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By Leslie Rainer
Murals are most commonly defined as wall paintings, works of art
integrated into a specific architectural space. Art historian Francis
V. O’Connor has emphasized the importance of a mural’s
setting, writing that “a mural, unlike portable works of art,
is an environmental artifact that was conceived in relation to its
natural and/or architectural setting; the original site is an intimate
part of its formal attributes.”
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Ghosts of the Barrio,
1974, by Wayne Alaniz Healy, after conservation. The mural—located
in East Los Angeles—is 1 of over 70 murals painted on
the walls of the housing units in Estrada Courts and Ramona
Gardens in the 1970s. The mural was conserved in 1999 as part
of the Los Angeles Murals Assessment and Conservation Project.
( See cover for a detail image
of the mural prior to conservation.) Photo: Courtesy the Los
Angeles Murals Assessment and Conservation Project, City of
Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs Department. Mural: © Wayne
Alaniz Healy, East Los Streetscapers. |
The word mural is derived from the Latin word murus,
meaning wall. Walls have long provided a direct support for aesthetic,
political, and social ideas expressed with paint. Cave paintings
could be considered the earliest murals, followed over time by wall
paintings in tombs, temples, churches, civic buildings, and a variety
of outdoor spaces.
Modern murals grow out of this long tradition. From the beginning
of the 20th century, murals have had a significant presence in the
architecture of the Americas. Artists like John Singer Sargent created
great mural cycles for museums and libraries. The masters of the
Mexican muralist movement—Diego Rivera, Clemente Orozco, and
David Alfaro Siqueiros—produced works for public buildings.
In the 1930s, under the auspices of the U.S. Works Progress Administration,
artists were employed to paint industrial, agricultural, and social
scenes on the walls of post offices, schools, and other public buildings.
In the second half of the 20th century, social change, political
activism, and the rise of the Chicano mural movement generated new
impetus for murals in the United States. Artists gave voice to the
Chicano population and recorded their history—otherwise largely
neglected in mainstream education. Waves of artists of all backgrounds
followed, creating a vast array of imagery around the country on
the walls of freeways; parking structures; housing projects; and
public, private, and commercial buildings. A large number of these
murals are exterior works, created for community outreach and neighborhood
beautification. Through redevelopment programs, percent-for-art
initiatives that mandate financial support for artworks, and youth
training programs, such funding of murals has led to an explosion
of public art in cities and towns across America.
The Conservation Challenge
Over the past 30 years, a vast number of exterior murals have been
created. Philadelphia is home to 2,500, Los Angeles to over 1,500—and
there are hundreds more throughout the rest of the country. Today
as these murals age, many require conservation treatment if they
are to survive. Unfortunately, relatively little thought was given
to the maintenance and conservation of these murals at the time
of their creation. Maintenance was either not part of the plan,
or it was not carried out as murals began to show signs of deterioration.
Frequently, little funding is available for maintenance and conservation.
Modern exterior murals exhibit a range of problems that are complicated
by the use of modern and untested materials. Artists have used paints
and coatings that were not necessarily manufactured for longevity
in exterior use; after 20 to 30 years, exposed to harsh outdoor
environments, these paints are deteriorating. Compounding these
problems is the fact that many murals are painted in places where
maintenance is nearly impossible. Made to beautify the cityscape
and to bring neighborhoods together, these works now show wear,
and in many cases they are targets of vandalism.
A number of cities have begun to inventory and assess their murals.
Los Angeles counts over 450 that were made in part or in whole with
city funds, sponsored by various city agencies and community groups.
These range from paintings in historic public buildings to mosaic,
tile, and painted works on walls in schools, housing projects, and
freeway underpasses.
Who is responsible for this public art? A city agency that commissioned
a mural may lack the resources or interest to maintain it. Once
a mural is painted on a wall, it becomes the property of the building
owner. At the same time, the image and the copyright belong to the
artist. As long as the artist is living, he or she also has a voice
in the mural’s treatment.
Should conservation follow the strict guidelines used for museum
pieces exhibited or stored in controlled environments? The answer,
presumably, would be yes. However, with the many voices—community,
city agencies, artists, and conservators—that contribute to
decisions regarding the fate of a mural, this is a matter of debate.
Is the objective to stabilize the paint and ground, or is it more
appropriate to restore the mural to its original brightness and
intensity, erasing its historic value in favor of a fresh appearance?
When artists are still living and can be contacted, should they
be responsible for their own work? If artists so desire, should
they have the right to repaint their murals? In Chicago, a group
of artists has carefully documented their murals from the 1970s
and 1980s, and they repaint them when they become degraded. Do those
murals, as a result, become new works of art with new dates attached
to them?
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Before the Game, The
Eternal Practice, 1994, by Olivia Gude. Located on the
110 freeway in Highland Park, this mural is one of over 60
murals on the Los Angeles freeway system. It shows extensive
graffiti, and areas where tags have been painted out along
the bottom section of the wall. Photo: Courtesy the Los Angeles
Murals Assessment and Conservation Project, City of Los Angeles,
Cultural Affairs Department. Mural: © Olivia Gude. |
The Problems
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Detail of The Runners,
1983, by Otis College of Art and Design students and Kent
Twitchell, faculty. This mural, painted on an underpass of
the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, shows a range of damage. Damage
includes rust stains down the surface caused by water runoff
from above, vandalism that has left the eyes of the runner
gouged, and misguided attempts to paint out graffiti, which
in turn has obscured the lower half of the mural. Photo: Courtesy
the Los Angeles Murals Assessment and Conservation Project,
City of Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs Department. Mural: ©
Otis College of Art and Design.
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Environmental conditions are a major factor in mural deterioration.
Freeze-thaw cycles and capillary rise affect the architectural support
of the mural and lead to salt efflorescence, cracking, and lifting
of the paint layers if incompatible paints or coatings are used
and the mural extends to ground level. Impermeable coatings, like
polyurethane (often used as an anti-graffiti coating), can perform
badly when applied over a mural on a building that is affected by
thermal fluctuations; the coating may crackle and lift, often taking
the paint layer with it. Moreover, polyurethane cannot be removed
from a painted surface without simultaneous damage to an acrylic
paint layer.
In general, a mural should never be painted on a south-facing wall
where direct and constant exposure to ultraviolet rays accelerates
binder deterioration and paint fading. A mural painted on a wall
with an overhang is likely to be more protected than one fully exposed.
Conversely, murals painted on buildings with no overhang—where
water may run down the wall with heavy rains—are at risk of
water infiltration from above. Water infiltration can also occur
with roof leaks, resulting in problems of salts, lifting paint,
and drips and stains. Structural failure, too, affects wall paintings.
Buildings that have settled or that are in seismic zones may show
structural cracks, which can lead to water infiltration, followed
by paint flaking and losses.
Acrylic paints used on exterior architectural surfaces break down
over time and are not always compatible with their architectural
support. These issues are similar to those faced by contemporary
art in other forms (see Conservation,
vol. 17, no. 3), but problems of modern materials are exacerbated
when they are used outside. Severe breakdown of the paint binder
can be seen on murals after as little as 10 years—especially
those works exposed to direct sunlight. Fugitive colors are also
a concern, particularly reds that have faded, dimming the intensity
of a work. For example, one L.A. mural by Noni Olabisi, To Protect
and Serve (1995), lost some meaning when the background of deep
crimson, symbolic of blood, dulled over time.
Mineral paints are more suitable for outdoor murals—there
are exterior wall paintings from the late 19th century made with
mineral paints that remain in good condition—but the paints
are harder to find, and many artists are unfamiliar with them. As
with the fresco technique, these paints are not film forming and
do not inhibit the migration of water vapor through the wall. Thus
they last longer.
Preventive conservation—such as preparing the wall properly
and using high-quality, lightfast, and compatible materials—is
fundamental. Other preventive actions (e.g., regular maintenance,
graffiti removal, and community awareness) can help preserve murals.
Much of the damage seen on murals is due to vandalism and a lack
of maintenance. Sadly, regular maintenance is not always a priority.
Jack Becker of FORECAST Public Artworks looked at funding strategies
for percent-for-art programs initiated in the 1970s and 1980s and
found that these programs commonly only began to consider maintenance
10 to 15 years after their founding.
Maintenance of murals is essential to their preservation. Maintenance
can be administered by a governmental agency, or it can come from
the artist or the community. Increasing the awareness of community
members of their murals increases the art’s chance for survival,
as does early assessment of problems and timely intervention. Everything—from
sweeping around the mural and cutting back adjacent gardens to maintaining
gutters and repairing wall damage promptly—helps preserve murals
and discourages tagging with graffiti. If graffiti is left on a
wall for a long time, it seems to signal others that it is a canvas
for tagging. Conversely, prompt removal of graffiti usually arrests
further tagging.
Dealing with Impermanence
Is the removal and relocating of a mural an appropriate approach
to the preservation problems of a mural? According to Paul Philippot—one
of the foremost theorists in conservation and coauthor, with Laura
and Paolo Mora, of The Conservation of Wall Paintings—“a
wall painting is always an integral part of the architectural ensemble
for which it was created and which in part defines it. The detachment
of a wall painting from its architectural support constitutes dismemberment
and is to be avoided by principle. The respect for the integrity
of the ensemble in situ is the rule.”
Museums around the world contain numerous fragments of murals that
were removed from their walls and installed in another location,
or placed in long-term storage. However, in most places this is
no longer an acceptable method of preserving a wall painting. Current
practice holds that works should be preserved in situ unless they
are threatened with destruction. The Lovejoy Ramp murals, for example—created
by Tom Stefopoulos between 1948 and 1952—were drawn and painted
on columns of an overpass in Portland, Oregon. When the city demolished
the ramp to facilitate development of the area, community members
and a conservator worked together to preserve the columns, dismantling
them and storing them. They are due to be reinstalled as public
art on a nearby site.
In the Americas, there have been recent cases where murals have
been moved. The options for removing a mural from a wall are either
by strappo (tearing the paint layer from the support), or
stacco (removing all or a part of the thickness of the wall
with the work on it). Murals painted on canvas and adhered to the
wall (marouflage) have been removed and rolled up for transport
to be treated, stored, or exhibited in another location. In all
of these cases, the mural is liable to suffer paint loss, as well
as structural damage. Worse, though, it loses its context as part
of the architectural ensemble for which it was created; at the same
time, the site also loses meaning with the removal of the work.
With the impermanence of many materials being used today and the
sheer number of murals on exterior walls, it is not possible to
preserve all of them, and many may well disappear. At the time a
mural was painted, community members were likely involved in its
creation, or at least they had a kinship with it. Over time, though,
a new generation comes of age or neighborhoods change, and the community
may no longer have the same connection with the mural. Once a mural
begins to deteriorate, if it lacks significance for the community,
it may become a canvas for graffiti.If it is considered significant
by community members or other groups, there is a greater chance
of its preservation.
Documentation is one way to virtually preserve murals that are
in danger of disappearing and to create an archive for future study.
Indeed, with a high-enough recording resolution, documented murals
could be reproduced to full size.
Treatment Options
As murals deteriorate, owners and agencies have several treatment
options. They may ask the artist to repaint or restore the work,
or they may call a conservator who could either treat the mural
according to strict conservation guidelines or work with the artist
to conserve and possibly restore the work. With contemporary murals,
there are many instances of restoration or even re-creation.
Some artists have repainted their murals when they show fading,
wear, or vandalism, especially when there is extensive damage that
requires interpretation and repainting. Kent Twitchell is presently
repainting his mural Strother Martin Monument, originally
completed in 1972, accidentally painted over in 1987, and repainted
in 1988. The current repainting shows modifications with changes
in colors and materials—a 2003 version of the original. On
the other end of the spectrum from repainting is traditional conservation,
which aims to slow deterioration by stabilizing the paint layers,
cleaning the surface, and minimally reintegrating the image. Significant
interpretation of the image is best left to the artist to re-create.
In the case of Magritte in Los Angeles (1984) by Noa Bornstein,
conservators worked with documentation and original artwork from
the artist to reintegrate losses in the image.
The conservation of Dolores del Rio (1990) by Alfredo de
Batuc is a good example of collaboration between conservators and
artist that can serve to recapture the vitality of a work. The mural
showed structural cracks, overall surface accumulation, deterioration
of the paint binder, and fading of certain colors. Conservators
filled the cracks, cleaned, removed a failing coating, and consolidated
powdering paint. The artist, using lightfast colors, reinstated
red and green details that had faded. Together the artist and conservators
reinforced the brightness of the mural’s sunset.
This kind of balanced collaboration is vital to the conservation
of a mural. The artist can provide material and visual information,
and the conservator—trained in the analysis and diagnosis of
complex conservation problems—can develop appropriate treatments.
Several programs around the country—including the Metropolitan
Transit Authority (MTA) in Los Angeles, the Wisconsin Arts Board’s
Percent-for-Art, and the New York Public Art in Public Schools (PAPS)—have
brought conservators and artists together from the beginning of
the commission process. All require a review of the artist’s
proposed materials, fabrication, and finishing processes. The MTA
has conservator review, and conservation as well as maintenance
are taken into consideration in the installation of the work. The
PAPS program includes custodial training and emphasizes educating
students with initiatives such as Conservation in Context, which
PAPS Program Director Michele Cohen states, “underscores the
need to contextualize the conservation of public art.” In these
programs, the issues of conservation and maintenance are addressed
even as the mural is being made.
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Top: Detail of Cecil, 1989, by Richard
Wyatt, prior to conservation in 2001. The mural, located at
the Watts Towers Art Center in Los Angeles, showed problems
of incompatible previous repair and restoration materials, combined
with direct southern exposure that resulted in extensive paint
flaking and paint loss. This closeup of the mural shows lifting
of the paint layer and paint loss. To address this, conservators
surface-cleaned the mural, consolidated and reattached the degraded
paint layer, and inpainted areas of paint loss. Middle: Conservation
team members inpaint areas of paint loss on mural. Discrete
areas of paint loss over the entire surface were retouched with
compatible materials. Bottom: The mural after completion of conservation.
Photos: Courtesy the Los Angeles Murals Assessment and Conservation
Project, City of Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs Department. Mural:
© Commissioned by SPARC. www.sparcmurals.org. |
This leads to the question of specialized training. In countries
with a long tradition of wall painting, specialized training for
artists and conservators is provided in fine arts and restoration
schools. Only a handful of U.S. schools have courses in mural painting;
artists are often expected to apply their training in easel painting
to murals, where the architectural system must be considered. Artists
should be familiar with issues of location and exposure, wall preparation,
and use of appropriate materials, and courses should address materials
and techniques for murals, as well as conservation and maintenance
issues.
Training in mural conservation is also lacking in the United States.
Conservation programs tend to specialize in works of art in a museum
environment or architectural conservation—but not that hybrid
of wall painting conservation. Mural conservators must understand
systemic problems related to the structural issues of the building,
environmental factors that affect pigments and binders, and material
degradation of a variety of paints and coatings. They should also
be versed in traditional materials and techniques of construction,
plaster, and paint. With the number of murals now at a critical
moment when they require conservation, there is a real need for
training. But even so, the task of conserving wall paintings often
requires a multidisciplinary team made up of architects, engineers,
and conservators to successfully address the complex problems facing
the wall and the wall painting.
A Holistic Approach
The issues that directly or indirectly affect the conservation
of murals must be approached from all sides and at all levels. As
some cities are recognizing, there must be an administrative responsibility
for maintenance and long-term care, preferably from the conception
of the project. This includes keeping a complete inventory of murals,
with full documentation, including information on the materials
used. Rae Atira-Soncea, Percent-for-Art conservation coordinator
of the Wisconsin Arts Board, has stated that “maintaining reliable
information is the first step in conservation.” Artists can
help by providing the appropriate funding agency with original artwork
and images of the work upon completion. One way of managing this
information is to create a database that can be updated over time
that gives full information for every mural in a given city or region.
In Los Angeles and Quebec, databases are being developed for the
inventory and condition assessment of large collections of murals.
Relationships between artists and conservators should be cultivated
and strengthened; arts administrators could encourage this relationship
in a formal way, as the MTA does. The collaboration between artists
and conservators should start at the time of mural creation, well
before the need for conservation arises. Conservators can advise
on the best paints to use from a materials standpoint; perhaps they
can take this one step further by helping industry to research and
develop appropriate materials for use in the creation and conservation
of murals. At the same time, it is necessary to train more conservators
in mural conservation. Conservation programs could incorporate courses
on murals and architectural surfaces into their curricula.
In caring for exterior murals, conservation is not only a scientific
and technical endeavor. As Julie Boivin, cocurator for the public
art of Montreal, has written, “conservation has become a fundamentally
social and cultural activity in the fullest sense. The public art
equation in which artist, client, public, and site are indissociable
must continually be questioned, evaluated, and perhaps modified.
The conservation of contemporary public art might raise some of
the most challenging issues and provide opportunities to observe
how far we can take those ideas.”
Leslie Rainer is a GCI senior project specialist with extensive
experience in the conservation of archaeological, historic, and
modern murals.
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