Exklusivitätsdenken

e.g.; etwas sinnbildlich Ähnliches fällt mir dazu gerade nichts ein.

Wörtlich: Samtkordel

Sinnbildlich? Hm, ohne den Input von dude hätte ich es zugegebenermaßen erst einmal nicht verstanden. # 1 ist gut. Alternative vielleicht dies: das Elitegehabe, das elitäre Getue?

Something about keeping your distance, not stepping over the line, not getting too close?

I still remember one museum guard who kept snapping at me because I kept stepping slightly over the line -- in that museum it was just a line on the floor, not an actual rope, so you couldn't see it and the paintings at the same time, which was sort of a trap.

#1 und 2 gut, oder um im Bild zu bleiben evtl.
das Rote-Teppich-Gehabe (? Eigenkreation)

Oder wie heißen diese quergehängten Samtkordeln, die bei einer Vernissage höheren Ranges mit Tamtam geöffnet werden, um die Roben reinzulassen?
Irgendwas damit zu kreieren?

No, hm. This is more likely to do with night clubs and velvet ropes, where only the glitterati get to enter while the riffraff has to stay behind said velvet ropes.

But it says galleries, not night clubs, right? To me that means the paintings are behind a velvet rope -- at least with only this one sentence as context.

It rather means the behaviour of elitist circles in contemporary art ....
talking about selling-galleries, not museums.

Either way, though, there must be paintings on the wall, and people viewing them? That was my point. Sorry, I don't understand where else a velvet rope would be in an art gallery, though I don't picture it in a contemporary one (which you didn't mention); but if you do, never mind.

It rather means the behaviour of elitist circles in contemporary art (galleries, auction houses) in general, in terms of being not accessible to the masses...
Talking about selling-galleries, not museums - and even less night-clubs. Thx

right, it's not that there are velvet ropes in galleries, it's the type of thinking that goes with velvet ropes in night clubs, only it's applied to galleries.