BEIJING
The selfie stick is to join the ranks of forbidden items in some Chinese museums, staff indicating this week that they have had enough of the telescopic menace.
For years, items including liquid, inflammables, explosives and lighters have been banned from display areas, but now the devices which can often extend as long as 1.5 meters are to be abolished on the grounds of public safety.
The China Daily reported Friday that staff members at Nanjing Museum have said they have stopped visitors from using the devices which attach to phones and cameras so people can take photos of themselves beyond arm’s reach.
The museum said that the sticks were not only disturbing to visitors, but also dangerous to museum objects. Tripods and camera monopods have also been banned.
The Daily reported that some museums in Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province, have requested visitors check-in their sticks before entering, while they have been banned from Hubei Museum of Art.
The security head of Hubei Museum told the Daily that a major concern was the safety of museum artworks. Worldwide, the sticks have also been banned at Rome's Colosseum, the Smithsonian museums in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, New York's Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art and Britain's National Portrait Gallery.
A visitor to the gallery - who did not wish to be named - told Britain's Independent newspaper on Wednesday that art lovers would be “thrilled” by the ban.
"It's becoming impossible to see pictures,” she said.
“First there's people with cameras, then there's cameras with sticks. They should have been banned some time ago.”
