What changes is plastic capable of undergoing – apparently such an everlasting material? How does one “restore” videotapes produced in the seventies? How to restore the precise chromatic tone and correct luminosity of an artwork made from neon lighting no longer being produced? These are only some of the many questions to be put to the workers, curators and restorers involved to highlight their responsibility to deliver the artistic present to future generations, and which will be dealt with in the convention entitled “Preserving the present”.
The convention, which will be held in the Sala della Passione in the Brera Picture Gallery from the 31st March onwards, is organized by the Soprintendenza per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico e Etnoantropologico per le province di Milano, Bergamo, Como, Lecco, Lodi, Pavia, Sondrio e Varese, in collaboration with INCCA Italia (International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art) and with the support of Direzione generale per la qualità e la tutela del paesaggio, l’architettura e l’arte contemporanea, and with the sponsorship of UniCredit Private Banking and AXA Art.
One notable feature of the artistic production of recent decades is the speed with which the raw materials of creativity, often including the most diverse and unlikely of materials, degrade and in many cases are destroyed. A conscious manifesto to such fragility are the works in cotton wool of Piero Manzoni, the organic materials of “poor art”, such as the leaves of Giuseppe Penone or the twigs of Mario Merz, the plastic materials of Piero Gilardi or of César. No less significant issues are raised by those complex and composite installations which, in their deeply textured dialogue with the context which accommodates them, encompass that context as an integral and indispensable part of their existence and – when dismantled and re-assembled to change the arrangement – their re-creation produces different spatial morphologies. One holds out hope of a conservation process which might permanently preserve their signification and their sense, even if it proves impossible in reality to preserve the original constitutive materials, and if their replacement remains inevitable. Even works “traditionally” based on canvas and colour – for instance those of Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri – are often created using new synthetic pigments and fixatives of industrial origin, which require alternative solutions for conservation compared to those used in the old-fashioned system.
The analysis of the new materials and their mechanisms of deterioration, the critical debate on the handling of complex works and the division of responsibilities among operatives of the sector—these are the issues at stake in the convention. The problems relating to the preservation of the present will be tackled in Milan over four days of detailed discussion devoted, respectively, to paintings created using bindings of synthetic origin, installations, works using plastic materials and videos.
For abstracts in English go to:
http://www.brera.beniculturali.it/Tool/Scheda/All
Milan seminars on conservation of contemporary art:
“Conserving the present: synthetic binders, plastic materials, videos and installations”
Location:
Milan, Palazzo di Brera
Sala della Passione
via Brera, 28
Dates:
31 March, 07, 14 and 21 April 2008
Time 15h30 – 18h00
See more: http://www.incca.org/
Contact:
Dr. Marina Gargiulo
02/72263268
mgargiulo@arti.beniculturali.it