Provisions for maintenance in contracts for public art

In Conservation DistList Instance: 15:59 Wednesday, February 27,
2002, I wrote

>Having become involved in a situation in which a site-specific
>sculpture on a college campus is in need of conservation work, but
>there are no funds available to perform that work, I wondered if
>anyone on the Distlist has knowledge of any case in which a
>provision for maintenance funds was included in either the original
>contract for a commissioned work of public art or in the acceptance
>agreement for a donation of an outdoor sculpture or other public
>work to an institution.

This is a private reply from N.J. Bud Goldstone to my query on
provisions for maintenance and conservation work that have been
built into the contracts for public art. He asked that it be shared
with the DistList.

    When the non-profit Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts
    gave the National Landmark Sculptures to the City of Los Angeles
    in 1975, continual maintenance was a part of the contractual
    agreement. Although the Towers were then given to the state of
    California and leased back to the City, maintenance is and has
    been in each successive agreement. Unfortunately the memory of
    the city of Los Angeles is short. Some of us old members of the
    committee have been meeting almost weekly with city
    representatives who would much rather forget the whole deal!
    What we need are conservation attorneys to teach us how to win
    these battles.

    N. J. Bud Goldstone, conservation engineer,co-author
    'The Los Angeles Watts Towers' Getty Conservation Institute and
    J.Paul Getty Museum 1997; reprint due in 2002


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 15:60
                  Distributed: Tuesday, March 5, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-15-60-005
                                  ***