Dear All

We are currently in the midst of the restoration of a Carnegie Library
building to serve as an extension to our museum. One of the rooms in
this building will become a gallery for hosting temporary and travelling
exhibitions. It was intended to line the walls of this gallery with Gib.
board to enable us to hang artworks. However I have now been told that
it is too expensive to proceed with batoning and lining the external
gallery walls. The plastered brickwork will be repaired and painted but
will remain unlined.

I feel uncomfortable about this decision for two main reasons:

1. I fear a potential condensation problem on these unlined external
walls.
2. I foresee potential difficulties in hanging paintings on the walls
without being allowed to hammer some form of hanger or fastener into the
plaster and being able to reposition hangers/fasteners for each new
exhibition without damaging the plasterwork.

If anyone has experienced similar difficulties and has some advice to
offer regarding the hanging of exhibitions in galleries with plastered
external walls please e-mail me directly or enter into a discussion via
the list if appropriate.

There may be a simple solution which I, as a museum person with limited
art gallery experience, am overlooking. And which won't send the
restoration budget into a spin and cause the contractor to have an
embolism. I live in hope anyway.

Peter Read
Senior Museum Assistant
West Coast Historical Museum, Hokitika, New Zealand
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
All opinions expressed herein are my own.
"Study the past if you would divine the future" - Confucius