Museum Group Issues Guidelines

After several controversies over museum displays of art borrowed from donors and corporate sponsors, the American Association of Museums has issued a set of ethical guidelines designed to help its members avoid trouble.

The guidelines advise museums to develop written policies on matters such as whether individuals, companies, or other private organizations lending their objects will be permitted to have any say in selecting which objects from their collection are to be displayed or in influencing “the significance to be given to those objects in the exhibition.”

The guidelines also suggest that museums inform the public about potential conflicts of interest, such as instances when the person who lends objects for an exhibit is also donating money to underwrite the show itself or has other roles at the museum, such as serving on the board or staff of the institution.

The association moved to create ethics guidelines shortly after controversy arose over the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s exhibit of works from the private collection of the advertising executive Charles Saatchi.

Some critics were concerned that Mr. Saatchi’s agreement to lend his artworks — and his accompanying $160,000 gift — came with unprecedented stipulations about which paintings should be displayed and how they should be hung, among other things (The Chronicle, January 27).