Preserving the Present
Artworks from millennia ago need special storage and care—but did you know that even contemporary artworks must be carefully preserved? In fact, modern materials can sometimes break down more easily. And different materials change at different rates, so mixed media (like collages, for example) can be uniquely challenging to store and protect!
We’re growing our collection of modern and contemporary art. And we’re hosting more exhibitions that bring contemporary artists into dialogue with the breadth of history and traditions represented in our collections.
But the big question is: how do we share these artworks with you while preserving them at the same time? Our curators, conservators, collections management, and exhibitions staff work together to devise some pretty creative solutions. Read on to learn how we balance display and preservation with examples from two of our current modern/contemporary exhibitions, Cut + Paste and Body Transformed.
Light Sensitivity
Light exposure can cause significant damage to certain types of artworks, such as those made with paper, parchment, or textiles. For example, here are some of the artworks in our collections that are sensitive to light:
- Islamic and South Asian paintings
- contemporary prints and photographs
- Qur’an folios
- American watercolors and pastels
- East Asian screens and scrolls
But we have to expose artworks to light if we want to exhibit and research them. Museums often balance these competing needs by limiting how long artworks are on display and by controlling the intensity of light in the galleries. You’ll see this in many of our exhibitions. Light sensitive artworks generally spend five years in dark storage after just six months on view.
We also usually limit the intensity of light that shines on an artwork to 50 lux or less. Lux is a measure for brightness in which lower lux is dimmer and higher lux is brighter. Sunlight, by contrast, can be as much as 100,000 lux.
Exhibiting a Highly Light-Sensitive Artwork
This untitled work by Takamatsu Jirō (featured in Cut + Paste) is a collage made of very light sensitive kraft paper. Our Light Exposure Guidelines recommend displaying works like this for a maximum of 3 months at 50 lux and then storing for 5 years. But we couldn’t just exchange this piece for another artwork partway through the exhibition’s run of five months. That’s because this work is a key piece in the exhibition and the only collage by this artist in our collections. So, we had to get creative with how we distributed the light exposure over the duration of the exhibition.
Think of light exposure like a bank: if the recommended level is 50 lux for 3 months, display at higher intensity will withdraw the “funds” faster. Display at 150 lux for 1 month, for instance, meets the requirement, but results in a very short display period. We can use this same rationale to increase the time duration by decreasing the light intensity, for example, to 25 lux for 6 months.
In the case of this collage, our exhibition lighting specialist, Amber Meade, took every precaution possible to limit the possibility of fading while still allowing enough light to see the piece within the exhibition. She lowered the intensity of light focused on this piece to 30 lux.
Amber also installed a motion sensor to reduce the amount of time the object is illuminated. When no one is in that portion of the gallery, the light turns off and exposure is reduced to an ambient light of below 10 lux. Over the course of a 6-month exhibit, having the light off even for just one additional hour each day when visitor levels are low adds up to measurable savings in the total light exposure.
Cold Storage
Photography is a big part of our contemporary collections. Color photographs can have unstable dyes or components that change color over time, regardless of light exposure. This phenomenon is caused by a chemical reaction and is sometimes called “dark fading.”
Lower temperatures slow how long it takes all chemical reactions to occur. A general rule of thumb is that a chemical reaction doubles in speed for every 10°C (18°F) of temperature increase. So, lowering the temperature in storage drastically increases the amount of time it takes for the photograph to deteriorate and change color. We couple lower temperature with lower relative humidity (RH) to further slow the discoloration.
Exhibiting a Photo from Cold Storage
For an example of how we use cold storage, let’s consider the chromogenic photograph Yogini, from the series, Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs by Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni in Body Transformed.
We store this work at about 52°F and 35% relative humidity (RH) when it isn’t on view. We project this storage environment will increase the print’s lifespan as much as sixfold based on research conducted by the Image Permeance Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology. How does this translate practically? With no light exposure and stored in regular museum storage (70°F / 50% RH), the photograph could noticeably change color after just 40–50 years. However, by lowering the temperature and humidity this timeframe increases to about 300 years.
This effect is cumulative, though. Each time we withdraw this artwork from the cold storage conditions, the amount of preservation time decreases proportionally. So, we have to carefully consider whether to remove a work from cold storage to optimize the effects of the lower temperature.
A Unique Challenge in the Form of a Pig
Some contemporary artworks use unusual and even unstable materials. For example, consider Pig Wall by Ida Shōichi, which is featured in Cut + Paste. This artwork was made in 1973 and features a screen-printed polymer foam pig cut-out attached to the center of a lithographic print. Foamed polymers can rapidly degrade when exposed to light or heat, causing them to become stiff, brittle, and even crumbly. This artwork is in remarkably good condition considering its age and what it’s made of.
This print entered our collections in 1987. Since then, we’ve stored it in a controlled environment (70°F / 50% RH) with minimal light exposure and no exposure to UV light. Additionally, we store this artwork horizontally in a cabinet, instead of hanging in a frame. This flat storage reduces the strain on the adhesive and the foam itself.
Even in the gallery, we’re limiting the light exposure and displaying it on a slant so future viewers can have a positive experience of viewing Pig Wall. We’re also using a microclimate case with internal controls that keep relative humidity at 50%.
Small changes to how we store and display artworks in the museum can make a big difference in their long-term preservation. In this way, we protect each artist’s intention by preserving the materials they so carefully and deliberately selected for their visual, textural, or symbolic effects.
When we look at older artworks, we tend to think about the people in the past who also experienced the same work. But next time you look at a modern or contemporary artwork, we hope you’ll also think about people in the future. How will that person perceive the same photograph, or collage, or foam pig? We can only imagine and, in the meantime, preserve these works with all the information science gives us!
Cut + Paste: Experimental Japanese Prints and Photographs
(June 21–November 30, 2025)
This exhibition showcases twentieth- and twenty-first-century Japanese artists whose multilayered works blur reality and challenge categorization. Experience these artworks’ many angles and textures in person.
Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints
(February 15–August 17, 2025)
For the artists in this exhibition, the human form and the expressive power of photography and print media offer ways to examine the place of the individual in contemporary society.
