Lifting the Veil Around Art Conservation
Anni Irish in Conversation With Art Conservator Jen Munch
Art conservation plays a vital role within the greater art world. The process of art conservation not only helps to stabilize the physical condition of a work but it is often quite literally helping to preserve art for future generations to experience it. Today, conservators across the world undergo extensive training in being able to restore and treat the physical surfaces of art objects that have undergone damage, decay, or simply need to be touched up. To be a conservator requires a meticulous attention to detail while also possessing a breadth of knowledge centering on both art and scientific protocols. There is also a bit of alchemy that happens within the studio of a conservator through their ability to transform an artwork into its former glory for people to enjoy for years to come.
View of the sanctuary at Newport Congregational Church, Newport, RI; photo by Aaron Usher © La Farge Restoration Fund
I recently spoke to Jen Munch, a Brooklyn-based fine arts conservator who specializes in painting and contemporary art. Munch currently works at Contemporary Conservation, one of the leading studios in the US. She has previously held positions at the National Gallery of Art as well the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum among others. We discussed the challenges conservators currently face due to COVID-19, as well as details around what her job entails, what the conservation process is like for working with paper, and the larger issues surrounding gender and racial inequality in the art world at large.
Anni Irish: What are some of the biggest challenges conservation in the art world faces today during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Jen Munch: COVID-19 has impacted job security for conservators, and it’s also reduced the number of available training opportunities, particularly internships and fellowships, for early career professionals. I personally know a number of people who have been furloughed or are struggling to generate income for their small private practices.
Another major challenge is that much of our work is hands-on and cannot be performed as telework. With the closure of schools, conservators with school-aged children face additional challenges as we return to in-person work.
AI: How have you and your team adjusted to this new normal?
JM: We established a routine early on that included daily all-staff meetings. My colleagues and I have used this time to present our research projects to each other, and we have also had several guest speakers. We have formed groups to work from home on various initiatives, including updating our website and devising a health and safety protocol for when we resume in-person work. While we can’t do our conservation treatments at home, we can write reports, take online professional development courses and research equipment and treatment methods.
The Dutch Room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA. Image © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
AI: How did you decide you wanted to become a conservator?
JM: First and foremost, I’ve always been drawn to the notion that I can help preserve tangible components of our shared cultural heritage – there is so much to learn from physical objects that you can’t learn from reading or seeing photo reproductions. I love working up close with physical artworks, learning about how they were made, and about the people who made them. Prior to entering the conservation field, I worked as an artist’s assistant and as an art handler or museum preparator. These jobs were terrific but I decided to transition into conservation in order to exploit my strong interest in artists’ materials and the types of condition issues that cause artworks to degrade.
AI: What was the process like for you in terms of the training you received, internships, schooling, etc?
JM: To become a conservator in the US, most people attend a graduate conservation program. That’s the route I took. Conservators come from a variety of backgrounds, some of which include fine art, art history, collections management, chemistry or archaeology. The graduate programs require prerequisite courses in fine art, art history and chemistry. I studied visual art in undergrad and hadn’t taken any science courses in college, so the biggest hurdle for me was the chemistry requirement. It took me several years to complete the chemistry courses at night while holding down full-time freelance preparator work.
During one exhibit installation at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, I worked closely with a library conservator to handle and properly display archival materials. That conservator helped me find my first hands-on work in the field, as a volunteer in the conservation lab at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. I volunteered one day a week for two years. I would have done more if I could have afforded to! I was lucky that most of the places I worked were supportive, and I was even allowed to study chemistry during slow periods, like while we were waiting around for shipments to arrive. I was able to continue working full time as a preparator because my employers were flexible.
My first paid conservation job was a part-time summer role maintaining public art for the collection of the city of Cambridge, MA. Under an experienced conservator, I worked as part of a team to wash and wax bronzes and remove graffiti from artworks all over the city. I was also able to find a part-time job dusting the collections at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM). A full-time conservation technician job at the ISGM opened up while I was there. My supervisors from the public art job and the Peabody helped me create a portfolio I could use during my interview, and I got the job. There are very few paid, full-time jobs at that level, and this job was particularly designed to prepare someone for graduate school.
Admission is competitive at all of the US conservation schools, as they all provide a living stipend and tuition remission. The program I attended is at Buffalo State College, the State University of New York, in Buffalo, NY. While in school, my classmates and I all took two years of coursework in which we learned how a wide variety of materials are manufactured, as well as their physical and chemical structures. We took classes in conservation history and ethics, documentation, scientific analysis, and how to approach conservation treatments for works on paper, paintings (my specialty), and objects. We also studied preventive conservation, which focuses on the role that the environment has on the stability of an object.
Internships are an important part of our graduate training. I had a summer internship where I learned methods for treating modern paintings at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC – our nation’s first modern art museum – and spent another summer working to restore the painted walls and ceiling of a church in Newport, RI.
For the last year of my three year degree program, I spent 11 months as an intern in the Painting Conservation Department at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, and one month at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. One thing that was very special about my NGA and Hirshhorn internships was that these institutions lend a small number of artworks to other government agencies in the DC area, and I got to help the conservators check the condition of works hanging in the Supreme Court, White House and other federal buildings.
AI: What do you think is the role of conservation in the art world today?
JM: Conservators have a duty to ensure the preservation of cultural heritage, and for many of us, that extends to the preservation of our shared living heritage. Conservators are not monolithic in how they see their roles. For example, some conservators feel that we should not be removing graffiti related to current civil unrest; some argue that we should absolutely remove it, or that it’s not our place to make the decision because we should remain apolitical.
Conservators sometimes serve as interpreters, to some extent, for other cultural heritage professionals and other stakeholders. Conservators understand the materials a work is made of, and we also aim to understand the intent of the person who made the work. We are often called on to share that knowledge and help others interpret it. Because conservators use our knowledge to determine an appropriate aesthetic (what should this artwork look like?), we sometimes make decisions that fall within the scope of curation. Today, the field is quite collaborative. Conservators work with artists, fabricators, foundations, curators, art handlers, facilities and maintenance professionals, representatives of tribal nations or cultural groups, and many other stakeholders to make informed decisions about the best way to preserve a work.
AI: What is one of your favorite pieces of art you've worked on so far?
JM: For this piece, which is a tiny hand-painted etching on thick card by, or after, Jan van Beers, a late 19th- early 20th C. Belgian illustrator, flaking paint (top left) was secured back into place under the microscope, using a tiny brush and conservation-grade adhesive. Distortions in the paper were flattened by humidifying, then pressing the piece under weight. The cutout blotter (bottom image) was used to keep areas with flaking paint from being pressed.
My current workplace focuses on the conservation of contemporary art, and I’m really looking forward to all of the challenges that come along with that. In terms of materials, my colleagues have worked with materials as varied as bubblegum, dung and donuts.
Recently, I treated a painting that incorporated audio cassette tape. The tape had detached and needed to be re-adhered. When reattaching something so delicate, we’d sometimes use small magnets as clamps while the adhesive dries; in this instance, magnets would have erased or distorted the sound. While the tape attached to the painting is no longer playable in a normal cassette player, people may want to play the audio using methods that are developed in the future. This is just one example of the type of issues we consider.
AI: Donuts and gum, how interesting! How did you go about conserving that?
I’ll talk about the donuts. This was a collaboration between artist Robert Gober and my boss, Christian Scheidemann. Gober had made an artwork, “Bag of Donuts,” using real donuts and he wanted the donuts to be preserved. Christian removed the fat from the donuts by putting them in a pressurized tank of acetone. He then replaced the fat with an acrylic resin that has good aging properties, and dusted on some cinnamon for the aroma and look. You can read more about it in this fascinating New Yorker profile of Christian.
Robert Gober (b. 1954) “Bag of Donuts”
Paper, dough and rhoplex (12 donuts)
Executed in 1989, this work is number one from an edition of eight
AI: What are some of the things you have to take into consideration for an artwork that you are working on?
JM: Each artwork has to be considered as an individual. Even if it’s one in a series, one work may have been in a different collection and exposed to different circumstances – it could have been kept in a bathroom, or it could have been owned by a heavy smoker, and so we always tailor our treatments to each artwork and its specific condition issues and needs.
Conservators work in a variety of settings, including private practices, nonprofit regional centers or institutions like museums, libraries or archives. Institutional conservators often have the opportunity to check in on their prior treatments, and occasionally even retreat the same object. As I’m currently working in private practice, it is rare to see the same artwork once a treatment is over.
We also take into consideration what expectations the client or other stakeholder has for treatment, and we communicate what the likely outcome of treatment will be. There are often multiple ways that we can approach treatment, and we choose one that best fits the client’s needs and budget.
AI: What do you think a conservator’s responsibility to the artwork is?
JM: Particularly in modern and contemporary art, we talk about honoring the artist’s intent. While this is not a hard-and-fast rule, considering the goals of the individual artist can help to provide a context and framework for a conservator’s decisions. To give a straightforward example, many French Impressionist paintings were not intended to be varnished. Camille Pissarro even wrote, “please do not varnish this picture” on the back of his paintings. Yet, many were varnished by dealers. Removing the varnish from such a painting would bring it closer to the appearance the artist intended.
Of course, we don’t always know the artists’ intent, and there are times when it would be wildly impractical to honor an artist’s specific wishes. For contemporary art, artist’s interviews are especially valuable as they provide a lot of insight into the artist’s vision and working process.
Camille Pissarro, “The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning”, 1897 © Metropolitan Museum of Art
AI: What is the process like with works on paper or printmaking more specifically?
JM: One of my favorite things about working on paper is getting to cook and use refined wheat starch paste for mending tears or stabilizing flaking layers of cardboard. The fragrance is incredible. I also enjoy paper and print identification, which are vital skills for paper conservation.
In contrast to my usual workspaces, paper conservation studios tend to be fastidiously clean. Paper conservators always have the most beautiful and well-maintained tools, like special Japanese brushes designed for specific uses.
AI: Given the larger gender and racial inequalities that exist within the art world - with many museums being repeatedly called out in terms of their lack of diversity within collections, staff, boards, and engagement in the art market generally - how do you think the conservation side of things compares or differs?
JM: Unfortunately, the gender and racial inequities of the art and museum worlds are also pronounced in the conservation field. The field in the US is 87% white and over 75% female. The inequities in my field are issues I think a lot about, and recently I’ve been glad to see and promote more open discussion of them.
Last year, I organized a webinar for my professional organization with speakers Anne Ackerson and Joan Baldwin of the Gender in Museums Movement. Anne and Joan spoke about gender in the conservation field. I also co-wrote a blog post for my professional organization encouraging salary negotiation. The goal of both the webinar and blog post were to get people talking about workplace issues we normally shirk away from.
In terms of racial equity and inclusion, I’m currently involved in one program that encourages students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to consider conservation careers. Within the past few years, my professional organization has begun initiatives aimed at creating systemic change, though the field as a whole has a long way to go. In large part, this is due to high barriers to entry and relatively low salaries compared to other careers with similar education levels.
AI: What measures do you think can be taken in the conservation world to make things more inclusive?
JM: The two biggest bottlenecks in the field- at least, before COVID-19- are finding the first training position and then getting into conservation graduate school.
This is a really challenging field to gain a foothold in, in part because there simply are not enough paid opportunities, especially for people in entry-level positions. Unpaid internships are sadly still a norm in this field. As I mentioned above, my own first conservation position was unpaid.
We need more dedicated funding streams and support for pre-graduate school internships. Both the Getty and the Smithsonian run terrific, funded internship programs aimed at increasing diversity at this level. The more initiatives like this, the better!
There is also an ivory-tower elitism in the conservation field that stems from the field’s transition from an apprenticeship model to an academic model beginning in the late 1960s. Our academic standards are both high and problematically narrow in terms of what is considered good and useful scholarship. The US graduate programs, including my own, are currently revising their admissions requirements to reflect the need for racial representation and equity.
Established conservators need to do their part as well by speaking out against problematic norms, enacting change within their own workplaces, and setting examples for each other and the younger generations by placing a high value on civility, empathy and open communication.
AI: What is some advice you'd give to someone who is interested in a career in conservation?
JM: Reach out to conservators in your area to ask if you could visit their workplace and learn about what they do. AIC’s Find a Conservator tool is useful for this. I’d also suggest looking at the websites for conservation graduate programs to get a sense of the application requirements. While you can work in conservation or in collections care without a graduate conservation degree, your job options and earning potential are improved with the degree.
The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network of AIC has some terrific resources for people considering conservation careers, including a Facebook group, local events and webinars on AIC’s Youtube page.