Dear Babs, 

I was recently visiting some blue-chip galleries with my septuagenarian mother. After a few hours, she pointed out that not one gallery had a comfortable place to sit down and experience the art. She felt like it was an insult to anyone who isn’t a non-disabled, child-free, young person. I also thought it was bad business. If galleries and artists want people to spend quality time with the art so they will buy it, why not provide a quality place to rest?

—Chairless in Chelsea

Dear Chairless,

To their credit, most art galleries would likely find a way to provide seating for any visitor who asks. But if they were really committed to accessibility, they would design their shows so the request wouldn’t happen in the first place.

Now, galleries might justify their actions (or inactions) because of the “bottom line.” After all, furniture costs money to buy, time and labor to clean, move and repair, and space to store. This rationale seems understandable until you look at the expensive flower arrangement at the front desk—which says a lot about priorities.

The reason you and your mom couldn’t find a seat is that most contemporary art galleries haven’t moved beyond 20th-century ­modernist ideals of exhibition design, which rejected the pre-19th-century ­salon-style standard—with ornate frames against colorful wallpaper amidst upholstered chairs—for more linear, sparse and white-walled cubes, spaces that aligned with the doctrine that form should follow function and everything decorative, distracting or inessential has to go. Under this system, if it’s not “art,” it’s gotta be as inconspicuous as possible, hence recessed lighting and power outlets, covered or removed entirely.

In the shadow of the ready-made minimalism and because famous contemporary artists such as Andrea Zittel often make art that looks like furniture, galleries don’t want the public, critics, curators or—god forbid, collectors—mistaking a sculpture for a settee (or vice versa).

But here’s a little secret: those powerhouse galleries you visit do have comfortable couches; they’re just tucked away in a private room where dealers and collectors sit down, talk and negotiate sales. I guess commerce requires more comfort than kunst.