Panel discussion

The city’s arts administrator fights to save the originals of the plywood murals downtown

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Created around the protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the murals painted this summer downtown are deteriorating fast under the onslaught of a Wisconsin winter. “None of it is archival, from the plywood to the layers of paint,” says Karin Wolf, the city’s arts program administrator.

Wolf wants to preserve what can be saved, but notes that “salt and moisture” are fast damaging the pieces and they are not likely to last much longer. Faring the worst are those pieces that incorporated paper; that is often ripped and peeling away. 

A new photo book, Let’s Talk About It, just out from American Family Insurance and the city of Madison, documents the murals. But just as crucial is the project of preserving the physical pieces of art.

The murals were painted on plywood that merchants mounted on their storefronts to protect their businesses, as protests spread after the murder of Floyd at the end of May. Some murals were commissioned by the city; others sprang up ad hoc on blank boards. But it was never planned in advance as a project, and there were no plans made for preserving the art when the boards would eventually come down. “At the time, we didn't know how important they would be,” says Wolf. “They took something that was awful and made it something empowering.”

The ephemeral nature of the art, which evolved over the summer and fall, was something that made photography an ideal medium for documenting it. Wolf notes that the photos in the new book shows that the murals were “never a static project, the way art often is — because this was so much part of a movement, there’s a fluidity.” (Information on ordering a copy of Let’s Talk About It, available at no cost, is here.) The photo book covers only the murals officially commissioned by the city.

Wolf is determined to save and preserve whatever panels of the mural plywood she can, whether they are pieces that were commissioned by the city originally or not. Some store owners want to keep their boards,  and Wolf says that Genna’s Lounge, for instance, has incorporated part of what was on its windows into its interior decor.

And as of mid-January, many boards are still covering store windows. While it would be helpful for preservation of the art to take the boards down as soon as possible, Wolf acknowledges that right now “is not a good time to ask people to take them down,” as the city faces possible protests surrounding the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. Depending on what happens next week, Wolf would like to see boards start coming down by early February.

Currently, Wolf has 53 panels in storage. She’s not sure what will happen to them or where they will ultimately be stored or displayed. There is no funding for preservation currently.

The stored panels are not always complete murals. Some panels were damaged or are missing, and some of the more iconic images have been vandalized, sometimes beyond repair. Leaving the vandalism too can be important, as evidence of the hostility that the pieces were originally calling attention to. One mural was destroyed by someone throwing a bucket of brown paint at it: “It’s so hateful and sad,” says Wolf.

Wolf has had conservators assess the condition of the art and is compiling information on where each piece of art was originally located, the artist or artists when known, dimensions, and condition. A typical condition report might read something like this one, from art that had been on the front of Urban Outfitters: Missing numerous pieces, mural cannot be recombined in order. Panel d has damage to the paper. Panel c has overpainting on the top half obscuring the decoration. Or this one, from the front of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art: Full wall when originally installed: 492 1/2" W, proper left 159 1/2" H, proper right 142 3/4" H. Paper is delaminated in spots along edges of panels. some sections of the background will need to be painted black for presentation.

Obtaining the plywood panels to save them can be a complex process. “Who owns it?” asks Wolf. “What if the artist didn’t have permission to do it? Does it belong to the person who bought the boards?” Wolf relates heading to Urban Outfitters on State Street when she heard its boards were being taken down. The workers removing the plywood, from an out-of-state firm, were “not so nice,” says Wolf. She says she told them, “You need to get those boards out of your van.” They paused to eat lunch, then refused to help Wolf transfer the boards from their van to a city vehicle. “They just laughed,” says Wolf.

Wolf also takes the wishes of the artist into account, trying to talk to the artist first about the future of the piece. She’s also gotten the opinions of 1,500 community members from a survey about what could be done with the art going forward.

“This project has always been messy and continues to be,” Wolf says. “It’s important that we allow for messy projects.” She says she doesn’t want the city to shy away from supporting difficult projects. The Black Lives Matter murals from this summer are “bigger than ourselves,” Wolf says. “The art doesn’t belong to anyone, and it belongs to everyone.”