How “Green” Are Getty’s Exhibitions?

From transporting artworks to printing signage to building gallery displays, putting on an exhibition can take a lot of energy. Human energy, yes, but also the kind of energy that produces greenhouse gas emissions that aren’t so great for our environment.

But to lower those greenhouse gas emissions (or reduce the carbon footprint), it’s necessary to first know what the carbon footprint is. As part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide’s climate impact program, Getty is taking the unprecedented step of measuring its own exhibitions’ carbon footprints and inviting museums and other institutions in Southern California to do the same.

Sustainability is a relatively new concern in the museum world, and no one, not even Getty, is expected to have all the answers or robust sustainability practices already in place. But as Camille Kirk, Getty’s head of sustainability, points out, you have to start somewhere.

“We’re aiming to get people to be attentive to and aware of what they can do to plan a more sustainable exhibition,” Kirk says. “Can you do it in smarter ways? Can you create less of a footprint? Our goal is to ask ourselves these questions early on in an exhibition’s planning phase.”

The perfect place to dive in

The seeds of the idea to track these exhibitions’ climate footprints were planted in 2022, during the planning stages of the landmark Southern California–wide arts event PST ART. In meetings with the Getty Foundation, Debra Scacco, a guest cocurator at Cal State Dominguez Hills and cofounder of Artists Commit, a collective dedicated to fighting climate change, recognized that PST ART and its “art and science collide” theme offered a special opportunity to dive into climate issues. Scacco introduced the Foundation’s PST ART team to Laura Lupton, a veteran organizer in the art and climate space, and the pair asked if Getty would consider taking the lead on organizing a climate impact program for institutions participating in PST ART.

Lupton and her LHL Consulting firm have since held webinars for participating PST ART organizations to discuss how they can adopt sustainability practices, and the Foundation invited all of the partner organizations to complete climate impact reports for their PST ART exhibitions supported by Getty grants. The response has been enthusiastic: nearly every institution has attended at least one webinar, with almost 75 percent of institutions agreeing to submit a climate impact report. The hope, says Heather MacDonald, senior program officer at the Foundation, is that Southern California can establish itself as a leader in the field of art and sustainability.

“I think that’s really the promise of doing this project through PST ART—it’s not just one institution finding the resources to hire a consultant or bring on staff, because we know that’s going to be very difficult for many institutions,” says MacDonald. “Promoting sustainability through a PST ART collaboration hopefully means that we can move a lot quicker—as a regional effort.”

Turning the microscope on ourselves

For its part, Getty is completing climate impact reports for three of its nine PST ART presentations. Associate director for Exhibitions Carolyn Marsden-Smith guided the selection of the shows, with an eye toward understanding the footprints of different types of exhibitions: Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology, produced by the Getty Research Institute; Lumen: The Art and Science of Light, produced by the Getty Museum and featuring about 100 objects from museums around the world; and Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s Irises, also produced by the Getty Museum but primarily featuring objects from Getty’s own collection.

Ifrah Asif, graduate intern at the Getty Conservation Institute, and Alex Bispham, graduate intern in exhibitions at the Getty Museum, volunteered to gather the preliminary data needed to start filling out each show’s climate impact report. (Final data will be entered after the presentations close this winter.)

With advising from Kirk and Marsden-Smith, and the gracious help of the exhibitions’ curators, coordinators, designers, and registrars, Asif and Bispham filled out spreadsheets with detailed information in four core areas: travel (for staff conducting research and couriers accompanying works of art); materials (how packing and building supplies were sourced and whether or not they can be reused); shipping (flights and trucks for art movement); and workers and community (who was part of the exhibition team and how the show engages with the local community). This information gave a complete picture of all the steps, resources, and people that brought the exhibitions to life.

The interns also asked what efforts the exhibition teams had already taken to increase sustainability. It turns out they had already made some decisions that were better for the environment, with sustainability being just one factor of many they typically take into consideration. “For Lumen, building temporary walls would have been very material intensive and wasteful, because three months later they would have gotten torn down,” Bispham says. “There are fabric scrims being used to divide the space and block light instead, which creates way less waste and is also less labor intensive and more cost effective. A decision that’s made for costs is actually also really beneficial for the climate impact of the project and vice versa.”

“Alex and Ifrah have been amazing to partner with, and it’s wonderful that this project created a chance for them to gain additional tools and knowledge as they launch into their careers,” says Kirk. “Our cultural heritage and our planet will both benefit from upcoming leaders in the field incorporating sustainability thinking into their work.”

The impact of a climate impact report

The final data will be entered into a carbon emission calculator developed by the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to show the total carbon footprint of each exhibition. The data can then be used as a baseline to compare against future displays, as a source of inspiration for where to try and lower emissions, and to encourage museum staff to consider the climate impact of a show early in the planning process. The goal isn’t to shame institutions or convince them to stop producing big exhibitions that require a larger carbon footprint, but rather to help build sustainability into the conversation, Kirk says. “Art has always been used to draw attention to global issues,” Asif points out. “Not just to talk about them, but also to set an example of institutions taking action and doing something about them.”