Selfies in Art Museums

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/selfies-art-museums.html

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To the Editor:

Re “A Starry Night Crowded With Selfies” (Editorial Notebook, Sept. 24):

I share Francis X. Clines’s frustration with visitors taking selfies of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

While visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence this summer, I found it impossible to see most of the art because of selfie-taking — with and without sticks — and even extended filming by phone. It was not a pleasant experience, and I won’t go back unless the museum changes its policy.

Later, in the trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, we were thrilled to learn that it had a no-photos policy in the galleries. A joyful experience that will be repeated.

I hope that museums can revisit their policies and come up with some kind of compromise if they can’t ban photo-taking entirely. Why not try at least one day a week photo free?

TRICIA HUEBNER, RUTLAND, VT.