by Chris Burden Urban light (2008), one of the best-known and best-loved art installations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), is about to get a new paint job to help protect it from demonstrations of very public affection bestowed on him every day.
The eye-catching installation of 202 historic lampposts, prominently located on Wilshire Boulevard, is one of 23 projects funded through the annual Bank of America (BOA) Art Conservation Grant program this year. According to the bank, “conservators will apply protective paint layers that have been extensively tested on all lampposts, ensuring that substances such as lipstick, permanent marker and dye can be easily cleaned from their surfaces.”
“The work is getting a lot of mainstream attention – and it is expected,” said Brian Siegel, global director of arts and heritage at Bank of America. The arts journal selection of the work as a grant recipient. “When the museum started telling us about the work that needed to be done, we thought it was a great example of accessible art for people. In many cases, you see something on the wall that you cannot physically interact with. With this project, anything that would contribute to its sustainability and enable this continued commitment was great. The work was previously restored in 2016.
Another institution that will receive BOA funding is the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, to study and preserve Oxidation (1978), one of the pop artist’s under-researched “piss paintings”. These works were made using copper-reactive acrylic paint, and the artist then had friends and assistants urinate on the canvas, creating abstract, improvised splatter patterns. According to the bank, the largest example of this series in the museum’s collection was exposed to high temperatures and humidity in June 2020 (when the museum was closed to the public during the pandemic), “causing drops of liquid that ooze from within the canvas”. and new corrosion patterns to emerge”. Due to its size, the work will be kept in the gallery, allowing the public to experience the science and technology behind the project.
Andy Warhol, Oxidation1978 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
The bank’s curatorial program “focuses on all different types of art. Museums can sometimes find this difficult, as they don’t always know what to submit or what could be funded,” says Siegel. “But when you think about it, what is culture, what is art? It happens to be something unique, which is obviously important to the museum, and which they want to better understand and preserve. And the scholarship they will get can be passed on to other museums and institutions that have similar works. This is what the program is really designed to do.
Other projects to receive funding include a trio of portraits of Hawaiian royalty at the Hawaii State Archives in Honolulu, a friendship totem by Nisga’a First Nations artist Norman Tait at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, a group of 98 photo albums by Lebanese photographer Agop Kouyoumjian at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, a series of 29 works on paper by muralist John T. Biggers at the Hampton University Museum in Virginia, and a collection of 946 gold and silver objects at the Hong Kong Palace Museum Collection.
Over the past 13 years, BOA’s art conservation program has funded 237 projects in 40 countries around the world. The bank is also a major sponsor of museum exhibits and has launched a popular Museums on Us initiative, which offers free admission to 225 museums across the United States for its credit and debit cardholders.
Siegel, who has worked at the bank for more than 15 years, took over as global director of arts and heritage last year, following the retirement of the longtime leader. Rena De Sisto. Siegel hopes to build on the foundations of business support and “cultural sustainability” that De Sisto began by expanding some of the bank’s funding opportunities, including in art conservation. One example is a new internship program, run in conjunction with the University of Delaware and the HBCU Museums and Galleries Alliance, which will provide ten students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), who have already completed a course undergraduate degree in art conservation, a paid internship at a major institution.
“When you think about the field of art conservation, it’s important for us to not only fund the project, but also consider the future workforce,” says Siegel. The program is just beginning to screen applications and will select its first batch of interns this summer.
The bank also works with the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative to support the emergency preservation of heritage threatened by armed conflict or natural disasters, in particular through its Army Monuments Officer Training and Military Curriculuma modern version of the Monuments Men and Women which were deployed to preserve art collections across Europe during World War II.
“The Army is focused on making sure our officers and allies understand important cultural sites,” Siegel says, “so they can take a more proactive approach in protecting culture.”
