Whenever conservators come out from their studios and into gallery spaces the public are invariably fascinated and keen to engage with us and our slightly hidden area of work. The British Museum’s Conservation in Focus project involved setting up a temporary studio in one of the galleries so that visitors could see conservation treatments taking place and ask questions of the conservators. Whenever I visited during this exhibition, the gallery was always busy and visitors took a great interest in conservation treatments. Fine art exhibitions are starting to reflect this area of interest by including science and conservation details in the text used on interpretation panels and the materials they provide as part of the exhibition: a recent example is the Tate’s Rothko exhibition which included conservation light-boxes to display the findings of research into Rothko’s technique and materials. There is an evaluation of how visitors reacted to this information here , and this quote tells us a lot about how much this kind of in-exhibition resource is valued:
The new insights provided in this room were generally greatly appreciated, with many visitors reporting that this section changed their viewing habits in later rooms. The majority of visitors we spoke to would like similar resources in future exhibitions. Even those who were not interested in conservation were still glad that the information was available for others. Visitors tended to be surprised by this section and were not expecting this kind of content in the Rothko exhibition.
A current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art similarly uses the research and findings of conservators to inform their exhibition Making the Invisible Visible: Conservation and Islamic Art (ends August 4th). A variety of events have run alongside this exhibition, including several lectures and discussions which have generously been made available on the website. Most of all, I would like to direct your attention to this Arts of the Book Lecture, given by Associate Conservator Yana van Dyke who is a leading expert in the field of conservation of Islamic art on paper.
filigranes and fibres 