Author: Ryan Winfield

Learn more about Professional Liability Insurance from Huntington T. Block

To protect yourself and your clients, American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works (AIC) offers a customized insurance program for its members through Huntington T. Block (HTB) Insurance Agency, Inc.

1. Conservators’ Property Insurance – providing coverage of others in your care, custody and control that includes a Conservators’ Errors and Omissions (E&O) sublimit

2. Business Insurance Program –  property and liability coverages will protect your business.

For the past five decades, HTB is the leading  U.S. based specialty fine art insurance broker serving the insurance needs of museums, galleries, private collectors and conservators.

If you wish, we invite you to consider seeking a competitive quote proposal from HTB.

For more details on the above insurance products please click here, or you may contact HTB’s Ever Song by phone: 800-424-8830 or by email: ever.song@aon.com. Also visit the website at www.huntingtontblock.comProfessional Liability Insurance from Huntington T. Block

AIC-CERT Mentioned in New York Times Article

Angel Franco/The New York Times
Wet prints and paintings being laid out to dry at Gallery Henoch.

“At most of the art galleries in Chelsea the water that poured in from the Hudson River during Hurricane Sandy has been pumped out, and the business of sorting out artworks — separating those that survived intact from those that didn’t, figuring out which of the damaged works are reparable — is well under way. Gallery owners no longer sound as despondent as they did last week, when they returned to their businesses in the strip between 10th and 11th Avenues, from 18th to 29th Streets, and found flooded basements, high water marks five feet up their walls, and a loss of art, documentation, catalogs and reference books, to say nothing of physical spaces that will need to be rebuilt”

Read more >>

AIC News Vol. 37, No. 6 (November 2012)

The November issue of the AIC News is now available online. Here’s what is inside:

  • Lead Article, “The Preservation and Conservation of Electronic Music: Beats, Bits, and Bytes” by Rose Cull, front page and pages 3–4
  • AIC News page 5
  • FAIC News page 8
  • JAIC News page 8
  • Conference Reports page 8
  • Allied Organizations page 8
  • Health & Safety page 10
  • New Publications page 11
  • In Memoriam page 11
  • Worth Noting page 12
  • Conservation Training Programs page 14
  • Courses, Conferences, & Seminars page 18
  • Positions, Internships and Fellowships page 22
  • Specialty Group Columns page 25

Download your printable copy of the AIC News and the Specialty Group columns here. Review past issues here.

Send submissions to Bonnie Naugle at bnaugle@conservation-us.org by November 15, 2012, to be published in the January 2013 issue.

The AIC News can always be found online at www.conservation-us.org/aicnews.

AIC-CERT to Offer Advice for Cultural Works Damaged by Hurricane Sandy at Free Public Event (New York City)

A free public presentation on recovering wet art and cultural materials will be held Sunday, November 4 from noon until 2 p.m. at The Museum of Modern Art .   Speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT), along with conservators from MoMA, will provide suggestions and answer questions on how to safely handle and dry wet materials such as paintings, drawings, books, sculpture, and other artistic and cultural works. The consortium will take place in MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Theater, in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, 4 West 54 Street, New York.

The presentation is designed to be of special help to the many artists and galleries whose works were affected by Hurricane Sandy.

MoMA has also issued a document, Immediate Response for Collections, that offers guidelines for dealing with art damaged by flooding. It offers step by step measures that can be taken to conserve artworks in a variety of mediums that have been damaged by water, including library and archive collections. It also includes a list of suppliers and emergency services that can provide some of the services listed in the document. The document is available on the Museum’s web site, MoMA.org.

 

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations.

*       Call AIC’s 24-hour assistance number at 202.661.8068 for advice by phone.

*       Call 202.661.8068 to arrange for a team to come to the site to complete damage assessments and help with salvage organization.

AIC-CERT volunteers have provided assistance and advice to dozens of museums, libraries, and archives since 2007.  AIC-CERT teams were on the ground following Tropical Storm Irene and flooding in Minot, North Dakota in 2011, the Midwest floods in 2008, and in the Galveston area following Hurricane Ike later that year. AIC-CERT members and other AIC conservators participated in an 18-month-long project in Haiti assisting with recovery of cultural materials damaged in the 2010 earthquake.

AIC-CERT is supported and managed by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (FAIC).  In 2007 and again in 2010, FAIC received funding from the Institute of Museum & Library Services to support an advanced training program for conservators and other museum professionals that resulted in a force of 107 “rapid responders” trained to assess damage and initiate salvage of cultural collections after a disaster has occurred.  They are ready to assist.

Resources and information on disaster recovery and salvage can be found on the AIC website at www.conservation-us.org/disaster.  The public can also call AIC-CERT at 202.661.8068.  Donations can be made at www.conservation-us.org/donate.

Peru’s “Sistine Chapel” shines again

In a remote Peruvian village, 3,100m up in the Andes (700m higher than Machu Picchu), sits South America’s version of the Sistine Chapel.

An elaborate Mudéjar-style ceiling and a complex scheme of murals have earned the Baroque church of San Pedro Apóstol de Andahuaylillas, located 41km west of the colonial city of Cusco, its exalted nickname. But centuries of grime, bat droppings, earthquakes and dodgy restorations have dulled the original beauty of the church. The World Monuments Fund has worked with regional and national bodies to return San Pedro Apóstol to its former splendour and draw attention to other churches on the Andean Baroque route. The organisation plans to mark the completion of the four-year, $1.5m conservation project at Andahuaylillas with a celebration in the town on 31 October.

Read full story on theartnewspaper.com >>

AIC’s 2012 Internal Advisory Group (IAG) Meeting Cancelled

Unfortunately, the 2012 IAG meeting on Nov. 3 has been canceled due to Hurricane Sandy.  The decision was made jointly by the AIC President and Executive Director. Several factors have come into play that have forced us to make this decision. They include:

  • The very real possibility that the DC metro area loses power for a prolonged period after today. We felt that we needed to make a decision while we could still notify you and if you are in Sandy’s path, that you can get the notification.
  • While the weather should be back to normal in the DC area by the end of the week, it may not be in areas further north and west, as the effects of Sandy spread.
  • Planes, trains, and yes even roads may still be in disarray by the end of the week. Airlines have moved aircraft out of the area to be affected by Sandy, and it may take a while for schedules to get back to normal.
  • We did not want any member attending IAG to feel pressured to attend IAG. Since many may be dealing with loss of power, family concerns, or additional demands from your workplace due to Sandy.
  • We would prefer to err on the side of caution.

We will be scheduling a couple of webinars that will replace IAG this year. I will be asking you what times work best for you soon.

I will be canceling all of the rooms at the IAG host hotel today.

If you could cancel your flight or train reservations, and mention that the meeting you were attending has been canceled due to Sandy.

Please send me a quick email letting me know that you received this email.

Also, feel free to email me with any questions or concerns. If you don’t receive a response from me, we have probably lost power.

I am so disappointed that we will not be together on Saturday.

Best,

Ruth Seyler | Membership and Meetings Director

t 202-661-8062 | f 202-452-9328
rseyler@conservation-us.org
www.conservation-us.org |twitter: @conservators

Hurricane Sandy Approaches the East Coast, AIC-CERT on Stand-by

With Hurricane Sandy threatening the East Coast, museums, historic sites, libraries, and archives in much of the Eastern United States will be at risk. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations. Please help make sure that staff members of collecting institutions know to contact AIC-CERT when a disaster—flooding, hurricane, earthquake, fire—has damaged collections.

  • Call AIC’s 24-hour assistance number at 202.661.8068 for advice by phone.
  • Call 202.661.8068 to arrange for a team to come to the site to complete damage assessments and help with salvage organization.

AIC-CERT volunteers have provided assistance and advice to dozens of museums, libraries, and archives since 2007. AIC-CERT teams were on the ground following Tropical Storm Irene and flooding in Minot, North Dakota in 2011, the Midwest floods in 2008, and in the Galveston area following Hurricane Ike later that year. AIC-CERT members and other AIC conservators participated in an 18-month-long project in Haiti assisting with recovery of cultural materials damaged in the 2010 earthquake.

AIC-CERT is supported and managed by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (FAIC). In 2007 and again in 2010, FAIC received funding from the Institute of Museum & Library Services to support an advanced training program for conservators and other museum professionals that resulted in a force of 107 “rapid responders” trained to assess damage and initiate salvage of cultural collections after a disaster has occurred. They are ready to assist.

Resources and information on disaster recovery and salvage can be found on the AIC website at www.conservation-us.org/disaster. The public can also call AIC-CERT at 202.661.8068.

AIC’s Ethics and Standards of Practice Committee Seeks New Member

The  is seeking to fill the vacancy of one of its five membership positions. We seek a Fellow (preferably) or PA with a specialty, geographic location, and type of practice (institutional or private) that will increase the diversity represented on the Committee.

The AIC Board of Directors sends cases of dispute involving AIC members to the E&S Committee for consideration of what if any AIC ethics and/or standards of practice are being chal­lenged or compromised. The Committee researches details of the dispute and the intent of the Code of Ethics and Standard of Practice and reports their findings to the Board for consideration of a solution.

If you are interested in serving and believe you will have the time to devote to the occasional obligations of research and delib­eration (by email and conference call), please send us a brief state­ment of your interest, the reason for your interest in serving on this committee, and what you feel you might bring to the delib­erations. Your email should be sent to Christiana Cunningham-Adams at cunningham.adams@gmail.com.

New Guidelines for IMLS’s Museums for America (MFA) Grant Program Announced

Guidelines are now available for the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Museums for America (MFA) grant program, which now includes funding for projects previously under Conservation Project Support (CPS). The MFA deadline is January 15, 2013. We encourage our members and colleagues to review the new guidelines and begin planning their application(s) as soon as possible.

There are three categories within the MFA program, including Collections Stewardship.

As stated in the guidelines, “Projects should support the care and management of collections to expand and sustain access for current and future generations. Projects should reflect systematic, holistic, logical approaches to the documentation, preservation, and conservation of tangible and digital collections to sustain and improve public access.” There is no restriction on the number of applications an institution may submit to one or more of the three categories.

To aid those interested in conservation and collections care projects, the Connecting to Collections Online Community will host a free webinar featuring Connie Bodner, IMLS senior program officer. Connie will review MFA guidelines and answer questions live on November 7 at 2:00 pm (Eastern). No prior registration is required to participate in this webinar. On November 7, simply go to the www.connectingtocollections.org and click “Access Meeting Room.”  IMLS staff will also be conducting a series of five web conferences to provide an overview of the program and answer questions.

In addition to MFA, activities once supported under the 21st Century Museum Professionals grant program have now been consolidated under National Leadership Grants. The deadline for this program is also January 15, 2013.

To further highlight their commitment to conservation, IMLS has launched a new blog series, “From the Bench.” Cosponsored by Heritage Preservation and the American Institute for Conservation, the series will provide a platform for conservators to share their work with the public and will highlight how IMLS funding has supported collections care efforts.

2013-2014 Getty Graduate Internship Program Announced

Getty Graduate Internships are offered in the four programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust—the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation—to students who intend to pursue careers in fields related to the visual arts. Training and work experience are available in areas such as curatorial, education, conservation, research, information management, public programs, and grantmaking.

Eligibility
Internships are open to students of all nationalities. Applicants must be:

  • Students currently enrolled in a graduate program leading to an advanced degree in a field relevant to the internship(s) for which they are applying, or
  • Individuals who have completed a relevant graduate degree on or after January 1, 2010, with postgraduate activities in their field, paid or unpaid.

Terms
Internships are located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles or the Getty Villa in Malibu. All positions are full-time beginning September 9, 2013. Most internships are for eight months, ending May 16, 2013. Conservation internships are twelve months, ending September 5, 2014. Grant amounts are $17,400 for eight months and $26,000 for twelve months. Support for research travel is available for up to $2,500. The grant includes health benefits, but housing and relocation funds are not provided.

Deadline
The deadline for applications is 5:00 p.m. PST, December 3, 2012.

For more information, visit www.getty.edu/foundation/funding/leaders/current/grad_internships.html.