Conservation and Maintenance of Contemporary Public Art

A collection of papers from leading artists, conservators, administrators, and critics to address the urgent challenges of preserving public artworks. Based on a 2001 conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the volume explores theoretical questions of permanence, public engagement, funding, legal responsibilities, and features detailed case studies of major conservation projects, offering essential insights for the future care of contemporary public art.

While the public art field has grown rapidly over the last three decades, little attention has been paid to preservation. Artworks that were installed with great effort are now suffering the ravages of time, sending conservators and commissioning agencies into a vigorous search for solutions. Conservation and Maintenance of Contemporary Public Art is a collection of papers based on presentations delivered at a conference held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2001. Among the contributors are many of the most renowned artists, administrators, critics, and conservators working in public art today. Together, they bring varied perspectives on the complex issues involved. Theoretical questions of permanence and public participation are addressed along with specific concerns, such as funding and legal responsibilities. The book also includes case studies that examine major conservation projects and how commissioning agencies have responded to the conservation challenge. Impressive in its scope and effective as a stimulant for ongoing discussion, the conference on Conservation and Maintenance of Contemporary Public Art brought together two professional worlds that meet increasingly in the field yet seldom assess the relationship and share experience ….The list of topics discussed and the speakers and panelists gathered in Cambridge provided an unusual opportunity to learn about the issues, share experiences, and establish an ongoing public dialogue for what in many ways has been a clandestine relationship. Ricardo Barreto, Public Art Review Not only did [the conference] successfully integrate conservation and maintenance with actual, extensive, and highly diverse case studies, it also creatively developed an overview of the wide spectrum of contemporary public art. It allowed for major discourse of like-minded artists, conservationists, scholars, museum curators, and administrators. Truly, this was a remarkable convention focused on a difficult succession of quality-of-life issues.

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Materials, maintenance, change, and community

Materials as rhetoric

Patricia C. Phillips

Maintenance art

Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Biodeterioration, gardening, and public art

Judith M. Jacob and Wendy Jacob

Public participation in conservation 1: The Great Wall of Los Angeles

Judith F. Baca

Public participation in conservation 2: The Kamehameha I Monument in Hawai'i

Glenn Wharton

Temporality and preservation: a panel discussion

Patricia C. Phillips, Nikolas Pappas, Ellen Driscoll, and Craigen Bowen. Moderated and edited by Ann Wilson Lloyd

The peculiarities of public art - six conservation case studies

Conserving in a changing environment: some critical issues and new perspectives

Julie Boivin

The MIT Wiesner building collaboration

Patricia Fuller

Ground work: restoring Robert Morris's untitled earthwork

Helen Lessick

Maintaining integrity: the conservation of Pavilion in the Trees by Martin Puryear

Laura S. Griffith and John Carr

From pillar to post with Ambit

Alison Bracker

Authenticity and appearance: the restoration of Nam June Paik's Requiem for the Twentieth Century

Bradford Gonyer

The owner's challenge

The Cambridge Arts Council's Conservation and Maintenance Program: overview Hafthor Yngvason

Maintenance in the field: a conservator's perspective

Carol Snow

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Metro Art program: overview Donna Williams

The role of conservation technicians

Ralph Wanlass

Wisconsin Art Board's Percent for Art Conservation Initiative: overview

Chris Manke

Collection management and databases in Percent for Art programs

Rae Atira-Soncea

The New York City Board of Education's Public Art for Public Schools program: overview

Michele Cohen

An economical approach to conservation

Gregory W. Frux

Issues in contemporary public art conservation

Where to start when the city is full of art - the Los Angeles Murals Assessment and Conservation Project

Leslie Rainer, Chris Stavroudis, Donna Williams, and Aneta Zebala

Preventive medicine for new commissions: conservation review

Edited by Rika Smith McNally

Public art maintenance funding survey

Jack Becker

Creative approaches to preservation funding

Susan Nichols

Sample contract provisions used with public art projects protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act

Andrew D. Epstein, Esq.

Appendix 1: Materials

Appendix 2: Wisconsin Arts Board's Percent for Art Conservation Initiative proposal

Appendix 3: Three-Dimesional Work of Art: Documentation and Conservation Record

Appendix 4: Wisconsin Art Board Percent for Art subject thesaurus

Appendix 5: Public Art for Public Schools maintenance recommendations

List of Contributors

• Edited by Hafthor Yngvason

"Hafthor Yngvason and the Cambridge Arts Council have done a service for those dealing with issues of preservation of contemporary art. By publishing this collection of essays and broadening the scope of the discussion to artworks in the public realm, they have enlarged and made accessible the current body of knowledge and have provided successful models and valuable resources." Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 43 (2004) 193 -196 "This book is indeed a useful tool for new and old public art programs...primary sources for issues in contemporary public art are few and far between. They remind us that if the right ingredients are in the mix, public art can be an important record of city history and, perhaps, even a treasure." Journal of the Canadian Association of Conservation 28 (2003)
—

This book is indeed a useful tool for new and old public art programs...primary sources for issues in contemporary public art are few and far between. They remind us that if the right ingredients are in the mix, public art can be an important record of city history and, perhaps, even a treasure.

—

Hafthor Yngvason and the Cambridge Arts Council have done a service for those dealing with issues of preservation of contemporary art. By publishing this collection of essays and broadening the scope of the discussion to artworks in the public realm, they have enlarged and made accessible the current body of knowledge and have provided successful models and valuable resources.

—