about the gallery attendants

The gallery hired floor attendants at different levels. Their duties are guarding the works and explaining the works to the interested audience.

All of them are students at universities. Interesting enough, none of them majored in art history and theory, a course I originally thought a position like that would be equipped with. They are creative writing students, practicing artists, graphic designers, media arts and social art students. The logic behind hiring people from different background is that they can bring different input in interpreting the works and creating wider bonds between public and the guides.

Before the new exhibition starts, they were given information about the works to read. So in the first a few weeks of the opening of the show, you can see them all have a pile of papers stick to their pocket that they referenced to regularly.

They are required to let visitors know that they can explain the works to them if they want. This gallery is the first public gallery I have been to that the guards on the floor are not only there for security reasons. Lots of commercial galleries hire staff to discuss the works with the visitors for selling purpose. But public museums more often let the visitors see the works themselves. The wall text and catalogues are used to help the visitors.

What do you think of the way floor attendants are used in our gallery? Do you think it is necessary or unnecessary to have the floor attendants to explain the works to the visitors? How much help the visitors need to interpret the works? How can we measure it since the visitors are so dynamic?