Art Salvage From Haitian Earthquake Rubble

8/9/2019 Art Salvage From Haitian Earthquake Rubble

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From the Rubble of the Haitian Earthquake: Art Salvage

At the annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation I met up with SusanBlakney, painting conservator freshly returned from Haiti as part of a delegation todetermine the size of the task of saving and salvaging art. Her efforts were part of the

AIC-CERT program.

In piles of 500, Susan a well experienced emergency preparedness expert forsalvaging art post Katrina, said she has never seen so many paintings all in one placewhen she visited Port-au-Prince last week.

Of course the devastation is massive. And the human needs are extreme. But, theimpetus and inspiration for this trip, Corine Wegener a curator at the MinneapolisInstitute of Arts, has another nightmare in mind that haunts her.

As a retired Army major, she served in Iraq shortly after the looting of the Iraqi NationalMuseum. Ms. Wegener said she had been horrified by what had happened at the IraqiNational Museum, where she worked as a liaison between staff members and Americanofficials during her deployment. It was so disturbing for me as a museum professionalto see the staff so completely in shock, she said. How would I feel if I came to workone day and found 15,000 objects had been looted? She was determined not to seehistory repeat itself in Haiti, she said, and believed that the sooner conservators arrivedon the ground, the more artworks could be saved.

Ms. Wegener quickly arranged a meeting of art professionals and State Departmentofficials in Washington about how to provide cultural assistance, and invited Mr. RichardKurin, the under secretary for history, art and culture at the Smithsonian Institution whoalready had ties to Haiti from organizing programs on Haitian art and culture for theSmithsonians Folklife Festival in 2004. They have made several trips so far assessingthe needs and organizing the project.

The Smithsonian Institution is organizing the effort, supported by the CERT team of the

American Institute for Conservation (AIC-CERT), which will open a center there in June

where American conservators will work side-by-side with Haitian staff members to repairtorn paintings, shattered sculptures and other works pulled from the rubble of museums

and churches. Haitian artists and cultural professionals have been conducting informal

salvage operations for the past four months. But the Americans are bringing

conservation expertise there are few if any professionally trained art conservators in

Haiti nor any special equipment or proper supplies.
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The initiative, in its swiftness, its close collaboration with a foreign government and its

combination of private and government financing, represents a new model of American

cultural diplomacy, one that organizers believe stands in stark contrast to the apathy

Americans were accused of exhibiting during the looting of Iraqi artistic treasures in

2003.

Mistakes have been made in the past, in times of great tragedy or upheaval, by not

protecting and prioritizing a countrys cultural heritage, said Rachel Goslins, the

executive director of the Presidents Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which

has been involved in finding money for the project. I think this is a huge opportunity for

us to say, We get it.

Ms. Blakney traveled here last week with two other conservators, a museum curator,

and a group of engineers and planning experts from the Smithsonian. The conservators

task was to assess precisely what kinds of damage the art had sustained, not just from

the earthquake but from subsequent exposure to rain and sun and from improperstorage both before and after the quake. Based on that information, they will decide

what specialized equipment that they, or whoever the Smithsonian ends up sending to

work at the center, will need.

Restoring the most compromised art will not be a job for beginners. If the Episcopal

Church decides to save the surviving murals from Holy Trinity, which were painted in

the early 1950s by some of Haitis most famous artists, they will probably need to be

removed from the damaged building a feat of engineering as much as conservation

that would involve gluing a piece of fabric to the face of each mural and attaching the

mural to a secondary support structure of plywood or steel before chiseling it away from

the wall.


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The American conservators will spend part of their time training Haitians in

conservation, in preparation for turning the laboratory over to them.

Mr. Kurin conveyed the need for help to Ms. Goslins of the Presidents Committee on

the Arts and the Humanities, a group that includes the heads of the National

Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of

Museum and Library Services, as well as well-connected art patrons like the Broadway

producer Margo Lion, who is a co-chairman of the committee. The three agencies

ended up committing $30,000 each, while the Broadway League, of which Ms. Lion is a

member, contributed $276,000.

The initial financing is coming from three federal agencies and the Broadway League,

the trade group for theater owners and producers. Smithsonian officials say the project

will cost $2 million to $3 million over the next year and a half, after which the center is

expected to be turned over to the Haitian government.

As for the rest of the money thats needed, Ms. Goslins expressed confidence that it

would materialize once the center was operating.

What can the Haitian Earthquake teach you, at home/office, about preparing?

Rest assured you live and work in buildings better constructed than the Haitians. Susan

Blakney confirmed that the rubble was mostly due to unreinforced concrete and

cinderblock construction. The one building left in the area of her visit is a 7500 sq. ft

warehouse built by the Army Corps of Engineers with proper building codes. It was left
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undamaged amidst the surrounding rubble of the quake.

What about the art, valued collectibles and important records in your home or office?

When there will be an earthquake in your area, there will be many, many homes that will

be only badly rattled. Thats the case, also, in a hurricane, tornado or even a bad storm;

a focused area gets the brunt of the impact and the vast outlying areas just get shook

up. So, actually, there are huge numbers of people that were not physically at risk, but

they may have lost and had damaged many cherished family treasures.

Disaster preparedness for your personal items includes knowing how to protect yourgenealogy, heirlooms, photographs, letters, old books, art work and importantdocuments. Set priorities and protect, first, your most important items. Here are 7 tips tohelp you be better prepared:

1. Use an anchor wax to secure items that can fly off shelves and rattle around indisplay cases. (Home Depot) This is a VERY good tip!

2. Keep photos in archival photo albums that are easy to grab and go. Keep them ina book case or storage box that is easy to get to.

3. Keep storage boxes away from water pipes (water heaters too) that could breakand flood on your treasured items (causing water and mold damage).

4. Make sure hanging hooks AND wires are strong, oversized and well anchoredinto the wood. I cant tell you how many paintings and frames Ive repaired thatfall off the wall onto a corner of a table or through a vase. Or what about thatheavy item hanging over your head in bed!!??

5. Photograph treasured keepsakes and copy docs; keep a copy in another location(another city or state!)

6. You may need supplemental insurance for earthquakes. Make sure yourhomeowners policy covers your contents. Heirlooms should not require a FineArts rider but should fall under your regular home owners policy. You will stillneed photos and values for a claim (go to www.faclappraisals.com).
http://www.faclappraisals.com/http://www.faclappraisals.com/


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7. Get a copy of How To Save Your Stuff From A Disaster(www.saveyourstuff.com).

The author, Scott M. Haskins, has worked in both Italy and the U.S. as a professionalconservator for the last 35 years. He has been personally involved in nine majorCalifornia disasters and has consulted with people throughout the US and Italy onnumerous other disasters. He works with the general public, historical societies,museums, corporations, private collectors, art galleries, state governments and thefederal government. He wrote a pamphlet on earthquake response of which 500,000were distributed in LA after the Northridge Earthquake by the Bank of America Corp.human resource department. Recently his pamphlet, How To Protect and SaveValuable Possessions In Your Office From A Hurricane was distributed at theNational Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Corine Wegener, Susan Blakney can be found on Facebook and TwitterScott Haskins is on My Space, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Plaxo
http://www.saveyourstuff.com/http://www.saveyourstuff.com/

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Art Salvage From Haitian Earthquake Rubble