Category: Emerging Conservation Professionals

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is looking for a full time sculpture conservator to care for the museum’s collection of indoor and outdoor sculpture. The successful applicant will work in the conservation lab of the Hirshhorn Museum as well as in the outdoor sculpture garden, and on both modern and contemporary sculpture.

Duties of this position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Performs a full range of technical and analytical examinations of objects to identify the materials, structure and construction; determines their condition as well as the appropriate conservation procedures to be performed.
• Performs examinations, treatments, and general maintenance of the sculpture collection of the Hirshhorn Museum, including the art works installed outdoors on the museum plaza, sculpture garden, and on long-term loan.
• Carries out and oversees the maintenance program for museum sculptures, including those installed in galleries, outdoors on the plaza and in the sculpture garden, on long-term loan to SI Affiliate members located nationwide and stored at on and off-site facilities.
• Publishes articles in recognized art and/or conservation journals and/or gives talks at international, national, regional, and or educational meetings and conferences, highlighting a treatment or a series of treatment.
• Assists with the installation of oversized sculptures and room-sized installations, involving the use of cranes, gantries, cherry pickers, forklifts, pedal lifts, and palette jacks; oversees the work of contractors hired to treat oversized outdoor sculptures on the premises of the museum or at specialized facilities.

For more information, visit:

http://jobsearch.usajobs.gov/getjob.asp?JobID=79769694

Questions regarding the job description and responsibilities should be directed to Susan Lake, Chief Conservator and Director of Collection Management: lakes@si.edu or 202-633-2731

The Smithsonian Institution is an equal opportunity employer.

One of my interests is in the documentation of contemporary art installations; I’ve been working on this for a while at my museum, which is getting ready to put 7 new commissioned works in a place we’ve started to call 100 Acres. Last year I presented some research along side Rebecca Uchill on the subject.

With this in mind, I was particularly stoked to find the following thing. A web thing. It can help people who document art.

I’ve showed it to everyone that’s come near me or my laptop; I’ve sent the link to folks that I thought might find it interesting and even printed a few copies and placed them strategically in other departments at the IMA.

Here it be:

It was made by Inside Installations. You can download your own copy here. The download is much higher resolution than that image. You should look at that one. And, check out the Legend for the diagram, and check out the description of the Basic Modules. It’s super detailed and worth spending some time looking at.

It’s important because it’s very useful, it’s free, and available right now. It describes how we collect and store information about artworks.

Here’s why Inside Installations made it:

“Documentation of contemporary art covers a wide spectrum of technical and conceptual aspects, i.e. the documentation of light, sound, space, movement, video, interaction with visitors, tactility and olfactory, etc. In order to preserve, present and understand these artworks there are innovative instruments and structures required. Without adequate documentation and conservation management many of these works will not be accessible in the future. Today many museums are using digital collection management systems for documentation and maintenance of their artworks. These systems have been developed for traditional artworks such as paintings and sculptures. Complex multimedia installations are presently not considered, while the need for an adequate documentation of these works is extremely urgent for future preservation and re-presentation. The related media management is a major challenge for many museums. Within this project it was the aim to develop new strategies, tools and templates for the documentation, administration and maintenance of contemporary art.”

I agree and think that creating documentation around contemporary artworks, and especially museum-commissioned artworks, is one of the most important specialties inside the field of art conservation.

And the graphic design is so beautiful that I assume it was made by someone that usually illustrates super complex things like automobile transmissions or the inner workings of metropolitan water systems. There’s no way I could create such a thing.

Yesterday I spent my first day participating in a project called “ConservationSpace“. I think this is an amazing project filled with great potential. And last night I was having a beer with some folks involved with the project and perhaps foolishly came up with what we thought was the most important ideas around conservation documentation. Here’s what they are:

It’s totally oversimplified, but really, as conservators isn’t this basically we want to do better?

The 2009 Angels Project will take place on Tuesday, May 19, at the Sherman Indian Museum in Riverside, CA (about 45 minutes from downtown LA). The Sherman Indian Museum is located on the campus of the Sherman Indian High School, which derived from the Perris Indian School, the first off-reservation Indian Boarding School in the state of California. The museum is dedicated to preserving and exhibiting more than a century of the school’s history, student body history, Indian boarding school history, and the ethnographic history of the staff and students. The museum’s collection contains objects representing tribes from all over the United States, as well as school records, photographs and other memorabilia. In addition to holding significance for current Sherman Indian school students and school alumni, the museum’s collection and archives are an important and unique resource for the greater Native American community and the general public.

During my grad studies in the UCLA/Getty Program, I had the opportunity to work with this museum and its only staff member, Lorene (Lori) Sisquoc. She has a lot of projects in mind, and on Wednesday, my former classmate, Ozge Gencay Ustun, and I will visit the museum and discuss the possible projects with Lori. We will likely do a few things that day, focused on surveying and re-housing objects, archival materials and electronic media from this collection. Ozge and I are helping Paul Messier organize the project this year, so if you have any questions or are interested in volunteering please email me at ecpn.angels@gmail.com

Thanks again, and look for updates as I find out more info…

and if you’re interested, here’s a link to a radio/podcast interview with Lori from 2005, where she discusses the museum and its history:

http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/407120

Conservator Rebecca Cashman posted these Valentines to the ECPN Ning forum, compliments of the Inherent Vice Squad. If you haven’t heard of IVS yet, well that’s because it is a brand new business started by a group of new conservators. The will have a booth at the AIC annual meeting this spring, and judging from the Valetine’s, you may want to save your pennies!

In order to download them you might have to go to: http://aic-ecpn.ning.com and look under forums.

Here’s another version of the logo that we could use. Let everyone know what you think!

Chris Watters has submitted the first possibility for a logo for the ECPN!

What do you think?

Thanks Chris!

To help defray some of the costs of the upcoming AIC Annual Meeting in May, it was recently suggested in our ECPN conference call that ECPN members may want to share hotel rooms. I will be collecting names and information of people who would like to participate in the room share. This year accommodations will be at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (the meeting site), with room rates at $185.00 for a single/double and $210.00 for a triple/quad (maximum 2 people per double room and 4 people per room in a triple/quad). In order to participate in the room share, you need to be registered for the AIC Annual Meeting (this is in order to receive the AIC Rate). The AIC Rate is valid until April 27, 2009, or until the contracted room block has sold out. The Hyatt’s cancellation policy states that on April 1, 2009, the hotel will charge a one-night stay deposit, so all cancellations will need to be received by April 1, 2009 to allow for another AIC Meeting participant to enjoy the room at the AIC Rate. Therefore, if you would like to participate in the room share, please send me your information by February 13, 2009. I will make every attempt to match people with another ECPN member and according to the specifications that you send. If you are unable to be matched due to the lack of another person with your room specifications, or due to an odd number of people willing to participate, I will let you know as soon as possible, and no later than February 27, 2009.Please note that by participating in the room share, you understand I am matching potential roommates only. Once a match is found, I will send you and your potential roommate(s) your respective information. If this is not a suitable match to all parties, let me know as soon as possible and before the February 13th deadline. Once you agree to your match, it will be yours and your roommate’s responsibility to make your room reservations and pay for your room. Any reservations that you make will be in accordance with the Hyatt’s policies. If you or your roommate(s) decide not to attend the meeting before the February 13th deadline, I will make every attempt to match you with another person. However, this cannot be guaranteed, so it is important that all parties be committed to attending the Annual Meeting!If you would like to participate, please send the following information to Nicky DeFreece Emery via e-mail. Your nameYour e-mail addressYour telephone numberGender (sorry, I will only match same gender)Preference of double (1 roommate + you) or quad room (3 roommates + you)Special room needs (ADA accessible room, etc.)Specific dates you will need a roomIf you are currently registered for the AIC Annual MeetingBest way to contact you during the Annual MeetingPlease send your information to BOTH of the following e-mail addresses: shnicky2@yahoo.com AND shnicky2@gmail.comThanks, and see you in LA!Nicky DeFreece Emery

Event: EMP mixer to kick off Museums Advocacy Day 2009!
      “Join us for a Museum Advocacy mixer sponsored by the Emerging Museum Professionals group”
What: Cocktail Party
Host: Emerging Museum Professionals
Start Time: Sunday, February 22 at 5:30pm
End Time: Sunday, February 22 at 7:00pm
Where: Tudor Place Historic House and Garden

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=51819423655&aref=7462460