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In Switzerland, we have this sort of problem especially with textile
art from the 20th c.. I find it tricky. A lot of these textiles are
made from plant fibres, which, when they burn, send out sparkles and
glimming flakes, promoting fire. It is thus very well understandable
that fire officers do not particularly like such textiles being hung in
open public spaces. Up to now, I have never been consulted on a
(wool)tapestry, which seems to make sense. My experience is, that in
some cases, removing the textile objects in question away from flight
paths can make us keep the textile on display, however not in their
original places. In one instance, a curtain designed by the artist Max
Bill, we had to make a copy from new, fireproof fabric. The original
curtain was made from cut width of plain dyed cotton velvet ind various
colours, and thus relatively easy to copy. (a bad, small image can be
found under: http://www.choreografie.ch/german/locatmap.htm ) Copying
will not be as easy in a case like yours, Deborah. I am a bit puzzled that declaring the curtain as a "painting without strainer" would help. As far as my experiences in Switzerland are concerned, the fire police are quite well informed about differences in danger from various materials and from loosely hung versus tightly fixed on a strainer, and thus would not be willing to consider such a trick. One option - at least in Switzerland - is having a "fire curtain" being fixed in front (toward public) of the original curtain. So in case of fire, the fire curtain would go down and protect the public. In the case with the Max Bill curtain, the owner of the cinema-theatre was not willing to pay the cost of such an fire curtain... Talking about other objects: the same rules apply in Switzerland for upholstered furniture like theatre seats. In most cases I know of, the upholstery has been exchanged for Trevira CS. Sincerely, Karin von Lerber --
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