The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) gained 20,000 square feet when it reopened its permanent collection galleries in February. More space means more white walls for exhibiting artworks, which is fortunate considering MAM’s registrar reckons the total collection at 30,102 pieces. But even with the new gallery space, only between 2,000 and 2,500 works are on view at any given time. For every work on display, approximately 14 others hibernate somewhere on the premises.
In other words, the Milwaukee Art Museum is an iceberg. What lurks beneath the surface?
Considering the aforementioned figures, one might imagine MAM’s storage space as a vast underground maze of bunkers guarded by thick steel doors able to frustrate lock pickers and dynamite. It is rather surprising, then, to discover that more than half of MAM’s stored works slumber in a room roughly the size a basketball court. Some 15,000 works on paper—prints, drawings, watercolors, photographs, graphic art—lie dormant on high density storage shelves which float laterally with the surprisingly easy turn of a wheel. “Works on paper have the same care needs,” notes chief curator Brady Roberts, “mostly being kept away from humidity and light.” Lisa Sutcliffe, curator of photography and media arts, elaborates, “Works on paper can’t be on view for long periods. After about three months on display these works must rest for five years.”
The tile floor of the next storage room betrays its past life as a bathroom. Housed here are sculptures and other bulky works—a visual smorgasbord nonchalantly exhibited on metal shelves. Among these hidden treasures lurks an untitled 1969 light piece by Robert Irwin. “It’s a complicated installation piece that occupies a large footprint,” says Roberts. Fans of MAM’s immersive installations such as Stanley Landsman’s Walk-In Infinity Chamber and Anthony McCall’s You and I, Horizontal (II) should rejoice: “It will probably come on view later this year or early next year.”
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Different factors determine which works surface for public consumption. Thematic appropriateness is one influence on curatorial selection. MAM’s permanent collection can add depth to traveling shows, just as the current exhibition of American Regionalism gives context to one of the style’s formative practitioners in “American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood.” Replacing works on loan is also cause to pull hitherto hidden works. “We have two Georgia O’Keeffe paintings on view that were in storage until recently to replace two works now at the Tate Modern in London,” says Roberts.
Past the enormous new HVAC room resides the Conservation Lab, staffed by four conservators. Part doctor, part cosmetologist, senior conservator Jim DeYoung describes his profession’s ethic as “do no harm” and emphasizes the importance of ensuring all alterations are reversible. There is a distinction between restoration and conservation. Restoration, in DeYoung’s words, entails “falsely making a work look new,” while conservation respects a work’s age while stabilizing it to slow deterioration.
The packing and shipment preparation room is itself a compressed art museum. Large walls of metal fencing, close enough to make sardines feel claustrophobic, slide out to hang works in queue for transit. Given the quantity, fragility and singularity of the objects MAM ships, an intimate relationship with the TSA is essential for peace of mind. MAM enjoys preapproval to fly in exchange for rigorous preparation and oversight. Exams are taken, security protocol is audited, and when a crate leaves the museum, it is accompanied all the way to its destination.
It is artists, not art museums, who have the reputation of being unsuited to life’s practical demands. Beneath MAM’s surface one finds a team of curators, registrars, conservators and maintenance staff whose expertise and exactitude keep the tip of the iceberg afloat.
