If you were fortunate enough to hear this talk, you probably had the same thought I did: How can I get a job at the Yale University Art Gallery?<\/i> In an action-packed twenty minutes, Carol Snow, Deputy Chief Conservator for the Yale University Art Gallery, took the listener on a fascinating tour of multiple conservation projects undertaken in conjunction with the Gallery\u2019s 14 year-long renovation. The renovation itself involved three separate buildings, ranging in construction date from 1866 to 1928, and it dramatically expanded the Gallery\u2019s exhibition, study, classroom, and conservation space.
\nThe projects Carol chose to feature spanned an amazing range, and throughout her talk she emphasized the collaborative nature of each treatment and installation. Conservators, art handlers, exhibition preparators, and riggers \u2013 and in many cases engineers and architects \u2013 collaborated, as did artists. For an ancient Roman Mithraeum altar, for example, painted wall fragments were treated to remove old backing materials and then installed in their correct configuration in a newly constructed recreation of the altar. This was accomplished using an ingenious structure which allowed each fragment to \u201cfloat\u201d in place, supported. A scenic painter provided the final touches on the installation, integrating losses to give visitors a better sense of the altar\u2019s original appearance and context.
\nRoman horse armor from Dura Europos (still backed with its original leather backing!) was installed on a fiberglass horse made from downloading a 3-D scan of a horse. A mosaic from a Byzantine church at Gerasa (Jerash, Jordan) was treated to remove the cracking concrete backing and newly mounted. Period rooms were investigated, pigments identified, and the wood panels dated by dendrochronology and then cleaned before installation. A fragile stained glass window by John LaFarge was supported and displayed on an interior wall using a clever system of hidden LED lights. For a slumping petroleum jelly dumbbell by artist Matthew Barney, conservators worked closely with the artist to recast a dumbbell from his original mold, using the correct composition of petroleum jelly.
\nThroughout the talk, the expertise and resourcefulness of the Art Gallery\u2019s team was apparent. But it gets even better. At heart university museums are teaching collections, and although they serve to inspire the wider community, education and access are their primary missions on campus. Conservators are instrumental in achieving these goals, and Carol demonstrated this in spades. From her discussion of how a rooftop terrace was engineered to safely display outdoor sculpture, to her explanation of the Gallery\u2019s clever use of steel-faced honeycomb panels and rare earth magnets to provide a simple and quick method for rotating displays of textiles, she highlighted the crucial role of conservators in achieving the Gallery\u2019s mission. One of my favorite projects featured in this talk was a Marcel Duchamp Rotary Glass Plates<\/i> sculpture. Conservators repaired a broken blade for this complex object, but then went on to assist in creating a working model of the sculpture which can be used for classes and workshops. Talk about engaging with artwork! Who wouldn\u2019t appreciate seeing this in action?
\nIn closing, I should say that I could not take notes quickly enough during this talk, and the projects I\u2019ve mentioned here are not all-inclusive. So read the post-print! There\u2019s something in this paper for every objects conservator, no matter your sub-specialty. There\u2019s also something for any conservator interested in innovative solutions to tricky display questions or in ways of increasing context and access in the gallery. And if you\u2019re looking for great models of teamwork in an institution, this is definitely for you. Congratulations to Carol and the YUAG team on a job well done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you were fortunate enough to hear this talk, you probably had the same thought I did: How can I get a job at the Yale University Art Gallery? In an action-packed twenty minutes, Carol Snow, Deputy Chief Conservator for the Yale University Art Gallery, took the listener on a fascinating tour of multiple conservation … Continue reading “41st Annual Meeting – Objects Session, May 31, "Innovations During Renovations: Evolving Technologies and New Materials for an Encyclopedic University Museum,\u201d by Carol Snow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32,16],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-8416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-objects","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-41st-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}