Hands Off!

            During my internship yesterday a group of first years from George Washington University came to visit the conservation labs.  Their visit brought up a museum issue which I had previously not given much thought to – museum visitors touching the artwork.  Perhaps the reason I had never considered this issue is because I would never touch the artwork unless prompted!

            We took the group out into the Modern and Contemporary art gallery to look at two pieces which had experienced museum visitor ‘vandalism.’  The first work, “Sollie 17” (1979-1980) by husband and wife team, Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, is a life-sized scene of a hallway within a seedy, run-down hotel.  The door to room number 17 is cracked open and viewers are allowed to glimpse at the sorry life of an old man.  Outside the door is a pay phone with numbers and doodles scribbled on the wall next to it – all done by the artists.  After its installation conservators began to notice that visitors were adding their own graffiti – admittedly noticed only after one vandal dated their signature 2007.  The conservators kept a daily record of the artwork in order to establish which was and was not the artists’ work and how to remedy this problem.  They finally decided to painstakingly remove the new graffiti and place Plexiglas over the façade of the piece to deter people from making their mark.

            The second work we visited was “Woman Eating” (1971) by Duane Hanson.  Hanson crafted life-sized people from fiberglass and polyester (and wigs, old clothes, and other props).  This Hanson work features a sad looking, overweight woman sitting alone at a table eating a sundae.  The original piece featured a TV Guide and Enquirer magazine from the 1970’s but visitors turned vandals ripped the cover and other pages from the TV Guide and stole the original Enquirer – forcing the museum to replace it with an Enquirer from 2007 touting trouble between Oprah and Stedman caused by Obama!  There had also been a plastic cup on the table which had been moved and banged around so much that it cracked and had to be discarded.  And once a generous museum patron added a nice gooey caramel candy treat to the top of the sundae which the conservation lab had to carefully scrape off.  The museum tried a few options to deter the public from touching this piece.  The point of Hanson’s artwork is to fool the visitor into believing that this is a real person, so the museum tried ways in which this intent was not hindered.  First they used a special wax to affix all of the items on the table top to the table.  This was not enough.  Then they placed strips of sandpaper-like tape in a square around the piece – so people could feel the barrier when they tried to step closer.  Not enough.  Then they added a notice on the floor to the effect of “Please don’t touch.  Touching will harm the artwork.”  Still didn’t work!  So, finally they had to put up a low barrier which has finally helped people to get the message.

            Again, I was surprised that this was even an issue!  However, I suppose not everyone has an appreciation of or respect for art which would deter them from vandalizing works.  I also did not realize that this was solely a conservation issue and not also a curatorial issue – but maybe these departments did work hand-in-hand with these decisions.  Now that I know about this issue I am interested to see what other museums have had problems and how they have dealt with them.