Pipebag, c.1890Hide, glass beads, porcupine quills, sinew.Oglala Lakota: South Dakota.78 cm x 19 cm x 2 cmCollection of the NMAI (14.2585)tAs noted by former Secretary of the Smithsonian, Robert McCo...
My final paper looked at the issues surrounding ownership and repatriation of Indian peace medals in the United States. These medals were used by the United States as a major part of Indian diplomacy...
My paper explores the philosophical debate between intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, and the how this debate changes the way conservation of modern and contemporary art is approached.In the 199...
“The only way art lives is through the experience of the observer.” –Keith HaringPublic artworks are defined not only by their location and accessibility, but also by their function within the commun...
Robert Bevan discusses in his book The Destruction of Memory, that “It is the ever-changing meanings brought to brick and stone, rather than some inbuilt quality of the materials or the way in which ...
**The Tlingit totem pole in the Peabody Museum before its repatriationIn my paper I discuss issues such as the way Native American museum objects are viewed, who and how to handle items during conser...
The Parthenon under constructionThe Paintings at Knossos Novik:Gabi Dolff-Bonekaemper writes in a Getty Conservation Institute newsletter that the feeling generated at a sight has been described as t...
When the Croatians and Serbs retracted from the Bosnian Parliament in the October of 1991 to create their own assemblies, the initial step to undermining the thousands of years of Serbian, Croatian, ...
This week’s articles focus on where the allegiance of a conservator lies with respect to the heritage of cultural objects. The articles suggest that there are three main parties to be considered (the...
Topography of Terror, Berlin (Source) Although preserving the past is a noble intent it doesn’t come without conflict and ethical concerns. Over time the material culture and buildings of a community...
Mahayana murals that are slowly falling apart. Sanjay Dhar presents the issues of conserving objects such as this one with minimal intervention in a site that is still being used. Is there a way to p...
Kongo nkisi figure, 19th century, wood, vegetable fibers, and metalMinneapolis Institute of ArtsAshton: In this week’s readings, we explored the ways in which some artworks are intended to continue “...
("Spiral Jetty", Robert Smithson)“Nature,” as Robert Smithson put it, “does not proceed in a straight line…it is rather a sprawling development. Nature is never finished” (Kennedy).The same can be sa...
Davenport’s “Impossible Liberties” brings out many of the important questions about artist’s intentions for their work in their lifetime and beyond, especially in regards to contemporary artwork in w...
Is it possible to know without a doubt that an artwork or object is authentic? Is authenticity “provable” through scientific techniques and empirical evidence? What is authenticity?Alleged Jackson Po...
Bringing the sculpture's head and patterns on the helmet to life. Photo from Stiftung Archaeologie This week’s readings make us look at the connection between science and art. Podany and Scott use th...
Cleaning works of art and artifacts can have many benefits, but this week’s readings showed that it can also have many negative consequences. Although cleaning has been and continues to be widely use...
From the pesticide-infested relics of the Hopi to the botched Chinese wall paintings of the Fogg Museum, it often seems that in the effort to preserve a historic object, the piece suffers further dam...
Is contemporary society prepared for art works to change in “real time”? Our readings this week suggest, alternatively that current society is either too skittish, too scared of changing the past to ...
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