from Calgary Herald
Scots aghast at museum's trophy from Iraqi war
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When a museum's perception of its role and relevance is at odds with the community at large, it can only mean a total breakdown in understanding - on the part of the museum - about the larger context that it must function in. This also raises the question (but not the answer) of how a community can seek to regain a measure of involvement in how history is represented.

from Sunday Herald Online
Outcry over Turner’s ‘missing’ boat
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Yet one more cleaning controversy. This time it revolves around the issue of keeping to pictorial authenticity versus retaining pictorial balance. Perhaps, at the end of the day, it is not solely a question of: "Who is right?" But also one of: "Who decides?"

from The New York Times
Artist Who Worked With 9/11 Dust Wins the First Artes Mundi Prize
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Another instance of the choice of material in contemporary art running counter to conventional wisdom in art conservation. What do we do with dust that is part of the collection, if ever?

from Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter
Conservation Education
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The latest Fall 2003 issue of GCI newsletter carries a few articles on the various aspects of conservation training and education. The concerns reflect an increasing expanded role of conservation in the preservation of heritage - especially in the larger context of relevance to society, historical continuity and community involvement.

from HandHeld History
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An example of the use of mobile phone technology to enliven the experience of history in the urban London context. Although it will not be difficult to emulate the technology, but it is the quality and presentation of the content that will ultimately determine the success of such a project.

from E Ink
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A development in the paper-thin display screen technology. This has been in the making for some time now and aims to eventually replace the use of paper as we know it (see here, here, and here). Will this spell the end of paper-based documents - hence bringing digital preservation onto centre stage? Or will paper still be very much a part of our daily lives?

from BBC News
Architect defends 'ugly building'
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An update on the debate surrounding the demolition of the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth, UK. If occupancy and commercial use (or lack of) are the primary criteria for redevelopment, then would anyone dare contemplate the same fate to befall the Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China?

from Wired News
Kissing a Mirror to Find a Frog
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Although the article is about an entirely different field of conservation, what could be potentially useful is the way that mirrors are used to simultaneously photograph 4 sides of a frog - which could easily be replaced with an artefact. Now, that would be a time-saver!

from The Getty Research Institute
The Business of Art: Evidence from the Art Market
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This is a ground-breaking show, in which art and its history is explicated, not by visual works, but by actual documentary evidence - much like in an archives. Two very strong reviews in the Los Angeles Times and on the Artful Manager weblog. I look forward to the day when an entire exhibition is pulled together which attempt an understanding of how conservation decisions and restoration attempts influence the course of art history. But that is, of course, another story.

from Wired News
Engineers Just Wanna Make Art
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In addition to being conversant with bio-technology, the future art conservator may need to also be apt in making circuit boards from scratch and customised visual displays.

from The New York Times
The Sky Box
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When the primary material used by the artist is light, then conserving such a work becomes doubly complex - or near impossible - without an intimate understanding of the artist's mind and sensibilities. Even then, success is not guaranteed.

from The Jeffersonian
Measuring up, in 3-D
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Besides using laser scanning techniques for heritage and architectural sites, such technology has also been deployed to capture a digital imprint of smaller historical artefacts - with the intention of replicating them. Could this be one of the direction in preservation, where digitally scanned artefacts are replicated in time to come when the "original" has deteriorated beyond recognition? This option can be especially useful as another option in "preserving" plastics-based artefacts.

Another use of such a scanning technology is to serve as an additional tool in understanding the condition of artefacts. This is made possible with advancing computing power, as surface details are minutely captured, and visually rendered, with very high fidelity for an all-round view on a computer screen.

from BBC News
New life for old Elgin Marbles?
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How the Parthenon marbles are being reborn
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An update on the Parthenon Marbles with the latest attempt to find some closure and resolution to this long-drawn controversy by using advanced technology to create a virtual integration of all the disparate fragments. However, the issue of historical and geographical context will be left unresolved.

from New York Times
The sun sets at the Tate Modern
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This artist created a waterfall that flowed upwards, dyed several rivers in Europe and America green with eco-friendly dyes and his latest project "The Weather Project" installed mirrors on the ceiling and erected a fake sun and mist in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Mobs of visitors had lain on the cold floor of the hall, gazing up to their pale reflections and basking in the "sun" and "mist".

A piece of artwork that invites contemplation and participation. The artist, Olafur Eliasson, said:

I would like to think that the spectator became the center of this piece, that the project twisted the Tate so the people who came to visit were what the art was about."

It brings to my mind the contemporary museum perspective of how museums should exist to serve the community. In this case, I'm interested in how the relationship between the museum and the arts community fulfill the larger objective of serving society. So, artists create works that communicate to people a fragment of reality and museums recognise and showcase those works by which the larger public would be served, whether it be aesthetically or intellectually. From the visitor numbers and visitor response, this is a successful work and that was a successful museum exhibition. The kind of response shown by the visitors at viewing the work is encouraging. So much so that the musuem had offered to extend the exhibition of his work. Anyway, the artist has declined due to interesting reasons.

There is no doubt that the communication between the artist community and the museum is very important. It would be for the ultimate good of the masses (and the museum as well in achieving its long term objectives) that when the museum collaborates with the artists on exhibitions, the ultimate presentation of the works be to the best possible accordance to both the artist's intention for the work and at the same time, fits into the museum's larger objectives. This is by no means easy. In fact, it has been a cause of contention between the two. And many times, the power balance seems to be tilt in the museum's favour and compromises on the artists' part may result. If the "power" of the artworks is diminished due to inadequate communication and/or unresolved strifes, how is the exhibition, and therefore the museum going to serve the larger public effectively then? Having said that, I relied on the artist's professionalism too, to facilitate a meaningful working relationship between the two parties.

I would really like to see positive and far reaching effects from the collaborative efforts of both museums and the art community happening in Singapore.

from The Guardian
Birmingham's housing 'miracles' preserved
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An example to redress the tendency in focusing on significant and iconic buildings, instead of the common-place ones, in the preservation of architectural heritage. As urban centres are being re-made, such vernacular architecture has become even rarer than stately homes or palaces which are being preserved today.

from The Guardian
Light on a dark subject
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An interesting take on how mistakes made in lighting sculptures can mar one's visual experience - and at the same time, obscure the significance of these artefacts. And in the author's opinion:

"The commonest reason for such a failure (apart from ignorance and lack of funds) is conservation. Objects made of bronze or stone are mixed up with textiles or ivories or miniatures and other items that require a low illumination. There is absolutely no reason for keeping bronzes in low light. If the low light is there for the sake of the tapestries, then a good museum should recognise that bronzes and tapestries have to be kept apart - if they are to be seen."

Perhaps, it should also be added that the choice of display in a museum is also very much a curatorial and design decision.

from The Scotsman
Ancient quarry to save historic buildings
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In the search for a compatible material in the repair and restoration of sandstone buildings found in Edinburgh, nothing comes close to the site where the stones were first quarried. And in this case, it was not merely am aesthetic or authenticity consideration, but a technical one - the retention of moisture in sandstone blocks with a different clay content may result in further (unintended) damage to surrounding stones.

from The Rolex Awards website
Secrets of the Past
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A special feature currently running on the Rolex Awards web-site showcases 5 interesting projects which attempt to bring aspects of the past to the attention of the world. All the projects have to deal with working in remote locations but containing a wealth of fascinating finds that make these endeavours significant and unique.

from Contra Costa Times
Laser scan captures heritage sites' every angle
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The process of 3-dimensional laser scanning may no longer be considered a novel technology today. However, the efforts in documenting and making publicly available the scanned information for each of the World Heritage Sites must surely be considered noble, worthwhile and path-breaking.

from The Wall Street Journal
Jazz Is Coming Home to Harlem
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By all accounts, the Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York, is set out to be a great museum. This begs the question as to what are the pre-requisites of a great museum : Is it a supportive and highly committed community which builds and sustains the quality of the museum? Or is the intrinsic programming of a museum that makes it relevant to and resonate with the local community? Or a combination of both attributes, amongst others?

from International Herald Tribune
Italy begins assessing cultural value of state property
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When cultural heritage and economic exigencies collide, it is not often that a "win-win" scenario can be achieved. Sometimes, something will have to give - and we will be the poorer for it, either way.

from The New York Times
'Nanograss' Turns Sticky to Slippery in an Instant
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An experimental technology which allows a material to change from an absorbent sheet to a non-absorbent one at the flick of a switch. This could certainly result in useful applications in conservation treatments. A few comes to mind: as a reservoir for moisture, solvents or adhesive that is triggered by time/heat/light; easier and more precise transfer of wet paper onto a lining; switching from being a release sheet to being a blotter sheet at will.

from The Guardian
Portsmouth eyesore to be demolished
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and
The joy of concrete
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Two contrasting attitude towards the preservation of architectural heritage. Although springing from similar period of the modernist tradition, one is to be demolished after a popular vote; the other to be preserved because of its association with a movie.

from Wired News
Gloves Put Death Grip on Germs
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A new type of germ-killing gloves that can potentially help conservators when handling artefacts or sticky traps with museum pests.

from NZZ Online
Switzerland is a nation of museum lovers
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Switzerland has often been held up as a model of development that Singapore could aspire to. This latest news report on the museum-going culture in Switzerland sets another benchmark that contrasts sharply with the situation in Singapore. If one refers to an earlier study commissioned by the National Arts Council - which looked at the general state of arts-going culture, of which museums and art exhibitions form a sub-set - a few notable comparisons can be teased out:

(1) 73% of Singaporeans did not attend a single art performance or exhibition in 2002, compared with 7.7% of Swiss who never visited a museum in 2002.

(2) The average number of art performances or exhibitions attended by Singaporeans in a year is 3, compared with 50% of Swiss who visited a museum at least once a month (i.e. 12 times or more in a year).

(3) The top reason cited by Singaporeans for attending an arts event or exhibition is for "relaxation", compared with the primary reason given by the Swiss which is "to increase their understanding of the world".

It is also interesting to note that in the Swiss context, there is an increase in the sale of "museum-passports" - giving free entry to museums for an annual fee - while actual sale of museum entry tickets declined. This has faint echoes of the situation in the UK, where museum attendance figures increased dramatically when free admission was adopted. Would universal (and free) access an idea worth pursuing in priming a museum-going and heritage-appreciating culture in Singapore?

from The Guardian
High-level schism opens up at Royal Academy
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An extremely difficult dilemma when a more "truthful" architectural restoration attempt will completely eradicate subsequent (but equally accomplished and widely acknowledged) modifications. The situation becomes all the more complex and polarised as the restoration / destruction entails a sizeable amount of funding, and the to-be-destroyed painted ceiling scheme has just undergone a very recent (and expensive) restoration.

from Xinhua Online
2,000-year-old shadow play still popular
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A clear illustration that the preservation of intangible heritage must also entail the need for re-enactment and adaptation - as an instance of living heritage. This would surely give rise to interesting debates on what constitutes the original, authentic or accurate version to be preserved.

from Metropolis
How Buildings Breathe
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Some interesting development in how buildings can be ventilated by harnessing the natural phenomena of air circulation and behaviour. An understanding of such a technology would be of tremendous benefit to museums, especially when a major expense of most museums is the utilities bill associated with the 24-hour control of the display and storage environments. Two particular ideas stand out - the "floor-up" method of cooling the air (as opposed to the conventional "ceiling-down" cooling); and the "enthalpy wheel" to pre-condition humid air, hence reducing actual cooling load (translating to a smaller air-conditioning system) and energy consumption.

from ArtsWatch
Marketplace of Ideas: But First, The Bill
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It has often been opined that American-style of marketplace idealism must prevail in order for diversity to thrive - and culture being no exception. In this extended essay, an interesting counter-point is argued: that the European model of public funding for arts and culture has resulted in a more robust and vibrant cultural scene compared to the American free-market model. It would seems that arts and culture (and by extension, heritage) must be free to serve a social good, rather than purely an economic one, in order for it to be of relevance and import.

from The Guardian
Museums gang up to demand cash
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and
from BBC News
Museum warning amid funding plea
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This brings home the point that heritage and culture is resolutely dependent on public and private patronage.

from The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Restorers: 'David' statue looking better
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An update on the (controversial) cleaning of Michelangelo's marble sculpture of David in time for the planned celebration of its 500th anniversary of its unveiling. More information can also be found on the web-site of the Friends of Florence, who is one of the key sponsors of this restoration project. Reports of the actual examination and on-going conservation treatment of the sculpture are available. More resources and images can also be found at the official web-site for the restoration of Michelangelo's famed sculpture, under the auspice of the Galleria dell Accademia.

from BBC News
Good home needed for paintings
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It is an interesting idea to raise funds for the restoration of paintings by allowing the donor to display the adopted (and restored) painting on their premises for a year. One can only hope that the success of this scheme will not be taken as an excuse to reduce other avenues of funding for the proper care and conservation of art.

from The Straits Times
Parts of Changi Prison to be preserved
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go to press release

This partial reversal of an earlier decision to demolish the entire old Changi Prison complex is surely a piece of encouraging news. However, it does raise the question of how much can be construed (or misconstrued) from a fragment of the whole? Perhaps, only time will tell.

from The New York Times
Art That Speaks to You. Literally.
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Another example of the increasing prevalence of intangible art medium. There is also an article on NewMusicBox outlining a brief history of Sound Art.

from The New York Times
Scavenger Hunts Go Highbrow
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When company team-building games move into the museum - can this be a bad thing? In the attempt to find relevance - or "hip" and "cool" (depending on one's generational perspective) - there is always the danger of tipping over into the realm of frivolity and where the lessons from the past remain unheeded.

from The New York Times
At a Mountain Monastery, Old Texts Gain Digital Life
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Another view of the work in preserving history - which can paradoxically be both intriguing yet mundane at the same time.

from ARTnews Online
The Case of the Escaped Spirit
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The article is an amusing collection of various snippets of the strange circumstances of how art can be damaged.

from NY Times.com
The White Stuff
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An outdoor exhibition featuring ephemeral art in Finland. It's a marvel created through long distance collaborations between artists, architects, engineers, local builders and students. Seems to me it's a move away from traditional art medium, art making and exhibition making.