Isaac Facio, Conservation Assistant, and Lauren Chang,Conservator of Textiles, jointly presented the techniques and mounts they have developed, in concert with other Art Institute of Chicago staff, to “find the ease” in mounting and installing textiles at that museum. They showed three mounting systems, which could be helpful to many other institutions. All were the result of that old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” They needed to devise simpler and more efficient techiniques for getting textiles onto display because they had fewer people and less time to install more textiles…..a situation familiar to many of us.
\nTo mount medium- to large-sized textiles that would be displayed vertically, they devised a three-part mount, consisting of a fabric-covered board, into which the textile can be pin-mounted (their method of choice for temporary mounts for strong-enough pieces), a C-shaped, metal \u201ckick out\u201d or metal angle bracket to support the bottom of the mount and create a 10 degree angle, and wall cleats for the top.
\nTo mount long textiles that were stored rolled and that needed to have part of the textile rolled for display, they developed a rolling system that fits into brackets that are secured to the walls. The system permits the textiles to go from rolled storage to display without the need for re-rolling. This saves time and aviodes excess handling. The bracket system is one that I would love to see made available commercially.
\nFinally, they described what they had done to make it possible to mount the large tapestry exhibit, The Divine Art: Four Centuries of European Tapestries. For this exhibit, they needed to mount at least seven tapestries per day, so they needed a system that would be both more efficient and less stressful for staff than how they had previously installed tapestries. The system they developed has two significant innovations. Rather than using a flat \u201cbeam\u201d to hold the hook side of Velcro, as is often done, they developed a metal \u201cdouble-I-beam\u201d style beam, with a square profile. To support this beam, they used a shelf of MDO. The square beam prevented the tapestry from canting forward when hanging. The shelf allowed the tapestry, on the beam, to be lowered into place, with minimal handling.
\nThis is how Lauren and Isaac described the installation process:
\n\u2022 The MDO shelf was secured to the wall with drywall screws at a predetermined height.
\n\u2022 The soft, or fuzzy, side of the Velcro, which was sewn to the tapestry during treatment, was secured to the \u201cdouble-I-beam\u201d while both were still on the floor.
\n\u2022 A three-foot long two-by-four was placed into the space within the \u201cdouble-I-beams\u201d at each end, to serve as handles for the installation.
\n\u2022 They positioned a pair of hydraulic lifts with platforms at either side of the tapestry. The lifts were outfitted with arms extending in front of them.
\n\u2022 They placed the two-by-four \u201chandles\u201d on the lifts\u2019 \u201carms.\u201d
\n\u2022 With one person running each lift and Lauren standing back to guide the positioning, the tapestry \u2013 on its \u201cdouble-I-beam\u201d was lifted into place.
\n\u2022 The \u201cdouble-I-beam\u201d was then secured to the wall, and the \u201chandles\u201d removed from the beams.
\nAlthough I have tried to capture what Isaac and Lauren showed and told, I know I have missed many details. This is a paper for which I will eagerly await the Postprints. I’m hoping that they can include the video clip of the tapestry installation that they showed during the talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isaac Facio, Conservation Assistant, and Lauren Chang,Conservator of Textiles, jointly presented the techniques and mounts they have developed, in concert with other Art Institute of Chicago staff, to “find the ease” in mounting and installing textiles at that museum. They showed three mounting systems, which could be helpful to many other institutions. All were the … Continue reading “41st Annual Meeting — Textile Session, May 30, \u201cFinding the Ease: Approaches to Mounting and Installation at the Art Institute of Chicago,\u201d by Isaac Facio and Lauren Chang”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[72,105,435,882,933,984,985,1002],"class_list":["post-9130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-41st-annual-meeting","tag-angle-mounts","tag-flat-textile-display","tag-rolled-textile-display","tag-slanted-mounts","tag-tapestry","tag-tapestry-installation","tag-textile-mounting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}