Sometimes there is an article on conservation published in the popular press that raises so many important issues that it becomes an ideal jumping off point for discussion. “A Greek Goddess Gets A Makeover,” by Inti Landauro (Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2013) (read here) is such an article. In less than half a page of text, it makes one consider the questions of when does an incorrect restoration become an integral part of a work’s identity; who should decide how a work will look after a restoration; and what are the implications for conservation of the existence of organizations like the French Association for the Respect of Artistic Heritage’s Integrity.
Year: 2013
NEW- From the INCCA-NA blog: "The Second Annual AIC Great Debate: Perspectives from Participant Jessica Ford."
This entry was originally posted on the INCCA-NA blog, and is being re-posted here with permission. To read the original entry, please go to http://incca-na.org/aic-great-debate/
Jessica Ford is a graduate fellow in paintings conservation at Winterthur/ University of Delaware. She is working this summer at the Dallas Museum of Art, and she will spend her third-year internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Kristin Adsit and The Clock stand by as Richard McCoy explains the debate format.
What was I thinking when I agreed to do the Great Debate? I asked myself this question countless times after the agreement was made. Instinctually, I knew I’d miss out on something important if I didn’t take part, this thought being fed primarily by the fact that it was the one and only Richard McCoy who had asked me to join in. Also, this was my first AIC meeting, so it was the only time I’d be able to claim in somewhat good conscience that I didn’t know what I was getting into. What I did know was that the Great Debate would involve publicly arguing about contentious issues with respected professionals in a field I am still in training to enter. It seemed best not to think about it too much, and just go for it.
For those who weren’t able to witness the event in the flesh, the second annual AIC Great Debate was held in a beautiful and intimidatingly large room featuring a cash bar. Two topics were discussed for 30 minutes each by teams that supported or opposed a stated position, and there were also question/answer sessions involving the audience. A key aspect was that the teams included individuals with varying backgrounds, who often did not personally support their assigned positions. Richard acted as moderator, expertly assisted by Laura Kubick, Kristen Adsit, and a huge ticking clock.
Smiles all around. Left to right: Jodie Utter, Rosa Lowinger, Patty Miller, yours truly at the podium, John Campbell, and Fletcher Durant.
My teammates were Fletcher Durant and John Campbell, and together we argued against the idea that “the greatest act of preservation for inherently fragile or fugitive cultural property is exhibition, even if the duration goes far beyond what is currently recommended.” Defending the statement was the impressive lineup of Rosa Lowinger, Patty Miller, and Jodie Utter. These three delivered truly inspiring arguments about how contemporary art must be made accessible to contemporary audiences, to ensure the survival of the cultural story they represent. Fragile artworks such as the Watts Towers and the artwork of Thornton Dial were cited as powerful examples. Hiding such artworks in storage was presented as elitist and more dangerous than display, considering the risks associated with overcrowding and neglect. My team and I were also called out for being too young (not such a bad insult) and naive (zing) to understand how a conservator’s practice must sometimes differ from his/her ideals.
Fletcher responded with some sass of his own, saying our elders on the opposing side were effectively leaving a trail of intentionally damaged artwork for the next generation of conservators to struggle with when they retire. He expressed the need for preventive preservation and for patience until the evolution of technology improves methods of display. In the meantime, I suggested creative use of surrogates and digital galleries to make artwork even more accessible than a physical display. John brought it all home with a final plug for the AIC Code of Ethics. What else should we need, really? I’m not one to deny the obvious, though, and the audience poll after the closing arguments was clear: the young’uns had been schooled.
Jessica, feeling slightly giddy with relief post-debate, stands beside moderator Richard McCoy.
Our discussion was followed with an even livelier and highly entertaining debate between new teams around the statement: “while volunteers used on preservation projects often allow us to accomplish more work, they undermine our capacity to regularly employ conservation and collections care professionals.” The extended question/answer session demonstrated that the audience was just as divided and passionate as those on stage. Carrie McNeal has already written a superb review of this portion of the debate here, and I hope you’ll read it! The compelling points made by both sides should not be missed.
What started out feeling like a slightly crazy decision to argue with strangers in public turned out to be a crazy good experience for an emerging conservator. I’m so proud to have taken the stage with my teammates and opponents, all terrific people that I look forward to seeing at future AIC meetings. It can be daunting to step outside one’s comfort zone in a professional setting, but that is the mission of the Great Debate. What makes it so “great” is that differing sides of prickly topics are explored at length and with good humor, breaking the ice and providing a baseline for future discussions. The good intentions of sensitivity and the excuses of passivity are magically eliminated for a few minutes. How often do we have time to do this as a group? I can’t wait to see which young conservators will take part in the next debate, helping to bring openness into the future of our field.
*All photo credits: Heather Brown
Documentary film being made on Ambassador Hotel, and long battle to preserve it
A documentary film, After 1968, is being made that highlights a 15-year struggle by preservationists to save the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and creates a “living history” of the building through interviews of local residents and those who stayed at the hotel. Camilo Silva is the director/filmmaker behind the project, and took footage of the actual demolition in 2005. The hotel, which hosted the Academy Awards as well as countless celebrities and U.S. presidents, was also the location of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. The site is now a school.
Silva is funding this project in part via Indiegogo, with the campaign ending on Saturday, August 24, 2013. Below is a press release about the project, and a trailer can be seen at www.after68.com. Silva also is featured in an interesting interview on the National Trust blog PreservationNation.
ICONIC AMBASSADOR HOTEL RISES FROM THE RUBBLE IN NEW DOCUMENTARY AFTER 68
Filmmakers Recover Legacy of Historic Hotel by Resurrecting its Demolished Past
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
In 2005 the landmark Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles became one of the most historically significant and celebrated U.S. buildings of the 20th century ever to be destroyed. Nearly a decade later, a dedicated team of documentary filmmakers intend to bring the Ambassador back to life with After 68. The feature length documentary is a gripping exposé on the dynamic history and controversial demolition of the iconic hotel. “Though the hotel’s structure is gone we are working hard to ensure that its legacy lives on. By chronicling its rich history and the emotional fight to save it from demolition, we hope to give the Ambassador its rightful place in history,” states director/producer, Camilo Silva. “This film is particularly important because it goes far beyond just recapping the history of a famous site. It will challenge audiences to think about historic preservation in new ways and question how actively we value our aging structures from the past.”
After 68 examines historic preservation through the lens of the 15-year struggle to save the Ambassador Hotel from the wrecking ball. For decades the Ambassador was the epicenter of cultural and civic life in the U.S., playing host to the Academy Awards, celebrities, international dignitaries, iconic authors, artists, scientists and every U.S. President from Hoover to Nixon. The hotel’s legendary Cocoanut Grove was one of the most sought after music venues in the world, showcasing almost every major musical act of the 20th century and launching the careers of countless stars. In 1968 the Ambassador’s fate took a dark turn when it became the site of a tragedy: the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
When the hotel closed in 1989, the Ambassador once again garnered national headlines during a dramatic battle between preservationists and the school district over the fate of the site. A heated fight ensued, quickly polarizing the community and sparking a multifaceted debate that pitted education against historic preservation. After a lengthy and costly legal battle, the board voted to demolish the hotel. “California doesn’t preserve much of their history…Tear it down and build something new, there was no interest in the preservation of it” stated Merv Griffin in his After 68 interview. Coming in at just under $600 million, the new school campus that was constructed would end up with the distinction of being the most expensive school built in U.S. history.
In the first feature film ever to turn the lens back on the Ambassador, Silva weaves together classic photography and historical footage, along with captured footage of the building’s demolition, and emotional interviews from a range of key people involved with the hotel. “As documentarians timing is critical for us because with every day that passes we are threatened with losing the oral histories that only remain within our collective memory and we want to recover them before it is too late,” says Silva.
Using first-hand accounts, After 68 demonstrates how the Ambassador Hotel’s rich history ultimately placed it between opposing cultural divides: a pawn in the power struggle between those who saw the importance of preserving our past as a means to define our future, and those who were willing to destroy it. “The Ambassador’s story marks the irrecoverable loss of an important relic of human and social history, and as filmmakers we want to educate the public about the value of protecting our past, and thereby ensure that the other Ambassadors of the world may be saved” declares Silva. This film is not only a tribute to the life and legacy of the hotel but it will also serve as an important symbol for the value of historic preservation worldwide.
For More Information Visit:
www.after68.com
Rome Prize application deadline is November 1
The American Academy in Rome is now accepting applications for the 2014 Rome Prize. Conservators are encouraged to apply for the prize.
Each year, through a national juried competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to about thirty emerging artists and scholars working in the following categories:
- Architecture
- Design
- Historic Preservation and Conservation
- Landscape Architecture
- Musical Composition
- Visual Arts
- Ancient Studies
- Medieval Studies
- Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
- Modern Italian Studies
Rome Prize winners are provided with room and board, a study or studio, and a stipend of $28,000 for 11-month winners and $16,000 for 6-month winners.
For more information and to apply, please visit the Academy website at www.aarome.org/apply.
The deadline for applications is November 1, 2013.
When preserving old “New Media”, the conservator and the equipment are equally essential
In the article, “Preserving That Great Performance”, published in the August 12, 2013 issue of The New York Times, Melena Ryzik writes about the New Museum’s XFR STN (Transfer Station) project which gives any and all artists the opportunity to have their works which now live on floppy disks, videocassettes and the like, digitized and brought back to life. While most of the project budget will be spent on the salaries of people who know how to work with obsolete equipment, the New Museum expended a great deal of effort acquiring that equipment as conservation technicians and machines are equally essential.
Thank you, David W. Dunlap
The conservation community should be grateful that there are journalists like David W. Dunlap writing for newspapers like The New York Times. Over the years, Mr. Dunlap has written numerous articles about historic preservation and conservation projects in New York City. “A Flashlight’s Peak Inside a Sculptor’s Masterpiece” (The New York Times, August 12, 2013) which describes this summer’s restoration of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Sherman Monument situated at the southeast corner of Central Park is his thirtieth conservation-related article for The Times since I started keeping count over a decade ago.
A painting is not a “crime scene in which the culprit is the chemistry of decay”
It is not a frequent occurrence that an article about conservation is published in the news section of a major newspaper. We should therefore be pleased that the article, “Fighting chemistry of decay” by Robert Lee Hotz was published in the “U.S. News” pages of the August 12, 2013 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Hotz describes in some detail both the various forensic tools used by the Getty Conservation Institute to analyze Jackson Pollock’s 1942 “Mural” and the findings of that investigation. He writes about the heroic conservators battling decay dressed in their face masks and multiple layers of gloves. What gets lost in this story,save for the last line, is that conservators make aesthetic judgments and that conservators work with works of art– not crime scenes.
Electronic Media Group Call for Papers, AIC 2014 Meeting
The Electronic Media Group (EMG) of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) is calling for papers about the preservation and conservation of electronic media for the AIC annual meeting, May 28-31st 2014 in San Francisco, California. http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=482&parentID=476
The theme of the meeting is Conscious Conservation: Sustainable Choices in Conservation Care. Topics could include sustainability of analogue media formats, migration and emulation strategies, approaches to digital asset management and preservation, care of electronic media collections, and case studies of particularly challenging artworks.
If your paper is accepted, you are expected to secure funding for your registration and travel expenses to attend the conference. See the AIC webpage for more information about grants and scholarships. – http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=474
Please join the conversation – Submit an abstract by Friday, September 13.
Abstracts will be considered for:
General Sessions – General Session papers must specifically address the meeting theme. General Session papers will be considered for one of three categories: all attendee sessions, concurrent sessions, and concurrent interactive/discussion sessions.
Specialty Sessions – Specialty Session papers are encouraged to address the meeting theme but may also explore other topics relevant to that specialty, including: Architecture, Book and Paper, Collections Care, Electronic Media, Objects, Photographic Materials, Paintings, Research and Technical Studies, Textiles, and Wooden Artifacts.
Poster Session – Posters may address the meeting theme, but presenters can also address their current research interests. Posters are presented in the Exhibit Hall.
Submission Guidelines
You may submit an abstract for a combination of the three session types: General Sessions, Specialty Sessions, or Poster Session. You may submit your presentation to only one or two sessions if you so choose.
If you are submitting a Discussion/Interactive Session, please submit only for that, since the format is not compatible with the other General Session choices
Please indicate on the abstract the session/sessions for which you want the paper to be considered.
Please limit your choices to three sessions and rank them in order of preference. For example, your preferences could be one of the following:
- 1st Choice: General Sessions, 2nd Choice: Electronic Media Specialty Session, and 3rd Choice: Book and Paper Specialty Session
- 1st Choice: Electronic Media Specialty Session, 2nd Choice: Photographic Materials Specialty Session, and 3rd Choice: Research and Technical Studies Specialty Session
- 1st Choice: Electronic Media Specialty Session, 2nd Choice: Electronic Media Specialty Group Session, 3rd Choice: Electronic Media Specialty Session
- 1st Choice: General Sessions – Concurrent Interactive/Discussion Session
How to Submit an Abstract
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words, along with a bio of no more than 300 words by Friday, September 13, 2013.
Email it to Ruth Seyler, Membership and Meetings Director, at rseyler@conservation-us.org
In the case of multiple authors please list all authors and include an email address for each author.
For further information, please contact Rose Cull – EMG Program Chair – roseemilycull@gmail.com
AIC's Committee on Sustainable Conservation Practice becomes Sustainability Committee
Why the re-branding?
When our committee was founded in 2010, we chose the name “Committee on Sustainable Conservation Practice” after much discussion and a vote. We soon noticed that people both inside and outside the committee would often get the name slightly wrong in postings, articles, and conversation. Common versions included “Committee for Sustainable Conservation Practices” and “Committee on Sustainability in Conservation Practice.”
At first, we thought that this was temporary; the name was new and would take time to get used to. But by the spring of 2013, it became clear that the confusion was proliferating each time the wrong name appeared on a website or article. Committee members would find it necessary to double-check the name (because even we were not certain we could remember it exactly), but had to be careful which site we used to double-check.
Since the name has not become effortless after 3 years, we decided the best thing to do is go with the name that most people find easier to use in conversation anyway, “Sustainability Committee.” (With an optional “the” at the beginning.)
Our email address remains the same: sustainability@conservation-us.org. Contact us if you have a question, a story, or a tip related to sustainable issues in conservation.
In Rome, the needs of historic preservation and the general population clash once again
The New York Times has reported in “Road Through Roman History Creates Colossal Headache”, by Elisabetta Povoledo (August 1, 2013) that in one of his first major actions the new Mayor of Rome, Ignacio Marino is initiating a plan to ban private traffic from the via did Fore Imperial— the multilane highway, constructed in the 1920s by Mussolini, which bisects the ancient portion of the city that stretches from the Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum. Conservators and archaeology officials are happy as this move should cut down on damage to the monuments as it will dramatically reduce vibrations and smog in the area. City residents who own an average of 970 cars for every 1,000 adults are worried about increased traffic congestion on other roads and are planning protest rallies. In old cities like Rome which have numerous archaeological excavations and monuments, such clashes between differing needs and desires are unavoidable.