Collection Care—Inventory and Collection Survey

civic art collection

LA County Arts Commission

 
Los Angeles County is the largest and most populous in the United States. The LA Arts Commission is responsible for stewardship of approximately 2,000 works of art located across the county’s 4,000 square miles in 800 County owned facilities. RLA was awarded the Commission’s collection inventory and conservation survey in 2015, however later that year, the County decided to rescind the contract due to funding insufficiencies for the proposed program. RLA helped the agency design an alternate method of conducting the survey using in-house county personnel with assistance from RLA. The program allowed for reducing the budget by nearly 90% while achieving the same level of attention for the collection. Work was carried out using the county’s database and additions provided by RLA for including condition notes and maintenance recommendations. County reviewers performed the basic inventory and all of the work was reviewed by RLA’s conservators. This allowed there to be sufficient funding to perform limited onsite conservation reviews of pieces deemed high priorities for full treatment.