It’s Paris, New Year’s Day. We wait in a long line in the biting cold to get into the Musée de l’Orangerie. The oval rooms lined with Monet’s water lilies are one of the rarest art experiences you can have. The gentle curves of the walls, the immersive nature of the double ovoid galleries are truly spectacular.

And what did we see? Row after row of selfie-toting wannabes, walking past the artworks with a faux pensive look on their face, pretending to appreciate the work, filming and refilming till they get the shot they want. The masterpieces are a backdrop to their fabricated world, a false narrative of art appreciation. I wanted to punch them all and shout – look, just look at the art!

Selfies are shallow, shifting the focus away from the art

Art selfies are selfish. They’re superficial. Instead of taking in an artwork’s details and reflecting on it, it’s snap-snap and onto the next thing to be photographed in front of. It’s more about proving you were there rather than truly seeing the work.

Susan Sontag, in On Photography, argued that taking a photograph can sometimes replace direct experience: “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed.” The selfie hoards miss the full impact of the piece – and make the experience worse for everyone else.

Selfies make crowds worse and disrupts it for everyone

Selfie-taking fucks it up for everyone else. You can’t look at an artwork if someone is standing in front of it, taking a photo of themselves, again and again till they get their shot. 

I reckon the reason they’re creating a separate space for the Mona Lisa is purely to help the throngs of visitors who are there just to take a photo with it. 

Selfies create bottlenecks, jostling for position, making it difficult for anyone to appreciate the artwork without distraction. 

Some museums, like the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, are banning photos in some areas so people who love art can appreciate it.

Selfies are literally destroying artworks

Selfies are damaging artworks. In 2017, a woman in Los Angeles knocked over a row of sculptures in a gallery, causing $200,000 worth of damage. 

The same year, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, someone fell into Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkins.

Maybe it’s time museums start creating replicas, for selfie-lovers to do whatever they need to to get their shot, while everyone else, who’s there for the art, can love it for what it is.