As part of a response to the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles more than a year ago, some of the city’s most important arts institutions have collectively committed to following climate-conscious guidelines called the Bizotte Green Deal.
Launched in 2015 by the Bizot Group, a group of art museum directors from around the world, the agreement has been revised and modified several times over the course of a decade as the catastrophe caused by climate change intensified. The institutions behind this new commitment include the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Hammer Museum and blue-chip gallery Hauser & Wirth.
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“This is the first time Los Angeles arts institutions have collectively announced a commitment to these recommendations, and we hope it inspires other institutions to commit as well,” Camille Kirk, director of sustainability at Getty, said in a press release.
A joint statement from the groups read: “While climate change is not a direct cause, it is an exacerbating factor in the scale and devastation of recent fires in the Los Angeles area, which has taken a toll on our cultural institutions, galleries and artists. The cultural sector is increasingly affected by the impacts of climate change and is responding to it as part of fulfilling our mission to care for and showcase our shared cultural heritage.”
Among the group’s goals is a commitment to “experiment with a wider range of temperature and relative humidity climate control parameters in our facilities, change the criteria for lending where art in our collections is safe, and take steps to reduce air travel and design waste.”
The original Bizotte Green Deal drew in part from research conducted by the Getty Conservation Institute’s Managing Collecting Environments initiative. The Los Angeles institution is also participating in a climate impact initiative launched by artist Debra Scacco and consultant Laura Lupton, making a collective commitment as part of the 2024-25 PST ART: Where Art and Science Collide.
