Met Unveils Tape-Measure Committee to Enforce Equal Wall Space for Krasner and Pollock
A new oversight body patrols the galleries with rulers, pausing tours whenever one artist appears to be winning the exhibition by a quarter-inch.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has reportedly formed a standing Parity Committee tasked with ensuring that the married 20th-century painters Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock occupy precisely equal amounts of wall space throughout their joint exhibition. Committee members, identifiable by matching tape measures hung around their necks, periodically interrupt gallery foot traffic to confirm no canvas has crept ahead of its counterpart.
Visitors describe docents freezing mid-sentence while a measurement is taken, then resuming their talks only after a clipboard is initialed. One committee member, declining to give a name, explained the process simply: "We don't finish a wall until both sides measure the same. Sometimes that means moving a frame two inches to the left. Sometimes it means moving the frame back."
The committee has reportedly also begun weighing frames to account for discrepancies in canvas density, and has floated a proposal to measure the length of each artist's wall label to the letter. A sign near the entrance now reads: "Equal Inches, Equal Legacy," beneath a small ruler bolted to the wall for public verification.
Asked whether the measuring might distract from the art itself, the spokesperson paused, consulted a tape measure, and said, "That's a question for the committee that measures the committee."