The Tipping Point

Over at the American Association of Museums’ Emerging Museum Professionals ListServ, there has been a debate brewing. The issue:

If a museum docent/tour guide/attendant receives a tip from a visitor, should they be allowed to keep it?

I must confess that is not an issue that I had given much thought to before. However, after reading the responses, there have been some interesting arguments raised. Most people agreed that asking for tips lacked class, while some thought tips (whether solicited or not) were completely inappropriate for a museum employee. Someone made an intellectual property argument, and others discussed the possibility of encouraging the tipper to make it a museum donation instead. Ultimately, it seemed that the very reason behind why people choose to work in a museum was at the heart of the debate.

Some interesting highlights include:

1. “In the museum field we are usually subject to intellectual property rules and that the information you impart on your tour is owned by the museum you work for and therefore tips on such should also go to them.”
2. “It is reasonable to assume that if a visitor wants to donate to the museum, they will do so (and may have already done so, and in turn will receive the tax deduction they would expect as a donor), and if they want to show appreciation to the guide, they will do that. It is also reasonable to assume the visitor would rather have the control over where the tip goes, and may feel resentment towards a museum that takes tips away from its employees (if they were privy to that knowledge).  So, if a museum values a donor’s intent, they would either let the guide keep the tips, or verbalize the tip-donation practice into the tour at some point.  To do otherwise would be dishonest, so my museum-going sources say.”
3. “If I had offered someone a tip and they then handed it to the organization they worked for, I would be angry that my money wasn’t given to the person who deserved it. It’s a pretty bogus standard.”
4. “You are either getting paid to do your tour or you are a volunteer and get personal satisfaction for doing the tour. You should do a good job because you have pride in yourself and your museum. Expecting a tip is like paying for a smile as one blogger put it.”
5. “It seems rather unethical for a museum to let you accept tips, but then turn around and require you to donate the money back to them. And, tipping is not a matter of who owns the information intellectually, but instead is given for the quality of the delivery of the tour–it doesn’t matter if you had a script, you still have to be personable, accurate, engaging, etc.”
6. “Generally, the guide is provided the tools (i.e. training) to make the museum “come alive” by the museum educators. Also, if monetary gain is a large incentive for someone, that person may wish to re-evaluate their choice to pursue a career in the museum profession.”
7. “What is a typical tip? A dollar or two? Let’s not conflate thinking you might be permitted to keep a couple of dollars with being money hungry. I feel like this is a case of museums putting their mission on a pedestal. Workers in other professions can accept tips or expect pay in line with their skill/education level but if you’re a museum professional you have to be doing it for love alone. You can’t even hint you might like to keep your dollar or that you feel like you deserve to be paid well without being told you should reevaluate your priorities.”

I am inclined to agree most with #2, #3, #5, and #7. The idea that museums “own” the information in a tour bothers me a bit. Museums should not operate under the belief that they “own” the information, it is their job to hold items in the public trust and educate the public about those items.  As noted in #2 and #3, if a visitor is aware that they can leave a donation to the museum if they choose, but tip a docent for a particularly excellent experience anyway, that money is meant for the docent, not the museum. Finally, #7 strikes a cord with me, as I am sure it does with a number of underpaid museum employees out there. Yes, being an employee in a museum often means sacrificing financially for a chance to do what you love, but that argument only goes so far. If you did a great job, and a visitor chooses to recognize that, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

In the end, my response would be:

If a museum docent/tour guide/attendant receives a tip from a visitor, they should a) inform the visitor that tips are neither expected nor required and b) that the visitor can offer the tip as a donation to the museum rather than a tip to the individual if they so choose. If the visitor still insists on giving the tip to the docent, then all’s well that end’s well.

What do you think?

Check out what the ladies at Museos Unite think here.

Who’s on Your List?

Photo by Torcello Trio

So, I’m not entirely certain what criteria was used to compile this list, but Juxtapoz Magazine has their Top 100 Galleries/Museums. To be accurate, it should be the Top 100 Contemporary Art Galleries/Museums, but it probably goes unsaid given who compiled the list.

Looking through the selections, it seems California-heavy, with at least 40 of the 100 ranked spaces calling the Golden State home. There are some big names on the list including The Louvre (#21), The Museum of Contemporary Art in New York (#12), Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (#72), and the leaders of the pack SFMOMA (#1) and the Guggenheim (#2) However, it is the small spaces, stores, and galleries around the world that are pushing the creativity envelope that dominate the list.

Some standouts include…

#39: Black Rat Press (London, UK)

#57: Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain)

#69: Monster Children Gallery (Sydney, Australia)

#95: Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, Ohio)

#86: Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit, Michigan)

#66: Galeria Animal (Santiago, Chile)

#40: MOCA (Shanghai, China)

#16: Show and Tell Gallery (Toronto, Canada)

What do you think of Juxtapoz’s list? Agree/Disagree? What’s your number one?

Life Lessons from a Gallery Tour

All art was modern once. This is sometimes difficult for me to remember when, for instance, I stand in front of Monet’s Haystack series at the Art Institute of Chicago. To me, it seems perfectly natural for them to be touted as masterpieces in one of the world’s great museums. However, this was not always the case. Even Monet was rejected from inclusion the Royal Academy’s show in 1871, his works too  “edgy” for their taste.

I tend – like many people – to dismiss modern art outright. However, I used to do the same with country music, which I now rather like, so modern art and I might still have a chance at reconciling our differences. Therefore, it was with this hope-for-the-best-but-expect-the-worst attitude that I joined a lovely group of women (you know who you are) for a guided tour of a handful of Chelsea galleries.

Enter our guide, the knowledgeable and gregarious Rafael Risemberg. Holding a PhD in Arts Education, Rafael runs the small company New York Gallery Tours, which offers both regularly scheduled Saturday public tours as well as private gallery tours.

The lovely ladies and I met Rafael at the Sean Kelly Gallery to see a computer art installation by Anthony McCall. Before the art experience could begin, however, Rafael wanted to explain what we were to see over the course of our afternoon in Chelsea. By visiting the over 300 galleries that call Chelsea home and the hundreds of exhibits that come on and off their walls on a regular basis, Rafael had compiled a list of seven of what he considered to be the best shows in Chelsea at that moment. He explained that the art that you find in a museum is decades old at the very least, but the art of the gallery world is new. Not only is it new, it is meant to provoke, to challenge your very notion of what is art.

Gallery #1: Sean Kelly Gallery

Feeling fortified by the feeling of being “in the now” and with an expectation of the avant garde, it was now time for our first gallery show. Pulling aside a heavy black curtain, I immediately started the awkward, stutter-step walk that I employ when the lights suddenly go out and I don’t know if I’m going to run into an ottoman or a doorjamb. Arms outstretched in the black void, I hear Rafael say, “Don’t worry, you’ve got nothing to run into but other people.” OK, ottoman-free zone. Eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, I see two clear shapes projected onto the wall. One shape – what would be a circle, except a piece is missing – is larger than the other. Well, wouldn’t you know it, that diminutive neighbor actually is the missing piece of the larger pie. I stare transfixed as the size of the shapes slowly alter, moving in tandem, one always completing the other. Meanwhile, the light from the projectors is infused with a misty haze that causes the beam to look 3-dimensional. Our trusty guide assures us that the chemicals used to create the mist aren’t toxic, but I’m not sure I believe him. I reach out to try and touch the misty beam like a stoner contemplating the deeper meaning of a toothbrush. I blame the mist.

Installation View, Leaving (with Two-Minute Silence); Alexander McCall show at Sean Kelly Gallery; Photo by Jason Wyche.

Gallery #2: Bruce Silverstein Gallery

On to Gallery #2, otherwise known as the Bruce Silverstein Gallery. No trippy mood mist here, but there is the futuristic digital “appropriation art” of the German artist, Martin Denker. Drawn from images across the interwebs, my first impression is that these works look like sticker collections, only digital. Rafael explains that the artist is trying to create a response to the barrage of images from technology that has overrun society. If I messed that up, which I most likely did, I apologize. Whatever the message, walking around the gallery, the bright colors and Where’s Waldo-like fun of trying to identify objects within the clutter made this an enjoyable stop.

6.3DayChemicalHighway by Martin Denker

Gallery #3: Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Barbara Gladstone Gallery had a show that I like to call “Blue Collar Lunch,” but was actually Lunch Break by Sharon Lockhart. Visiting the Bath Ironworks factory in Maine, Lockhart attempted to capture the identity and culture of the salt-of-the-earth-like workers through portraits of lunchboxes, (one man’s lunchbox is another one’s picnic basket), glimpses of the cafeteria (Dan’s Delicious Devil Dogs are just $1.00), and the most depressing lunch break in 1/8 time (with the drone of the factory in real time overhead). Poignant? To be sure. Depressing? Debatable. Very well done? Indeed. Through her beautiful photography, Lockhart made it all feel quite real. As one of the lovely ladies remarked: “Like a contemporary Norman Rockwell.”

First panel from Mike Dickey, Tinsmith, 2000 by Sharon Lockhart.

Gallery #4: Pavel Zoubok Gallery

Collage can be juvenile, or cluttered, or cheap. The collages of Matthew Cusick, on display at Pavel Zoubok Gallery, were anything but. Easily my favorite exhibit of the day, Cease to Exist attempted to capture the culture of 1970s California through a mishmash of vintage maps. This was my thought process…

“That looks like a painting of a golf course. But wait, that’s not paint. Oh cool, he cut up maps and meticulously       pieced them together to create a picture. Is that sand trap a map of Michigan?”

From far away these images succeeded in capturing the feeling of the Golden State: muscle cars, the swell of a cresting wave, golf courses, and even a portrait of Manson’s women. However, it was the detail provided by the maps that stole the show. A patchwork quilt of cartography, my mom found the location of her wedding reception amid the outline of a TransAm, while others found out they grew up a few miles apart from those same contours. The beautiful thing about this exhibit is that it succeeded where many a museum has failed: it enabled connections and interaction. People were not just taking in the images, they were processing them and giving back to the artistic experience. There were a thousand stories to be told in those collages, and you didn’t need an audio guide or wall plaque to tell them.

Kara’s Wave. By Matthew Cusick.

Gallery #5: Margaret Thatcher Projects

Margaret Thatcher Projects had paintings. Alas, these were no ordinary paintings. These were 3D paintings. Colorful Koosh balls of pure paint shoved through the canvas from the back. Round geodes with fissures of color, cracks exploding with oranges, blues, reds, yellows, and a million other hues. It took all of your effort to stop yourself from reaching out and squeezing them. It’s one of those you have to see it to believe it type of exhibits, and really, you should see it. Vadim Katznelson, check him out.

Like Green Plants by Vadim Katznelson.

Gallery #6: Daniel Reich Gallery

The Daniel Reich Gallery showcased the consumerist commentary of Christian Holstad. Wilted shopping carts expressed both the fatigue society feels from constantly buying things as well as the symbolic wind leaving our sails as the recession set in. There were also paintings that I refer to as “Trashcan Testimonials.” Essentially portraits of people, minus the people. Trying to convey the belief that you can tell a lot about a person by what they throw away. To be perfectly frank, I wasn’t that interested. However, we were shortly off to our final stop of the day.

The Road to Hell is Paved (Best Buy) by Christian Holstad.

Gallery #7: Pace Wildenstein

Pace Wildenstein is one of the more well known galleries in the world, and they were featuring the work of one of the “hot” artists in the world today. Rafael informed us that Zhang Huan got his start by covering himself in honey, going into an outhouse, letting the bees or some other flying critters swarm his face, and videotaped the experience. Wonder what the 1871 Royal Academy would have thought about that? Not being a big fan of bees myself, I was relieved to see that this exhibit lacked insects of any variety. It was a peaceful, almost stark, and seemed kind of normal for such an “edgy” artist – and this with a giant Buddha made of ash in the center of the gallery. The black and white paintings, drawn from scenes from the mythology of a 7th-century Chinese prophecy book, were given a greater amplitude of interestingness by the unexpected use of feathers. It seemed fitting to start with a strangely soothing computer art installation and end with a modern twist to centuries old religion.

Rulai by Zhang Huan.

And so concluded our gallery tour of Chelsea. We bid adieu to Rafael, who through his insight and clear passion for the work, had made the trip informative, provoking, and downright fun. The shows we had seen had done exactly as Rafael had promised: they had been new, they had provoked me and my coterie of lovely ladies in both good and bad ways, and they had challenged at least my definition of art.

However, the greatest thing that I took away from this excursion was this simple fact: I had enjoyed a day with modern art. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t feel cheated by having to pay for art that I didn’t think was worthy of being called art. Rather, I felt invigorated. There was a life lesson in there somewhere, keeping your mind open to new experiences or something, but all I could say was: “Well played, Modern Art. Until we meet again.”

Meet Me at the BarCamp

Museum professionals love conferences. It seems like every month there are a handful of acronym-heavy conferences to attend: AAM, ASTC, ACM, MCN, etc. These gatherings, like most conferences in the world, typically share some of the following attributes:

• A schedule of keynote speeches and panels are released a head of time.
• Limited question time after the speeches.
• They’re expensive.
• Attendance tends to be limited to industry professionals.
• Who speaks at the conference is chosen by a small group of organizers.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-conference. I attended last year’s Web Wise conference in D.C., and found it entertaining, informative, and worthwhile. However, I think some new options should be considered.

Museum conferences have embraced some new ideas in recent years. With conference back channels that encourage dialogue before, during, and after the event, live feeds of panel discussions so that those unable to attend can still reap some benefit, and inviting speakers not directly involved in the museum world to diversify perspectives: the museum conference experience has been enhanced. But, I say we go one step further.

Let’s have a museum unconference, or BarCamp as it is better known.

BarCamp started as a reaction to Tim O’Reilly’s annual invitation-only, participant-driven conference: Foo Camp. BarCamp’s aim was to be the opposite of an exclusive, expensive, somewhat elitist conference. They accomplish this in the following ways:

• If you attend, you participate. Give a talk about something you’re working on, donate food or time, get a discussion started, etc.
• The schedule for the conference is decided the day of. There is a white board for participants to sign up.
• The organization of the event is entirely public, conducted through a wiki.
• There is a BarCamp backchannel to keep the conversation going.
• It’s free.
• You don’t have to be a member of any group or organization, no invite necessary.

Since 2005, BarCamps and related unconferences have been held in over 350 cities around the world. Participants have given talks on any number of topics, including “Storm Chasing with Social Media” at BarCamp Charleston, “Death of Advertising” at BarCamp Austin 4, and “Presentation Kung Fu” at BarCamp Nashville. Essentially anything goes.

While BarCamps’ have traditionally been technology community focused and driven, I think that they could serve the needs of the museum community just as well. Can you just imagine the line-up of sessions at a Museum BarCamp…

• 10:30 Participation Orientation, BarCamp-Style by Nina Simon
• 11:00 Why the Smithsonian Is Better Than You and How You Can Change That by Michael Edson
• 11:00 Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Museum Studies Class with A Museum Studies Grad Student
• 12:00 Getting Social with Beth Kanter
• 12:00 Constituent Relationship Management – Yep, You Could Use Some Help with Blackbaud
• 1:00 Using Open Source Tools to Make Your Museum More Effective on the Web with Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress
• 1:00 Why I Chose to Adopt a Polar Bear with a Zoo Supporter
• 2:00 Exhibit Design from a Non-Museum Employee Perspective with A Local User-Interface Designer
• 2:00 Your Gala, Why It’s More Than Just Getting Butts in the Seats with an Event Planner
• 3:00 Managing Millenials in Museums by An Entry-Level Employee
• 3:00 10 Museums Not to Miss on Your Next Round The World Trip with Your Friendly Neighborhood Travel Agent
• 3:00 What The Museum Doesn’t Show You with An Archivist
• 4:00 We May Be Dead, But We’re Still Twitter Rockstars with @NatHistoryWhale and @SUETheTRex
• 4:00 Ask A Curator Q&A Session

Of course, these sessions are all fictional, but they do show you all of the topics we could cover and all of the new perspectives we could embrace.

So, if your interest is piqued, let’s get the discussion going. I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.

If You Build It, They Will Climb

Oh, public art: the beautiful, the strange, the poignant, the misunderstood. Whatever way you view it, great public art tends to leave a rather memorable impression. However, the impression is not always the one the artist/architect intended. The latest example of unintended use comes in the form of Ben van Berkel’s Centennial Pavilion, which was installed in Chicago’s Millennium Park to celebrate the centennial of the Burnham Plan.

As seen in the photo above, the once glossy white structure is now scarred by the marks of visitors of all ages. Not even the signs asking park-goers to refrain from climbing on the structure have deterred people’s urge to scale the Pavilion.

Are visitors to blame for the destruction? Several say no, including Harriet F. Senie of City College in New York. In Blair Kamin’s recent article about the closing of the Pavilion for repairs, Senie is quoted as saying: “Why is this a surprise to anybody? The first thing people do with public art is they climb on it.” Her argument makes quite a bit of sense. Having seen the Centennial Pavilion, it practically begs people to climb up, skate on, and touch its smooth sloping surfaces. It was shortsighted, at the least, not to have foreseen the inevitable damage that would ensue.

Discussing whether or not the architects should have foreseen the damage begs the question: Is destruction of public art by the public’s use of it something we should be trying to prevent? Or, is it something we should be embracing as integral to the public art experience?

What is it about public art that causes people to give in to their compulsion to interact with the works without any guilt? Is it the venue in which public art is housed? People are apparently able to control these urges within the confines of the museum. What is different between the venues? An easy answer is more security, which is exactly what Burnham Centennial organizers are suggesting; placing more guards around the pavilion when it reopens to discourage climbing. But to me, the increased security seems to go directly against the idea of public art.

Museums, it is argued, hold items of cultural, historical, and artistic importance in the public trust. The items technically belong to the public, but there are restrictions about how and when the public may interact with them. These restrictions include visiting hours, standards of conduct, limitations of space, and more. These restrictions exist so that these important items may be preserved so that generations to come may enjoy them as well. The ends and means are in harmony.

This is not the case with public art. Preserving an item for future generations is not a goal of public art. Public art is temporary by its very nature. There is no institution charged with maintaining public art in perpetuity. The public understands the difference, which is clear in their behavior. However, it is apparent that not all public artists understand this, which is evident in Van Berkel’s Centennial Pavilion.

I would love to see the Pavilion left as it is, exposed plywood and all. I would rather have public art that shows the wear and tear of human interaction than a large white climbing structure in a public space with no climbing allowed.

What are your thoughts?

I Really Want to Kiss That Right Now

On June 15, 1985, a man attacked Rembrandt’s Danae by pouring sulphuric acid on the canvas and slashing at it with a knife. The painting was so badly damaged that it took the Hermitage Museum until 1997 to complete its restoration. This was neither the first, nor the last, time that an individual attacked a piece of art. Art is meant to evoke emotion in the viewer, but is it meant to create a physical reaction so strong that a person feels compelled to destroy or alter the work? Is the art to blame for these reactions, or is it just an outlet for an already disturbed mind? Let’s look at 5 other famous examples of art vandalism to see if any answers lie there.

1)   But Venus wasn’t allowed to vote either: In 1914, a woman named Mary Richardson took a meat cleaver to The Rokeby Venus by Velazquez, which was on display in the National Gallery of London. This act of aggression was committed in protest of Emmeline Pankhurst’s (the leader of Britain’s suffragette movement) arrest. Richardson later described her reasoning for choosing the Venus: by destroying a painting that depicts the pinnacle of feminine beauty, she would call attention to the damage being done to ordinary women by the government in denying their right to vote.

2)   That’s one angry Dutchman: The Dordechts Museum in the Netherlands fell victim to a vandal in 1989, when a man went on a knife-wielding spree, slashing 10 Dutch paintings in little over a minute. His justification: “We are throwing away our Dutch culture [by allowing foreign workers into the country] – thus, there’s no need for those paintings anymore.”

3)   Well, it was just a white painting: Apparently Ruth van Herpen thought “Please Don’t Touch” was just a suggestion when she planted a big, wet kiss on Jo Baer’s painting in 1974. She claimed the painting needed a little color to liven it up.

4)   Um, Happy Birthday?: In a case of supremely twisted logic, Lazlo Toth, hopped the protections around Michelangelo’s Pieta and started swinging away at the Virgin Mary with a hammer. Apparently, Lazlo thought he was the son of God, that Mary wasn’t real, and that because it was his 33rd birthday he was ready to shed his mortal coil.

5)   Wow, overreacting: Ellis Nelson has a different way of dealing with his likes and dislikes than ordinary folks. He walked into the Black Forest Inn in Minneapolis in 1986, pulled a gun, and opened fire on a photograph hanging on the wall. His reasoning: “That photo always bugged the hell out of me.”

So, as we can see from these examples, art vandalism is neither easily predictable or preventable. Whether it’s political protest, general insanity, a bad reaction to an artwork, or a spontaneous need for some color, the reasoning is always a bit beyond comprehension. The need to deface a work of art is not defined by age, gender, political leanings, or nationality.  It’s not always violent, and sometimes even people view their “additions” as art in themselves. On occasion, these reactions are immensely personal, while self-promotion sometimes serves as the motive. Finally, even the methods for destroying the art are not the same: one vandal event ate food of a specific color so that he could projectile vomit that color onto a painting.

Why do people deface art? There is no one answer. Is art responsible for these reactions? In a way, yes. At the root of each of these cases lies art itself. Because of the importance we as a society give art, vandalizing artworks is an excellent way to get your message heard (even if it only makes sense to you). Is it wrong that people feel so compelled to interact with art? No, I would think most people have a desire to interact with art. However, I would like to believe that most people have a modicum of impulse control.

Now I leave you with some questions to ponder on your own. What role does the museum play in preventing art vandalism? And at what point do museums spend too much energy in preventing vandalism that it hurts the visitor experience for the rest of us? Discuss (I would love to hear your thoughts!)

Someone Forgot to Pay the Water Bill

Judging by some of the laws on the books, I can’t say that I have complete faith in the governing abilities of Chicago’s City Council. Some of these laws include: 1) It’s illegal to protest naked unless you are under 17 years of age, 2) Eating at a place that is on fire is – you guessed it – illegal, and 3) fishing while riding on a giraffe is also a no-no (would love to know the story behind that one). Needless to say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and the City Council has found theirs.

Last week, I was one of several bloggers who wrote about the proposed admissions hike at the Art Institute of Chicago. Apparently the City Council agrees that this sudden and significant leap in entry fees is more than a little unwarranted. In response to the AIC’s actions, Alderman Ed Burke of the fighting 14th and Ald. Ginger Rugai(19th) have proposed an interesting condition:   any museum that charges city residents more than $10 for admission “shall be ineligible for any public subsidy.” According to the Chicago Sun-Times:  “For decades, churches, museums, hospitals and other non-profits have received free water from the city. They also get free building permits and waivers of license and inspection fees.” Essentially, if a museum charges Chicagoans – whose tax dollars provided the Art Institute with a $6.6 million Park District subsidy last year – more than $10 to peruse their cultural offerings, then the water gets shut off.

On the whole this seems like a rather reasonable compromise. Here’s why:

• If residents of the city are already contributing millions of dollars to the museum through tax dollars, it only seems fair that the financial burdens of a museum should not fall squarely on their shoulders.
• Museums should reward their core audience, which frequently consists of the residents of the city or town that the museum calls home, and a reduced city resident admission price is a logical and easy way to provide loyal visitors with a benefit.
• The Art Institute is a public institution and thereby a participant in an unspoken give-and-take with Chicago and its residents. For example,  the city will provide free water to a museum that offers a significant cultural outlet for residents. Or, a museum will receive Park District subsidies if it provide x number of free days each year. Or, the city will waive certain fees and permit requirements if a museum serves as a beacon in the city’s tourism appeal. Essentially, by introducing such an extreme hike in admissions fees, the Art Institute has violated that unspoken agreement.
• This proposition introduces some accountability into the decision-making process of museums. This is not to say that every decision a museum makes should be approved by the city council/governing body, nothing would get done. However, museums need to know that when they make a decision that drastically impacts the residents and visitors who make the institution relevant that they will have to answer to someone. A museum holds items in a public trust. What good is that if the public can’t afford to come see, appreciate, and learn from those items?

One question I have to raise is how did Ald. Burke and Rugai come to the $10 mark? I would be interested to know why $10 is any less arbitrary than the $18 set by the Art Institute? Without any details to flesh out either number, I will have to take comfort in Burke’s statement that he’s willing to compromise with the museum (now there is the City Council I remember).

So, the City Council just might be in the right on this one. My advice to the Art Institute would be to reconsider raising their admission prices. Then again, maybe the museum could charge their visitors another $2 to use the port-a-potties they brought in when the water was shut off.