I don’t know where else to post this story but here. It is a story from my own life, that no one wants to believe, except from a select few colleagues who has seen it with their own eyes.
I work as an art handler and technician at a museum for modern art. Most of my job is to move and install artworks. But sometimes I do other little tasks around the building. During my first years in the museum I heard a rumour about the contents of a secret room — an enormous pile of fermenting biological matter, sealed up in a rubber casing. Supposedly this was hidden somewhere in the basement, below the museum. I didn’t think much of it. It was a rumour after all.
During the pandemic the museum was mostly empty. People were not supposed to be there, something invisible was about… the corona-virus had entered all of our lives. And supposedly it was in the air, so most of the staff had been sent home. Except from those who took care of the very physical stuff that was absolutely necessary for the preservation of the artwork. Needless to say, I fell in the latter category.
The works of modern and contemporary art was on display for empty halls. As there was no visitors there was no need for electric light, so for the cause of saving some energy the museum was quite dark and murky. Only thin strands of daylight would reach through the windows, which were oddly placed (as one should expect a museum for contemporary art).
With the little light that made it inside one could barely make out what artworks were actually there. The colours of the paintings came across as dull and dead somehow. And equally un-intriguing were the shapes and forms of sculptures. They appeared flattened, or deflated, like punctured balloons.
As I walked the empty hallways of the dimly lit exhibition-halls I felt as if something had gone missing, like the spirit of the artworks was no longer present. I could hear a light humming from the air-conditioning system, and I could feel just the lightest breeze as I passed close to the inlets and outlets. I imagined how the air-conditioning had sucked the spirit of the artwork in through its pipes.
***
Before I continue my story I would like to explain something.
Museums contain many things that are not visible to the naked eye. This is especially true for a museum of modern art, where the objects on display are rarely what they appear to be. But it is even more true as a visitor, since when you are playing the role of one, you may only access some select spaces, like the exhibitions, cafés, bathrooms, lockers, and so on. Some areas are thus hidden from the visitor, who ideally come to enjoy the museum of modern art for its intended purpose; to see the objects on display for what they truly are.
There is another role to be held though; that of the worker. When one plays that role, one may access some areas that are not intended as public space; offices, break-rooms, workshops, art-storages, and so on. This means that the possible ways of just physically seeing the museum is dependent on whether you are a visitor, or of you are a worker.
So what is it really, the museum? Who better to answer such a question than ICOM, the International Council of Museums, who has provided the following, pretty dense, definition;
“A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.”
I know… it’s a lot to take in. But not all of it is of interest right now, let’s focus on the most important parts. To conserve, interpret and exhibit both the tangible, and intangible heritage. How does one go about conserving the intangible heritage? It’s a big task for sure. ThoughI’m not making fun of them. I see the point of it, it’s just a very abstract concept, at least to me. The intangible is that without physical presence, the untouchable matter that still is there. To conserve is to protect it from harm. Now, it seems to me, as if that can be quite a tricky thing to actually do, if it is actually needed.
But the museum is not just the institution, it is also the building itself. Even as a worker certain areas are likely to be restricted, for whatever reason. Like the office of the head of the museum, or art-storage where there has to be certain security measures in order to keep the (mostly) irreplaceable artefacts of culture safe from (mostly) imaginary harm. But there are also areas in a museum where most workers just don’t need to go, or shouldn’t be for their own safety. One such place is the air-conditioning room.
There you will find the air-conditioning machine, is a complex and mysterious apparatus, very unlike the ones we may have in our homes. In a museum it is made up of entire halls filled with tubes, hatches, handles, buttons and appliances — dedicated to just sucking up air, treating it, then spitting it out again. The treatment is made to ensure the air maintains a steady relative-humidity and a stable temperature — this is achieved by sucking in the air, drying it, then re-applying humidity and heat according to the current climate conditions in the house.
The rooms that undergo this treatment are the ones where artwork may be present; the exhibitions, storage, archives, packing area, loading docks, studios of the preservation crew, documentation rooms, etc. But staff break rooms, restaurants, kitchens, toilets, offices, and other facilities where no work with the physical works of art is carried out don’t have the same type of air-conditioning. The reason for this is that artworks can be sensitive to fluctuations in humidity and temperature, sudden changes in the climate may cause materials to expand or contract, making paint flake off or wood to crack open. So keeping the climate both consistent and separated is important for the preservation of the works of art.
***
So let’g get back to the story. It was the pandemic time. When most people were supposed to stay away from the work-place. But some things still had to be done. I was part of a handful of workers who came in on certain days when they definitely had some hands-on stuff to do. I was always working with the same colleague, we already knew each other well, and we spoke about all sorts of things as we carried out the tasks that had been given to us.
I can’t really remember how we came to speak of it, but we somehow ended up talking about the rumour of this secret room, the one with a covered up pile of trash. Our superior on-site had been working there since the construction of the museum, he was a Security and Operations Manager, so he actually did know every nook and cranny. We decided to ask him about it.
He reacted strangely to the question. As if he was unsettled, or uncomfortable with having been asked about it. The he chuckled, as if he tried to shake it off, and answered us with a question: “Who told you that old story?”
We explained to him that it’s just a rumour that has been going around, and that we hoped he might know if its real or not. “Of course it’s real”, he said. “I just don’t want to be reminded about that shit.” There was something in the tone of his voice that made me think as if he wanted to tell us more, as if he wanted the just blurt it out. So I asked him what it was in there. He looked at me sternly, and said: “There is something trapped underneath that rubber carpet.” I was confused, what does he mean it’s trapped? He was just months away from his retirement, and he had never acted this strange before. I thought to myself that maybe, age is getting to him. But I was too curious now, I had to ask him if me and my colleague could see it for ourselves, with him quitting soon I didn’t want to miss out on what might be my last chance. “What the hell”, he said, “I’ll take you there, then you can make up your own minds… But don’t tell anybody about this. At least not until I’ve retired.”
During the lunch break we all met up in the underground levels of the building, in front of a large metal door. I had never paid much attention to that door before. It had a small metal plaque stock onto it. It read: “Air-conditioning”. The superior brought out his big key-chain, and sifted through all the keys until he found the right one. As soon as he unlocked the door and cracked it open a deep humming and whirring sound started pouring out from behind it.
As expected, we found ourself in the air-conditioning room; an endless hallway of machines and tubing — with large fans chugging through the air. As we walked further in, through the mechanic jungle of air-conditioning machinery, the sound became deafeningly loud. The superior pointed to the back of the room. Hidden behind all the large machines was a small staircase. It takes you just a meter up, to a half-level, and after it a hallway continues into an unlit darkness.
We take a few brief steps up the staircase, and the superior starts moving some trash around that is piled up against a wall. behind it is a light-switch, and he turns the lights on. Now I can see that at the end of the hallway, maybe 30 meters down from where we entered it, is a steel door. It is not wider than a regular apartment door, and it would look very ordinary, if it wasn’t because of where it was. Placed so specifically at the end of a long hallway, half a floor up… it somehow draws you in when you look through a long passage and see something at the end of it. It makes it seem remarkable. The door marks a threshold, a passage, a liminality of some sort, the light at the end of a tunnel. Now I had gotten really curious to see what’s on the other side.
Our superior starts to unlock the door, but struggles to actually get it to open. It’s a bit jammed, so he gives it light tackle with his shoulder. The push pops it open with a bright squeaky sound, and I’m getting the chills. I look to my colleague, I see how the hairs on his arms are standing up as well. Maybe it’s the suspense of the situation that is getting to us, or maybe it’s just the chill air that comes from the other side. Before I can see anything, I can sense it: the vastness of the space, the change in humidity and temperature, the density of the air.
I brace myself, and get ready to take a step forward, but our superior stops me: “Don’t go inside”, he says, “We need to turn this on first”. In an overly demonstrative manner he pushes a button next to the door, and a red light above it turns on. “It’s to show that we are inside.”, he explains with his best teachers voice, “It’s a security measure, it’s so the guards can see that someone is there, just in case something would happen, these doors don’t open from the inside… and there is no other way out”. I give him a nod, like one of those very man-to-man nods, that I barely ever do otherwise. It makes me feel stupid, because it reveals how nervous I actually am.
Just as I step inside the room a memory comes back to me, it’s a memory of me, when I was picking mushrooms in the forest with my family. We all went out together, but I decided to go a bit further away from the others, until I found myself completely on my own. I wasn’t lost or anything, but I suddenly started feeling very lonely, and the feeling grew quickly. In less than a second I realised that I was afraid. I felt my whole body freeze. The strongest instinctive rush came over me; something else is here. I turned around on the spot, thinking I should walk back to the others as silently and swiftly as possible. Then it hit me, the strongest deep and musky animal odour I had ever felt. The feelings of loneliness and fear must have arrived to my perception before I had even processed the smell itself. I’m sure I was very close to some really big animal, one that I could not see, but sense. I realised that had the exact same feeling now, but I could smell nothing this time around. At least not yet.
We struggle to find the final light-switch, and when the lights finally turn on a vast concrete landscape opens up. There it is, the room. With high ceilings and massive pillars standing in line. Like an underground brutalist temple. Above us is a concrete ceiling — covered in large air-conditioning tubing, winding erratically, zig-zagging here and there, back and forth, up and down, over our heads… sometimes the tubing comes down to floor level, so one would need to climb over it, and sometimes it goes in the middle of the room, so one needs to crouch under it. But it looks as if there is no reason to how the tubes have been placed in the room. As if the person who installed them just went with whatever they felt like, instead of following a plan of some sort.
The floor is covered by a thick grey waxy material, a rubber carpet. The floor is not flat, as I thought it would be, instead it is uneven. I can see clearly that it is laid out on top of something else, but I can’t make out what is beneath, like it has been draped over everything in there. In front of us is a small sloped section with a chest hight incline, that we climb up in order to reach the main surface area of the rubber-covered pile. Now I can see the how the room stretches out more clearly, but I cannot see the end of it. It’s maybe 15 meters wide and 4,5 meters from floor to ceiling, but as we are standing on top of the things, whatever they are, we are almost so high up that we can reach up and touch the ceiling above us. I try to locate myself in relation to the museum above ground, and I come to the conclusion that we must be standing just underneath the last room in the main collection. But how far does this room reach, really? I can see at least a hundred meters until the view is completely blocked by the winding tubes.
“They didn’t want to believe me at first, but I knew something was rotting in here”, says our superior. “So this is how the story goes… when they started building they had grand plans. They wanted to have two floors for the collections, one on ground level, and another one underground. As they started blowing our the bedrock and making space for the lower levels the construction was already being delayed. They struggled with something, whatever it was they could not tell. If you ask me, I think the whole project was just incredibly badly managed. So they quickly claimed there was no way that they could afford making the underground level without completely depleting the funds. And suddenly there was a change of plans. What was supposed to be a basement level was now called a garage. But soon enough even the garage had to be cut, why that is I don’t really know. But hey were left with this massive hole in the ground.” He looks down and gives the rubber mat a kick, as if to turn our attention to where we are standing. “This pile of shit was of course not here, that came after. You see, the construction company decided that if this room was not to be used, and since it was technically not part of the building that they had been hired to deliver, they may just as well use it as a dump. So they started filling it up again… pouring back the bedrock that they had just blown out from the ground, together with whatever else they had laying around. The room where we are now in is in fact not really a room, it’s just the underbelly of the museum. The pillars are just there to hold up the structure above us, and the walls and-floor are just here to keep rainwater out.”
As we look around us, and take in the strangeness of the space, I can’t help but feeling trapped in here. He continues his story: “That’s a whole lot of material they dumped in here, considering the size of the room. And what other stuff than bedrock that ended up in here as well we may never know. But the proof is in the pudding, as they soon realised. Because whatever is in here started growing, it started living… oh man, the smell, it was horrible, and that smell was seeping out through all the little cracks and crevices, and made its way into the ventilation system. Thats why I had to convince the board to close the museum, just a year after it had opened. It was my job to handle it back then, and everyone hated me for it. But there was biological emissions in the air in here, we didn’t know exactly what it was either, so I assumed it could be dangerous. And anyways, this shit would overgrow the place, unless appropriate actions were taken. Unfortunately, now they had built a museum on top.”
He lets out a chuckle, stating how funny he finds their stupidity. “They had cast concrete all around this catacomb. Outside of these walls are still meters of bedrock. One has to blow it up with dynamite in order to get access to the surface. The only way out is through that small door where we just entered, then through the hallway, down the stairs, and past the air-conditioning rooms and all of it’s machines. You know the way… So the construction company was called back in to solve the problem they had created. When they realised they could not remove this pile of living shit, they decided to try and kill it instead. They went for suffocation. The emissions are contained by the rubber carpet. This whole thing is welded together, sealed in every seam, and glued firmly to every wall. It is to keep whatever is growing underneath from getting out. They still feared it was not enough. So in order to really subdue it they had to install another air-conditioning system, just like the one used to control the climate for the artworks. By keeping the temperature low and the humidity at a constant level the thing underneath here is it least kept asleep… And it better stay that way.”
***
The German word, ‘museal [‘museumlike’], has unpleasant overtones. It describes objects to which the observer no longer has a vital relationship and which are in the process of dying. They owe their preservation more to historical respect than to the needs of the present. Museum and mausoleum are connected by more than phonetic association.
Theodor Adorno, “Valéry Proust Museum”, 1955
Isn’t it ironic. The biggest monumental artwork I have ever seen is an accident, a secret, and it is alive. It’s the mistake no one wants to let out. The bastard child of the state machine. What was it again, that a museum is supposed to do… to conserve, interpret and exhibit both the tangible, and intangible heritage. Why do they hide it? Why go through the effort of preserving it, of keeping it unchanged, if they cannot let it be seen? Museums are a funny place in this way, they think they are working to keep the things alive, but actually they work to keep the things from not visibly being undying.