On Display.

Art It's well known that a vast percentage of a museum or gallery's collection isn't on display either because the archive is chock full of very average art which has been bequested by well meaning collectors with little taste, or because the work is difficult to adequately display or because tastes have changed. But the percentages are far starker than I'd realised. Here's a BBC Culture paragraph which tots up some statistics:

"The walls of the Tate, the Met, the Louvre or MoMA may look perfectly well-hung, but the vast majority of art belonging to the world’s top art institutions (and in many countries, their taxpayers) is at any time hidden from public view in temperature-controlled, darkened, and meticulously organised storage facilities. Overall percentages paint an even more dramatic picture: the Tate shows about 20% of its permanent collection. The Louvre shows 8%, the Guggenheim a lowly 3% and the Berlinische Galerie – a Berlin museum whose mandate is to show, preserve and collect art made in the city – 2% of its holdings. These include approximately 6,000 sculptures and paintings, 80,000 photographs, and 15,000 prints by artists including George Grosz and Hannah Höch."

The overall piece explains why some pieces aren't shown more often. But there will be plenty of very good museum pieces in all our national collections, which we pay for, that don't see the light simply because of a lack of wall space.

Although there'll be matters of insurance and security, but why not loan these to smaller galleries throughout the country or other municipal institutions, create small "national galleries" in the provinces augmenting existing art collections?

In some of these museums for all the gems, there's also a fair amount of pretty average stuff which is essentially wall filling because it feels like there should be some oils, works on paper are too perishable and which could be replaced with works of international interest.