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Artec de México Art and Technology to Preserve Works of Art |
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Tempestad Magazine
THE VALUE OF PRESERVATION To preserve is to protect, conserve, maintain, secure. We preserve valuable things only. Normally the most valuable things we own are intangible and therefore priceless. However, in order to represent those values, we frequently use a material or mechanical reference to link them. An icon, a photograph, a letter or any other object that is part of our everyday life can become the host of a series of valuable thoughts, experiences or feeling that will enable us to remember a time in the past, lost traditions or a loved one who is not longer part of this world. This object will be attached to the memory, and therefore will bring him back to us. Artistic sensibility is therefore our ally. A master piece may crystallize or wrap up a felling, represent an idea, protect a memory. The value of objects is not about the price, but about how much does it represents at a personal level. That special ritual that is linked to the object will give it a value beyond any amount of money because it is personal, untouchable like the inheritance of a family tradition or the great habit of friends and family gathering together to celebrate something unique. This object will be linked to that special moment. The unstoppable seed of our world is normally fought with the repetition of simple acts that will link us to a place, a city, a country. Since time flies so rapidly though out our life, we normally compensate this with the creation of traditions which may start from small personal, family or tribe rituals. And they will create a bond with an idea, a religion, or simply will give us identity. All of these intangible values will find a host, in a tangible object, and then we must decide; what to preserve? What to conserve? What to protect for future generations?
RECOVERY, RESTITUTION, RESTORATION The artist is a critic of his moment. When he creates, he is trying to give us the speech that will move us, touch us. Is his way to link the audience in time and distance? Although the inner process of the creator is completely abstract, normally our relation with the master piece is mainly through the five senses (talking about painting or sculpture is strictly visual), because his master piece produces in ourselves an emotional effect which many times we simply express with a “I like it”, or “I do not like it”. We could describe it as beautiful or strong…The eye, one of the most sensible parts of our body, is however incapable of decoding an unwritten message, it senses the image, but misses the speech. And this is why, when a master piece is damaged the communication between the piece and our senses is interrupted, the speech gets lost and therefore the master pieces loses its power. The power of sending a massage, because the only bond that connected us, has been interrupted by the physical fracture. The function of the restaurateur is not only to recover the physical structure of the master piece, but also to recover the massage proposed by the artist in his speech. To recover the missing parts and to reintegrate the colors is like putting letters back to incomplete words and word to incomplete paragraphs, in such a way that when the restaurateur finishes his work the spectator to read the complete essay, the possibility to establish a relationship with the piece of art. Recover, restore, replace: are words that tell us about what an object has lost and we had to give back. Nevertheless, perhaps the most important function of the curator (preservator) to give the people back, the possibility to interact again with it. With that object that holds a big emotional load- in case the object was inherited- or the one that was acquired at a considerable amount of money,
THE RESTAURATEUR The restaurateur is a mediator between the artist and the spectator. He uses all his resources to make job which must stay in the background, due to the fact the importance goes to the master piece and its creator, the artist. This situation brings a professional delicate dilemma to the restaurateur job: How much must he interfere when working in a piece of art? How far must he go? Is there a limit a moment when he must stop researching to understand the masterpiece? When a piece is missing some structural elements, to replace them is obviously necessary because of the physical stability; there is no question about it. But the next step, when aesthetic is involved, it is much more complex, because in this case the missing parts of the piece do not jeopardize the stability nor the permanency of the piece, but it may modify its function as communicator object. When in a painting, we find some missing important elements. The way we approach to it is totally different that when we approach it when it is complete; when it has all the elements the artist displays for us to enjoy, it shows itself to us provoking us all sorts of sensations and emotions. On the other hand, a scratch in a painting is like a radio signal that we listen with a constant interference that gets in the way of our total perception of the message that the artist wanted to transmit. In this sense, considering the piece of art which is physical matter and a group of intangible elements that go beyond the purely material aspect, the restoration work starts with respect, not only to the master piece, but also to the author, and therefore his real target is to recover the balance in all the parts of the piece, whether they are structural or aesthetics, to secure the future of the piece as a whole. To achieve the total perception of a master piece that was created in a very different context, not like ours- in time and space-, and to permit new generations the understandable reading of an artistic expression that they could not had possibly understand, because It is not from this time, it is for me one of the most important functions of the restoration works.
BASIC GUIDE TO ART PRESERVATION
OBJECT RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS HISTORY
CLEANING PROBLEMS IN WORKS OF ART RESTORATION
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