During the first day of our performance, my group and I will be curating all of the broken pieces of crockery/pot/china that we have broken prior to the performance. As we will be doing this on the museums grounds we felt we needed an in depth knowledge of how things are done behind the scenes in the museum.
Eden and I visited Ash at the Usher during the time new artworks were being delivered and prepared for display. He showed us where it’s all done, the materials used to handle the objects, how the artwork arrives and what is protected by. He took us through a very complex system that Ash and his co workers must abide by when dealing with the artworks.
The artworks/sculptures are delivered in crates, sometimes on crate per piece, they offloaded by the delivery men and are put on skates used to transfer them to the room in which they will be displayed. The museum then receive a delivery report which tells them what they have been delivered and this must be checked and ticked off. An exhibition receipt is then signed, with this a list of the objects is provided along with information on each piece of artwork for example, the size, the lighting requirements, temperature requirements, material the piece is made of, the handling instructions (eg no gloves on wood sculptures).
Once all of this is clarified, the technicians undo the crates and bring them to a table, faced down, with fabric blankets covering said table. Medical gloves are used when placing the artworks onto the table and also to undo the wrapping which the artwork is protected by. The protection materials include acid free tissue paper and plastic sheeting, Ash managed to save some of these materials and kindly gave them to Eden and myself to possibly use in our performance. We discussed buying more of these materials and wrapping our broken pieces of crockery with them. Once unwrapped, the artworks go through a ‘condition check’ which is to be carried out by the courier (who comes from the institution where the artwork has been sent from) however the courier is only insured to check the artwork visually, no touching allowed. A condition form typically includes questions such; has any frame damage occured? Something interesting Ash mentioned was that the couriers are mostly women and the techs are mostly men; is this something the art world does on purpose? And if so, for what reason? Is it simply old traditions that have carried on to present day? Or is it harder for women to become techs and for men to become couriers and vice versa?
Ash told us that this process usually takes a few days with a team of people. To make sure everyone is on the same page and knows what can be handled and what cannot the crates have safety tape on them which are indicators for if you can handle them or not, if artworks are still in the crates. For this particular museum, the crates will either have red or green tape on them, red indicates an obvious, no and green, go.
We are aware that our performance will require the same kind of discipline and structure shown in this process the museum use when dealing with artwork.
Works Cited
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/tag/curating/