I wasn’t so naive to think that at 11:30 in the morning on a rainy Monday in June I would  be the only visitor to Van Gogh in Britain, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for a crowd so large that it was almost impossible to see the pictures.  When did looking at art become so popular? The problem has now become acute. The experience of visiting such exhibitions has become so uncomfortable and unsatisfying that organizers will have to take steps to reduce overall numbers or to spread them more evenly across a longer opening period. Unpalatable as it may be for galleries and museums, they will soon have no choice but to announce an exhibition as Sold Out, just as theatre and concert promoters have done for years.

After (partly) seeing Van Gogh in Britain, I had lunch with a friend who happens to be on the Tate’s board.  I wasn’t the first to complain to him about how it had become impossible to see works of art at these “blockbuster” exhibitions, so overcrowded had they become.  Although sympathetic, he explained that the enormous costs of mounting such exhibitions made it impossible to turn away paying customers in order to make the experience more comfortable and satisfying. Many of the obvious remedial measures are impracticable.  Galleries, dependent on the loan of pictures from other institutions around the world, are unable to hold on to items for long periods. Charging more (to reduce demand) is unfair to those on lower incomes, students and pensioners for example, and has more than a whiff of the elitism that institutions are rightly keen to avoid.  It’s a conundrum. All I can say is that unless it improves, I’m inclined to limit my gallery visits to less popular shows.  The irony wouldn’t be lost on Van Gogh, penniless and unrecognized in his lifetime.

After waiting patiently for the crowd to disperse, I finally found myself up close for the first time to a painting I had wanted to see for years, Prisoners Exercising.  And yes, that one encounter made the whole experience worthwhile.