Detroit – When bad things happen to good art, Detroit is prepared to take action.
There was the matter of the kid who stuck his chewing gum on a painting at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Some years back, a guest at a reception there fell into a painting, puncturing the canvas.
These mishaps had happy outcomes, thanks to one of the city’s outstanding art “hospitals” – the Detroit Institute of Arts’ conservation department, headed by Barbara Heller.
Thanks to Heller, the Detroit Institute of Arts has been in the forefront of the ongoing battle to conserve the city’s artistic treasures.
Heller has been testing everything that could affect the collections, including light, humidity and exhibition cases and pedestals.
“We do everything possible to avoid trapping works of art in bad environments,” she says.
Contemporary art challenges conservators because materials artists use are too often noncompatible.
“You have cheap paint, epoxy, artificial clay and all kinds of stuff that doesn’t work together,” Heller says. “We have to figure out the process, what artists used and what was in their minds. We have things that are permanently faded, and we can’t bring them back.”
As for the chewing gum that a 12-year-old boy stuck on a contemporary painting by Helen Frankenthaler, that was “pretty easy to remove,” Heller says. “But saliva, food coloring and artificial coloring were all factors that had to be considered.”
