNN.

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“It’s a simple idea,” Naeem said of the exhibition. “But it’s asking some very profound questions about who is art for? Who are museums for? Who gets to talk about the arts? Who holds the knowledge? Are there other kinds of people who have knowledge about art that we want to be hearing from? And the answer is: Yes, absolutely.”

The exhibit runs from now until mid-July.

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