CRITIQUENT

Culture is supposed to be good for you right? Then why is it my blood pressure skyrockets whenever I pay to go to a museum? If it’s free, I’m fine with rules devoid of common sense to a point. When my money gets involved my BS threshold shifts. Perhaps it not museums I dislike, more the concept of paying for the pleasure of getting shafted.

Excuse me while I vent my spleen at the imaginary museum director in my readership:

• Don’t tell me what to do with my camera unless it is “Remove your camera from the hole you just created in that painting”. If I pay you a goodly sum of my hard earned cash, I expect to be allowed to photograph to my hearts content. No flash, fine. But don’t give me that crap about preserving the artworks if I’m standing within a reasonable distance without using a flash.
• Try some common sense. If you have a huge space where people are queuing up to get into small rooms throughout, it’s my prerogative to see the rooms in reverse order. Any route through which you can enter a building should also work to exit said building. What kind of ludicrous human being employs someone to sit and tell people to go back to the opposite side of a building because some fool divined that only one door could function as an exit?
• Don’t force my route through your overpriced, kitschy, vomit-inducing gift shop which takes up space more space than the gallery itself. Just why are you selling handbags in the Uffizi? Is there a sudden shortage of crap peddlers in the street markets of Florence?
• If you aren’t displaying your whole collection, then don’t expect me to pay the full contribution. I don’t care if you’re cleaning, restoring or creating new masterpieces, I’m not paying you for simply being in the same building with them — had many contributions from the Blind Society recently?

For the record, the most disappointing visits thus far have been to the ICA - Boston, the Danish Design Centre - Copehagen, and Galleria degli Uffizi - Florence.