October 2012 – Page 3 – AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse

Concerning the Ecce Homo by Borja, Spanish and Catalan Conservators Want to Report

This summer Spain has been in the limelight due to an improper intervention on a artistic work of art, executed by a painting amateur in good faith, but without the knowledge to carry out this task.

It has been a long time since we, conservators, have begun struggling for the correct conservation of our cultural heritage and today we are disconcerted as much by the constant loss that e notice everyday (what happened in Borja is not an isolated example), as by the type of news the media have transmitted to the whole world. It is sad that the majority of our society underestimate our profession.

For this reason, we would first like to clarify who we are and what we do.

The conservator:

performs an activity of public interest
differs from other professionals by his/her specific
education in conservation of cultural heritage
is not an artist nor a craftsman

It is the professional that has the training and the experience to act on cultural heritage with the aim to preserve it for future generations, always according to the guidelines of an international code of deontology. Secondly, we want to report that neither the Spanish law of historical heritage, neither the laws of the different autonomies in Spain, guarantee the correct protection of our heritage. None of these laws recognises the figure of the conservator as the only one professional with the necessary competences to diagnose and take part in all that regards the conservation of cultural heritage.

In attempting to change this situation, we claim that:

To guarantee the preservation of cultural heritage and its correct transmission to future generations our profession has to be regulated and recognised. Consequently the access and the exercise of the profession of conservator has to be governed by specific juridical norms and the professional title has to be clear-cut and recognised at State level.
The conservators, through the professional associations, have to be represented in the consultative organisms at national and autonomic level, so that they can look over the good practice and correct conservation of cultural heritage.
The system of professional and business qualifications for tenders and public bids have to be clarified, with standards specified to conservation. 4. A register of qualified conservators needs to be created.

Tourism being one of the main economic dynamics on which our country has bet to get us out of the crisis, we conservators believe that this could and should have to be a sustainable and quality cultural tourism. To preserve a unique cultural heritage, to possess an excellent preventive conservation plan and to have the best specialists to take care of our cultural heritage should have been the headlines in the national and international media. Something does not work when it looks like
a joke and the more lousy the work is, the more rewarded it is when this should inspire shame and indignation. It is essential, for any country with values, to bet for quality in our work, carried out by qualified professionals. As we have understood
that the protection of the environment is of special importance for our quality of life, society also have to be conscious of the importance of culture and the worth of its correct conservation. And it is in this field where the conservator has a great role to play. We have had enough of allowing unqualified people to work indirectly on our cultural heritage, Our heritage is in danger, lot’s save it.

Signed:

Grup Tecnic
Associacio Professional dels Conservadors-Restauradors de bens culturals de Catalunya

ACRE
Associacion de Conservadores-Restauradores de Espana

ARCC
Associacio de Conservadors-Restauradors de Catalunya

GEIIC
Grupo Espanol de Conservacion. International Institute for Conservation

Agnes Gall-Ortlik
President of the Grup Tecnic

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From the Bench: Literally Hanging by a Thread

This post is part of the “From the Bench” series celebrating the work of conservators. Part scientist, part detective, conservators work to preserve the past for the future. This series features the voices of conservators who are working on IMLS supported projects in museums across the United States. For more information about IMLS funding for museums visit www.imls.gov/applicants/available_grants.aspx.

By Meg Loew Craft, Senior Objects Conservator, Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum was delighted to receive a bequest of over 165 Southeast Asian works of art from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in 2002. The objects complement and enhance the Walters’ Asian collection, which is focused on the arts from China and Japan. This diverse gift includes manuscripts and manuscript cabinets, lacquer Buddha sculptures, painted textile banners, ivory seals, and porcelain teapots, to name a few.

The new collection was stored in a climate-controlled, secure facility, but it was offsite, which made the art works difficult to access, study, examine, and integrate into museum programming. A grant from IMLS permitted us to gain access to the Duke objects, examine each piece individually for treatment and storage needs, and correlate curatorial and conservation priorities. A symposium was held that brought Southeast Asian scholars and conservators together to discuss the Duke Collection. Focusing attention on the collection has enabled rehousing of two-thirds of the collection into onsite museum storage and encouraged creative thinking on how to incorporate the Duke objects into current and future exhibition galleries.

A new fire suppression system slated for installation in Hackerman House, our mid-1860s historic building housing Asian art, will necessitate moving the artwork out of the galleries in the near future. This is an opportunity to treat and put some of the larger sculptures and paintings on display in the museum. Information from the survey is being used to help refigure the displays for reinstallation. This is especially significant for eight to ten sculptures and paintings that are too large to fit in our in-house storage area.

Burmese sculpture of Buddhist adorant. Photo courtesy of Walters Art Museum. Accession number 25.240.

This Burmese sculpture of a Buddhist adorant, has been examined during the IMLS survey, given the highest priority by both curators and conservators, and will be treated this fall. The carved wood adorant is covered with lacquer and heavily decorated with gold leaf and glass mirror inlays. The jewelry and flames made of leather similarly adorned are the weakest elements. The leather is water-damaged, distorted and brittle. The cracked leather has been crudely repaired – it is literally hanging by a thread.

Back view shows the broken belt. Photo courtesy of Walters Art Museum. Accession number 25.240.

Without the support of IMLS, attention would not have been focused on the Duke Collection. The survey has generated excitement and exposure for these treasures. We anticipate bringing these objects to light with continuing research, online digital images, chats in the conservation window, and display in the galleries – thanks to IMLS.

If we didn’t know who did it, would we think it was vandalism?

Today, the exhibit “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” opens at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Among the pieces on view are “Dropping a Han Dynasty Vase” and “Coca-Cola Vase” in which Weiwei reinvents ancient Chinese vases by defacing or destroying them.

If a conservator were presented with a neolithic vase that had been painted over with a Coca-Cola logo and knew nothing of the context of the overpainting, would that conservator believe that he or she was dealing with vandalism that must be undone?

A Connection to Conservation is Good for a Company’s Image

Credit Suisse, the international financial services group, has a new print advertising campaign which focuses on how the company has helped its clients achieve their goals and ambitions since 1856. One of the ads highlights Maccaferri Flood Control Systems which “are helping to preserve Canaletto’s Venice”. Credit Suisse hopes to burnish its corporate image by linking itself to a preservation effort.

Don’t They Know We Exist?

[With thanks to Walter Henry who told me about this movie]

“Framed“, a made for television movie first aired on BBC One on August 31, 2009 (and released on PBS Video on January 11, 2011), is based on a children’s book by Frank Cottrell Boyce which tells the story of a young boy in the poor Welsh village of Manod whose life is changed when a convoy of trucks containing the masterworks of the National Gallery (London) arrives in his village. The National Gallery has flooded and the works are to be stored in the mines outside of town where they were sent for safekeeping during World War II. The man in charge of the operation is Quentin Lester, a curator and not one of the National Gallery’s many conservators.

Did neither Boyce nor the producers of the movie know that the National Gallery has had a Scientific Department since 1934 and a Conservation Department since 1946?

From the Bench: New Blog Series Highlights the Work of Conservators

IMLS, the American Institute for Conservation, and Heritage Preservation, welcome you to a new blog series, “From the Bench.”

Every day in museum, library, and private labs across the country, conservators go about the work of ensuring that the objects that define us are protected and preserved for the benefit of our own and of future generations. They create the first lines of defense against forces that would otherwise see the materials we hold dear reduced to unrecognizable dust, smears, or puddles and thus quieting their stories.

Conservators are first-rate scientists and detectives, working at every scale from the sub-molecular to that of massive building environments and using tools ranging from the simplest swabs to those that rival well-outfitted chemistry and physics labs anywhere. The discoveries they make—sometimes in the course of routine documentation and other times as part of a rigorous scientific protocol—reveal hidden histories and prompt new lines of inquiry every day.

It’s easy to understand why conservators say their work is gratifying. Routine and predictability are punctuated with astounding breakthroughs. Most of all, to them, their work in caring for objects is most valuable because it results in increased access and learning for now and long into the future.

IMLS is proud to support conservation work, and we are delighted to help sponsor this opportunity for conservators to tell about their work from the bench. We hope you enjoy the series.

Guidelines for grant applications for collections care and conservation projects will be available on the IMLS website in mid-October. Applications are due through Grants.gov on January 15, 2013. For more information on these and other funding programs, please visit http://www.imls.gov/applicants/available_grants.aspx.

Call for Papers: Ninth Islamic Manuscript Conference

“Manuscripts of the Mamluk Sultanate and its Contemporaries”
The Ninth Conference

Magdalene College
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
2-4 September 2013

The Islamic Manuscript Association is pleased to announce that the Ninth Islamic Manuscript Conference will be held at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, 2-4 September 2013. The Conference will be hosted in cooperation with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation and the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.

The Association invites the submission of abstracts on topics related to the study of Islamic manuscripts, particularly codicology, and the care and management of Islamic manuscript collections. Preference will be shown to submissions pertaining to the Conference’s theme: “Manuscripts of the Mamluk Sultanate and its Contemporaries”.

The Conference seeks to explore the full range of manuscript production that occurred from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries

CE: from books produced under royal patronage, such as the Mamluk and Ilkhanid Qur’an manuscripts that are almost unmatched for splendour, opulence, and size in the history of the Islamic arts of the book, to simpler, less lavish manuscripts that are no less essential to increasing our understanding of Islamic codicology and palaeography.

The Conference will be organised around the Association’s four key working areas: cataloguing, conservation, digitisation, and research and publishing; and papers falling into these broad categories will be included in the relevant panel. The Association will also consider submissions on topics that do not fall directly under the purviews of these areas but are yet concerned with scholarship on Islamic manuscripts or the care and management of Islamic manuscript collections.

This invitation is open to members and non-members of the Association. The languages of the Conference will be Arabic and English, and submissions will be accepted in both languages. The deadline for submissions is 0900 GMT on Monday, 22 October 2012.

Late submissions will not be considered. The duration of each conference paper is 30 minutes inclusive of 10 minutes of questions and answers. Please note that preference will be given to speakers who have not presented papers at the Association’s previous conferences. All authors’ research and analysis should be sufficiently advanced that they can include concrete findings in their abstracts.

The Association will pay for round-trip economy class travel to Cambridge, accommodation in Magdalene College, and College-based meals for authors whose papers are accepted. Please send an abstract of 250 words, a 250 word biographical statement, and a cover sheet, available at www.islamicmanuscript.org/conferences/2013Conference/CallForPapers.html

to the Association’s executive committee at

The Islamic Manuscript Association Ltd
c/o 33 Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1QY
United Kingdom

Fax: +44 1223 302 218
admin [at] islamicmanuscript__org

The Association’s selection committee will inform applicants of its decision by mid-November. 2012.

Charlie Walker-Arnott
Bilingual Events and Membership Coordinator
The Islamic Manuscript Association c/o The Lotus Gallery
33 Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1QY
UK

+44 1223 303177
Fax: +44 1223 302218
Mobile: +44 7711 391 940

ICOM-CC Legal Issues in Conservation Working Group

The ICOM-CC Legal Issues in Conservation Working Group is in the process of refocussing its goal to become an important network where conservators can exchange information and experience about legal issues which face them in their daily work. Please visit the website, join the group, participate in the forum. All the suggestions and experience you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Please take part in creating a new and important network for conservators worldwide.

For more information, visit www.icom-cc.org/30/working-groups/legal-issues-in-conservation

Dr. W. (Bill) Wei
Senior conservation scientist
Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed

previously:

Instituut Collectie Nederland
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage Amsterdam The Netherlands

Call for Proposals: 2013 Preservation Technology and Training Grants (PTT Grants)

The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) announces it’s 2013 Preservation Technology and Training Grants (PTT Grants) call for proposals.

The call outlines in detail how our grants program works. Briefly, we are looking for innovative proposals that develop new technologies or adapt existing technologies to preserve cultural resources. The deadline to submit a proposal to Grants.gov is November 1, 2012.

PTT Grants have funded recipients like the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum that is conducting innovative research in non-invasive documentation of complex submerged archeological sites located in turbid waters.

NCPTT supports single year projects. Grants are awarded competitively with the maximum award of $25,000. Preference is given to proposals with a one to one cash or in-kind match, and to proposals that support our research priorities. NCPTT typically receives 40 proposals and funds approximately 10 grants per year.

The 2013 grants will be awarded during the federal fiscal year 2013 (October 1, 2012-September 30, 2013). Grants are funded by annual federal appropriation and are subject to availability of funds.