Author: Rebecca Rushfield

In the March 13, 2014 issue of The New York Times, David W, Dunlap writes about the rebirth of the Williamsburg Savings Bank building in Brooklyn which was built in 1875 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (“From Floor to Grand Dome, Landmark is Restored”). It was abandoned for more than thirty years before it was turned into an event space by developers who also have plans for the adjacent parcels of land. The owners spend $27 million dollars to salvage the building and undertook a painstaking restoration of the interior. Those well-funded profit seeking owners did what no not-for-profit organization could have afforded to do.

In a short article in the February 28, 2014 issue of The Wall Street Journal (“The Herculean Task of Moving Mike Kelley”), Anna Russell discusses the complex process of deinstalling, packing, and loading onto trucks the more than 200 works from the Mike Kelley retrospective that had been at MoMA PS1 in New York and was moving on to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. There is no mention of a conservator among the thirty-four workers involved in the project. Shouldn’t there have been at least one them there?

Yesterday, March 4, 2014, in the “Arts, Briefly” column of The New York Times, I read a short piece by Elisabetta Povoledo entitled “Parts of Pompeii Crumble Under Heavy Rains”. The title and content seemed so familiar—as if I had read them before. There was a good reason for this. I had—in December 2010 and December 2011 and November 2012 and April 2013. If the Italian cultural and archaeological authorities do not take things in hand, I am bound to be reading the same story during or after next year’s rainy season.

As a February 19, 2014 New York Times article, “Behind the Smashing of a Vase” by Nick Madigan notes, Miami artist Maximo Caminero destroyed a vase by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei that was on display at the Perez Art Museum Miami in a protest against Miami museum policies. Caminero was arrested and charged with criminal mischief. The irony of this situation is that one of Weiwei’s earlier works involved the destruction of a vase. The difference in the situations seems to be that Weiwei owned the vase he destroyed and Caminero did not. As conservators should we not be troubled by the implication that ownership is what determines whether an object can or can’t be destroyed.

When looked at together, two recent articles in The New York Times inspire one to think about the question of how meaning and integrity are related to context and how they are affected when an architectural element or interior decoration is separated from that context. In the February 13, 2014 article, “Building May Be Lost, But Its Façade Will Live (In Storage Someplace)”, David W. Dunlap notes that the sixty-three cast copper-bronze panels comprising the façade of the American Folk Art Museum are to be dismantled and stored although they could be re-erected on a free-standing armature in the same location. He quotes architect Elizabeth Diller as saying, “Facades and buildings and their organization, their logic, are tied entirely together. You either have the integrity of a building with all its intelligence and connected ideas, or you don’t.” In the February 4, 2014 article, “At Four Seasons, Picasso Tapestry Hangs on the Edge of Eviction”, David Segal quotes architecture critic Paul Goldberger saying about the Picasso curtain “Le Tricorne” that was to be removed from its place in the Seagram Building, “It can’t be treated like just another picture that happens to be hanging on that wall and could be interchanged with something else. By virtue of years of being there, it has the effective status of being part of the architecture even if it’s not part of the architecture.”

Sometimes weeks can pass by without an article in the general press related to conservation or the technical aspects of works of art. Then, there are the days when it seems that everyone is writing on those topics. The last two days of January 2014 and the first day of February 2014 were such days. On them, The New York Times published the following articles:
 “At Restored Landmark in Times Square, Mixing ‘Brash and Beautiful”, by David W. Dunlap, January 30, 2014
“Salvage Drive for Rare Jewish Mural in Vermont”, by Jess Bidgood, January 31, 22014
“Triage for Treasures After A Bomb Blast”, by Sarah Gauch, February 1, 2014
 
And, not to be left out, The Wall Street Journal published :
“The Dynamic Duo Saving Pompeii”, by Jennifer Clark, January 31, 2014
“Da Vinci Code Red: Restorations Spur Debate”, by Inti Landauro
 Plus, on January 31st, each newspaper published a review of the film, “Tim’s Vermeer”, a documentary about one man’s attempts to recreate Johannes Vermeer’s methods and techniques.

A January 21, 2014 National Public Radio “All Things Considered” piece focused on the “L’Arte Aiuta l’Arte” (“Art Helping Art”) program of the Italian Cultural Ministry in which the proceeds from  ticket sales for performances taking place at state museums and monuments are dedicated to the restoration of Italy’s visual arts heritage. The public relations gimmick—people can vote on Facebook for the one of eight works selected by the government  which they feel is most deserving of restoration. The money raised from the performances will be used for the conservation of the contest winner. While this program may well make Italians more aware of their cultural heritage and inspire concern for its impending loss, does it not have the potential to turn cultural heritage into a popularity contest a la “American Idol” or  to induce general feelings of despair  as for every work that receives treatment there are seven works of equal importance that will not?

The January 2, 2014 issue of The Wall Street Journal contains a short article by Stuart Isacoff about the Laboratorio di restauro dei fortepiano of the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori , entitled “Where the Craftsmen Are Women”.  In it, Isacoff expresses surprise that all of the restorers in that lab are women. Perhaps in Italy or perhaps in the sub-specialty of musical instrument conservation men still predominate, but in the U.S. today conservation has become for better or worse a female profession.

I recently received a fund raising pitch from the Museum of Modern Art which offered me a chance to win lunch and a look behind the scenes of the museum — a visit to the storage rooms full of extraordinary works, a state-of-the art conservation lab where artworks are treated, and the imaging studio where artworks are photographed–  if I donated at least $25 before the end of 2013.  It made me wonder why, if at least this museum views its conservation department as  valuable for fundraising, aren’t museum conservators paid at anywhere near the same level as fundraisers.