Europe's Art Galleries: Vulnerable Fortresses

PARIS, Aug 23 (AFP) - Some use bulletproof glass and state-of-the-art electronic surveillance, some even have armed guards.
Europe`s art galleries are well guarded. But none appear impregnable because management are unwilling to risk staff lives.
Two paintings by Edvard Munch -- one of them a version of "The Scream," one of the world`s best-known paintings -- were grabbed Sunday by armed thieves who burst into the Munch Museum in Oslo, threatening staff with a gun.
Both works were exhibited in Vienna`s Albertina Museum in March last year.
"It would take 10 minutes and a lot of violence to take one of the paintings in an exhibition here off the wall, they are fixed that strongly," said a museum spokesman in Vienna.
"Our corridors are so long a thief would have to walk 200 or 300 metres (yards) with them and be captured on surveillance camera."
The Paris Louvre has surveillance systems varying according to the works and the rooms where they are shown, a spokesman said.
"The Mona Lisa has a special glass pane to protect against humidity and vandalism, but not every painting can be put behind glass."
Electronic alarm systems, and a regularly updated master security plan were in operation.
The Budapest Fine Arts Museum has armed guards on duty. But European museum administrations generally do not wish to risk the lives of staff.
"There is no work of art that is worth as much as a human life," said Mats Roswall, security chief at the Swedish Modern Museum. "We cover some paintings in bullet-proof glass, we have cameras all over the place, and of course guards."
But guards do not carry weapons. "With a weapon in hand, (thieves) would get what they want here as well. It might take them longer, but if they`re willing to use violence, we couldn`t stop them," said Roswall.
"We can`t expect security staff to risk their lives," said Hans-Werner Schmidt of the Leipzig Arts Museum in Germany.
Chemnitz museums director Ingrid Moessinger admitted: "We`re not prepared for an attack like that with automatic weapons."
Marco Fossi, administrator of the Florence art galleries in Italy, said the Oslo scenario could not have happened in Florence. "Particularly vulnerable paintings, such as small-size ones, are behind glass and protected by a special alarm."
At Russia`s Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, director Mikhal Pyotrovsky was vague about security arrangements for more than 2.7 million exhibits.
"The security system includes both an automatic system and an internal security and police service," he said.
Art security and retrieval expert Tony Russell said the Saint Petersburg police chief had told him "if there were items of high value without armed guards with submachine guns at the doors, eastern European criminals would shoot their way in and take everything off the walls."
British art galleries declined to comment on security, but Russell said systems varied according to needs and budget of each museum, and that the secrets of each were carefully protected.
Russell himself was involved in recovering another version of "The Scream," stolen from the Oslo National Gallery in 1994.
"It was a simple sting operation for someone to buy back "The Scream"... under the cover of acting as an intermediary (for the government)."
What of Oslo?
"We want to be an open museum," said Munch Museum director Gunnar Soerensen. "We don`t want to have to make the pictures so safe they will be inaccessible."
Journalists were surprised there was no automatic door-closing system.
"Just imagine what would happen if armed desperate criminals found themselves trapped inside with members of the public," Soerensen retorted.
In Washington, the Corcoran Gallery of Art has a "multi-tiered security" system with new technologies and well-trained security staff, said chief curator Jacquelyn Serwer. The goal is to protect works without disturbing "the museum experience."
"It`s not always an easy balance," she said. "We don`t have people with guns situated throughout the gallery because that`s just not the kind of atmosphere we want to create."
Harold Holzer, vice president for communications at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, said the museum does not comment on security or insurance, but added: "The museum believes that it safeguards its collections and its visitors professionally an capably, and we`ve been doing it for 130 years."
Many major European galleries do not permanently insure works because of massive costs, doing so only when they are on loan.