The Explicit Material: On the Intersections of Cultures of Curation and Conservation

Posted on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 10:13

Location

Coolidge, Mezzanine Level, of the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

Date and time

-

Session  of the 104th Annual Conference of the College Art Association (CAA)

Washington, D.C.

The "explicit material" approach wishes to advance a way of thinking about the materiality of objects as they enter our collections and undergo a transformation from their previous context(s) to a museological one. This session invites an interdisciplinary dialogue to explore the relationships between curatorial and conservation philosophies across a range of institutions, focusing on the ways in which these apparently divergent fields shape thinking about—and the practices of—collecting, exhibiting, and caring for objects. The presentations cover a wide range of subject matter: from perishable media to medieval manuscripts, and from self-effacing photographs to films on museum collections, and myths about abstract expressionists. The conservators, scholars and curators on the panel —Thea Burns, Allison Pappas, Brigit Cleppe and Dawn Rogala— are in dialogue about questions of materiality, value, uniqueness, endurance and decay, and attempt to give a more nuanced voice to different forms of documentary evidence.

Chairs: Hanna B. Hölling, University College London, and Francesca G. Bewer, Harvard Art Museums

Please, join us on Friday, February 5, 2016, 2:30-5.00 pm at the Coolidge, Mezzanine Level, of the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.