Q&A with UIMA interim director Pamela White

Today I spoke with University of Iowa Museum of Art interim director Pamela White. Read more about the floods in Iowa City here. Artworks featured in the post are from UIMA's collection and are identified at the bottom of the post. Yesterday I featured the museum's most famous work: Jackson Pollock's 1943 Mural. To donate to the museum, click here.

MAN: I'm never quite sure where to jump in on something like this, so I guess tell me about how the flood started for you.

Pam White: The university really tracked this and was very proactive on watching this come. They are always very watchful of the river probably because of the '93 experience. [The Midwest suffered what was, in many places, a 500-year flood in 1993.] They had a flood plan in place that was quickly activated.

Meanwhile, I was away, I was in Dublin and Galway on a trip with my daughter, who just graduated from college. We were seeing Radiohead in Dublin. And there was a meeting that was held on Monday, June 2 when things were starting. People knew that there was something coming. They started looking at the museum very seriously, reviewing the flood plan.  There was a lot of ramping up on the part of the museum, the university, all of us working closely with the risk management people.

I received an email from our registrar that he wrote late Friday afternoon. When I read it in Galway it was Monday. He just said things were coming and he was getting ready and some things were going to have to be moved. I said do what you need to do. He'd been through the '93 flood, so we all knew what to do.

By the time I got back to the museum at 4am on Wednesday, I'd already called the museum and knew that things were going to be moving very fast indeed. The water was moving much faster than people thought. By Wednesday we were in full-on mode of packing art and moving it. Our first trucks left that day.

The only thing that really surprised us was we had thought we would have until 5pm on Friday afternoon to get things out and to secure the building. Then the water came faster than anyone expected, and we had to leave at 7:45 on Friday morning. We simply had to evacuate. We had additional people coming in and we couldn't use them. The water moved much faster than anyone ever imagined. The water levels went way up.

MAN: What do you know about the condition of the building, water in the building, and all that? I've read a three-to-four-feet figure in a number of places.

PW: We don't know how much water is in the building, we're just not sure. What people are thinking is that perhaps there is three-to-four feet of water in the [Steven Holl-designed] art building. Maybe they can see into that building a little better because of the windows.

MAN: Are they closer to the river than you are?

PW: Actually we're much closer to the river. They're by a pond which is actually not a pond, it's really an old quarry, so there may be something going on there.

MAN: Tell me about the art, about your collection, and what you were able to do with it.

PW: Here's the skinny on that, and it's going to be good to get this out. Eighty percent of our artwork was evacuated, and that's 99 percent of the value of the collection. The bulk of the collection has been moved to Chicago to a secure, confidential art storage facility. The other works that didn't go to Chicago are in a secure local location. They'll be evaluated and possibly moved to another location as well.

MAN: So then the works listed, say, on your website highlights are safe?

PW: The works that are listed as highlights on our website are clear. We worked on a triage basis, down through value and fragility. We did it in a very prof manner. As time grew nigh we were packing very fast. We were moving things. We just had to go as fast you could.

We also know what we didn't get to and everything was moved to as secure as we could make it.

MAN: Is there a timetable for knowing anything about your building, about damage to it?

PW: No one's been able to get back in yet. There were 19 buildings flooded according to general university information. And then some buildings were just very gently touched.

MAN: So you don't know when you might be able to re-install, to re-open.

PW: We don't have any idea. It's best not to speculate because we know nothing. We can't even say that what happened in '93 will happen again.

Because the campus and the infrastructure of the university has been so impacted... [the school is] closed, and next week they've asked us to stay at home if we can and keep the pressure on university buildings to a minimum. Our utilities are compromised, so we don't want lights on and such. We're down to basic things. We've been told to expect to be cold and hot all summer.

MAN: That's a tough thing for an art museum. So you may not get to install for a while.

PW: I think that's about true. It's going to be many months.

MAN: If people want to help what should they do?

PW: We do have an annual fund. If people are interested, if people do wish to donate to the art museum specifically, donate to our annual fund. We'll make use of that for renovations and for other help we'll need.

Images: Ad Reinhardt's Abstract Painting (1960-61), Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park #17 (1968), Max Beckmann's Karnival Triptych (1943) and Joan Miro's A Drop of Dew Falling From the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shade of a Cobweb (1939).