Description
Book SynopsisConsiders the future of conservation and its connection to the human sciences. This volume brings together the findings from a five-year research project that seeks to reimagine the relationship between conservation knowledge and the humanistic study of the material world. The project, “Cultures of Conservation,” was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and included events, seminars, and an artist-in-residence.
The effort to conserve things amid change is part of the human struggle with the nature of matter. For as long as people have made things and kept things, they have also cared for and repaired them. Today, conservators use a variety of tools and categories developed over the last one hundred and fifty years to do this work, but in the coming decades, new kinds of materials and a new scale of change will pose unprecedented challenges. Looking ahead to this moment from the perspectives of history, philosophy, materials science, and anthropology, this volume explores new possibilities for both conservation and the humanities in the rethinking of active matter.
Trade Review"This book pursues conservation as an interdisciplinary endeavor, bringing together scholars of material culture, history, philosophy, Indigeneity, material scientists and conservators to take a stake in conservation, “together-apart,” borrowing from Karen Barad, in a mindful way and on a scale that is unprecedented to date." -- Hanna B. Hölling * Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte *
Table of ContentsPreface: Report on a Research Project
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Conservator
Soon Kai Poh Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Historian
Peter N. Miller1. Philosophyone Introduction: Active Matter—Some Initial Philosophical Considerations
Ivan Gaskell and A. W. Eatontwo The Expressive Import of Degradation and Decay in Contemporary Art
Sherri Irvinthree The Look of Age: Appearance and Reality
Carolyn Korsmeyerfour The Aesthetics of Repair
Yuriko Saito five Death and Entanglement: Some Thoughts about Life, Love, and the Aims of Art Conservation
Alva Noë2. Historysix Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Art Historian’s Craft
Ittai Weinrybseven Active Matter in Presocratic Thought?
André Lakseight Active Matter: A Philosophical Aberration or a Very Old Belief?
Guido Giglioninine Oak and Oil, Chalk and Flint—Rood Screens and Churches
Spike Bucklowten Bread and Wine, Body and Blood
Lee Palmer Wandel3. Indigenous Ontologieseleven Introduction: For the Lives of Things—Indigenous Ontologies of Active Matter
Aaron Glasstwelve Living Knowledge in Cultural Collections
Sven Haakansonthirteen The Orator’s Dilemma: Wampum as Material, Media, Medicine, and Memory
Jamie Jacobs fourteen Always Becoming Better Stewards: Caring for Collections at the National Museum of the American Indian
Kelly McHughfifteen Hoki Mauri: Bring Back the Life Essence
Rose Evans4. Materialssixteen Introduction: Developing Informed and Sustainable Responses to the Alteration of Cultural Artifacts; Materials Engineering Meets Material Culture
Jennifer L. Massseventeen Contextualizing the Installation of Tania Bruguera’s
Untitled (Havana 2000)Chris McGlincheyeighteen Moving beyond the Binaries: Exploring the Active Matter of Metal Soaps in Paint
Francesca Casadionineteen Characterizing the Immaterial: Noninvasive Imaging and Analysis of Stephen Benton’s
Engine no. 9Marc Walton, Pengxiao Hao, Marc Vermeulen, Florian Willomitzer, and Oliver Cossairttwenty Making Meiji Red: Semiotic Activity in the Colors of Japanese Woodblock Prints, 1864–1900
Marco Leona and Henry D. Smith II Appendix: Events of the Research Project Conserving Active Matter
Index
Contributors
