The Illusion of Restoration

As appraisers we need to know not only about the latest value and market trends, but what is also happening in the related fields, such as conservation. We need to be aware of new approaches and methods. Fellow appraiser Judith Vance sent me a very interesting Wall Street Journal article on a new process being undertaken at Harvard to restore a Mark Rothko mural.  What is intriguing about the process is how technology is now being incorporated into the conservation process.  The conservation is being done by a mixture of art conservators and high technology processes and equipment to manage a completely digital restoration without touching or altering the canvas.  The process will include projectors to fill in areas and match what would typically be in-painted areas. As the article states, it is in effect only the illusion of restoration.

The WSJ reports
 

When all the software is written and the paintings installed again at Harvard—somewhere else on campus, this time, and no one knows quite when—the murals should look to viewers the way they did back in 1963."It's the ideal restoration, where you don't actually touch the artwork," said Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, director of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art and also the associate director for conservation and research at New York's Whitney Museum. "We are restoring the appearance of the murals and restoring the experience that viewers can have when seeing them."
Call this hands-off art conservation, relying on technology to preserve the lifespan of artwork and other objects or, in this instance, to offer the illusion of restoration. The beauty of Harvard's use of spectrometers, computers and light projection is that the original murals aren't altered in any way. "It's a very reversible procedure," said Narayan Khandekar, senior conservation scientist at the Harvard Art Museum and a member of the team working on the Rothko murals. "Once you turn off the light switch, you are back to where you were."

To read the full WSJ article, click HERE.