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»Waiting an Answer« is the name of this picture by Winslow Homer, and it was chosen by a guard because he could identify with the subject: waiting
Photo: MHood;
Photography BMA / The Baltimore Museum of Art
"Change of perspective" is a word that museums like to use to appear contemporary. But the Baltimore Museum of Art took this really seriously with the exhibition Guarding the Art and let those who normally guard the art design a show: the security officers. What do you get when you turn museum guards into curators? questions to one of them.
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Dicken, you worked as a museum guard for several years to finance your studies and had quite a bit of time to deal with the museum's holdings.
Which artwork did you choose for the exhibition?
Alex Dicken
: I wanted to show something that is usually forgotten and has been in the basement for a long time.
So I went to the depot and looked around for days.
I then chose a painting by Max Ernst, »Earthquake, Late Afternoon«.
It was created in Sedona, Arizona, a few years after Max Ernst came to the United States during World War II and was granted asylum there.
We have a few paintings by Ernst, the German surrealist painter, but I've never seen this one on display.
I don't think the museum has shown it for over ten years.
The curators like to forget that and only show the best-known pieces.
SPIEGEL:
And your colleagues?
Thicknesses:
Some have interpreted it politically.
A Puerto Rican colleague went to the depot and wanted to select a work from Puerto Rico.
There was none.
So he left a white apprenticeship, that was his contribution.
Others have chosen art that they have seen many times and therefore have developed a special relationship with it.
One has taken Bassano's Entry of the Animals into the Ark, a large, very detailed painting from the 16th century.
He used to play "I see something you don't see" with children who were bored in the museum.
Another chose »50 Dozen«, a chair made out of pencils.
He said that once he was on duty in the room this chair was in and spent hours, days, weeks thinking about how comfortable it would be
if he could just sit on it.
We're not allowed to sit down on duty.
Of course, »50 Dozen« would have collapsed if it had been done.
SPIEGEL:
In February of this year, a Russian museum guard made the headlines.
On his first day at work, he simply painted a painting that he was supposed to be guarding.
The faces in the picture didn't have eyes, and he didn't think that was right.
Dicken:
Of course we read that too, I still remember how we talked about it and wondered what made him do it.
He must have been incredibly bored.
Maybe he was forbidden to talk to the visitors?
Ultimately, however, we came to the conclusion that he probably wasn't the right guy for the job.
Personally, I've never had the impulse to do anything like this.
But of course it can be very boring sometimes.
Then you have to keep yourself busy.
MIRROR:
How?
Dicken:
I like it when visitors talk to me.
A lot of people think they shouldn't do that.
But I think it's totally okay, and often these are exciting conversations.
Most visitors also believe that we museum guards have no idea and are only paid as placeholders, as human pillars.
My experience is that many of us know art quite well and didn't just choose the museum as a place to work by chance.
SPIEGEL:
And what if no one comes to talk to you, or simply nobody is there?
Dicken:
Well, then I'm alone with the art.
We are always assigned to a room for one day.
Usually there is a work of art to which I develop a special relationship.
A personal relationship.
A painting, a sculpture, a video speaks to me and I keep coming back to it throughout the day.
What's interesting is that it's usually not the largest or best-known work in the room.
For example, there was this other painting of Max Ernst that we had on display.
Chimeras that seem to grow out of a mountain.
But it is a very small picture, 24 by 19 centimetres, not conspicuous, it is easy to walk past it.
But it always fascinated me.
SPIEGEL:
There is this famous book by the Spanish author Javier Marias, "A Heart So White," and it's also about an employee at the "Prado" in Madrid.
At some point he starts to worry about one of his guards because he's developing a pathological relationship with a painting.
He then decides that the Wardens need to change rooms more often, not just once a month, to keep from going insane.
Thicknesses:
I don't know the story, but it makes perfect sense.
A month in the same room, that can't be good.
Having a personal relationship with a work of art is beautiful.
But it shouldn't be too serious.
For example, I'm also from Baltimore, and I came here with my parents when I was a child.
That's why I wanted to work here too.
And my favorite picture has always been »Il n'y a pas de Monde achevé« by André Masson – another surrealist, but a French one.
You see three figures, frightening, like ghosts.
They are in hell, at least that's how it could be, one of the three has horns on his head.
I loved that as a kid and whenever we came to the museum I wanted to see the picture.
And also when I started working here, I was happy when I was assigned to this room.
But a whole month?
No, that would be too much.
Spending a month with these three ghosts, no.
There is a limit.
