from The New York Times -
A Museum Takes Steps to Collect Houses
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from Artnet -
Collecting Video Art
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Two differnt aspects of collecting but with a common (probably unintended) aim - creating trouble for conservators! But then who's complaining if this is for the greater good?
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from Art Newspaper -
Smithsonian art museums have reached a “critical point”
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from The New York Times -
Embattled Smithsonian Official Resigns
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Not necessarily one thing leading to another, but there is no denying that the only way to sustain a world-class museum organisation is to build one which is highly focused on being a world-class museum rather than something else. Then again, aren't museums no longer fashionable, hence the rise of lifestyle venues, instead?
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from Guardian -
Jewels in the crown to be protected. But who will pay heritage price?
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Another step taken in the UK to strengthen efforts made to preserve historic buildings and sites. However, identification and registering of such sites, can only be the first step towards preservation. It serves nobody any good if a site is ear-marked but left derelict due to inadequate resources. The underlying difficulty has to do with the issue of private property (rights) versus public heritage (responsibilities). The two need not be mutually exclusively, but for all intent and purpose, is usually perceived as such.
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from Art Newspaper -

First art fair in Dubai attracts Indian, American and Iranian buyers
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The Gulf: Major collectors and new museums
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A couple of related articles which undoubtedly confirms the rise of the Middle East Arab countries as the next regional powerhouse in the ever exploding art scene - all made possible by eager patronage backed by stupendous amount of funds. No wonder its a case of who gets in through the door first for European and American museums.
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from Tate Research -
Carlos Garaicoa Case Study
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An update on a new project over at the Tate on the attempt to preserve an installation artwork by the Cuban artist, Carlos Garaicoa. Quoting the short introduction posted on the Conservation Dist List:

"The site includes video interviews with Carlos Garaicoa, the curator and conservators. In addition to exploring some very practical decisions that needed to be made regarding the display and conservation of this work, the site also investigates aspects of Garaicoa's practice and issues connected to the international art scene and Biennale culture. The site aims to provide information of interest to a general audience as well as provide technical information not commonly available to the public."

A previous project documenting a Bruce Nauman's installation artwork can also be accessed from the "Inside Installation" main page on the Tate web-site, which also links to an up-coming symposium and web-cast on "Shifting Practice, Shifting Roles? Artists' Installations and the Museum" (previously posted here).
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from New York Times -
Olympic Construction Unearths Ancient Treasure Trove
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A triumph of sorts for preservation - even in the face of crass commercialism in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing. This is a welcomed contrast to earlier callous attitude towards heritage preservation in this over-heated economy where history is often perceived to be standing in the way of progress.

"There are two enemies of antiquity protection," said Xu Pingfang, president of the China Archaeological Society. "Construction is one. Thieves are the others. They know what they want, and they destroy the rest."

from Guardian -
Iran's rich architecture and rare treasures threatened by possible US strikes
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As the time approaches to recollect the reprehensible act of invasion, a timely article to remind one and all of the devastation of war that can be wrought on our shared world heritage - lest we forget.
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from The New York Sun -
The Art of Saving Art
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An interesting article which gives a glimpse into the processes and considerations of conservation work. Jim Coddington from MOMA and Margaret Holben Ellis from The Morgan Library & Museum talks about the challenges of conservation.
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from New York Times -
Is That Just Some Game? No, It’s a Cultural Artifact
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A sure sign of the coming of age of popular culture is when it is seriously considered for preservation. This we can say of video and arcade games, while still mindful of the complexity of the task ahead:

"[P]reserving video games presented certain challenges. For example the hardware that games are played on changes so frequently that there are already thousands that can only be played through computer programs called emulators, which, while readily available on the Internet, technically violate copyright laws."

from New York Times -
What Surrounds a Legend? A 3,000-Pound Gilt Frame
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An interesting look at the restoration of a frame which is regarded not only historically but also as a "legendary" artefact - surely a "crowd-puller" in the making. Also notable is the length that the Metropolitan Museum is going through in order to accommodate the restoration of the over-sized frame.
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from Bloomberg -
Berlin Museums Chief Attacks Louvre for Abu Dhabi Venture
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from The New York Times -
The Louvre’s Art: Priceless. The Louvre’s Name: Expensive.
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from The New York Times -
Museum for African Art Finds Its Place
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from The New York Times -
Welcome to the Museum of My Stuff
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A slew of museum-related articles - from the global, to the local (in New York City), to the "micro".
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Challenging Building: the search for solutions
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A recently concluded conference looking at issues of environmental control and risks.particularly in the context of adaptive re-use of historic buildings for museum collections.

You can read the articles on-line. Alternatively a PDF version of all the post-prints can be downloaded here (PDF file, 1MB).

The list of papers as follow:

Tim Padfield
"How to design a museum building that protects the collection without destroying itself"
on-line article here

Jane Brunning
"Denbighshire Record Office: an essay in pragmatism"
on-line article here

Jonathan Ashley Smith
"Current thinking on environmental standards"
on-line article here

R.E. Child
"The new Waterfront Museums Swansea: Teething problems and solutions"
on-line article here

Gerallt D. Nash
"Introducing heating into re-erected traditional buildings"
on-line article here

Heather Perry
"Hot Hot Hot in the summer"
on-line article here

Jane Henderson
"Newtown Textile Museum: You will need to wear a woolly?"
on-line article here

[ Thanks to Conservation Dist List for the prior alert. ]
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from The Art Newspaper -
Views of Russia’s crumbling modernist heritage
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The pervasiveness of an awareness of and active participation in heritage conservation, in all its different forms, would surely be a sign of a stable and highly developed socio-political community. With the collapse of societal infrastructure, heritage preservation becomes easily expendable and, hence, neglected.
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from The New York Times -
Harvard Analysis Casts Doubt on Works Said to Be Pollocks
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from The New York Times -
A Pollock, in the Eyes of Art and Science
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Two related articles about a recent scientific analysis done on a set of recently discovered paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock. However, the analysis raised question about the attribution, which in turn is not accepted by the art historian who had put forward the attribution.

This points to a fundamental difference in terms of approach:

"In the wider art world, traditional scholarship is beginning to accommodate science a little more willingly. But some experts say the friction between the two is not only about turf wars but also about fundamental differences in culture [...] [P]art of the problem was that “art historians basically do not collaborate” while science demands it."