“Well, that was fun!”

With the closing of Breaking It Down: Conversations from the Vault last week, Phillips Educator Carla Freyvogel muses on what happens when a special exhibition gets packed up.

I have never actually been in The Phillips Collection at the end of the Sunday when an exhibition closes. I have to wonder what is it like. At 5:01 pm when the last visitor walks out, do the art handlers swoop out of the freight elevator, their shipping containers balanced on those funny dollies with padded supports, sleeves rolled up, and hammers swinging from loops on their jeans?

Does the security supervisor lock the front door, lean against it, take a breath, and sigh deeply, while the rest of the museum staff yells, “It’s a wrap!”? Do the the works of art, having hung together for the exhibition, look fondly at each other and say, “Well, that was fun!“ Do they ask each other, “Where are you off to next? Will I be seeing you when we play St. Louis?”

I only know what it is like on the following Monday. We are closed to the public and the museum is quiet. Out come the ladders, the staple guns, and the stickers and sharpies for labeling. The curators and conservators, in casual clothes, huddle together, musing over their accomplishments and what needs to be done to pack up the show. The lights are amped up to full flood. A truck, long as an ocean liner, pulls up on 21st Street to receive the freshly boxed up works of art and haul them off to the museums or collections we loaned them from or back to our art storage facility. 

This Monday is frantic, buzzing with directed efforts and heavy lifting. I love it. Though my curiosity puts me in the way of all the activity, this part of museum life has always intrigued me. On this day, the magic of the artworks is temporarily suspended. The art morphs from being sublime to being just stuff that needs to be boxed and shipped. The magic is with the art handlers and registrars, who, with their white gloves, work in carefully choreographed tandem. “You ready?” And together they lift up and pull out, positioning, crating, securing, padding, taping. 

These important folks only get that one day, Monday, to really have at it with no guests around. Because before we know it, it is Tuesday and the doors open to the public. Between exhibitions, the entire sensory experience of the museum changes. Sounds reverberate differently, bouncing off of bare walls. I am sure it is not true, but it always seems to me that the air is cooler and hangs heavy. 

On that Tuesday, there are usually a few stragglers who show up to the admissions desk and ask for tickets for the exhibition, now closed. Though we apologize and tell them about all the great art in the rest of the museum, they look at each with resignation and ask, “So, shall we scope out the permanent collection or just go get lunch?”

While the “Closed for Installation” signs posted on stanchions outside the now-vacated galleries are a bit sad, the visitors who choose to stay and wander the museum are in for a treat. Because our permanent collection now takes center stage, hanging brilliantly in the Music Room, gracing the walls of the House galleries, and infusing the galleries of the Goh Annex with life. So even with the special exhibition galleries closed, there is still so much art to see and enjoy.