Is This Mondrian Painting Upside Down?

"New York City I" is a 1941 work by Piet Mondrian employing colored ribbons of paper with an adhesive backing rather than paint.

It has been displayed as seen above since 1980 at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf, Germany.

In 2022 Susanne Meyer-Büser, a curator at the museum, found a photograph from June 1944, taken in Mondrian's studio shortly after his death. 

There, sitting on an easel, was "New York City I."

In the photo, the densest cluster of yellow, black, red, and blue lines was at the top rather than as displayed at the museum.

However, the seemingly simple fix — rotating it 180° — can't be done.

Right now, "New York City I" is an a delicate equilibrium: the ribbons' rubber-based adhesives from the 1940s are oxidizing, drying out, and breaking apart.

Thus, the ribbons are quite literally hanging by a thread.

They have spent decades sagging in one specific direction.

Gravity has pulled the molecular structure of the adhesive downwards. 

Turning the work upside down would reverse the gravitational pull, and the brittle material could well break apart.

Curators faced a choice: display it correctly and risk destroying it, or display it incorrectly as it is now and preserve it.

They chose the latter.

Below, the painting rotated 180° to its original 1944 orientation.

ZME Science story here.