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Friday, Jan. 10, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Access to fine art has never been more available. Beyond looking at a photo in a book, digital image scans of works on the internet give people the chance to view things they might never have the time or money to see in person. Some museums, like the British Museum, the Guggenheim and the Louvre, offer virtual tours of the galleries and exhibits, bringing classic and modern art to your fingertips.
Yet many museums, galleries and artists would argue that art is meant to be experienced up close. And as if exposing sometimes priceless works to the general public wasn’t risky enough, institutions are under increasing pressure to share their collections around the world. This means packing up masterpieces and hoping for the best.
How do curators and collectors protect great works of the past and present, and preserve them for the future? Collection conservation is a work of art in itself.
Protecting art
To stand in front of a piece of art, just as the artist might have done, is to participate in a great paradox. The ravages of time wait for no one, let alone human-made creative expression. To display art is to contribute to its demise, simple as that.
Modern conservationists are keen to adhere to a reversibility protocol, meaning any sort of study, preservation or repair to a piece must never be permanent. Centuries of research and technological advances have made this easier than ever. Galleries rely on methods from cordoning off the display area to using climate-controlled (and sometimes bulletproof) cases and special lighting.
Fire mitigation
Fire isn’t a threat museums and galleries take lightly. Measures are taken both inside and outside to reduce the hazards associated with extreme heat, smoke and the water or chemicals used to put out or prevent the spread of fire.
Museums in regions that experience a lot of wildfires begin taking their precautions outside. When California’s Easy Fire threatened the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in October, the institution was ready: Months earlier, a herd of 500 goats had cleared away the surrounding brush.
LA’s Getty Center has also hired goats for fire prevention in the past. That building features reinforced concrete walls covered in fire-resistant travertine stone. Inside, state-of-the-art ventilation systems prevent smoke from entering, or work to pump it out.
Some institutions, like the Getty, have folding firewalls that can seal the building off in sections. Targeted sprinkler systems are usually a last resort, deployed mostly to save the building itself.
Human controls
Bringing masterpieces as close as possible to the people is a challenge faced by museums and galleries the world over. Humans, by nature, are a curious lot. We always want to get closer and touch things that signs tell us not to. We also breathe air and need light to see—two major threats to maintaining a piece’s integrity.
• Climate controls: Many works of art are contained in special climate-controlled glass boxes, protecting them from extreme temperatures and moisture in the air, much of which is a byproduct of breathing.
• Inventory: Just keeping track of what’s in-house and what’s on tour keeps a museum’s collection protected from loss.
• Glass: Gallery glass panels mounted in front of items like paintings and drawings provide obvious protection from smudgy fingers. The glass is also specially treated to protect from harmful UV rays. Some museums choose to give their windows the same treatment; experts can detect sunlight damage after as little as one day of exposure.
• Rope: Rope barriers represent the easiest method of keeping visitors from getting too friendly with works of art. For many museums, the first line of defense is simply a velvet-wrapped cord stretched between two brass poles.
• Sensors: In other cases, institutions install sensitive vibration or seismic sensors that detect touch, and instead of obtrusive, unaesthetic rope, some museums prefer to use laser sensors that beep a warning when a visitor moves too close. High-tech motion detection systems help keep works safe during a museum’s closed hours.
• Lighting: Unfortunately, any kind of lighting is bad for paintings and other works that contain pigment or other delicate elements. Before the invention of LED lighting, museums used filters on their incandescent bulbs to prevent UV damage. The downside? LED doesn’t provide the same quality of warm light under which most classic works were created. Once again, conservators must use a type of filter—this time by adjusting the phosphor metals in the LEDs themselves—to achieve the right coloring.
Flood walls
Similar to wildfire areas, museums in the paths of floodwaters and hurricanes must take protective measures to save their works of art rather than attempt to move them.
When severe weather looms near Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian museums are prepared for the worst. Sections of the National Mall (where 11 of the museums are located) are in the 100-year and 500-year floodplains, meaning flooding has a one in 100 or one in 500 chance, respectively, of happening there in any given year.
The newest building, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, houses most of its galleries underground, necessitating flood-protection systems like an automatic floodgate that prevents water from reaching the loading dock, and a series of cisterns that collect and store storm water.
Moving art
Why not just move art pieces when disaster strikes? One reason is that the threats are increasing in frequency and severity, due to climate change. Furthermore, moving art can cause more harm than good, exposing it to the very elements museums have worked to shield it from.
Two years ago, the nonprofit cultural heritage group Italia Nostra challenged the Louvre in court to prevent it from borrowing Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic “Vitruvian Man.” The 500-year-old ink drawing on paper is usually kept in a climate-controlled room in the Accademia Gallery in Venice. The group argued that the piece was simply too fragile to travel, but the court ruled in the Louvre’s favor in October.
Another risk associated with moving art? Loss or theft in transit. In 2006, thieves stole Children with a Cart, a Francisco de Goya painting destined for the Guggenheim, from a parked delivery truck overnight.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
