Perfectly Damaged Works of Art

The summer exhibit at the Derek Eller Gallery (605 West 27th Street, NYC) is a show entitled “Perfectly Damaged” which features works of art “born from the collision of creation and decreation”. To quote further from the gallery’s press release, they have been “stretched, stained, torn, kicked, dragged, cut, burnt, metled, sprayed, shot, and tossed in a blender”. As conservators we might wonder what (if anything) this celebration of present damage will mean in the future when these works come to require conservation due to unintended damage.