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Food and Drink and Art

It’s been a year since I took the reigns at the Gallery of Contemporary Art. I’ve made some changes to policy, direction, and aesthetics. Of all of the changes I have made, the one I expected the least resistance to, and yet the one I hear the most about, is the policy concerning food and drink. No one has confronted me about my choices governing exhibitions, exhibition layout, events, lighting, website, emails, or the fact that I stripped 26 years of paint off the Gallery floor. But at every opening reception I entertain a number of petitions to allow the enjoyment of a cup of wine or a few hors d’Å“uvres while looking at the art.

I thought the din would eventually die down and people would realize that the policy is in place for the safety of the artwork and not for the intended discomfort of visitors. Twelve months later, I guess it’s time for more institutional transparency to shed some light on my reasoning.

In my many years of employment with galleries and museums, I have yet to work at a professional institution that was flippant in its approach toward food and drink near artwork. This is mostly due to the fact that institutions want to keep the artwork safe from damage (and keep insurance companies off their backs). A simple, innocent spill can result in thousands of dollars worth of damage if not the total loss of an original piece. Many people have told me that our audience is primarily comprised of adults and that adults don’t run willy-nilly through the Gallery sloshing their beverages on the walls and floor. That is true for the most part, but we’re all accident prone and openings can become cheek to jowl at times where elbows do get jostled. The very first opening reception that occurred two weeks after I arrived here left a significant red wine stain streaking across the Gallery wall just inches from a painting. That isn’t the kind of risk that I want to take or feel that I am obligated to take. One of my primary obligations is to the art under my stewardship.

What I see as the real problem is not that I am disallowing food and drink in the presence of artwork, but that for fifteen + years it has been allowed. Had this professional policy been in place well before I arrived, it would have been common place and ignored.

The artwork that we will be showing at the Gallery of Contemporary Art varies in nature and price. For example, we have four works on paper in the current exhibition that are not intended to be displayed behind glass or acrylic which could shield them from spills and sloshes. One careless tip of the wine cup and we have lost a work forever. Other works are worth more than the average Colorado Springs resident’s yearly salary. These are not works that I am willing to risk because someone has trained himself that he needs something in his mouth when he looks at art (or watches TV).

The previous Gallery director Gerry Riggs recently mentioned in an interview on KRCC:

“I don’t think [Christopher Lynn] has the social end of it down. One thing I’m unhappy about was just not serving food in the Gallery during the openings or not allowing receptions in the Gallery. I think that was a huge mistake.”

This exemplifies the notion that I am somehow depriving the public by keeping the food and art separate. Quite the opposite is true. I am guaranteeing you, the public, that I will be able to bring you better exhibitions because we are able to keep the artwork safer. If I have the choice of enjoying a pork strudel in front of a fifth-tier artist or looking at a Kehinde Wiley unencumbered by a soda and some meatballs, I will choose the latter every time.

I completely understand that the hallway is not the most cordial of locations to sit, enjoy a drink, and chat, but we are working on that. Please be patient with us so we can build a more professional and world-class institution. In the meanwhile, the hallway is a better option than hosting the receptions in the biology lab down the hall surrounded by pig fetuses in jars.

Case Studies

• The Milwaukee Art Museum’s martini disaster
• What to do after a 12 year-old sticks chewing gum to a Helen Frankenthaler / Note: We don’t have their facilities or budget.
• A Board of Trustees meeting results in a food fight

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