According to a short piece in the “Antiques” column of the October 14, 2011 issue of The New York Times, the anaylsis and treatment of Alfaro Siqueiros’ mural, “American Tropical” is nearing completion and an interpretive center for the mural will open next fall. Due to its controversial political subject matter, the people who commissioned the mural had it painted over immediately after it was completed.
Siqueiros had said that his mural should never be restored as the evidence of censorship was part of its history. How should/do conservators proceed in situations in which the work they are hired to do is in contradiction to the desires of the artist?
Category: Conservation in the News
Conservation affects many aspects of the world. This category tracks stories about conservation in the media.
Gay Myers/Lance Mayer book on American painters’ technique receives high praise
After three decades of research, Gay Myers and Lance Mayer have published their book, “American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860”. Eve M. Kahn writing in the “Antiques” column of the October 14, 2011 issue of The New York Times gives the book high praise and tempts us with snippets.
Moving Mountains
Conservators (particularly those who work with contemporary art) know just how complicated it can be to fabricate, install and maintain an oversized work of art. An article in the October 8, 2011 issue of the New York Times, titled “How Do You Move a 340-Ton Artwork? Very Carefully”, provides the public with a glimpse into the logistical decisions and manpower requirements necessary to bring Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
So many Q-tips
On October 5th, architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron unveiled their design for the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory. Their concept involves the excavation of the layers of paint, plaster and wallpaper which have built up since 1881– to quote Herzog, to “explore the very act of transformation, the evolution of an important structure as it is seen and used and worn down by one generation after another”. The $200 million restoration is in progress and will not be completed until 2015. One interesting fact about the project that was published in The New York Times on October 6th, is that 280,000 Q-tips were used in the cleaning of one of the rooms.
X-radiographs as art
The Sunday October 2, 2011 arts section of the New York Times reproduces four photographs of x-radiographs that David Maisel took during a residency at the Getty Research Institute. The photos, part of a project entitled “History’s Shadow”, were produced by a process that involved manipulation of the tones and colors, and are presented as works of art in themselves rather than as aids to understanding the works that were x-rayed. They are quite beautiful and may inspire conservators to look with different eyes at the x-radiographs they encounter in their work.
Western Science Seeks Cultural Knowledge
Baskets are important not only amongst the Cahuilla, but for Native peoples throughout the west and northwest regions of the United States. It seems fitting, then, to focus the eyes of conservators on baskets and other items made from plant materials in the collections of the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum. The online exhibition Western Science Seeks Cultural Knowledge demonstrates the kinds of discoveries that UCLA/Getty graduate conservation students made in the research, investigation and treatment of cultural objects and sandals in the Museum collections.
Libyan World Heritage Sites Safe
The recent conflict in Libya called for an emergency assessment mission to determine the cultural heritage situation. Since no independent confirmation about damage and looting had occurred thus far, two organizations involved in international protection of cultural heritage, Blue Shield and the International Military Cultural Resources Work Group, organized a mission to meet with Libyan officials and get a first hand impression of the situation.
The mission has visited the National Museum in Tripoli as well as two World Heritage archaeological sites: Sabratha and Leptis Magna. All three are closed to the public now, but well guarded. The team was very impressed by the excellent precautionary measures of the local museum professionals and archaeologists. The most important pieces were brought into the storage rooms or hidden vaults. Welding exterior doors proved to be much better protection than locks. Very important at the large archaeological sites was the intense collaboration with the local population, e.g. sheep herders.
- National Museum in Tripoli: no losses, nearly no damage.
- In Leptis Magna Gaddafi militia tried to take control of the site
but without success. Everything is safe. - In Sabratha the Army Brigade 219 that occupied posts from early July until the 17th of August. This caused minor damage from small arms and anti aircraft fire and from the use of heavy equipment on site. The perimeter fence was broken down in many places.
Reports from other places in Libya were mixed. Among the bad news is that the museum in Misurata has been severely damaged, but it is not known if pieces are missing. The museum director was kidnapped by the Gaddafi militia shortly before the collapse and his fate is unknown.
Overall it has to be stated that there is no evidence of organized looting in the museums or sites.
The final detailed and illustrated report will be published online next week on the web site of Blue Shield Austria: http://www.kulturgueterschutz.at.
About the mission
Planning this mission began this spring, but commenced in earnest only after the cessation of active hostilities in Tripoli. There were a number of problems to be solved with regard to official approval from the Transitional Government for the team to travel to Libya, not to mention the logistical problems of travel to and within Libya. The team flew to Djerba, Tunisia, on Tuesday, 27 September and on 28th they traveled by car to Tripoli. Today, September 30, the team has returned by the same route.
The team:
- Karl von Habsburg, President, Association of National Committees of the BlueShield (ANCBS)
- Drs Joris Kila, Chairman, International Military Cultural Resources Work Group (IMCuRWG); University of Amsterdam
- Support provided by:
- Dr. Hafed Walda (archaeologist from Misurata, currently working at King’s College in London)
- Home base (background research, coordination, communication):
- Dr. Thomas Schuler, President, Disaster Relief Task Force (DRTF) International Council of Museums
Media contact:
Dr. Thomas Schuler
Tel: +49 371 2601007
Fax: +49 371 2600743
Skype: drthschuler
Email: th.schuler@t-online.de
Media Release – September 30, 2011
by the Association of the National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS)
and the International Military Cultural Resources Working Group (IMCuRWG)
Dead Sea Scrolls come to life on the Web
Discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been available for viewing only in a museum in Israel…until now.
Thanks to some expert digital photography and a project set up by Google, high-resolution photos of five of the seven original Dead Sea Scrolls can now be seen online. The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Web site offers a peek into the distant past, allowing people to view and examine the scrolls in fine detail.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20112167-76/dead-sea-scrolls-come-to-life-on-the-web/#ixzz1ZBvJpX9Y
Life & Death in the Pyramid Age: The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy’ at Carlos Museum
Excerpt from AJC:
Recently conserved after almost a century-long hibernation in storage, [a mummy] is the star of and impetus for the museum’s “Life & Death in the Pyramid Age: The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy.” Egyptologist Peter Lacovara conveys the historical, religious and geographical context for the prized artifact through tomb objects from the Carlos collection — many acquired with this show in mind — loans, large-scale photographs and informative texts.
The exhibition designers created a particularly dramatic tableau by transforming a gallery doorway into the entrance to a tomb. The visitor walks through it, just as an ancient Egyptian bringing an offering for the deceased would have done, to reach the offering plate (one of the new Carlos acquisitions), which sits in front of an actual “false door” door of a tomb.
Off to one side, a wooden sculpture — a repository for the tomb-owner’s soul — “watches” the proceedings through a backlit slit in the wall.
The video about the mummy’s conservation, definitely a highlight, recounts the lengths to which a multidisciplinary team went to reassemble and secure the severely deteriorated mummy — a prospect a daunted conservator described as the equivalent of piecing together a bag of crushed potato chips.
In some respects, conservation was uncharted territory. The mummy represents a period in which Egyptians were still experimenting with the process and conventions of mummification — before they arrived, for example, at the stiff prone position to which we are accustomed.
It’s fascinating to see how creatively Carlos conservator Renee Stein and colleague Mimi Leveque solved structural problems inherent in putting a 4,000-year-old Humpty Dumpty back together, and how they made use of discoveries Lacovara reported from the field during the process. (Hint: ears and mittens.)
Art materials can sometimes be difficult to come by
An article in the September 12, 2011 issue of The Wall Street Journal (“Virginia’s Slim Pickings for Smokers”, by Betsy McKay) describes the trials and tribulations that artist Xu Bing went through to obtain the 500,000 cigarettes he needed to create an installation in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Cigarettes are still commonly available –at least in small quantitites– and Xu’s work, “Tiger Carpet” is to be burned, so a conservator some years from now will not have to worry about finding replacement cigarettes. However, Xu’s problems are a reminder for conservators that common materials can one day be difficult to come by.