Museums to Set Exhibit Guidelines

A controversial exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art has prompted the American Association of Museums to seek to develop written guidelines for the exhibition of objects owned by private individuals or companies.

A 17-member committee will review the association’s ethics code with an eye toward how it should apply to exhibits of such objects, as well as to exhibition financing.

The committee’s formation follows the Brooklyn Museum’s recent exhibit of contemporary work by British artists, from the private collection of the advertising executive Charles Saatchi. The objects displayed — which included a dead shark floating in a tank of formaldehyde — drew widespread protest.

But some critics also questioned whether Mr. Saatchi exercised undue influence over the exhibit. They said his agreement to lend the objects — 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 new committee will seek to codify unwritten guidelines about displaying objects from private collectors, to which many museums already adhere.