In a Huffington Post piece entitled, “Miley Cyrus Strikes Again, or the Destruction of the Pendulum,” Julia Friedman discusses the removal of Dale Eldred’s 1973 sculpture from its site on the campus of Grand Valley State University after students appropriated it for a reenactment of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video due to its close resemblance to a wrecking ball. Friedman notes that the artist Richard Serra (who knows something about this from personal experience) believes that the removal of a site-specific work is equivalent to its destruction. Thus Eldred’s sculpture which is now in storage might be considered as “destroyed”. This is a large question we might ponder– although in a year or so when no one will be inclined to recreate Cyrus’ video, the sculpture could be reinstalled in its site. But what of the immediate damage that might have been inflicted on the sculpture when students climbed aboard it and swung?
Author: Rebecca Rushfield
Symposium on "Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement"
Conservators who work with European sculpture may be interested in the symposium, “Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement” that will take place at the University of Vermont on October 18, 2013. The papers will cover such topics as how marble and stone were chosen and supplied for sculpture, how large blocks of marble and weighty sculptures were transported, and the properties of stucco that made it a choice material for sculpture. For more information, one can contact Kelley Helmstutler, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Vermont, kelley.didio@uvm.edu
The shock of a damaged masterpiece
An organization called Art To Fight Violence placed a full page ad in the September 11, 2013 issue of The New York Times. The organization is auctioning donated works of art and distributing the monies raised to a variety of charities that benefit people who have been impacted by violence around the globe. A photo of the “Mona Lisa” riddled with bullet holes and knife slashes takes up the majority of the page. As print ads are carefully planned to capture the casual reader’s attention, it should be helpful for those in conservation public outreach to know that a damaged masterpiece is still thought to hold the power to shock and move.
Was this any way to deal with a damaged work of art?
In the “F.Y.I.” column of the Metropolitan Section of the Sunday September 8, 2013 New York Times, a reader noted that when he was recently wandering though northern Central Park, he came across a piece of what looked to be Jenny Holzer’s 1989 sculpture “Benches” in an area that is used for storing old trees, mulch, and rocks. A Times investigation uncovered the fact that in December 1989, the artwork which had been damaged by vandals “beyond immediate repair” was taken to a storage facility to be dealt with at a later date. The piece was forgotten for years until it was moved outdoors. Because of the investigation, the piece will be returned to Holzer’s studio. Was this any way to deal with a damaged work of art?
Trying to Understand the Motivation of Vandals
According to an article by Ted Mann in the August 24-25, 2013 issue of the Wall Street Journal (“Ruined After Sandy, Subway Art Is Saved”), Bill Brand’s “Masstransiscope,” a 33-year old zoetrope-like art installation in an abandoned subway station that can be viewed by passengers on the B and Q trains as they pass by, has been restored. It was vandalized in October 2012 when the New York City subway system was shut down in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy. I am trying to understand the motivation of the vandals who had to expend great effort to get to the work and damage it. How do we get people to feel that public art is there for their benefit and thus get them to protect it rather than damage it? (Read more here)
So many issues discussed in one short article
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.
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.
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.