artenol0416_sm_flipbook

MAKE ART GREAT AGAIN
are over. The days of that same director taking time to
walk through the museum to check on the guard who
was recently in the hospital are also long gone.
While money always seems to be found to buy artwork
at an inflated price, efforts to locate funds to provide
a museum’s lowest-paid workers with a living
wage are never made. It is a myth, really, that there is
no money to be earned in the art world. There definitely
is – just not for anyone who isn’t already wealthy. The
romantic image of the starving artist and the glamour of
the art world all play into the mystification
of the museum world experience.
Art conservation contributes
to this mystification in a big way by
simply fixing things and then tarting
up the process with a lot of science
and jargon. The conservation process
is not without real value, but its practicality
can assume a sanctimonious
gloss under these conditions.
The Museum Value Machine increases
monetary value by conserving
artwork, but it also contributes
to increasing mystique by adopting
a minimally invasive “hands-off”
approach to the preservation of
art. For example, there is no small
amount of discussion involved in
conserving a painting. Conservators
may make very little compared to
higher-level staff, but can wax philosophical
about original intent and
sing the praises of reversing “chemical
degradation.”
The irony here is that one would
think that this intervention corresponds to the age of an
artwork, that it is directly proportional to it – and that is
often the case. The conservators of several-centuries-old
“old yellow paintings” work very hard (sincerely so) to
make them presentable to the public. But with the advent
of newer materials used in newer works came new
problems, and conservators of 20th-century works have
their work cut out for them preserving modern and contemporary
art. Such work also happens to have some of
the highest valuations in art.
For example, we modern conservators fret about
the aging of materials that came into use during the
last century (one word: plastics) and will do a bit less
to conserve them because, well, who knows what to
do? But you will rarely find a painting conservator
admitting as much. Instead, the myth is perpetuated
that we do less with modern work because we want
DREAM JOB Conservator Erica
James carefully cleans a contemporary
art piece for eventual display in
a museum. Photo courtesy Erica James
to stay true to the original intent of the artist and that
intent was ... to be ... abstract and conceptual. Again,
not entirely disingenuous, but in the finer workings of
the Museum Value Machine, these nuances enhance
the art world’s mystique. Think of it as detailing the
Museum Value Machine. It needn’t work to look good.
By the time you get to contemporary art, the materials
are so unpredictable in their longevity, and some of
the artwork is so devoid of craftsmanship and – here’s
the kicker – the value so HIGH, who even wants to
touch them?
Of course, the spin remains the
same: We do less because we want to
stay true to the original intent of the
artist. And we don’t know what that
is because it is all so ... conceptual.
This becomes quite ephemeral
when, for example, a conservator
of contemporary art is the keeper of
an “idea” by the artist. So, when the
artwork has to be conserved, somehow
the conservator lets the idea
emerge from his or her lips like a
Pythian priestess. Ideas are important,
and intellectual property is, too.
But it all gets very vague, contrived
and practiced. If one has any common
sense at all, it becomes quite
apparent that a lot of this is made
up. The emperor has no clothes.
This wouldn’t be such a big deal
if it wasn’t so insidious. But at the
end of the day, like many things,
it comes down to money. Because,
although there are many ways to
measure value, money is the driver for Museum Value
Machine culture. Not freedom of expression, not passion,
not beauty, not spirit, not creative drive, not intellectualism,
not philosophy, not, not, not. Not anything
you would expect or want it to be about. Most of all,
what it isn’t about is the art.
And, in those moments when one talks shop with
other museum folks, precious few of them imbue the
conversation with the following: “You know, it is just
about the art for me. I just try to make it about the art.”
The truth is, it never will be about the art in the Museum
Value Machine’s infrastructure, because art only plays a
very small role as fuel for the machine. Along with money,
it is simply a currency that keeps museum culture
running. And conservation, despite its best intentions, is
never a means to an end, but only a barometer for what
is best for any artifact by means of comparison. n
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