Common Issues Facing Those Who Work to Conserve Works of Art Are

Watch a pubic discussion past this same panel presented at the Getty Heart

MATTHEW GALE, an art historian specializing in the twentieth century, is caput of displays at Tate Modernistic. He has worked closely with Tate's Sculpture Conservation and Conservation Scientific discipline departments in developing Tate's research on the replication of modern sculptures that are subject to unforeseen degradation. This work culminated in the cross-disciplinary conference "Inherent Vice: The Replica and Its Implications in Mod Sculpture," held in 2007.

SUSAN LAKE is chief conservator and director of collection direction at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Her research interests include the painting materials of the American Abstract Expressionist painters and the conservation of modern art materials. Her book on Willem de Kooning's painting materials is scheduled to be published by the GCI in jump 2010.

JILL STERRETT, managing director of collections and conservation at the San Francisco Museum of Mod Art, has worked at the museum since 1990. She is a graduate of the Cooperstown Graduate Plan and has published and taught on the field of study of museums, conservation, and the legacy of contemporary art, including as a Fulbright scholar at the Universidade do Porto in Portugal.

They spoke with TOM LEARNER, a GCI senior scientist, and JEFFREY LEVIN, editor of Conservation Perspectives, The GCI Newsletter.

JEFFREY LEVIN : With regard to the conservation of modernistic and contemporary art, do y'all think that conservators and curators are thinking differently nigh conservation issues than they were twenty years ago?

SUSAN LAKE: Museums have become very skilled at the preservation of the irreplaceable, atypical artwork. But when gimmicky artists create objects that are intentionally ephemeral and installations that are provisional and improvised, we detect ourselves torn between competing commitments. As conservators, we're guided by a professional code of ethics in which we identify the materials and the construction of the object, and based on our exam, we intervene to repair the work. Merely that lawmaking doesn't neatly utilize when we are tasked with preserving artworks that are made of ephemeral materials, are conceptual or performance based, and include motion picture and video. In these cases, conservators focus less on intervention to repair artworks than on documenting them. As has been observed, how to manage inevitable modify versus how to abort it is essential to the conservation of much gimmicky fine art.

JILL STERRETT: It's been said that museums are something nosotros use to assistance us empathise who we are. Fine art museums are a tool to respond to the art. But museums also exist within a cultural time, and we in conservation are not only responding to the fine art that artists are making, but working in institutions that are refreshing their connexion to their communities. Museums, in this technological historic period, feel pressure to make everything accessible in a manner that is different than when I entered conservation. In school we were taught that you sat down in a solitary style, examined your object, analyzed its materials, and so came up with a proposal, which was a solution that allowed for maximal preservation of this object. Yes, artists for the final fifty years have been experimenting with unorthodox materials, just the biggest change I see is that the problem solving around objects now has much more to practice with how the object is going to be used. Who needs to run into it? What is its human relationship to the full general public and to scholars? Yous're asking a range of additional questions that affect your solution.

MATTHEW GALE: The question of access is very challenging. Large groups now have access to complex installations. That's where I see the challenges arising—and that's where I rely on conversations with conservation colleagues to consider how to resolve these questions. Very oftentimes that involves going back to the artist. Merely as a curator, I'm farther along the procedure from the one that you were describing.

LEVIN : Would y'all all say that previous conservation standards remain but that now, with new demands, the number of bug to be considered has expanded?

LAKE: Without a prescribed form of action—and acknowledging that many of the preservation-based questions raised are by nature subjective—decisions regarding conservation are best made by consensus among knowledgeable peers. I'm now less inclined to exist guided past my private assessment. Developing a preservation plan involves discussions not just with beau conservators and curators but also with an array of other experts in the field that may include archivists, educators, registrars, audiovisual technicians, and database managers.

LEVIN : Is collaborative determination making about the conservation of artworks more pervasive today?

LAKE: Yes, decision making has become more collaborative. When it's not occurring, in that location's probably force per unit area for information technology to occur. But maybe nosotros're a little alee of the curve because of the kind of artworks that we're dealing with.

TOM LEARNER : Working in an interdisciplinary manner would seem to benefit all areas of cultural heritage conservation—but with contemporary art, it seems absolutely essential. Conservators, on the whole, are very proficient at figuring out how to practise things—such as designing a cleaning organization to remove a varnish or choosing an appropriate adhesive for pieces of ceramic. Merely with contemporary fine art, isn't it frequently much more almost figuring out what we should exist doing? And to respond that, other areas of the fine art profession accept to be involved.

LAKE: It's been noted that in some ways we're operating more similar ethnographic and archaeological conservation disciplines than we take before.

STERRETT: Which is very interesting—because some of the problem solving in ethnographic conservation takes you right back to the community. It honors a variety of views in the creation of a proposal for a handling. We're realizing that there are all kinds of opinions that tin can make benign and informed contributions to what we practise.

LEVIN : Ethnographic and archaeological conservation can involve an exploration of the values inherent in the objects by seeking the views of those outside of conservation. Are you all suggesting something like for mod and contemporary art conservation?

GALE: I was thinking nearly the question of values and how one establishes what they are. With contemporary art, instead of trying to draw upon a body of scholarship—which I assume would be the case in an archaeological situation—yous're returning to the artist. That opens upward a tremendous number of possibilities but as well sets out certain parameters. You're duty bound to respond to what the creative person is telling you rather than ignoring it. You also could be raising a number of questions that the artist may not have already thought through and saying, "Well, how are you going to help us deal with this?" And that may affect his or her exercise from so on.

Concluding week I was working with an artist installing a complex work, and in passing conversation I described our Naum Gabo project, looking at the question of the inherent vice of the plastics used past Gabo in his works. It occurred to me as I was speaking that the piece we were installing had hundreds of objects in information technology, many of which are plastic. Warning bells started going off in my mind. Am I going to be alarming past proverb, "Well, of course, plastic has a fragility that Gabo had not anticipated or planned for. He causeless that it was stable." Information technology was a fairly casual conversation, but it would exist logical to go back to the artist I was talking with and inquire, "How practice we meet that challenge with this vast array of specially chosen objects?"

LEVIN : Your mention of involving the creative person raises the issue of artist's intent. Is the artist'south intent the predominant consideration that should guide conservation decisions?

STERRETT: A work made yesterday that enters into a museum or gallery today is, for all intents and purposes, in its infancy. To capture the creative person'south thoughts at that moment in the work's life is important to practice. That said, it's not the just stance we are later. In that location are curators, scholars—and the public. All of these opinions come together with that of the creative person to tell a story. Then, to extend the piece of work of stewarding collections, we want to collect all of these voices over time. Think about the generations of people who have interpreted artworks over fourth dimension. Of class, scholarship shapes and refines pregnant of works—and there's an contrary instinct with contemporary fine art, which is to resist locking down meaning too early. The work has just entered the world. Nosotros're trying to support an opening up of possibilities.

LEVIN : Is ane of the functions of the conservator today to manage change?

LAKE: Preservation of much contemporary art has two chief aspects. First, preservation of the diverse materials used in the construction. 2d, preservation of the intention and pregnant of the piece of work—which in almost cases extends beyond the textile structure. Therefore, museums are faced with the need to maintain both the object'south material dimension and its conceptual dimension.

STERRETT: The creative person's intent is still our touchstone. But information technology shifts. You interview artists when their work offset comes into the drove and and then, years later on, call for a clarification. The artist might say, "That's non exactly what I meant"—or "That's what I meant at that fourth dimension, just it's inverse somewhat." And then you have to acknowledge that y'all're working together and document not simply what you lot did only also how you came to that decision. Inevitably it's subjective.

LEARNER : This is bringing us dorsum to those two established ethics in conservation—reversibility and minimal handling—that ofttimes appear to be challenged in the conservation of contemporary fine art. If we're saying that we shouldn't lock down meaning and intention in these works, doesn't it and so follow that nosotros should resist treatments that are strongly guided by the artist's intention, given that that might involve all kinds of irreversible treatments? Aren't those 2 principles actually nevertheless every bit valuable and relevant as ever? And if then, peradventure the all-time thing nosotros tin do is do very trivial and let the work have some kind of natural life.

STERRETT: This is a prickly area. I'm sometimes concerned about using the term "contemporary art," as if it'due south somehow understood what we all mean by that. We take to be careful. Artists nonetheless paint. What comes to listen are changes in conservation being initiated in response to art that is inherently variable—take, for instance, installation-based art. This is not a prototype shift that throws out all the traditional values. We're talking about an additive gear up of skills that doesn't undermine the foundations of the field, and which continues to rely on knowledge of materials and scientific discipline and analysis—an additive skill set for a very prevalent class of work that is designed to vary over time.

LEVIN : From a curatorial standpoint, Matthew, has the notion of managing change, every bit opposed to treating an object, contradistinct the way that you lot look at your responsibilities—presenting and interpreting works for the public?

GALE: Yep, I suppose information technology has in the way that we present work to the public. The matter that makes me about uneasy is where the impact of what the artist intended has to be restrained by the desire to show this to a big public, which is a constant balance that we take to maintain. I'g thinking of a work that nosotros simply installed at Tate Modern [Untitled (Tate), 1992–2000]. Information technology's a reworking by the artists, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, of an installation they fabricated when Tate Modernistic first opened in 2000, which has been in touring exhibition. Now it'south been acquired for the collection and been reinstalled in a completely different way. It'southward based around a sort of simulacrum of reality in which they have re-created the ephemera of everyday life in polystyrene and then painted it. It's a complete trompe 50'oeil installation, and the reaction when we first showed information technology in 2000 was that people simply couldn't believe that information technology wasn't the existent affair. They were picking things up—which, of form, trashed the piece. So that had to be curtailed and the experience by the public reined in.

LAKE: The preservation of contemporary art has initiated a rethinking of some of the museum's key practices. Since the 1960s, many artists have fabricated highly experimental artworks using fragile, imperceptible, and degradable materials and made works with readily outmoded technologies. What do we conserve? The appearance, the material components, the concept, the function? Do we preserve the components, supplant them, or remake them?

LEVIN : How accepted is the idea of creating replicas, then that the visitor can experience what the creative person intended when the work was first presented?

LAKE: Early in my career, the idea of replica was antonymous. We are now beginning to see a shift, and the goad, in part, is contemporary art—particularly photography. For example, we have a work by John Baldessari that includes many pocket-sized photographs [Songs: one. Sky/Sea/Sand, 2. Sky/Water ice Plant/Grass, 1973]. The photographs are rather precariously pinned to the wall, and the images are already somewhat faded. With the permission of the artist, nosotros scanned the photographs in order to re-create an exhibition copy. The original is kept in a cold storage vault. The work was recently requested for loan, and we will lend the borrowing establishment the exhibition copy. I doubt that our "preservation plan" would have been acceptable several decades ago. Although this practise is unlikely to extend to paintings, it is common, even necessary, with time-based media [motion-picture show and video works of art].

STERRETT: This past leap, a graduate student who was writing a thesis in a museum studies programme chosen u.s.a. and asked if museums rely on facsimiles in their programming. Our first reaction collectively was, "Oh, we don't show facsimiles." Merely and so we realized, every bit Susan said, that nosotros're in the business of making replicas all the time with forms of gimmicky art and certainly photography. At that place have been remarkably creative solutions for tours of a photographer's work, which have relied on authorized exhibition copies that travel and that allow these works to be seen by millions of people. Nosotros copy—or migrate—video all the time. That's a process that nosotros've besides accepted equally underpinning the way that we keep video installations alive.

However, it's a wholly dissimilar thing to consider what nosotros did in creating a mock-up of Eva Hesse's Sans II. Nosotros were able to attain as near to the resin formulation as we could from the same manufacturer that she bought information technology from. We were able to work with her mold for making it, and we were able to work with her studio assistant, Doug Johns, and come up up with a mock-up that's close in course to the original. What you got was insight into the translucency and transparency when the work was first made in 1968. Incredibly powerful to be able to come across that. Would it ever go on display? No. Why? At that place would be real questions most whether it is authentic. I think the estate would have problems virtually the condition of that piece. Simply a replica may be valued for reasons other than its exhibition. In museums, nosotros do more than than showroom.

GALE: What you're maxim about having different mandates is critical to the ways one can approach this. Merely information technology's nevertheless a thorny fix of bug. Examples of replicas popular upwards in my mind—such every bit the casting of Rodin works, for instance, which has never been seen as a particular problem. You can encounter The Thinker in Buenos Aires and in Paris and it's however a Rodin. These are incredibly problematic areas—and simply as nosotros've been describing how an artist might have ane position at what you've called the infancy of an artwork and a different one as the work grows up in the world, I imagine that what each of usa thinks about replicas will move and shift.

I beginning encountered this as a problem when there was an element on a Gabo slice that suddenly shifted and broke. Information technology seemed to me, "Well, this is a geometrical work, it's fabricated of plastics, let's run off another ane." The idea—which simply lasted a few moments—was that the qualities in the work, existence geometrically defined and made entirely of modern materials from which the manus of the artist is somewhat removed, meant that one could flatten it out, make a template, and reconstruct it. But the presence of that thing in the world would heighten questions. Does it fairly substitute for the original? If the original becomes completely unrecognizable, does the aura inevitably migrate to a 2nd concrete object? It seems to me that it does.

Your other selection is to say, "Okay, the thing disintegrates, you haven't got an object to which the aura can migrate, therefore you've lost that item piece of work." What alarmed me about Gabo is that his persistence in using those materials threatens to knock out a whole trunk of his work. If you believe that he was an important artist, then how exercise y'all respond?

STERRETT: I'yard completely undecided every bit to whether an object is "dead" if it no longer physically exists. That'south one of the things that I'm struggling with. Nosotros remember things all the time without having any concrete evidence of an object. I'm convinced that Eva Hesse'southward legacy volition not be gone fifty-fifty if her latex works are no longer here. I call back there will be memory of what she did.

LAKE: Tin't you take both? Can't you lot take the replica, every bit well as the degraded object? One doesn't preclude the other. In the time to come, we may be judged for not having made a replica when it was still possible to do so. Remembering a piece of work for me isn't the aforementioned as being able to walk around it and encounter it in three dimensions. I would appreciate that opportunity, even if I knew it was a replica.

LEARNER : Only aren't there dangers in putting significant resources into determining how all-time to brand replicas? Given that at that place are not many conservation scientists working in this area, might that be at the expense of research focused on what was needed to reverse or irksome the deterioration processes in the original?

STERRETT: My question isn't anti-replica. It does ponder the way memories are made—and the way objects are things we want to talk virtually in our lives. I'thousand not sure that goes away when the object is no longer there. In projects I've been involved with, I've felt inspired past the kind of retention that is infused into other formats also the object—replicas, movies, slides, interviews—by scholars and conservators and artists' assistants and everybody else. Information technology'due south incredibly moving how powerful that tape becomes when we're struggling with an object that nosotros can't practise much for.

GALE: That's the platonic, certainly. It does seem to me that at that place must be some underlying things, even if it'due south simply that documentation of the object has got to be the first step, regardless of what other action is taken. Then at to the lowest degree you would have an inspect of the object that can be compared to the last audit you took of it, and to the one taken in the hereafter. And y'all have some sense of its life and its possibilities.

LEVIN : Jill, practice y'all share Matthew'southward optimism that you can found some underlying standards of ethics for the conservation of these works? Or do yous think information technology may be tough to get across the case-past-example?

STERRETT: I have to admit that I don't aspire to something across the example-by-case. What nosotros're trying to develop with contemporary art is a methodology around trouble solving. I don't think that's going to lead to prescribed methods—except as it has to practice with the way that we tease apart the challenges and arrive at our solutions.

LAKE: That may be the methodology. You may interview the artist several times throughout his or her career. You thoroughly certificate each iteration of an installation. You certificate the rationale for your decisions, acknowledging that attitudes toward acceptable alter will likely shift over time.

GALE: To me, that turns into, "Do everything you tin can think of." Yous're interviewing the artist every ii years, and you're documenting everything. The issue becomes: What don't you do?

LEARNER : If we take that approach to its natural conclusion, information technology becomes "document every possible aspect of the work as frequently as you tin can," which would be impossible to implement on every work of art. If we're trying to devise a methodology, there has to be some priority in what is more important to exercise. Maybe information technology will be more about what don't you do. However, isn't at that place another upshot here? If the field does implement and follow some agreed methodologies, and so what happens in thirty years if some methodologies are considered to have been incorrect? It could be a far more worrying scenario if such a treatment were applied to significant numbers of works past a given artist, than if conservators had tried a range of approaches. At to the lowest degree that way we'd be maximizing the odds that some pieces exhibiting those desired values would survive in 30 years. That generation of conservators would be far better placed, after all, to judge which treatments or approaches were more successful than others. That said, nosotros practise demand to be careful about non encouraging whatever kind of handling. There has to exist some kind of understanding or agreement over the limits of what is acceptable or not.

GALE: What I have in my heed is not a broad code simply, rather, the sets of questions that institutions need to think about. This is 1 of the things that I hope will come up out of our project at Tate—positions on how you inform the public of what they're looking at if a piece of work has degraded and a replica is on brandish. It'southward a broad-brush theory rather than the practicalities.

STERRETT: Conventional thinking holds that in order to keep objects for future generations, we study the materials, put them in dark storage, and monitor the environment. And that, we hope, will sustain an object's life for hundreds of years. But what we've come up confronting with art made in the terminal fifty years—particularly installation-based art—is that if we do something like that, that's a sure sign of its demise. Why? Because, we actually take to test our knowledge of installing these pieces. They're just parts in storage until we put them together. They become the art co-ordinate to a fix of instructions that we get from the creative person. If you put the work in storage and don't brandish information technology for x years, y'all've macerated your ability to keep it considering you might not exist able to install it properly. The artist may or may non be around. On top of that, you may wrestle with obsolete technologies. If information technology's a fourth dimension-based installation with videotapes, and if they're not migrated every seven to 10 years, they might not be playable. Of a sudden, you start to see that preservation through the deed of display is happening in the galleries. Ironically, this venue, which had been the death knell for overexposed objects, is now where preservation is enhanced.

GALE: Is it because there are not methods to document the object, then y'all're relying on those memories and experiences to inform the next time? If these documentation methods did exist, then yous could bring it out in ten years' time.

STERRETT: Yous could, except that one of the things we've establish is that the best documentation methods involve one-time-fashioned storytelling—somebody teaches you how to install the work, and you teach me. That can be better than pages of handwritten notes that somebody has to interpret.

LAKE: This is may be stating the obvious. For much contemporary fine art, meaning has shifted away from the unique object—and conservation practice must reflect that change. A video installation is more than its component parts. A Sol LeWitt drawing is not only the instructions. New environment change an installation physically and contextually.

LEVIN : Jill, I've heard you say that you felt there were many inspiring things happening in this challenging expanse. What are some of those things?

STERRETT: Networks of people coming together to share information. There'due south always been a culture of sharing in the conservation field, but it's amplified now. Our capacity in museums to work with artists regularly is truly inspiring. Constructive documentation methods are the crux of what we're trying to put in place. Ideally, these methods will create new insights into how these pieces live in the world. I'thousand extremely inspired by the way conservation efforts can and should connect with many other departments in a museum—how conservation tin link with education efforts and how scholarship in the field is actually interesting to the general public. The motivations of an teaching department and a conservation department don't take to be viewed as contained. The same can be said of our curatorial colleagues. We're all noticing that these boundaries are not so hard and fast anymore.

LAKE: I think that'due south reflected in the manner museums are reorganizing themselves. Nosotros are at present less inclined to talk over registrarial, conservation, and curatorial functions as separate activities. Rather, nosotros mutually discuss collection intendance, collection direction, and stewardship. Preservation efforts are often the result of collaborative efforts among conservators, curators, educators, archivists, and technicians.

GALE: If cantankerous-disciplinary action hasn't been happening, it should be happening. Equally anybody has said, it does seem that from that yous get a synthesis of knowledge of the work. Instinctively, I still incline toward giving the artist's intentions added weight, insofar equally one tin can establish them. But other activities and other issues have got to be crucial to an understanding of the piece of work.

LEARNER : There must be enough of occasions when in that location'due south disagreement, though. How does that get worked through?

LAKE: Antagonistic positions are inevitable. An accustomed, universal approach to conservation practices would be difficult to attain. At all-time, we tin analyze the antagonistic positions and bring clear choices to the decision-making process. If the fence and event are transparent and fully documented, futurity viewers, artists, and scholars will be in a position to improve assess and evaluate the efficacy of our positions and treatment strategies.

STERRETT: It'due south exciting to get into a skillful debate and to empathize where yous have dissension and why. Good solutions come from those conversations. When you lot allow these contentious conversations to happen, y'all start to see people marshal behind the mission that the museum has put forth—to marshal behind something that is larger than their department.

LAKE: These transitions have non been piece of cake for a lot of staff or for institutions. In fact, many of the bug that nosotros've been discussing can be construed as a threat to our identity as conservators. But I call back that what we're discussing expands the profession.

LEARNER : It is interesting when you call up nearly all the various activities being carried out on gimmicky art that are considered part of conservation. It will definitely crave the field to call back more than strategically to respond to this vastly expanded skill ready. Information technology probably needs a new approach in the grooming schools to incorporate some of these boosted skills, only likewise for museums to recruit more actively from outside of conservation—such equally turning to experienced videotape technicians to help conserve time-based media. I'g sure that most of usa involved in the conservation of contemporary art are drawing on every part of our education and experience to process how best to respond to some of these bug. My instance—a professional having both conservation and scientific training—is becoming pretty common at present, but I am certain the field will benefit from those able to combine other, equally diverse backgrounds.

LAKE: It seems to me that the early discourses betwixt conservation scientists and conservators were the first move taken toward creating conservation as a more interdisciplinary field.

STERRETT: Hither'south the line—and I'm sure you all accept heard it, too—"Well, that's not proper conservation." Increasingly I scratch my caput and think, "What does 'proper' conservation mean anymore?" We accept colleagues who can reply that question very clearly for themselves. And I become the feeling that it has to do with sitting at the bench and inpainting. Outside that definition, it's something else—but non conservation. There's this feeling that we have to honor that. And at that place are all kinds of reasons to laurels that. But at the run a risk of non looking across?

LAKE: Interestingly, preparation programs admit some of these changes. Science is certainly an important component of grade work. Yet, discussions of the profound practical and theoretical problems involved in the conservation of contemporary art are yet defective in U.S. grooming programs.

STERRETT: In that location are skill sets that serve a more traditional manner of conservation, and there are skill sets emerging that underpin success for people working with contemporary art. And they're not always one and the same. Conservation has always called for belittling thinking, but now we're looking for abstract thinkers who are comfy synthesizing solutions. Rather than master practitioners, we're looking for people who are primary facilitators in many ways. That demands skills that are different from those required to restore a Rembrandt spectacularly.

LAKE: Traditional conservation practices—maintaining the object's physical and constituent features—still exist. But other approaches to preservation are likewise available. And information technology's of import to acknowledge that although the strategies employed in the conservation of much gimmicky fine art await different from traditional conservation, the rationale is even so based on established standards of drove care and management.

COMMENTS (discussion now closed)

1) Submitted by Amanda Norbutus, January 14, 2010 at 8:47AM
Thanks for a truly interdisciplinary conversation on the conservation of contemporary art. I have been trying to understand what takes precedence in planning for the preservation of public murals, whether it is the meaning or the materials. The discussion hither highlighted the various concerns when approaching a conservation treatment of artworks with irresolute meaning or decreasing stability.

In my research into public murals, the artist's intent may dictate what the mural looks like initially, but there is often a community that adopts a landscape into their lifestyle, trying to protect it from graffiti or demolition. Their contribution to the pregnant of the artwork also deserves to be documented as office of the mural's history. On the other hand, if a community dislikes a particular mural, does is discount all of the artist's intent; in this case, is lack of preservation is acceptable since most public murals are "community murals"?

Another concern in the preservation of murals relates to the materials with which the mural was created. Some artists used particular paints or tools to create art, imbuing their works with social and political meaning. The choice of materials can tell a conservator virtually the circumstances in which a mural was created, possibly changing how a conservator or art historian interprets the landscape. Should the materials get the priority for conservation versus the overall image in this scenario?

Each landscape has a unique set of circumstances that should guide treatment decisions. Community support, artist's intent, stability of the materials used, and funding bachelor are all used to program preservation treatments and mural upkeep. Is it the whole image that matters most, or the preservation of original material? What are the typical comprimises in a treatment?

If anyone has gone through this procedure, I'd savour hearing about your experiences.

2) Submitted by Sharra Grow, Jan xiv, 2010 12:09PM
I capeesh and agree with the comments made regarding creating a treatment protocol for modern and contemporary artworks; perhaps information technology would exist best not to piece of work toward creating a standard treatment procedure for contemporary art, but rather to create a standard set of questions that should be answered when deciding on a handling or preservation plan. I besides constitute Susan Lake'south question, What do nosotros conserve? quite thought provoking. What should be preserved in each piece we treat? Is it the appearance, the material, the concept, or the function? These aspects of an artwork tin can be individually shifted or lost when an artwork ages, is damaged, or is treated. How exercise we strike the right balance for each piece of work of fine art?

3) Submitted by Emily MacDonald-Korth, January eighteen, 2010 at 10:22AM
I agree that interdisciplinary collaboration is the key. Many new works of fine art combine materials that have previously been relegated to singled-out specializations within conservation. To responsibly design and acquit out treatment on these new works, specialist from various areas of conservation must interact. Interdisciplinary collaboration should also branch out beyond conservation to include art historians, artists and the public. Contemporary art is often not only almost the object, but the concept. Conservators can broaden their agreement of art as a whole by looking to scholars and artists to inform them virtually the meaning of art, not merely the object of art.

four) Submitted past Hiltrud Schinzel, February 9, 2010 at 00:24AM
The discussion was very animating. Here some afterwards-reading reflections: I share Jill Sterrett due south view that the all-time documentation involves erstwhile-fashioned story telling, the same is the instance with conservation recording. Restorers traditionally feel respect for the past and responsibleness for the futurity. Consequently they are much focussed on material as it is touchable, easier to access than ephemeral thoughts and ideas. Actually the past is past and the future might be a subject for speculation, however nosotros cannot foresee information technology. Our identify can be nothing but the present and contemporary fine art s conservation problems force us to go conscious of this fact and to deal with it. This in my view is fortunate because information technology stimulates to review our methods and ethics. Contemporary artworks are not transparent on first view. Consequently we have to effort to understand the artist s concepts and aims. A quotation might be interesting in this context. Marcel Broodthaers, Belgian creative person stated in 1974: One has to know that the artist is more interested in the outer world than in art itself and even less in the content of exhibitions and museums. Sure, he pretends to be and then. The artist is not educated his role is to pretend to be educated. Thank you to this play the spectator values past a unique plough of view the happenings of the twenty-four hours . This other view of the artist is what makes fine art about attractive for the contemporary spectator. Information technology is a great chance for conservation to exist very near to an artwork because the profession embodies a comparable mixture of theory and do as art-making does. Equally Jill Sterrett said in her final annotate we have to look beyond cloth to a greater caste than nosotros are used to treating contemporary art. This is a challenge but a adventure as well, not merely for the private restorer just for the profession every bit a whole.

5) Submitted by Iwona Szmelter, February ten, 2010 at 10:19AM
The modern art requires new methods. Its' obvious. After 20 year of discussion we have time for considerations, a plan. I agree that it is time for synthesis. Please, have a expect at the nearest volume "Theory and Practise of Conservation of Contemporary Art" by Archetype, ed.Ursula Scaedler-Saub, 2010. The authors (including myself) try to formulate information technology: the limits of ethics ( Cornelia Weyer), aspects of objectivity( Salvador Munoz Vinas), new conceptual frame of caring for modern art(Iwona Szmelter), winding conservation practices in classical organization of intendance of visual fine art( Isabelle Brajer), the responsibility and history of lost legacy of artists groups ( Ursula Schaedler-Saub), confrontations with Riegls' and Brandis' theory and many others aspects. Generally speaking I suppose that we need an imagination in the care of modern art, parallely to the visual fine art country, this corking turning indicate in 20 century and, in consequences- dichotomy of fine art legacy; contemporary classical disciplines and contemporary modernistic art. No more humanistic rethorical questions ( for what? afterwards more than 100 years?) and/or strictly scientific signal of view of natural science. The legacy of contemporary and modern art is complex - and our intendance of the cultural heritage have to exist adequate - very circuitous. Unfortuanately not many academic institutions and museums are ready for this re-orientation. Well-nigh of the museums, institutes are working in very classical way, with domination of item involvement of (classical trained) specialists, feudal construction etc. Moreover all these bug are related to to new type of didactics, nevertheless at their infancy, very erudical and with new type of specialisation.XXI second decade is a time for a great syntheisi and re-orientation in this field. My best wishes for visual art legacy and ...u.s.a.... equally people engaged in it. Iwona Szmelter

six) Submitted by Glenn Wharton, February 28, 2010 at 11:13AM
We are clearly experiencing broad changes in our field in reaction to new challenges posed by artists. I was struck by several questions from Jeffrey Levin about the degree to which standards can guide our exercise and the demand to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. I am challenged daily in my practice by new technologies and new conceptual parameters requested by artists. How can we commit documentation to memory equally requested by Tino Sehgal - who asked me not to tape or accept notes during our artist interview? He told me that the conservation of his work depends on curatorial volition to exhibit it since the dancers who were taught to interpret information technology will otherwise forget it. Cases like these require unique forms of research, documentation, and decision-making. Yet don t nosotros rely on professional values and principles to guide usa in making these decisions for individual artworks?

Every bit new forms of fine art challenge our values and principles, we are forced to expand the style nosotros recall most core issues such equally authenticity and intentionality. Social science and humanities scholars have a lot to offer the states in this realm. Fortunately an embrace of more than reflexive scholarship is happening, as evidenced in recent literature (e.1000. Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas, and Uncomfortable Truth, Elvsevier, 2009 and as Iwona reminds us, Theory and Exercise of Conservation of Contemporary Art, Archetype, 2010). Information technology is also happening at universities. The netherlands recently funded PhD and post-doctoral work that places emphasis on qualitative also equally quantitative enquiry. I for one am looking forrard to the Contemporary Fine art:Who Cares? conference this June. It will be interesting to encounter how far nosotros ve come since the seminal 1997 conference Modernistic Art: Who Cares?

7) Submitted past Hiltrud Schinzel, March 01, 2010 at 3:07AM
Thank you, Iwona for mentioning the Militarist book. Recently a seminary (see www.hornemann-institut.de) succeeded the 2009 activity and, every bit Ursula Schädler Saub told me, more than are planned to follow. In the course of this recent seminary I fabricated an unorthodox attempt to bargain with problems mentioned in the discussion: It consisted in linking creative thinking of an artist of the 20th century axiomatic past his painting-technique with that of gimmicky artists working in new media equally well as producing interactive projects. Analogies were made transparent by conservation bug shown in a example history of one paradigmatic work of the prior artist. Artistic thinking and resulting theoretical conservation problems in these cases were non far from each other although the works had a temporal distance of almost 100 years. It would be interesting to dig further in this comparative research of artist s thinking visualized in technology and medium in 20th and 21st century and, hopefully, detect consequences for conservation.

As Iwona Szmelter pointed out, 20th century - although there are ancestors from 18th century onwards is the cradle of the problems that force us to review traditional conservation methods. The pair of balances history aesthetics from mid 20th century onwards had turned towards history and the sciences, simply there are many signs for a shift now every bit ane can encounter in contempo publications (Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas and Uncomfortable Truths edited past Alison Richmond und Alison Bracker Elsevier 2009; Art, Conservation and Authenticities edited by Erma Hermens and Tina Fiske, Archetype Publications 2009). Alois Riegl's (1858 - 1905) aims to respect the viewer's needs transparent by his value system (Erinnerungswerte= values of remembrance, Gegenwartswerte = values of the present), which he expressed in Der moderne Denkmalkultus in 1903 are slowly reaching conservation word. It is interesting that Riegl oftentimes used then fashionable economic terms and language. Therefore I practise not think the question restoration what for is a rhetorical one if we add the specification: what for in history, what for now, stressing a sociological betoken of view. Comparisons might exist enlightening. Looking forward to professional response in this relaxed and coincidental way!

eight) Submitted past Sarah Hillary, March 01, 2010 at 2:58PM
Is one of the reasons that there can be a more collaborative approach today, is because the roles in Museums accept shifted and merged somewhat? In the past the conservator was responsible for the preservation of artworks, merely now it is becoming the responsibility of everyone in a Museum, directly or indirectly. Also interpretation and admission, which were previously the office of curators and registrars, are now of import parts of the chore of the conservator.

9) Submitted by Frank Hassard, March xiii, 2010 at 9:47AM
In my feel, objects enter museums (incl. galleries etc.) considering they are already assigned cultural value fifty-fifty though this may be implicit. Quite oftentimes the conservator comes to the table later. In art advent, substance, meaning and function likewise as design, process and context are all aspects of authenticity. In conservation, all interventive treatment finer involves re-creating the piece of work of fine art; the intangible (i.east. values etc.) adheres to the tangible and a new historical document is created in the process. For this reason, at that place is no such thing as irreversible treatment. Information technology is therefore of import to consider how the conservator, the museum and or gallery, contributes to a work of arts actuality. It is a productive non reductive process.

All cultures preserve that which they value near. Nevertheless values are by their very nature intangible. For this reason intangible heritage should be understood as the over arching paradigm through which all heritage is understood. Unfortunately, this situation is reversed throughout much of the Westward which relies too much on the veracity of the tangible object; the matter over and above the thing signified. The intangible is only considered afterwards. Consequently, museums (and such like) try to preserve tangible heritage and make cultural connections from an substantially non-participatory perspective. Rarely do they consider their own ethnicity in the process. This is why the museum and related practices in my view need to exist radically reformed in the name of preserving cultural heritage proper.

x) Submitted by Hiltrud Schinzel, March 24, 2010 at ix:24AM
concerns comments of Sarah Hillary, March 01, 2010 at 2:58PM and Frank Hassard March xiii, at ix:47AM Sarah Hillary's impressions of merging tasks are mine too, yet to get expert results we demand to sympathize more than of the aims and methods of other professions and they demand to know more almost weather condition and limits of our tasks.

In my experience exchange is easier with natural scientists if you contact someone interested and/or specialized in conservation problems. So you tin can enquire your question and get or cannot get an answer because these sciences are more objective . This coincides with Tom Learner's mentioning that more persons have studied conservation plus some field of science today, run across discussion to a higher place.

The cooperation with the humanities and philosophy particularly is more tricky considering many of these disciplines are younger and exercise not rely on abstract systems like mathematics as well-nigh difficult sciences do. Therefore their methods are rather time-spring and prone to external influences similar fashion, politics etc. Existence an art historian myself I am allowed such self-criticism, which does not mean that restorers tin can do without studying methods and knowledge of the humanities. Furthermore often at that place nevertheless are issues of hierarchy between fine art-historian and restorer in the museum field.

The necessity to combine knowledge of both, sciences and humanities, became most transparent and evident by bug with conserving contemporary fine art, whose handling documents what Frank Hassard describes every bit productive process; a very adequate description in up to appointment language. Interactive art very oftentimes is dependant on the productivity of the viewer. The restorer is a producer too, although he/she would similar to believe in his/her ability to switch into a neutral observer before treatment of a piece of work. All the same, equally soon as he/she touches a work, his/her intangible evaluation becomes tangible and visible. Applied acting mutates possibility into fact. Therefore restorer southward doing concerns the tangible as well as the intangible directly, whereas the supporting academic fields mostly work descriptive, i.e.indirectly. The fact that keeping altitude to contemporary art is not possible is positive for conservation ethics, as it contributes to the restorer due south consciousness of the impact and value of his/her interference. On the one hand our work cannot exist objective, even if one tries to adapt the methods of difficult sciences, on the other it should not become arbitrary, if guided past humanities simply. Contemporary art asks for a combination of the best of both academic fields and in this function restoration is a very special mediating productive process every bit Frank Hassard pointed out. The discussion clearly shows how very complicated it is to balance the discrepancy between scientific aspects of material and intangible value systems of the humanities. Yet, efforts can add to the profession'south condition and influence.

xi) Submitted by Frank Hassard, April 1, 2010 at 12:11pm
The conservation profession (in terms of ethics, codes, guidelines etc.) emerged historically within the institutional sectors of the Due west namely museums and galleries and such similar. Information technology was in the kickoff quarter of the last century that methods derived from the difficult material sciences, which were formerly applied in archaeological conservation, became more widely used in fine art and later furniture and decorative art conservation. In paintings conservation Cesare Brandi was a key figure in formulating a way to legitimize a neutral approach to the reintegration of losses; sometimes referred to by the term anastylosis (a term derived from architectural conservation). This became the basis of what ane might phone call the archaeo-museological approach which formally defined and detailed the exercise of restoration in the post-WWII period. In brusque, it was an endeavour to deny any metaphysical correlation between object and culture and, past extension, betwixt object and restorer in the act of intervention. This approach was a reductive scientific ideal that the international heritage community has challenged since the 1970s especially since the 1990s. The main trouble is that many objects in our collections do retain a loftier level of metaphysical connexion to diverse cultural practices effectually the world but which has been denied space past the cocky-surrendering aestheticism that underpins the conservation profession. Conservation ethics were created in order to preserve cultural heritage (slow down rate of deterioration, manage change, reversible and minimal intervention etc.) out of respect for the work of fine art, but did not adequately take into account the cultural contexts inside which the field operates. In other words, the field was blinded past its self-enclosed character, to civilisation; a concept which refers to people not objects. As a issue of this vital omission, the conservation profession, it can exist argued, does not really preserve cultural heritage proper.

This raises some important questions with regards to the preservation of contemporary art (which I must acknowledge is not my area of speciality): for example, tin contemporary fine art be considered as cultural heritage? Either way, information technology seems to me that that the whole idea of conservation has moved from an in-looking, metaphysically reductive form of do to an outward-looking, metaphysically productive form of exercise which is reflected throughout the give-and-take above. Information technology is my belief that the way in which the field makes this transition is central to its time to come success.

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Source: https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/24_2/dialogue.html

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