Issues relating to the custodianship of art have recently emerged in the popular press. In addition to the ongoing debate about restoration and conservation, it has become increasingly apparent that museums and other guardians of cultural property must determine how best to protect those objects with which they have been entrusted. In the last few […]
The pictorial work is recognized as such and preserved in museums by virtue of its singular identity. The exceptional man who fashioned it makes visible, through its plastic organization, a plurality of messages. Wanting to make visible the visible is to impose a limiting reading of a work that has been designed to transmit, by […]
Visible evidence of leaks and the need for urgent conservation
Every major European city is home to a wealth of cultural monuments and objects. This is precisely the condition that also makes every major European city a magnet for tourists, and in itself becomes an integral component of urban economic success. So, in an effort to attract and maintain tourism, cities market their cultural treasures, […]
The Tate Triennial exhibition at Tate Britain, which was exhibited from 26 February to 26 May 2003, featured one work which stirred tremendous controversy. Sculptor and installation artist Cornelia Parker wrapped Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss — which had been specially moved from its normal installation at the Tate Modern — in a mile of string, […]
The controversial restoration of Michelangelo’s David has concluded in anticipation of the statue’s 500th birthday. Read more below…
Read the latest about this discovery from The Economist, linked following this item. London Sunday Times, 18 April, 2004: Lost Italian city dug up in Tuscany by Rossella Lorenzi IN the rolling hills of Tuscany, scholars believe they have uncovered one of the great lost cities of the ancient world. The ruins are believed to […]
On January 13th, 2004, the New York Times reported the Dia Art Foundation’s director, Michael Govan, as saying that planning was underway to facilitate easier access to Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and perhaps do restoration to bring the Jetty back to how it originally looked when built in 1970. In conversation with me on February […]
Just a few short blocks from the current media circus over David‘s dust, it is raining inside one of Florence’s most important churches. While high-powered sponsors and celebrities stand in line to contribute enormous sums of money to restore high-profile objects, the Florentine city council has announced that they do not have the funds necessary […]