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Southern California collections management: fire rescue & restoration

Fueled by seasonal winds and dry conditions, Southern California’s Thomas Fire has become the largest, in terms of acreage, since 1932 when reliable recording began. State officials are saying that the 2017 fire season has been the most destructive that people in state have seen.

As of the Vanity Fair December 20 publication of Jane Borden’s article “In Southern California, Even the Art Has a Fire Rescue Plan,” the Thomas Fire had destroyed about 800 homes, nearing Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Ojai, collectively home to the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, working artists, art collectors, and celebrities.

On the evening of December 4, artists living in Ojai had no time to pack up their work before evacuating. Those with studios in Ventura spent evenings sleeping beside their work.

Works from four collections were moved to purified, closed rooms at the MCASB.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, with van and crew ready at short notice, safeguarded works of art, valued at millions of dollars, retrieved from homes in the area.

The Conservation Center of Chicago is described as the “most prepared art-rescue team working in Southern California” during the fire.

As the air quality was rendered “really bad” by the Thomas Fire, teams from The Conservation Center rotated every four or five days. Works of art that were not damaged were stored in a safe location in Los Angeles. Works with minor damages were restored locally. More damaged works of art were shipped to Chicago for full restoration.

An industry leader in rescuing works of art after disasters such as fires or floods, The Conservation Center brings over 30 years of experience caring for individual, private, and public collections.

“In addition to restoration and packing and shipping services, The Conservation Center in Chicago specializes in disaster response. The Center’s national clients include corporations, museums, nonprofits, and private collectors, and the response team is trained to triage a variety of situations, most notably flood and fire. This year alone, the 36-person team has responded to hurricane damage in Houston and Miami, and rescued or restored 1,350 works from a Georgia museum damaged by a tornado. Now, the fires. “I’ve been with the company for 29 years, and this is definitely unprecedented, to have these things happening so closely together,“ explains Heather Becker, C.E.O. of The Conservation Center.”

See:

“Thomas Fire is Now California’s Largest Wildfire in History” | Doreen McCallister, NPR, 23 December 2017

“In Southern California, Even the Art Has a Fire Rescue Plan” | Jane Borden, Vanity Fair, 20 December 2017

The Conservation Center

#art #SouthernCalifornia #ThomasFire #SantaBarbara #Montecito #Ojai #MuseumofContemporaryArtSantaBarbara #MCASB #SantaBarbaraMuseumofArt #SBMA #conservation #rescue #restoration #artcollections #collectionsmanagement #CO2 #luxury #smartluxury #design #architecture #engineering #fireresistance #TheConservationCenter #Chicago #resilience #health #wellness#realestate #culturalrealestate #culturalheritage

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issues of condition ・ too complex to be explained?

Extraordinary that there may be ” … a consensus that issues of condition, and the work of conservators, are too complex to be explained to gallery visitors as a matter of course” (Burlington Magazine, as reported by The Art Newspaper).

Physical condition is a fundamental component of value of tangible assets, inclusive of works of art, buildings, and houses.

Neither the art market nor the real estate market are “hermetically sealed,” or entirely self-sufficient, existing apart from condition, as some believe and might like to believe.

See:

“How to identify a wreck” | Bendor Grosvenor, The Art Newspaper, 18 December 2017

#art #conservation #conservators #connoisseurship #collections #collectionsmanagement #condition #value #artmarket #tangibleassets #luxury #smartluxury #urbanluxury #architecture #design #engineering #resilience #CO2 #realestate #commercialrealestate #culturalrealestate

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The Getty | a Type 1-rated complex, designed & built to resist fire

The Getty Center in Los Angeles performs.

The New York Times and Reuters highlight how the Getty Center has been designed and built to provide resilient stewardship and protect its art holdings, even in a fire- and earthquake-prone area.

The Getty’s design, “and a plan developed with insurers eager to keep the valuable collection safe” [the Getty works with commercial property insurer FM Global], help protect the art from damage.

The Getty’s architect, Richard Meier, built fire resistance into the billion-dollar complex, said Ron Hartwig, vice president of communications for the J. Paul Getty Trust. These hills are fire prone, but because of features like the 1.2 million square feet of thick travertine stone covering the outside walls, the crushed rock on the roofs and even the plants chosen for the brush-cleared grounds, “The safest place for the artwork to be is right here in the Getty Center,” he said.

Within that lovely milky travertine skin, the buildings have reinforced concrete walls and automatic fire doors that can trap fires in sealed-off areas. A carbon-filtered air conditioning system pushes smoke out instead of letting it in, and the internal sprinklers — whose pipes remain dry until needed, to avoid damaging accidents – stand ready to douse flames.

“Should any fire move within one of those compartmentalized areas, it can’t get anywhere,” said Michael G. Rogers, director of facilities at the Getty. Since water supplies can be cut off in a disaster, The Getty has its own million-gallon water tank buried under the parking garage. The result is a complex that is rated Type 1, the highest level of fire resistance.

See:

“Why the Getty Center’s Art Stayed Put as Fires Raged Nearby” | John Schwartz and Gilbert Gates, The New York Times, 12 December 2017

“California’s Getty museum survives wildfire, ready for quakes” | Suzanne Barlyn, Reuters, 8 December 2017

The Getty Center

#Getty #GettyCenter #art #museums #collections #collectionsmanagement #stewardship #scholarship #conservation #preservation #resilience #fire #smoke #particulatematter #airfiltration #design #architecture #RichardMeier #engineering #California #LosAngeles #luxury #urbanluxury #smartluxury #realestate #commercialrealestate #culturalrealestate #insurance

 

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SFMOMA・optimizing for sustainability was the fun part

After three years of construction under the direction of architectural firm Snøhetta and environmental design firm Atelier Ten, the expanded and high-performing San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) opened to the public in May of 2016.

Doubling the size of the museum and tripling gallery space, the museum achieved and surpassed LEED gold, working towards maximum sustainability. Optimizing for maximum sustainability was the fun part.

Building on the the science of conservation, born out of the World-War-II-era movement of London artworks to slate caves in Wales, and on the San Francisco mandate that all new construction meet USGBC LEED gold criteria, the SFMOMA initiated a Sustainability Roundtable to research solutions that would work for the museum. Participants in the Sustainability Roundtable included museum staff and representatives from Atelier Ten, Snøhetta, Taylor Engineering, The Getty, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), the Indianapolis Museum of ARt, and Stanford University’s Anderson Collection.

Testing approaches and combinations of approaches iteratively, the group determined to optimize “seasonal set points” and customized every aspect of the structure’s design and systems including mechanical, lighting, water, and HVAC.

See:

“Optimize, Optimize, Optimize: Museum Conservation in the LEED Era” | Lindsey Westbrook, freelance editor and writer specializing in art, architecture, and design; clients include SFMOMA, SFMOMA

“SFMOMA reopens with Snøhetta extension that triples its gallery space” | Dan Howarth, Dezeen, 28 April 2016

#art #museums #artmarket #SFMOMA #SanFrancisco #architecture #design #resilience #builtenvironment #buildingtech #construction #tech #energy #conservation #luxury #smartluxury #urbanluxury #realestate #LEED #Snøhetta #AtelierTen #TaylorEngineering #Getty #MFABoston #IndianapolisMuseumofArt #AndersonCollection #CO2 #H2O #collectionsmanagement #contemporaryart #engineering

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costs of collecting art

Artsy’s Sara Roffino’s article, What It Really Costs To Be a Mega Art Collector, helpfully itemizes some of the costs of buying, owning, maintaining, and selling art.

The cost of maintaining a collection can run from 1% – 2% to 15% – 20% of the overall value of a collection.

The variation reflects the costs of collection services. Services include shipping, framing, installation, insurance, security, appraisals, storage, and conservation.

When purchasing from an auction house, expect to pay buyer premiums on top of the hammer price. Buyer premiums at New York auction houses now run from 20 to 25 percent.

The industry-standard rate for the services of an art advisor is 10% (of the cost of a work of art purchased).

Homes that exhibit works of art such as paintings or sculptures may require adjustments such as special lighting, security, and UV window protection.

Specialized fine art storage in Manhattan costs between $10 and $12.50 per square foot per month for a private space. Shared space outside of the city can cost as little as $5 per square foot.

Conservation assessments provided before major purchases are made can cost from  $300 and $1,000. This is for the assessment only, before any conservation work begins.

Rates to insure art, from 5 to 20 cents per hundred dollars, depend on the material of the work of art, type of storage, and geographic location. The same rates apply to artworks of any price.

There are costs to selling works of art as well. Selling costs include de-installation, shipping, and transit insurance.

See:

“What It Really Costs To Be a Mega Art Collector” | Sara Roffino, Artsy.net, 7 July 2017

#art #collectingart #artcollections #shipping #framing #installation #insurance #security #appraisals #storage #conservation