Cypress Grove Cemetery (ca. 1840) suffered extensive damage from both wind and water. Photo courtesy Save Our Cemeteries.
Preserving Sculpture after Katrina: A Monumental Task
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Cypress Grove Cemetery (ca. 1840) suffered extensive damage from both wind and water. Photo courtesy Save Our Cemeteries. |
As many public art programs and conservators are planning spring conservation projects, preservation and public art groups in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast are still cleaning up and working to determine the extent of damage from Hurricane Katrina.
This task is overwhelming for many local art and preservation professionals. Many offices for cultural groups sustained damage to their office equipment and records, and many staff members could not return until late 2005. Arts and culture organizations and city agencies have reduced staff due to lack of funding just when they need additional support.
Conservation, art, museum, and preservation professionals have volunteered time, money, and services to help. Save Outdoor Sculpture! sponsor Heritage Preservation is among the many national organizations responding to needy cultural communities in hurricane-ravaged areas. Along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), it manages the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, a partnership of 40 federal agencies and national service organizations. SOS! is helping local groups address the needs of their sculpture and public art collections with information and guidance.
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Metairie Cemetery (1872), a National Register site that was under water for more than two weeks, suffered extensive damage. The metalwork on this cemetery marker exhibits damage from standing water. |
In New Orleans, Save Our Cemeteries helps preserve the five local cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places, including Lafayette Cemetery No. I, a World Monuments Fund Watch List site, and St. Louis Cemetery No. I, a Save America's Treasures site. All New Orleans' historic above-ground cemeteries were impacted by the storm. Four of the five were flooded for over two weeks, wreaking havoc on the wrought iron metalwork that encloses the tombs and accelerating the deterioration of fragile brick and mortar structures and treasured sculpture.
Most tombs and sculpture remain in their damaged states more than six months later. Because almost all the cemeteries are working with reduced staff, the cemetery grounds are becoming overgrown and unkempt, making them unpleasant and even dangerous for tomb owners and visitors.
Save Our Cemeteries is now helping the cemetery owners—City of New Orleans, Archdiocese of New Orleans, and private organizations—assess the extensive wind and water damage to the properties and secure funding. FEMA support may help the conservation of the grounds and walls of the cemeteries, but the tombs themselves are the property of individual families and are not eligible for FEMA support. Save Our Cemeteries is seeking private funds to support an assessment of the properties and markers and conservation of gravesites.
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| The City of New Orleans indoor Percent For Art collection suffered major damage. Approximately 200 artworks remained in flooded buildings for weeks after the storm. Currently those that have been rescued are stored in an undamaged City recreation center until the Arts Council secures adequate climate-controlled storage. Flamingo Cowboy, a hand-tinted silver gelatin print by Judith Cooper, sat under water for several weeks at the Smith New Orleans Public Library in Lakeview. The oil paint of the hand-tinting has survived, but the print beneath has not. Part of the City of New Orleans’ Percent For Art Collection, the artwork is administered by Arts Council of New Orleans. |
The Arts Council of New Orleans, the coordinating agency for New Orleans SOS!, faces similar obstacles. It administers the Percent For Art Program on behalf of the City of New Orleans. In the past 20 years, the Percent Program has commissioned 57 site-specific artworks, purchased more than 200 artworks, initiated community outreach and education programs, and maintained the Percent Collection on an on-going basis. Additionally, the Arts Council serves as an information resource for city agencies and that are also responsible for public art.
Before the storm, the Percent Program operated with a full-time staff of two and several contractors. Today, Director Mary Len Costa is the only staff member. She has removed Percent artwork from damaged libraries, recreation centers, and other flooded locations and found temporary storage. Her current priority is securing climate-controlled storage for the art, conserving the damaged artworks, and completing a formal post-Katrina assessment of the Percent Collection.
The Arts Council has worked diligently to complete this assessment to aid the City of New Orleans (the official owners of the artwork) in applying for relief funds. Yet due to lack of Arts Council staff and funding, the inability to access several flooded public facilities and entire neighborhoods in the days following the storm, along with loss of City personnel and the breakdown in communication systems, the job of estimating the need to conserve this art is incomplete. The Arts Council estimates that approximately 10 percent of the Percent Collection, indoor and outdoor, has been damaged or destroyed.
Other artworks in the city are the responsibility of the City’s Parks and Parkways and Property Management Departments. The condition of these sculptures is also in question. The Arts Council and these city departments are working in cooperation to secure public and private funding.
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| Artist Steve Kline’s Serpent Mound is made of steel and coated with industrial paint. Water lines are evident from being in standing water for more than two weeks. It is located on Jefferson Davis Parkway, between Canal and Banks Streets. Part of the City of New Orleans’ Percent For Art Collection, the artwork is administered by Arts Council of New Orleans. |
Along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, preserving sculpture is a concern among preservation officials. In Biloxi, the City has stabilized Golden Fisherman by Harry Reeks, which was toppled by the storm surge. It is still outdoors and missing fingers and pieces of the fisherman’s netting. Bill Raymond, the historical administrator for the City of Biloxi, is working with FEMA to secure conservation treatment funding for the artwork.
Also in Biloxi, the bronze sculpture Pierre Le Moyne D’Iberville miraculously survived. The original sculpture of D’Iberville was destroyed by Hurricane Camille in 1969, while the historical building behind it survived. In contrast, Hurricane Katrina spared the replacement sculpture of D’Iberville (erected in 1999) but destroyed the building. “There is no rhyme or reason to what has been spared or destroyed,” says Ken P’Pool, the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer for Mississippi. He is working closely with the communities along the Gulf Coast and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to preserve historic properties and objects.
City and preservation professionals in Mississippi face struggles similar to those of their colleagues in New Orleans: working out of trailers, reduced staff, and destroyed office property. They are also dealing with competing priorities; historical buildings in danger of being razed have understandably become a top priority.
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| The multiple water lines on the World War I Monument indicate the rising and falling flood waters; the heavy black line is where the water containing unknown chemicals, oils, and other matter settled for several weeks. This post-Katrina condition is typical of the numerous historical monuments throughout the City. It is located on Tulane Ave at Galvez & Banks and is managed by the City of New Orleans Parks and Parkways Department. |
Arts and preservation organizations and agencies in the areas affected by Katrina look to FEMA for support. FEMA can support stabilization and treatment of damaged artworks and other collections. Sculpture owners must first provide their own damage report that includes a list of needy artworks with cost estimates for conservation treatment. SOS! is helping local groups navigate the FEMA application process, find eligible conservators, and locate alternative funding sources. For FEMA’s policy regarding stabilization and treatement of collections visit www.fema.gov/rrr/pa/9524_6.shtm.
For more information or to find out how you can help, contact: