To have left?

[Grumpasaurus]

Today, DH, DS (2.5), and PIL went into a pop up art gallery. DS was not in a pram and wandering around with a plastic caterpillar, the lady running the art gallery was quite sweet with him (when she thought we were buying art!). To be 100% fair we should have put him in the pram simply do to the location.

DS accidentally tripped and knocked one of the fake wall panels (sort of like a plank of plaster in the middle of the room) with his shoulder, which weren't screwed in well. The wall jolted and two framed prints fell off the back. The canvasses were absolutely fine and the frames had two tiny (I mean about 1-2mm at most), which were hard to see as the frame were antique style and therefore distressed. The frames were just hung on one small nail (I attach photos) and the walls weren't stable at all (I attach photos of the poorly done fittings).

We obviously felt awful and apologised profusely and asks PIL to take DS out of shop whilst we discussed what to do. The lady went mental. We asked her what she would like us to do, she screamed at us that we weren't going to get away with it. We said clearly we weren't trying to and we're standing there hat in hands wanting to find a resolution. We offered to contact the artist (out of the country apparently), pay her insurance deductible (no insurance apparently), take the frames to the framer to ask them to touch up the paint or get fixed, or just pay £500 towards costs of her getting the frames fixed. She was not having it and only wanted us to buy the prints- for £3.5k!!!!

I said we weren't willing to do that as a) the frames were barely damaged at all, b) the prints were totally fine, the wall was not secure and the prints weren't hung safely.

She kept trying to muddy the issue and force us to pay. She wouldn't entertain any other discussion. Four blokes were in the shop and heard the argument and said if they were us, they would leave. I offered to call the police or a lawyer friend to discuss liability. She refused. We asked her for a solution she wanted- she said full ticket price. So I said, well, we will leave then, and you can deal with it. I said she should have insurance!

Only when she thought we were going to leave did she want to negotiate. She stormed over to the paintings, and GET THIS, gently knocked the same wall and ANOTHER PAINTING FELL OFF. She said that was our fault too!

So I said I would take photos of the damage and contact the artist myself. She then picked the photos up and hid them, saying she would only bring them back if she took my details. I said no, we had tried to be reasonable, so we left.

First: AIBU

Second: what would you do now? The damage was seriously minimal and actually didn't look any different than the distressed effect. I also do not know if the frames were already dinted as others in the collection were (photos attached).

Grump

Honestly, don’t give it another thought.

I’d put money on them having been knocked off previously (possibly by HER) and it’s quite feasible they already had some dents/scuffs being distressed frames.
You have no way of knowing it was DS that made those tiny marks...

I think she saw it as a golden opportunity to ‘sell’ those at the last minute...

Do not give it another thought.

It's a total red herring that it happened to be your toddler that bumped it. Anyone could have, evidenced by her doing it herself . Sorry, but the mental image of her knocking one down herself and still ranting at you had me belly laughing.

You did try and put it right, she cut off her nose to spite her face and she's lost out. Unfortunate, but she clearly wasn't capable of handling the situation properly. That on top of the prints being hung inadequately hung makes me think she might just be in over her head on the whole thing. Don't give it another thought.

When you open a building to the public, it should be safe. A two year old doesn't weigh anything like an adult stumbling into a temporary wall and he probably did a lot less damage than someone else could have.

Her toddler damaged the frame

No. Crazy woman said he did. It’s in no way a certainty.

your unsupervised toddler

He wasn’t unsupervised. He tripped and bumped a wall fitting. If a two year old bumping a wall fitting causes two paintings to fall from the wall, it’s not the toddlers fault at all.

@MattFreisWeatherReport he wasn't unsupervised, we were with him just not restraining him and he tripped.

As a PP said, we did try to be reasonable. The wall was unstable, the prints were poorly hung, the other frames in the collection were already damaged, and we did offer to pay for the damage. Now I am glad we didn't as, had I knocked it for example, the wall would likely have fallen over!

If the gallery/person who hung the picture did it unsafely, and that contributed to the damage, then she may be able to counterclaim against them. What's complicated about that?

It's simply wrong nothing complicated about it .

Well, no, it's not wrong actually. But it sounds as though OP has made up her mind to do nothing, so it's probably irrelevant either way.

Please just forget about it.
You are not liable.
Your child is not liable.
I know, and have worked with, a lot of artists and have never known any of them exhibit their work with such flimsy hooks.
All reputable galleries will ask for, and expect, work to be supplied with mirror plates.
I’ve even exhibited work in a cafe and used mirror plates. I wouldn’t put my work anywhere that didn’t accept them.
The whole set up seems very amateurish to me.
Perhaps the gallery curator didn’t have much experience but the artist should have known the criteria for exhibiting their work safely.
Any insurance company would expect the work to be secured safely before they accepted their client to have liability.
It wasn’t secured safely and the wall it was hung on was flimsy, wobbly and was a trip hazard.
Your child did nothing wrong. Anybody could have tripped in such circumstances. I think the gallery curator knew that and it’s why they were so angry.
Please dont lose any sleep over it.

She was too greedy and her gamble didn't pay off.

The fact that a child bumped the wall is irrelevant. Anyone could have bumped it and the pictures weren’t secured (the woman even knocked one off herself). Expecting OP to buy the pictures is madness. To use the car accident analogy - if you dented someone’s car you’d pay for a repair. You wouldn’t buy the car from them! IMO the OP was more than generous in offering to pay for the repair. The woman was ridiculous, clearly uninsured and I wouldn’t go back or think about it any further.

The fact that your DS wasn't in a pram is neither here nor there. He tripped and that could have happened to anyone in such a set-up. This pop-up gallery was badly set-up, in terms of having such a trip hazard with the bottom legs protruding like that. It is appalling that they did not have any insurance. Not just to cover damage to the art work but actually to any member of the public. Really out of order! I would have not even offered to pay because the fixings were sub-standard and totally unsuitable. This person should not be entrusted with any art work or running such a place. That woman sounds a massive idiot.

I assume there was no notice about children? If not well ....

Do parents really need to be told to not allow their small children to run around in an art gallery? Are they absolved from using common sense?

Thanks all.

@MattFreisWeatherReport you make it sound like i have causally dismisses the incident which I feel is unfair.

I offered:

1. to contact the artist. I was told they were abroad and uncontactable.

2. to contact the framers. No response to this.

3. to pay an invoice of reframing if she wanted to deal with the framers. She said they were "very expensive and in Chelsea", and that they would leave the prints out of commission for 12 weeks.

4. to pay £500 towards costs as a one off payment

5. for her to make a suggestion for resolution. Her only suggestion was paying full ticket price.

6. to call a lawyer friend to discuss next steps.

7. to wait if she wanted to call the police (she threatened this), so they could advise next steps

Ultimately I lost my patience and left.

Regardless, if she is to be believed, there will be nowhere to go back to, as 5pm today was apparently their final hour!

Agree. Forget about it. You were very reasonable. Like other person said if he was 70 and not 2 what would people be saying.....he was supervised. He doesn't need to be in a buggy. He has legs and is entitled to use them. He wasnt doing anything wrong. He tripped. Only person to blame is whoever hung them so badly. How could she even attempt to blame u for the one she dropped. Wow. Glad u didnt give her 500 pounds. U should very reasonable. Dont go back. Dont give it another thought. She is lucky your son wasnt hurt.

@AlexaAmbidextra he wasn't running around though. I would say if he had been, as I am not in any way trying to absolve myself of blame here. I didn't expect him to trip but he was for once just walking normally.

Do parents really need to be told to not allow their small children to run around in an art gallery? Are they absolved from using common sense?

He wasn’t ‘running around’. He was walking and tripped. He bumped a display WALL and paintings fell off of it...anyone could have stumbled and bumped the wall, the painting still should not have fallen off the wall.

Grump hide the thread & go to bed 😴

She’s a crazy woman. At best inept, at worst a woman who tried to get one over you. Either way, you didn’t do anything wrong and are lucky she didn’t accept your £500 offer.

Move on...🌷

God, you’ve been more than reasonable.

Your child didn’t knock the wall because he was unsupervised or running or moving erratically. He just tripped, as any person of any age could have done.

I once stumbled while heavily pregnant and knocked some things over in a little pop-up place. Nobody ranted at me or blamed me even though it was my slight physical unsteadiness (much like a toddler) that made it happen ... nobody suggested I should have been in a pram

But even so you then bent over backwards to try and make it right. I think you were far more conscientious than you needed to be. She was horrible and drove you away. Don’t go back.

@IncrediblySadToo good advice- I am tired and have work in the morning. To bed I go!

Thank you everyone for calming me down. I can get anxious about money as there just never seems to be enough and some dark part of my brain worries that lady will haunt me!

Expecting OP to buy the pictures is madness. To use the car accident analogy - if you dented someone’s car you’d pay for a repair. You wouldn’t buy the car from them!

So people agree OP should pay for the frame? The fact that the invigilator was rude and difficult doesn't change this, to me. And the invigilator was not properly in a position to turn OP's offer down on behalf of the artist, who will now be out of pocket because of the damage done. I just can't see that OP is in the right to leave it like this.

OP, you've said that you've found the artist's website, so you know you could follow this up if you wanted to. I agree the woman you dealt with today behaved unreasonably and unpleasantly, and may well have lied about the detail of the situation. From everything you've said it sounds like a very unprofessional set-up. All the more reason to deal direct with the artist.

When I described your DS as unsupervised, I wasn't suggesting he was doing cartwheels around the place while you nipped outside for a fag, but he's 2 and it was a gallery. Everyone on the thread - including you with retrospect - agrees you should have been holding his hand or similar, and if you had, this wouldn't have happened.

I'm gonna bow out now. That's my professional opinion, as well as my personal take on the moral position. I would expect to pay for anything one of my children broke in a shop, and if it was the kind of shop where things were fragile and expensive, then I would take extra care. No matter how batshit the salesperson, I think that's the honest thing to do.

@MattFreisWeatherReport but, surely, if a shop sells things that are expensive, they need to take extra care of those things. The wall was unstable. The base of the wall was an unmarked trip hazard. The hooks were not fully into the wall, and as my FIL pointed out, wall hooks were being used in plasterboard. All of the artwork was leaning forward from the plasterboard walls.

Anyone could have tripped! Or brushed with their bag.

@MattFreisWeatherReport I think if you could see the photos you might feel differently. From what I now know both the wall and the hanging method used were insufficient. Had they been hung properly, even a harder bump to the wall would have been okay.

I feel for the artist, who I do not believe will be out of pocket if I am totally honest as the frames don't LOOK damaged due to the overall distressed effect, but he or she used a curator for their art who is irresponsible and seems out to make a buck rather than deal with a business. I interacted with said business and not the artist himself, and I interacted reasonably now that I reflect on the same situation had it NOT been a toddler, so for that reason I will leave it.

Now I really am going to bed!

You can get public liability and stock/merchandise insurance for a pop-up shop. My guess is she did not have merchandise cover and realised she would have some explaining to do to the artist. Maybe she had given the impression that she had merchandise cover?

Neither the hooks nor the plasterboard look suitable for purpose. If the pictures were hanging out at the top then they were a hazard.

She should have had something like big potted plants in place beside the sticking out legs. Anyone could have fallen over them.

Sorry but I'd never assume that I should keep my toddler away from WALLS. If the art gallery has painting hanging high on the walls which my toddler couldn't reach, and no sculptures/anything breakable in the middle of the floor, I probably wouldn't feel the need to strap him into his peak immediately.

The walls sound like a health and safety issue and also, she knew about the crap flimsy walls and could have warned you and asked you to put the toddler in the pram.

What a nutter.

• pram, not peak

Forget about it. Ita not your responsibility.

Maybe Lord Sugar will sort it all out- sounds like one of The Apprentice challenges...OP you were more than reasonable but you can just let it go now. And you are only unreasonable for calling your sons caterpillar silly- he sounds a very charming and well-educated caterpillar to be such an art critic. 😂🐛