Decommissioning

Decommissioning belongs in the original contract, not in an email thread three years later. The questions are always the same: who removes the work, who pays for it, what condition the site returns to, whether the artist gets first refusal on the object, and who keeps the documentation. Agreeing on that while everyone still likes each other costs an afternoon; negotiating it after a deadline or a dispute costs considerably more.

It is not a synonym for deaccession. A temporary installation that was never formally accessioned can still be decommissioned, and a permanent work can be deaccessioned without anyone touching it for months. Decommissioning describes the end of the public-facing life of the piece, which is the part audiences notice and the part programs most often forget to record.