Installing the Spring Poppy Fields

When coming into the V&A visitors are often impressed by the glamour of our collections, the quality of displays, and the magnificence of the Victorian building itself, what they rarely see is the amount of behind-the-scene effort in putting together and maintaining exhibitions and galleries. Let’s look at some numbers: 4 conservators, 4 curators, and 10 technicians – this is the number of V&A staff who helped in the two days of installing the latest display of Spring Poppy Fields No.31, an oil painting painted by Chinese artist Zhang Huan.

The reason why this installation has been so labour-demanding is primarily due to its massive size – the painting is 400×250 cm and weighs some 90kg, and over 130kg with packing. The work was only finished recently, the stretcher was flexible and the object was prone to warping and twisting, which added the difficulty of handling. The display case it was designated to – the central case in the T.T.Tsui Gallery – was designed for the display of 3D, free-standing objects such as a folding lacquer screen instead of a painting, so there was no ready-to-use hanging system to hang the painting on, nor a solid idea of whether the backboard of the display case can actually support the weight of the object. What makes it even more complicated is that the 350cm-tall glass doors of the display case can only be opened to a certain width, otherwise they will fall out from the case structure completely.

3 months prior to the arrival of the object, dozens of emails have been exchanged and meetings were held between Hongxing Zhang (Senior Curator), Xiaoxin Li (Assistant Curator), Amanda Ward (Projects), Matthew Clarke (Technical Service), painting conservators, technicians from Pace London where the painting had been displayed, and even engineers from the company who produced the display case to discuss the feasibility and practicality of making the display happen. Photographs taken in 1991 when the display case was first constructed were dug out from piles of records for technicians to identify the inner structure of the case. Finally an installation plan was drawn up, although nothing was 100% clear without seeing the real object.

On 24 September, the painting, loaned from the Mittal Family Collection, arrived at the museum early in the morning. A team of V&A technicians together with staffs from the transport agency managed to manoeuvre it through narrow corridors and tricky gallery space to the T.T.Tsui Gallery – this all had to be done before the opening of the museum to ensure the safety of our visitors and smooth running of galleries. After unpacking the object, painting conservator Clare Richardson began condition-checking the object, making sure everything was fine and the object was safe to go into the display case, while technicians began taking down the previous display.

To make sure the painting would sit comfortably and securely, Technical Service worked out a plan of screwing wooden hanging blocks into the inner steel structure of the case. Unfortunately the display case was put up more than 20 years ago when digital technology was not in place to archive everything like we do today, therefore it wasn’t exactly easy to identify where the inner steel structures were without dismantling the case! To minimise the risk, technicians used a metal detector to scan through the surface of the backboard, inch by inch, to locate the steel structure behind. By the end of the day, after several experiments, the first hanging block was screwed in, neat and secure!

Just when things were turning bright, the conservator came back with bad news: because the painting was only painted recently, the oil paint was off-gassing quite badly and no other objects should stay in the same display case, which means the object on the other side of the case, a 300×300cm silk hanging made in the 18^th century, had to be taken off display before the painting could go in and of course, no other object could go into the same space until the off-gassing problem was solved. Anna Jackson, Keeper of the Asian collections made the decision on site and the team began in no time in the quest of resources needed for the taking down the hanging. Albertina Cogram, textile conservator stepped in and a 350cm long roller was borrowed from another project for the best storage of the hanging.

The second day of the installation began with taking down the hanging. It went rather smoothly, comparing to all the hassle going on on the other side of the display case, and the space was ready for the painting to go in by mid-morning. Now the technicians faced yet another challenge of moving the object into the case. First of all, wooden boxes of a suitable height were put into the case so that the painting could sit on them before being hung onto the hanging blocks. A special tool was used to support the glass door so that it could be opened slightly wider to make more room. The painting was moved around to an appropriate angle to the case, and then carried onto an a-frame. A dandy lift – a hydraulic-lift wheeled table – was placed in front of the far left hand edge of the painting to lift the object little by little. Thanks to the incredible patience of 9 technicians divided into 3 groups – some standing inside the case, some on step ladders, and one gearing the dandy lift, the painting was successfully moved into the case by late afternoon! The work remain was much more straightforward, even though 8 technicians had to work inside a 60cm-deep display case.

After 2-days dedication of a brilliant team, visitors can now enjoy this very colourful painting glittering in the central case of the T.T.Tsui gallery.