Daly Conservation

The passing of Peter Marzio this past week has been very sad for those of us who were fortunate to work for him. In the 28-years he was the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston he aggressively expanded the museum, building two buildings, increasing the collection and the endowment, and the creation of an art conservation department.   It gave me a moment to reflect on the great directors I have worked with and for over the past few years and take a moment to mention what I found memorable about them.

One of the first directors I worked under was Philip Rylands at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.  Philip Rylands  knew Peggy, and he is equally passionate about the art in the collection and the vision of the collector.

My favorite memory of Philip Rylands was a tour he gave of the Basilica in San Marco, after hours, in December, it was cold and the interior of the basilica was only lit by small lamps and candles. I felt like I had stepped back four-hundred-years and was seeing the basilica as Venetian would have seen it. Philip Rylands is in need of a wikipedia bio page, Guggenheim interns I am looking at you for this.

My internship at Shelburne Museum last summer gave me the chance to meet and work under Stephan Jost. Stephan is very honest and approachable. He gave a fantastic lecture at Winterthur Museum last year about running a museum in difficult economic times and he shared ideas about how he has worked with the staff at Shelburne to determine ways to increase revenues and decrease expenses. Stephan and Shelburne are definitely two to keep an eye over the next few years, I think they are a great match.

Most recently I have had the chance to meet Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, at the 2010 AIC meeting in Milwaukee, WI. My introduction “Hi, I am Rose Daly, I am your blogger this evening” was right on and we spoke about museums and sustainability, one of my favorite research interests.

I worked for Peter Marzio directly during the month of December while one of his assistants was out of town. He would call the office from the ski lift, ask for his messages, go down the slopes, and then call back later in the day. I don’t image he ever took a real vacation, there was always something or someone who was trying to contact him. Especially in December, when donors may want to donate gifts at the last minute to then claim on their taxes, there was never down time in the office. The perfect holiday antecdote came one morning, when Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sent a fax to Marzio only saying “Joyeux Noel”. In true Texas fashion, Marzio responded with “Feliz Navidad”

The censorship of David Wojnarowicz’s video art ‘A Fire in my Belly’ of 1987 from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery this past week have weighed heavily upon the arts community.  Many in the community have been asking: Why would a largely privately funded show of art work would be censored by the U.S. government?  It has been baffling to those of us who work in museums and it is bizarre to me that this censorship was supported by the Catholic League, since I thought, I am a Catholic and I am not offended by this video art.

I have devoured information about this censorship including watching the ‘A Fire in my Belly‘ a few times and other interviews with Wojnarowicz.  For a few weeks now I have been following the ‘It gets better’ movement, first watching videos on their YouTube page, and now they have a very nice website.  My favorite short message so far has been from the University of Pennsylvania President, probably because it is so unexpected to hear this message from an institution.

P.P.O.W., The gallery that represents David Wojnarowicz has posted a response and has called for other museums to post this work below by Wojnarowicz in a public place.  Diamanda Galas, who wrote the music that accompanies the video, has responded to the removal of the work.  The IMA has posted a great response on their blog and in their lobby.    Dan Cull has also posted on his blog about Wojnarowicz.   I hope the dialogue continues.

The Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) gives an overall view of the state of a collection and provides the institution who is having the survey to get a general sense of their collection and prioritize preservation activities for their collection. 

CAP surveys are performed over two days on site and then a comprehensive report is written.  A CAP usually has two assessors, a conservator for museum collections, an architect or engineer to survey the historic structure, or a zoologist, botanist, or horticulturalist if the institution is a zoo, aquarium, or nature center.

As part of my graduate courses, I participated in a CAP survey of a building on the University of Delaware campus.  This was the first time I really got interested in environmental monitoring and was incredibly useful at looking at the big picture when assessing a collection.