"But kids want to climb Deborah Butterfield's horse, and that is not a good idea," she said of an airy, life-size sculpture of a horse that appears to be made of slender tree branches but is cast of bronze.
Some UCLA gymnasts have taken a shine to Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipse," running up the sides of the curved steel and leaving footprints of decomposed granite. But the artist has taken it in stride.
"That will pass," Serra said. "It's the age. You have to let go."
Still, conservators agree that the best way to preserve outdoor sculptures is to watch them closely, perform routine cleaning and maintenance regularly and repair problems immediately. All of which costs money and takes time away from other tasks.
At the Seattle Art Museum, for example, chief conservator Nicholas Dorman cares for a collection of 25,000 objects, 22 of which are installed at a waterside park with a railroad line and urban streets running through it.
"The time we spend at the park is out of proportion, that's for sure," Dorman said. "But the better maintained the sculpture is, the less inclined people are to write their names in the dust."
At LACMA, Govan is undaunted by the planned removal of the Broad pieces.
"None of this will dissuade us from putting works in public," he said. "We have a lot of ideas. But the next things that go out there will be things we own, so they are not so precious."
Burden's "Urban Light," part of the museum's collection, attracts a steady stream of night visitors who want to have their pictures taken with the illuminated lamps, Govan said.
"It's an incredibly beautiful sculpture that has engaged the public life of Los Angeles. It speaks loudly to the importance of public sculpture and helps get the word out, to take care of what we have."
--
suzanne.muchnic@latimes.com
