In the December 2013/ January 2014 issue of the fashion magazine “W” , dubbed “The Art Issue”, there is s a small feature entitled “Weapons of Art Destruction” which enumerates ten different objects and substances (including a hammer, spray paint, oil paint, urine, and a shotgun) that were used in the destruction of works of art. The tone of the piece is humorous, even a bit mocking. Unfortunately, the destruction of works of art is really not that funny.
Author: Rebecca Rushfield
Why must the media stereotype?
In an otherwise informative article about Lois Price and the conservation of the cultural heritage of Iraq (“Monuments Woman”, The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2013), Melik Kaylan says about Price, “At first glance, you wouldn’t associate her with intrepid forays into troubled regions, she being a petite bookish woman of a certain age with a precise manner. But she is today’s incarnation of the Monuments Men tradition…”.
Then, in an article about the restoration of St. Anselm’s Church in the South Bronx (“Bringing Back the Artistic Beauty of a 19th Century Church”, The New York Times, December 9, 2013), David Gonzalez quotes conservator R. Dario Cano as saying, “I had a chance to work on a church in Berlin and another one in France. I decided to stay in the Bronx.”
Why must the media promulgate stereotypes with its surprise that a conservator is not an Indiana Jones type or that there is a church interior worthy of restoration in a place other than Europe?
Is it ignoble to spend one’s life caring so much for objects?
The 2013 novel, The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt may tell the story of how a terrible tragedy— a terrorist bombing in The Metropolitan Museum of Art which kills his mother— affects the life of a thirteen year old boy. However, due to the fact that a major character is furniture restorer, it also happens to provide a good introduction to the examination, repair, and replication of antique furniture.
There is one bit of dialogue which occurs late in the story which may hit home for any conservator who has been called upon to justify his calling:
“I suppose it’s ignoble to spend your life caring so much for objects.”
“Who says?”
“Well—“ , turning from the stove—“it’s not as if we’re running a hospital for sick children down here, let’s put it that way. Where’s the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? “
Is the only moral career choice one in which you directly help people? Why should it be wrong to care so much about objects?
It shouldn’t be one or the other, but both working together
In her New York Times article, “A Real Pollock? On This, Art and Science Collide” (November 25, 2013), Patricia Cohen writes about the dispute between connoisseurs and forensic scientists about whether the painting, “Red, Black and Silver” (owned by Ruth Kligman) can be attributed to Jackson Pollock. It is a contentious issue and a positive attribution would mean an additional millions of dollars in value. Forensic analysis of fibers and other substances including polar bear hairs found on the painting placed its creation in Pollock’s home. However, Francis V. O’Connor, editor of the Pollock catalogue, says that this does not definitively establish that it was Pollock who created it there and argues that the shapes, compositional devices, and linear rhythms of this painting bear no relationship to those of any other work by Pollock. When it comes to attribution, it shouldn’t be one or the other but connoisseurs and forensic experts working together.
The difficult philosophical questions never go away
In his essay, “Damage Control” (Harper’s Magazine, December 2013), Ben Lerner raises the touchy subject of the relationship between art and money. Focusing on acts of vandalism to works of art carried out by people who say they are artists, Lerner confronts us with the fact that vandalism that increases the dollar value of a work of art is not considered vandalism. Thus, when the Chapman Brothers purchased a suite of Goya’s “Los Caprichos” etchings, “reworked and improved” them, and sold them for $26,000 a print, they were creating art, while if my neighbor were to allow her fifteen year old son who enjoys making art to draw on the same set of prints, their value would be decreased and his act would be considered vandalism. If a conservator were to be given both sets of prints and not told anything about them, would that conservator feel that both sets required intervention?
Conference on "Conservation and Its Contexts" to be streamed live
As part of the Mellon Research Initiative of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Jim Coddingto, Chief Conservator of The Museum of Modern Art has organized a conference on “Conservation and Its Contexts” which will take place on Saturday December 7, 2013 between 10am and 5pm. The conference will examine the emerging interactions between conservation and associated disciplines including art history, archaeology, and ethnography. The speakers will be Noemie Etienne, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Fine Arts; Michael Gallagher, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Fernando Dominquez Rubio, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, UC-San Diego; and GlennWharton, Clinical Associate Professor of Museum Studies, NYU.
For those who cannot attend in person, the conference will be streamed live at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/events/livestream.htm
If you're going to be in Chicago in mid-February…
There will be sessions of particular interest for conservators at the 2014 annual meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the College Art Association (CAA), both of which are to take place in Chicago in February—the CAA from February 12-15 and the AAAS from February 13- 17.
At the AAAS meeting on February 14th from 10:00- 11:30am there will be a session on “Preserving Our Cultural Heritage: Science in the Service of Art”, organized by Nicholas Bigelow and Leonor Sierra of the University of Rochester and from 1:00- 2:30pm there will be a session on “Reconstructing and Deconstructing Paintings: Innovations At and below the Surface”, organized by Francesca Casadio of The Art Institute of Chicago and Katherine Faber of Northwestern University.
At the CAA Meeting on February 12th from 12:30- 2:00pm there will be a “Learning to Look Workshop” on the technical aspects of Claude Monet’s Paintings to be held in the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago (which I have organized) and from 2:30- 5:00pm there will be a session on “Secrets of the Old Masters: Materials, Manuals, and Myths” organized by Kristin Renee deGhetaldi and Brian Baade of the University of Delaware. On February 15th at 9:00am, there will be a Public Art Dialogue on “Vandalism, Removal, Relocation, Destruction: The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence”, organized by Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame.
The allure of the damaged
In the recently published novel, “Asunder” by Chloe Aridjis (Mariner Books), Marie, the main character, is a guard in the National Gallery in London where her great-grandfather had been a guard. As the novel progresses, Marie becomes increasingly fascinated by the craquelure in the paintings’ surfaces. Are people in general more attracted to the damaged work of art than to the perfect and whole?
Is all art worth preserving?
In the October 18, 2013 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Clemens Bonsdorf wrote about a preservation dilemma (“Norway Debates Demolishing Picassos”). Norway’s Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs has recommended the demolition of two Brutalist style buildings that were damaged by terrorist bombings in 2011. However, those buildings contain site-specific murals designed by Picasso and executed by Carl Nesjar. While some contend that the murals—the first done by Picasso in that technique—are of historic importance, others are of the belief that “not everything that Picasso created was great and the works Nesjar applied for Picasso are not worth keeping”. It is doubtful that anyone believes that every work of art ever created is worth preserving. The question is who gets to decide which works are not.
What if the artist’s intention is in conflict with the owner’s desire to preserve the work of art?
In October 15, 2013 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Lee Rosenbaum wrote about Anselm Kiefer’s last minute interventions to his works days prior to the opening of his show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (“A New Art Partnership”). Among the things Kiefer did was sweep up gravel that had fallen from one of his works. Rosenbaum noted that Kiefer “likes his works to crumble, weather and deteriorate, all of which stops when they are acquired by preservation minded collectors and museums.” We often speak about “the artist’s intention”, but what is the right thing to do when the artist’s intention and the owner’s wishes are in conflict?