from e-conservation -
Issue 4
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Just published online. A wide-ranging selection of articles, from conference review to technical case studies to broad issues in preventive conservation and preservation ethics.
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from San Francisco Chronicle -
Saving the soul of art
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A strong stomach for art conservation
go to article
go to slideshow

2 related reviews on the recently concluded conference at the Getty Conservation Institute (see earlier post).

(Thanks to Modern Art Notes for the prior post.)
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from The Guardian -
Exhibition exposes modern tragedy of Babylon
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A principled and courageous call which rises above politics. The unsaid tragedy here would be that such an act of ethical leadership shown by the British Museum would see few fellow travellers, if any at all - by choice or due to cowardice.

See also earlier posts.
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from The New York Times -
Past Catches Up With the Queen of Roads
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A sad account of culminated neglect and bureaucratic conflict that now threatens the preservation of a uniquely ancient Roman site.
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from BLDGBLOG -
The mathematics of preservation and the future of urban ruins
go to blog post

An interesting summary which ranged from the preservation of infrastructure - specifically elevated highway junctions - to the idea of stabilised ruin as a preservation strategy to the deliberate design, or fossil-value, of the urban-scape to look good even when derelict. Hence, the idea that preservation is integrated into urban design right from the start and could require minimal human intervention in the long-run.
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from The Art Newspaper -
Museums should beware of being used as marketing tools
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Show and sell: Sotheby’s announces auction of Chinese art just two days after museum display
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With the art market hotting up, the art gallery ecosystem becomes increasingly commonplace - and in order to secure a higher premium, (publicly-funded) art museums are cleverly utilised as showcase venues, albeit tacitly or unwittingly (on the part of the museum).

As the first article admonish: "museums need, axiomatically, to be able to make decisions about acquisitions, whether bought or donated, and about the choice of works to borrow and display, free from pressure from third parties who may stand to gain from any increase in their value or the value of related works."

And this needs to be so ont he principle that public monies should not be used for private gains. Further along: "museums, in protecting the public interest and their long term reputations, have a responsibility to seek and secure firmer assurances about intentions than they currently do—and not to be (or appear to be) suckered by lenders."

Walking straight into a minefield of conflict-of-interests and appearing stupid, to top it off - how far down the road of professional incompetency can museums afford to go?
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from The Christian Science Monitor -
Museums sprout 'green' architecture
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Early signs of a growing trend - which can only be a natural progression for those intimately involved in educating the future by conserving (in all sense of the word) the past.
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from CultureGrrl -
New Acropolis Museum: Marring the Marbles
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When aesthetics of display and the pragmatics of moral force clash, either one must inevitably give. It is perhaps indicative of the larger context that aesthetics prevail - perhaps a symptom of the museum having become detached from its social moorings and is striving instead to please rather than to raise uncomfortable questions.

Also see previous posts here.
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from The Art Newspaper -
Over $1m needed to keep developers away from the Lightning Field
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With some of these iconic land art pieces becoming historical, would it not make better sense to see them as (art) historical sites and accord them the necessary protection (from a national or international perspective) as one would do for other older cultural and natural sites?

Also see earlier post on the threats facing Smithson's Spiral Jetty.
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from The Guardian -
Agent provocateur
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An interesting feature on the new director at the National Gallery in London. It is always nice to read about a museum director with guts and backbone in equal measure:

"We won't put on exhibitions just because they will be popular, and we'll do them with consideration of the needs of the permanent collection."

Hear, hear ...!
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from The New York Times -
Plans to Mix Oil Drilling and Art Clash in Utah
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An extended article on the earlier news of plans to allow oil drilling within the immediate vicinity of Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty". See earlier post here.
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from Archaeology -
Why do Virtual Heritage?
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Computer rendering of archaeological sites and finds have great potential as an effective educational tool in facilitating the understanding and appreciation of remote and often inaccessible physical sites.

However, the article bemoans the slow adoption of such a technology within the archaeology field by the professionals themselves, citing the long-standing preference for archaeologists to draw or photograph their finds in a flat 2-dimensional manner.

Perhaps the reason that archaeologists still prefer the pencil and paper method of recording is that the actual act of sketching out the details somehow forces the brain to observe intensely the crucial details of an artefact and hence allowing for a more vivid recollection. This is surely something that cannot be replicated by all the amount of virtual reality wizardry combined.
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from Museum of Modern Art -
Color Chart: The Reinvention of Color, 1950 to Today
go to online exhibition

An interesting snippet found in the midst of an audio clip on Sherrie Levine's recent work, in which she got a paintings conservator to execute a series of her colour-paintings. The reason given was that she thought the conservator would know more about painting her work in a proper manner than she did. Too bad that the conservator was not identified nor properly credited.

Go to audio clip here.

In any case, the exhibition is an extremely interesting one with some surprises and unexpected finds. Find out more about the exhibition here.
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