Blog

The Second Annual AIC Great Debate: Perspectives from a Participant

This week’s contributing writer, Jessica Ford, is a graduate fellow in paintings conservation at Winterthur/ University of Delaware. She is working this summer at the Dallas Museum of Art, and she will spend her third-year internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. What was I thinking when I agreed to do the Great Debate? I… Read more »

2013 AIC Annual Meeting: Collaboration in Preservation Planning

The week’s contributing writer, Heather Brown, is a Graduate Fellow in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation where she specializes in photographic materials and paper. Heather is currently completing a summer work project at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and will move to Houston in September to begin her third-year… Read more »

Voice of the Artist: De Wain Valentine and Tom Learner at the Guggenheim

This week’s contributing writer, Margaret Graham, is VoCA’s Program Coordinator and a freelance art critic for the Brooklyn Rail.  On the evening of July 11, 2013, VoCA hosted one of its most memorable Voice of the Artist programs to date: a film screening and conversation with artist De Wain Valentine. Held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim… Read more »

Launch of the Smithsonian Institution’s TBMA Website

This week’s contributing writer, Alli Jessing, is a Programs Coordinator for the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum, working with film and media art. She holds an MFA in Film Studies from Boston University and currently serves as the Principle Investigator for the Smithsonian’s Time-Based Media and Digital Art Working Group.  The Smithsonian… Read more »

Allora & Calzadilla's Body In Flight (Delta) at the IMA performed by Sadie Wilhelmi

Allora & Calzadilla’s Body in Flight (Delta): Panel and Performance

Blog Post contributed by Steven O’Banion, the Smithsonian Conservation Fellow at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Steven is also a member of the VoCA Program Committee.  **For those who could not be in Indianapolis for the panel discussion or performance of Allora & Calzadilla’s work, you can watch the video via this… Read more »

Program Committee Gwen Webber during the March 2013 Artist Interview Workshop at the Guggenheim Museum, New York

VoCA’s Artist Interview Workshop: Crystal Sanchez’s Experience

Crystal Sanchez is a media archivist/preservationist at the Smithsonian Institution on the Digital Asset Management team (DAMS), working with digital audiovisual collections. As a member of the Smithsonian’s Time-Based Media Art Working Group, she is currently working on a project to interview thought leaders who work to plan for the technological needs of media artworks. … Read more »

Glenn Wharton interviewing artist VALIE EXPORT about a work in MoMA's collection. Photo Credit: Howard Deitch.

Conservation Interviews: Problematic Assumptions and Unintended Consequences

As conservators of contemporary art expand their practice to include artist interviews, they have a lot to learn from allied professions with years of experience in qualitative research. Oral historians, anthropologists, and sociologists know the advantages but also the risks involved with the use of interview research.  In this brief essay, we formulate some lessons… Read more »

Interviewing Artists: Rose Cull’s Workshop Experience

Blog Post by: Rose Cull, Kress Fellow in Sculpture Conservation, Tate Gallery I love working with artists.  One reason why I work on contemporary art.  I like learning more about the creative process and seeing how an artist approaches their work, what they think of it, and hopefully over the course of my career, I will be… Read more »

Tony Smith's Smug

Artist Research Project: Tony Smith Roundtable

                               Tony Smith’s Smug at Glenstone in Potomac, MD On September 27th and 28th, the second component of The Artist Research Project: Tony Smith was launched when a select group of experts from around the country gathered in Washington D.C. to discuss specific conservation… Read more »

Tony Smith, Gracehoper

The Power of Public Space Symposium in Louisville

Tony Smith’s Gracehoper in Louisville, Kentucky On September 14th and 15th, 2012, VoCA co-hosted in The Power of Public Space, a two-day symposium in Louisville. Working closely with the Louisville Commission on Public Art and the Speed Art Museum, VoCA organized a panel discussion focused on “The Importance of the Artist’s Voice”. Our session was primarily devoted… Read more »