Lewis, Jo Ann

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University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URIPresident's Committee (1994) Education: National Endowment for the Arts andHumanities, Subject Files I (1973-1996)1994President's Committee (1994): News Article 01Jo Ann LewisFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_70This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Education: National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Subject Files I(1973-1996) at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in President's Committee (1994) by an authorized administrator ofDigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationLewis, Jo Ann, "President's Committee (1994): News Article 01" (1994). President's Committee (1994). Paper 5.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_70/5. ~. · .. ·-·:··.; ·ntr~ctor?s Plans Would Keep . Th~ Elements Fro1n the Art , · By Jo Ann Lewis Special to The Washington Poot ,, ·.:..·· ,;_· __ __;, ___ __;;, _____ ---:-. , . Years ago, in the_ late 1930s, arc~tect John Rus.: sell·Poiie.envisfoi:ted a stately National G~ery of • Ait; With big rooms and high ceilings. He chose a .classical design<~th ·a nople dome. And so t~at . pamtings. would be bathed. in filtere?. sunshine along with artifiS-31 light, he chose to mst?" huge skylights iri the roof-by then the custom m great · musewns. .. , . · · , . · . · ... That fateful decision has since been praised by critics, and enjoyed by millions of visitors who have ·"seen how a Titian changes when the sun passes · behind a cloud. But nature's light soon broµght na-ture's problems, too: snow and rain that creep through the gaps between the panes; v:lld temper-ature swings from frosty dawns to tomd noons. Over the 54 years since Pope's building was · opened, the incursion· of nature and the aging pro-. · cess have worked a gradual havoc on that stately building-in addition. to the leaking. l)kylights, the heating and cooling systems began to creak, the· · hwnidifiers went bonkers. The staff dreamed up · ·stopgap solutions. Then th~ soluti_cins gradually : · went hayWire. · · · . · " '. 'Little· by little-while the public was b~ing . wowed by blockbuster exhibitions...,.-a lot of things . began to go wrong. . . . . ' . Last year, ·a team of consultants was called m by National Gallery Director Earl "Rusty" Powell HI . 'to examirie'"the'p!a:ce from the skylights down to the bOilers, and it delivered a confidential report last spiirig. "The :condition of the ~acilities ancf't_he. organizational problems that prevail currently:Wlth the National Gallery of Art threaten the secunty of the collection,"· tlie .consultants,announced .. ~me of the worldis'ieatesi work~ qf~rtiwe~e "at ~sk" . of "senc)us damage'." ·. "'.' . . . .. .• ' . . · This dramatic conclusion became. the·. backbone of an investigative TV series thi~ .. week on WJLA-Channel 7, which obtained a leaked copy ·of the re-port. ''.Gallery of Shame," as ~he three-dar series .was called .in promos; led off with a harrowing saga of dripping skylights, .clouds· of ~team and flooded WASHINGTON POST December 3, 1994 :storerooms at the National Gallezy. It told the.story of a hu-. midifier that went berserk and turned the normally clear ·varnish white on.John Singleton Copley's masterpiece "Wat--son and the Shark." . . . · ' The series also drew on the report to conclude that staff morale is low and organi1.ation at the gallery is poor, a con-"clusion .amply buttressed by tearful employee testimony on. , qml~. The. series prompted:a promise of hea$gs_'.ori g31- · · lery toridition5 by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio~the likely. . pew .chafr of the House Appropriations subcommittee ~t ... · :o:ver5eeS the National'~ bu~get (which induded $59 million: . from the f.~eral govenuneilt this year); .· · · . · . · . I Orie question went unexamined, . however: What, jf any• .~g. is Director Powell doing about this mess? · · ' Ingenuity in Action ·, .. Rusty.Powell probably thought he'd seen his last earth-quake when he left the Los Angeles Cotinty Museum two years ago, and came to Washington to fill the shoes of retir-ing J. Carter Brown. Then he saw "Gallezy of Shame~ and its implications of disaster. · "'. The problems revealed by Channel 7 ·weren't· ~ws to turn. Powell said. "We talked about them at my first bc;>ard meeting" in ·the fall of 1~2, he said In fact, that's why the · c0nsultants,.from the Association of Higher Education Facili-ties Officers (!mown, for some reason; as APPA), were called iri. "I Warited to !mow the condition of our 'envelope,' " P9w-eU explained. "It was key to our long-range planning. • • . · · : "What needs to be said is that the gallery's recoicl of maintaining and protecting its works· of arts is exemplary," · he said during an interview in his office this week. "And as far as I !mow, we've never had darna:ge to a work of art." But he aclmowledged that the Copley painting gc;it steamed up . last December and had to be treated by conservators. No )a.sting damage was done: · The incident "was like lightning striking a golf course on a . dear day," he claims, but he allows that serious damage would have occurred had the problem ·not been found. But it was found, he said, because the museum staff has learned to deal with its capricious West Building and the newer, but al-So aging, East Building-:-in this case by patrollirig periodical-ly to check the temperature and humidity in each room. Oth-er. teclmiques the consultants found include: • Manually slarruning ·the thennostats from maximum heat · · to maxirrium cold as the building temperature fluctuates; • Strategic plaeement of buckets and pans to catch drips; · • Covering the skylights with plastic . · .; As the consultants put it: ''The buildings' m.echanical sys- · terns are operated in a 'by-th~seat-of-the-pants' manner.n Iii some ~ses. though-lik~· the wrapping .c)f the sky-lights-the jury~rigging haS been pretty ingenious~, ·.The.plastic.coverings are !mown at the gallery as "rain-coats." And on the six-acre roof, the 40-by-100-foot sec-tions of skylights are sealed against the weather by bubbles of silvery-gray plastic. One layer is taut over the glass. An-Qther rises a foot or two over the glass, inflated by pu,mped-. in Wann air. .. , . : They were the brainstonn of National Gallery Adminis-trator-then ·assistant · admiriistrator-Darrell · Willson, a fonner Police officer from Waukegan, lli., who was hired by. B.rown in 1989 and was losing sleep over the leaks. Then: ''.My bro!Jt~ had . a greenhouse in Indiana,"· Willson said, "iind one day. I realized that greenhouses were no longer t·· ·- : : ... ,' ~. :. . . . . ' ' . . . . WASHINGTON POST December 3, 1994 . . . . '· i; .l '.: ' . . .. . Two layers.of pl~stlc, with a ~u&hlon of ~Ir pumped between, has temporarlly stopped leaks at the National Gallery; . . . . . . _::;·. ' :· ·_ .. : -~·: -.~. :~~·· \ . . ''· . \' .. · :._ . . . . . . . . . . . beiilg built from gl.ci.s5 but ialliei. from lntlat~ pla~tk bub-· money quicldy. Powell, however, waved off a suggestion ~t .· bles." Willson''.C.alled. iri· a ~eenhouse iruiriufacturer from · the report.Inight have been leaked for just that purpose~ . South Cai-OliDa and asked whether.the ·floatjrig plastic bub- ..... As t9 the other issues raised iri the report-including in~ ble systep'l ~ght be a.dapte<l,::t<:> ,cover .th~ gallery's Jeaky sufficient minority hirillg ·and appilllingly low morale among 1, · acr~ge; .,, .. : < . · . .. . · . :':. J _ .·, :., :.':·: ., : . ·.. . . . blue-collar workers-Powell plopped ~ hand. down on· a ') ·>Iri tile two.yeaci.sirice the'iairicciats were iristaJled_;_at a ·• . three-inch ring binder on his desk. It was, he said, a plan to ·. c05f,of orlly ·2~ centS a squarefoot~roo(leaicage haS' been . implement all of the proposals in the APPA r~port within a cu~, by 90 percerit~ Willson says.,·.The :improvised. repair is year. "I've. accepted .it as being realistic," he said of the plan . . gumn~ _for four years, but. the occaSimial :pati:h has al· · : Powell has. already added three minorities to the gallery's .·.r·ea·~ d_ .Y·_·. '.~.-: _.n. ·_•r.equired·. '. . . . , · · '. · ' .·' · '. ·.· .. · + 1 "., · senior staff, including a new chief and deputy chief of securi-- : ' . :. : ,' . . tY ;.;J\ild these changes have begun to raise the spirits of the · Long.;. Term Solutions . "· unhappiest employees_;_guards and maintenance workers-.. N1.> m~~~ ~ector would. argue that drip pans, .plastic aecording to Ralph Wright, a guard who serves as president .. Wrap and humidity patrols are the J?est way tO ruµ'a ·museum of Local 1831 of .the Ameriean Federation of Government of priceless art. But museums all. over the world, have been Employees. doing it . a.5' their' agmg· plarits, one' by one, hav~' undergone . "The guard force iS on the road to recovery ci.fter a diSa!>- . necessary-and hugely expensive-overhauls.'_The Freer trous .three years,~ said Wright "Rusty's new appointments. Gallery of Art recently redid its entire roof, and the Corco- are wonderful, caring people, who are well informed on labOr ran Gallery is l?till using buckets as it awaits the millions of. law, and have negotiated everything_ they've done with the • dollars required for similar repairs; . . . union~" Wrig~t said that Powell.consulted him before nammg' ··Now it is Powell's tum, and he said he had already begun the ne'f security cllief_..:.a sign, the union man ·said,·of im· to impl~ent' the· 1ong-term :solutions even before he re- proving labor relations at the galler)r. . · . · · : ceived the APPA'report. F..if1y, next year, he said; a four· . P<?_well di4 not'appear in' the television series, refusing to· year, $20 million skylight replacement project will begin on face the camera without knowing what questions would be Po~'s West Building. By 1996 roo{repairs will require dos- ask.ed and. what charges)vould be leveled. As a r~t, it . ing' parts of the buildirig, one quaqrant at a tiine. ' . looked. to many viewers as if the gallery was being e~sive: ·· . Also· next year; the gallery will start installing a $3 million. Some people. reacted to disclosure. of the APPA report by state-of-th~art "buildings · automation.· sy~tem,"; which will calling for an inspector general to . be assigned by Congx-ess . . electrorucally:·monitor·heat aiid: humiditY from a central to monitor the gallery. Powell disagreed: '11tis plaee,is'.sc{ point. . · · ; : .. , ,. : · . . . oversighted compared to other. ~titutions that I ·hardly "We've been talking to Congress about these·problems for think V(e need more." . . · ,. · 0: · · · ·· · three or fom: years· at .least," said Powell, who p0int¢ to the . In the cloistered world of. Washington art insiders,· "Gal-money that has been budgeted for both projects. All ·the . lery of. Shame" was well up the Richter sCale; it isn't often fwlds needed to automate the climate control systems have that teleyjsion turns its bright lights on the museum ·world.· already been colTUilitted by Congress and the Department of But' Powell seems to have shrugged it of;f. ''I can't say we . Energy, he.-said. Arid $4.5 million in initial fwld.i.iig for the · . don't have problems, but I think we've addressed them," he skylight project js part: of next year's budget, now awaiting,· said. · .. · . . ·. ·. \ .·. . .· : .. : · ·· congr~ional appi::oval. Some gallery stafi-and doubtless:· . Shor:tJy thereafter boarded a plane for London to .see an.' . :Powell tc:xr,-:--~ a, possible silv:er.Iining in the embarrassing. exhibition.of James McNeil! Whistler's paintings that will be' . publi~ ajrjng of .. the APPA report: that the news of deterio- coming to the National Gallery in May. Art museum direc·· ra,ting gallery conditions will spur Congress to approve the tors, after all, must still deal.with art. · - . . - . . 

President\u27s Committee (1994): News Article 01

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President\u27s Committee (1994): News Article 01

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