Hey Sarah,

I doubt our policy is any different from yours, but wanted to share a quick note with you on a similar situation we had recently. A sculpture installed in a public facility undergoing a massive renovation was lost (still can't get solid answers on how this happened), and in addition to deaccessioning it, we have asked the City's public art oversight committee to approve contingency funding for the original value of the sculpture to commission him to make a new piece. Luckily we have a healthy contingency budget right now and they appreciate that we could help makeup the loss for the artist and the collection.

Not sure if this helps but wanted to pass it along in case!

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 2:27 PM Sarah Bluvas - sarah.bluvas at mercergov.org (via public_art_network list) <public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I hope the PAN is staying safe and healthy during this time! I’m reaching out for thoughts/best practices related to public art deaccession. The City of Mercer Island has several works of 2D art in its public art collection that predate me by decades and have not been seen by other staff members for about as long. Have any of you dealt with the need to deaccess missing works of art? Any adequate processes/policies for exhausting all avenues before deciding on deaccession? We already have a (somewhat dated) deaccession policy in place, but the City has only deaccessed one work of art during the lifetime of the policy. So, any input or direction you all can provide is most appreciated.

Thanks,

Sarah Bluvas, MBA
City of Mercer Island - Parks and Recreation
206.275.7864 | mercergov.org/parks

Connect with arts & culture: Mercer Island Arts Council

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