Scientific Examination of Art Modern Techniques in Conservation and Analysis (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Material and Method in Modern Art: A Collaborative Challenge--Carol Mancusi-Ungaro
Material and Method in Modern Art: A Collaborative Challenge--Carol Mancusi-Ungaro
Pages 152-161
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From page 152... ...
However, this particular rereading occurred as I was reexamining in a more thoughtful way Johns's encaustic works in the Whitney Museum of American Art, including Three Flags (1958) , White Target (1957)
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From page 153... ...
As researchers interested in how substance and process affect the visual statement, conservators seek to enrich the aesthetic experience through elucidation of the process, while art historians considering primarily what is seen may posit and assess that information in a cultural context. The third collaborative component is the museum scientist who may not only affirm the nature of materials present but through analytic review may also reconfigure historical perspective.
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From page 154... ...
For this reason conservators and conservation scientists were called upon to treat what was widely considered an inexplicable condition problem. In the literature, art historians and critics had focused on the dark palette and sharp contours of the chapel paintings as opposed to the bright amorphous coloration of his earlier paintings and even his earlier commissions, namely the Seagram murals of 1958-1959 and the Harvard panels of 1962.
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From page 155... ...
In a recent interview Wayne Thiebaud mentioned that he added Zec, a brand name for a substance that added girth to his oil paint, in order to create the creamy "icings" on his cakes. Willem de Kooning apparently did not add Zec, but we know from technical investigations that he did add vegetable oils to his media in order to achieve carefully sought-after working properties and effects that we value in his paintings.5 It is encouraging that recent studies of paintings by Pollock, de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence and Mark Rothko, among others, have identified materials by scientific analysis in the context of technique and have thereby broadened our understanding.
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From page 156... ...
And in the eyes of many, the Iago role is the role given to the engineer in modern life and in modern architecture of actually reducing by reason, to destroy or to undermine the kind of unreasonable and soaring ideas that architects may have."7 I suspect the same could be said of museum scientists who decipher the material ambiguity of works of art. Admittedly the danger is there when the scientist is given a chip of paint in isolation and is asked to identify it.
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From page 157... ...
When asked about the materials she used in For the Light (1978-1979) , for instance, Susan Rothenberg carefully listed the various media she had employed: Liquitex gesso-ground, Liquitex Matte Medium, and LeFranc and Bourgeois Flashe (vinyl paint made in France)
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From page 158... ...
Since the unstable material is central to the works of art and the sculptures cannot be properly viewed encased, it seems the only reasonable course is to restrict periods of exhibition as well as to require proactive storage containment. In this scenario more rigorous research might focus on the object in storage so that storage rooms become de facto laboratories wherein technical solutions are executed without regard for exhibition parameters or other customary restrictions.
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From page 159... ...
Permission for photograph granted by Nancy Reddin Kienholz.
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From page 160... ...
Photograph taken by Carol MancusiUngaro. Permission for photograph granted by Nancy Reddin Kienholz.
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From page 161... ...
Beyond naming the material and thinking logically in terms of questions and answers, they bring to the discussion diverse patterns of thinking. That contribution affects the tensions between "reason and intuition, certainty and uncertainty, deliberation and spontaneity," the precise qualities that shape our reasoned comprehension of the illogical artifacts of human expression in our care.9 It is only through intense collaboration among the distinct but related disciplines that consider works of art that we can attempt to frame and pose the relevant technical questions.
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