New Systems for Document Public Art
from Witty's Blog: Wikipedia, History, Museum -

An interesting series of open-access projects that uses intangible digital media to bring attention to tangible public sculptures and art.  This not only generates more attention and awareness of the artworks, but can also be easily implemented in many, many other contexts.  Every city should have one or more of such projects running!

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from KFSK Radio -
Conservator works on Alaska documents
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go to audio (MP3)

When the museum or archives cannot come to the conservator, the (paper) conservator goes to the museum and archives. Maybe this could be the model to help smaller museums and heritage centres that cannot afford permanent in-house staff.
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from The New York Times -
Tile by Tile, a Mural Is Saved
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A paint-staking project in relocating a ceramic tile wall mural, prompting the insight:

"Anything artistic that goes in a subway should be put on some type of removable support."

A lesson in there somewhere for all urban transport authorities?
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from Getty Conservation Institute -
Art as Evidence:The Scientific Investigation of Works of Art
go to web-page and video

A good overview of issues and possibilities with current technological advances in the examination of artworks. Even as technology surpass our understanding, the primary question remains: "For what ends?"
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from The Guardian -
How the National Trust is finding its mojo
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"The perennial battle inside the trust has always been that between conservation and access, preservation and enjoyment. 'But really, it needn't be,' insists [Mark] Harold [, regional director at National Trust]. 'Not every room in every built property has precious textiles. We own lots of land; not all of it is equally sensitive.'"

Possibly a lesson for museums - not to operate solely on the basis of preempting damage as if all artefacts are masterpieces but to recognise that all preservation decisions are inherently biased. The point is to be open about what values guide those decisions - for better or for worse.
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from The Guardian -
China loses thousands of historic sites
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"The last 20 years have been the worst time for cultural heritage site protection with the rapid development. It is even worse than in the Cultural Revolution"

Intense urban development finishing what misguided ideology could not ... and, then some.
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from The New York Times -
An Italian City Shaken to Its Cultural Core
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go to images

"Shortages of money, political will, architectural good sense and international attention — along with a distinctly Italian predilection for a kind of magical thinking — threaten to finish what the quake started."

This is yet another case-in-point for national efforts in setting aside funds and identifying expertise before crisis happens.
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from The Royal Academy of Arts -
Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas and Uncomfortable Truths
go to web-page
download talks and discussions

"Conservation today is as much about conserving intangible values as it is about conserving material culture, yet the Codes of Ethics for conservators fail to guide them in understanding and prioritising such values."

Still no answers to be had, but this is a first step in opening up a space for honest discussions within the profession - rather than hiding behind "mantras" derived uncritically from such "codes of ethics".
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from The New York Observer -
Copy That! Wait, Don't. Whitney Ponders Problem of Replication in Modern Art
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Yet another take on the issues surrounding the preservation of contemporary art. Perhaps, it is more useful to see such diverse preservation efforts not in a monolithic or unified way but as pragmatic measures in the race against time. Let's argue less about (impossible) philosophical ideals and think more about setting acceptable standards beyond which all manner of approach is (to be) welcomed.

See earlier link to various papers published online on the 2007 conference held at the Tate mentioned in the article
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from The Art Newspaper -
Disposing of cultural artefacts in university collections
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Treating all artefacts in a collection as "equally valuable" would seem like an enlightened approach - but in fact it is a mask to hide unthinking wasteful practices and a deep reluctance to make (and live with) subjective decisions.
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from Art21 Blog -
Concepts Around Interviewing Artists: a Discussion with Glenn Wharton
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A good and clear overview of the issues pertaining to the use of artist interviews as a strategy in the preservation of contemporary art. In the final analysis, such interview should be treated less as documentation (which is a 1-way process akin to trying to uncover the artist intent, whatever that might mean) and more as an exercise in building understanding (as a 2-way interactive and collaborative process).
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from The New York Times -
Foundation Helps Archives to Go Online
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A timely reminder that preservation of heritage and historical materials do not just happen by themselves - no matter how much good intentions there are.
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from The Guardian -
Dance would die without the internet
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"One reason that dance struggles to establish itself as a discipline is the relative paucity of its archive: more than any other art form, it is constantly being lost to history. To build a body of knowledge, you need to gather bodies of evidence, reference material, records. There is an obvious way forward – record more dance on video and put more of it on the internet. It won't just be of academic use; the greater availability and increased profile of dance material will surely benefit audiences and promoters too. This is good not just for individual works or choreographers or companies or colleges, but ultimately for dance itself."

Another example of why an open approach to preservation is necessary.
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Conservation Online back online!
go to new web-site

The invaluable resource for the conservation profession has been made accessible again by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation. Kudos to those involved and the tremendous effort in sustaining this initiative. One can only hope the next migration will not be too soon...
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from The Guardian -
Sound archive of the British Library goes online, free of charge
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In the words of the library's curator, Janet Topp Fargion:

"This project is really exciting. One of the difficulties, working as an archivist, is people's perception that things are given to libraries and then are never seen again – we want these recordings to be accessible."

Hear, hear...
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from National Museum Directors' Conference (UK) -
NMDC adopts guidelines to reduce museums’ carbon footprint
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With the greater awareness of how the implementation of museum preservation measures can often lead to very inefficient use of energy - and contributing to global environmental problems - museums in the UK have taken the first necessary step in acknowledging the issue and committing to implementing sensible guidelines to balance the needs of preservation and limited natural resources.

The 4 pertinent principles of the guidelines are:

- Environmental standards should become more intelligent and better tailored to clearly identified needs. Blanket conditions should no longer apply. Instead conditions should be determined by the requirements of individual objects or groups of objects and the climate in the part of the world in which the museum is located;

- Care of collections should be achieved in a way that does not assume air-conditioning or any other current solutions. Passive methods, simple technology that is easy to maintain, and lower energy solutions should be considered;

- Natural and sustainable environmental controls should be explored and exploited fully;

- When designing and constructing new buildings or renovating old ones, architects and engineers should be guided significantly to reduce the building’s carbon footprint as a primary objective.

See also:
Full document of NMDC guiding principles for reducing museums’ carbon footprint
Paper presented by Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate, May 2008.
Paper by Mark Jones, Director, V&A

Link via IIC News.
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from The Art Newspaper -
Civic Society Initiative launched in the UK, with added social networking tools
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The news is not so much in the use of Twitter ... (oh, please...). Rather, the survival of civic societies (liken to your neighbourhood-sized National Trust) in the UK points to an ingrain sense of heritage and urban preservation - done at the local level and from the ground-up - which avoids all the pretensions of corporate-speak that has become the norm for heritage agencies, here and abroad.

See also Civic Society Initiative web-site and briefing paper (PDF format).
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from The Guardian -
Scottish laser pioneers lead way in preserving world heritage treasures
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There is still the nagging suspicion that once a monument has been "preserved" as data points from a scan - then efforts to maintain the actual site might lapse. After all, would not a digital copy be a more accurate and truer representation - so why bother?
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from The Toronto Star -
Why settle for imitations of the past?
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Apart from the argument from a historical perspective, architectural preservation has a new-found and timely justification:

"The most sustainable thing you can do is keep an existing building. When you destroy an older building you are actually destroying the energy used to construct that building. And the amount of energy required to build is phenomenal."

from The New York Times -
Linguist’s Preservation Kit Has New Digital Tools
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With the increasing ease and declining cost of using digital recoding technology, could we be overwhelmed by unanalysed and undifferentiated data, which are just as ineffective in advancing the efforts of intangible heritage preservation.
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