
Cambridge gallery lends art to students 'with none damaged' in 60 years - howsilly
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-49897431
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333c
My college does this as well. It's been happening since 1940 [1], so 79 years,
longer than Cambridge. More info in [2]. The collection even includes some
works by Picasso.

It's very popular here — students camp out overnight to maintain their spot in
line, and the art up for rental tends to run out quickly.

[1]: [https://www.oberlin.edu/news/art-rental-behind-scenes-
look](https://www.oberlin.edu/news/art-rental-behind-scenes-look)

[2]: [https://www.oberlin.edu/news/visionary-behind-art-
rental](https://www.oberlin.edu/news/visionary-behind-art-rental)

~~~
snegu
Ha! I came into the thread to mention Oberlin. I remember the madness around
trying to get a piece.

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kyeb
MIT has something similar for its students - they lottery off an entire
gallery of art to students to keep in their dorm rooms for the year every fall
[0].

I have no idea what the damage statistics are for it, but this just reminded
me of it.

[0] [https://listart.mit.edu/collections/student-lending-art-
prog...](https://listart.mit.edu/collections/student-lending-art-program)

~~~
madcaptenor
I was just going to mention this. Apparently they'll only loan prints to
students. Faculty can get the better stuff:
[https://listart.mit.edu/collections/campus-loan-art-
program](https://listart.mit.edu/collections/campus-loan-art-program)

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pixeloution
In this context, prints mean "original prints" which doesn't translate to junk
or reproductions. Some original prints are worth in excess of half a million
dollars.

~~~
madcaptenor
That's true. I don't know enough to know what the prints they're lending out
are worth.

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daenz
Trust with accountability and respect seems to go a long way some times but
not others. Anyone have a theory why this system worked so effectively but
other systems involving trust don't?

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username90
Trust works well if you have decent people. Exactly what makes people decent
is hard to say, but it is not unthinkable that students who got into Cambridge
are a bit more decent than average.

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Bjartr
Or, are at least more likely to go for the long con than the smash & grab.

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davinic
When it comes to long-term storage of art, damage can be calculated in more
ways than whether a piece of art is noticeably defaced.

The biggest threat to these pieces lies in being stored outside of a climate,
light, and humidity-controlled environment. When the lifespan of a thing is
hundreds or thousands of years, this matters just as much.

However, if the museum doesn't normally keep its stored pieces in a controlled
environment, then this should be no different.

But kudos to these organizations for trusting the students enough to do this.

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opwieurposiu
Storage has other problems; A painting stored away in a climate controlled
vault where no one can look at it is just a dusty canvas rectangle.

A painting requires a viewer for it to become art.

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cgriswald
A copy of the painting can serve for viewing nearly as well as the original.
But a copy can’t answer some questions so preserving the original for future
study (and new questions, ideas, and technology) is valuable.

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simonh
The point is though that future study doesn’t necessarily have a higher value
than current study. Especially if the art is likely to degrade over time in
some respects anyway.

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dan-robertson
I didn’t know about this when I was a student but my college had a similar
programme. I don’t think the artists were so well known. As I recall, the
bigger issue was that if you had picture rails then you needed to acquire
picture hooks and if you didn’t have picture rails then there wasn’t really a
good way to hang paintings

I don’t think there were deposits but we maybe had to write down what we had
borrowed.

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Tzela
The libraries in Berlin have a similar thing going, for free and open to
everybody.

[https://www.zlb.de/fachinformation/spezialbereiche/artothek....](https://www.zlb.de/fachinformation/spezialbereiche/artothek.html)

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jagged-chisel
I have questions: 0) How widespread is this program announced, and which
students take advantage of it? Maybe students of art are more cautious. Maybe
business students don't know about the program. 1) Are they all framed and
behind glass/plastic/whatever? If so, they're mostly protected from casual
damage. 2) Are these originals or copies? 3) Is there a policy, communicated
to the borrowers, that damage has punitive consequences? If so, that could be
a deterrent.

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sweeneyrod
It's not particularly popular/widely advertised. The handful of people I know
who have done it are all art enthusiasts. Probably the mild inconvenience of
getting the painting back to your room is a factor here. There's a £30 deposit
per painting [https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-
news/kettles...](https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/kettles-
yard-art-loan-cambridge-13695555)

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cwkoss
Would be really funny for an art student to paint many copies of the lent art,
then return a half dozen copies with the original.

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codingdave
Copying works of art is a longstanding tradition when learning to draw/paint.
This would likely get kudos from the art department, not laughs.

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Loughla
100%. They would be impressed you were able to recreate a great work on your
own, and it might end with an assistantship in a studio somewhere on campus.

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Rebelgecko
Interesting article it sounds like they're putting a lot of (warranted) trust
in the students. They were a bit coy about it, but I'd be curious to see what
the values of the paintings are.

This is slightly off-topic but it was interesting to learn that "homely" has a
very different meaning in the UK. Similar to "homey" in the US

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Lutzb
Our library in does the same. The Graphotek only charges a small fee of €2.50
per painting.
[http://www1.stuttgart.de/stadtbibliothek/bvs/actions/profile...](http://www1.stuttgart.de/stadtbibliothek/bvs/actions/profile/view.php?id=64)

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kazinator
If you have to register with I.D., it's not purely based on trust.

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grepthisab
Sure it is, it just moves the trust to trusting the verified person and away
from simply trusting the system.

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kazinator
But that's not what a phrase like "purely based on trust" means; that means
"purely based on trust in the person" (rather than trust in various "social
collateral" that creates obligations in the person).

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s_dev
Trinity College Dublin does the same thing. It's for free as well -- I think
maybe just for students with rooms on campus but I'm not sure.

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justincormack
I borrowed some of these. And returned them.

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glup
UC Berkeley also has a similar program, FYI

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swayvil
Speaking as a semi-famous artist. Art is a feast. After the feast you poop.
Then the collectors come and hoard the poop for all eternity, occasionally
lending the precious stuff out to students.

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datapunk
Say I printed this comment. Put it in a frame and auctioned it as art.

Would you be the artist for creating the comment? Or would I be the artist for
using the comment and framing it in a creative way?

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grepthisab
When Andy Warhol printed soup cans and put the prints in galleries, were the
Campbell's logo designers the artists, or was Warhol?

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ChefboyOG
I'm having art school flashbacks please stop hurting me.

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alliao
I wonder if any came back improved

