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?
Category: Conservation in the News
Conservation affects many aspects of the world. This category tracks stories about conservation in the media.
Why would anyone be surprised that all of the conservators in a lab are women?
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.
Shouldn't museum conservators be paid like museum fund raisers?
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.
It’s Really Not That Funny
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.
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?
A Living Legacy of Preserving Art
e d i t o r’s n o t e from 
The holiday season now fast approaching is that time of year when Hollywood’s better films are released. One that I particularly hope to catch is The Monuments Men, which features an all-star cast headed by George Clooney and Matt Damon. Clooney has not only directed and co-produced the film, but co-adapted its screenplay from the bestselling book published in 2009 by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.
The film and book tell the remarkable true story of a team of American and British art conservators, historians, and curators who worked fast, and effectively, to protect European artworks and monuments during and just after World War II. Clooney bears an uncanny physical resemblance to the man he plays, George Stout (1897-1978), who, before the war, had headed the
groundbreaking conservation department at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum.
Read the rest of Peter Trippi’s Editor’s Note column from the November/December issue of Fine Art Connoisseur here.
About Editor Peter Trippi
Peter Trippi has edited Fine Art Connoisseur since 2006. Previously, he directed New York’s Dahesh Museum of Art, which specialized in 19th-century European academic painting and sculpture; before that, he held senior posts at the Brooklyn Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art. In 2002, Phaidon Press published Trippi’s monograph J W Waterhouse, which reassesses the Victorian painter best known for his Lady of Shalott at Tate Britain. Trippi went on to co-curate the Waterhouse retrospective that appeared 2008-2010 in the Netherlands, England, and Canada. He is currently president of Historians of British Art, former chair of the Courtauld Institute of Art’s U.S. Alumni Group, and a board member of the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, American Friends of Attingham, and Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation.
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?