Outdoor art. Problematiche conservative tra coscienza delle opere contemporanee e conoscenza materica nella città di Firenze

Public sculptures are connected to the community's past, often standing as landmarks and expression of history, science, civics, visual arts. Preserving them keeps alive a spirit of community and informs citizens about their past. Notwithstanding this, public contemporary sculpture is often forgotten in overgrown corners, vulnerable to deterioration from pollution, lack of maintenance and vandalism, waiting to be rediscovered and properly healed. This paper reports the results of a project launched to document the outdoor contemporary art sculptures in the city of Florence (Italy). A total of 80 outdoor contemporary sculptures (1910-2010), located over an area of 102 Km2 was catalogued, creating for each sculpture a comprehensive card with information about the location, author, materials, historical and technical notes, state of conservation. Some interviews to living artists were also included to gather information on the materials and techniques used, to understand the "sense" of their artworks and to achieve suggestions about the conservation procedure. Finally, an example of multi-analytical investigation to characterize the constituent materials and assess the causes of decay, as an essential tool for planning any further maintenance, is reported for the sculpture "Nuredduna" by Aligi Sassu (1995).