Conserving art: the complexities of the contemporary Restore or leave to disintegrate?

It is not uncommon for art collectors call on artists to restore damage or deterioration to the works they have purchased from them, whether that’s a warped canvas or cracked paint. But when a French buyer asked Lucy Glendinning to come and restore one of her sculptures, she was astonished to learn the cause of the damage: his cats had attacked it.

Glendinning is known for her series of hauntingly beautiful sculptures in which life-size human figures of jesmonite (a composite material) and wax are covered feathers. For her, the feathers raise questions about what makes us human. "I wanted viewers to feel an empathy towards them," she explains. "But also for them to be slightly unsettling."

All this was lost on the cats. For them, the feathers were simply a temptation too great to resist. In the end, says Glendinning, the damage was relatively minor and easy to restore. But the incident illustrates the fact that, for contemporary art collectors, new conservation challenges are emerging from the use of unorthodox materials.

100'000 dried flowers

These materials now include everything from digital technologies to food. Turner Prize-winner Chris Ofili, known for works inspired by jazz and hip-hop music, is also famous for having used elephant dung in artworks such as "Princess of the Posse". Dan Colen, who likes to explore the artistic power of everyday or discarded objects, has used chewing gum in his artworks. Meanwhile, in London, the Saatchi Gallery's spring exhibition featured "La Fleur Morte", an installation by Rebecca Louise Law created from more 100'000 dried flowers.

For creators, the materials they choose help them say something new about the world they are observing and reflecting. "Artists select materials that communicate their ideas and challenge their creativity," says Patricia Shea, whose Shea Art Advisory specialises in post-war and contemporary art.

In some cases, artists might turn to more traditional materials but employ them in unconventional ways such as by adding new materials to oil paints to alter the way they can be laid down on the canvas or painting with parts of their bodies rather than brushes.

"There's a drive to see things and express things in a new way," says Shauna Young, senior conservator at Modern Art Conservation in Manhattan's Chelsea gallery district. "Reaching for unconventional materials can be part of that, but also seeing how far you can stretch the working properties of something that's more traditional."

But while artists may be using materials in new ways, for collectors of their artworks, these approaches raise a question: how do we preserve them for the next generation?

Preserving art for the next generation

The first step is to understand what the artist expects to see in the changes that time and exposure may make to their works. Some might want an artwork to remain in its current state while others see shifts in the condition of the work as an intrinsic part of its meaning.

"Some artists see the passage of time as an important element to the concept of the artwork without intervention, while others welcome restoration to preserve its best condition," says Shea. "The collector needs to ask what's the intention of the artist when it comes to condition and restoration."

For conceptual art, instructions are often needed, particularly when the material and the work are one and the same thing, but both are perishable. This was the case for Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, whose 2024 work "Comedian" - a banana strapped to a wall with duct tape - caused a media storm when it was sold for USD 6.2 million at Sotheby's. The work comes with instructions that allow the owner to replace the banana with a new one whenever it rots.

If the replacement of a banana with another one is a low-tech solution, when it comes to digital art, different challenges arise. This is because many of the technologies needed to view videos, DVDs and other formats can become obsolete. To make it easier to archive, conserve and view these types of artworks, Shea developed a web-based platform called ArtPlay, which allows collectors to store and view digital artworks, whether they are videos produced in the 1980s or digital art in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

But if artists are expressing their creativity through a growing number of mediums, the professionals who look after those works are also becoming more creative - and collaborative.

Scalpels and gels for art conservation

Young explains that she and her colleagues at Modern Art Conservation often work with scientists who are developing alternative forms of adhesive or materials that can be used for cleaning artworks safely. For example in food science, gelling ingredients that are food additives can be used as components of cleaning solutions for artworks with very delicate surfaces.

The team has also worked with medical professionals to see whether their equipment - such as dental picks or tiny scalpels used for eye surgery - could be used in art conservation. "We're always keeping our eyes open and looking for ways to solve these problems as they come up," she says.

Sometimes the materials themselves offer protection to the artwork. Glendinning says that while they would not withstand extreme heat or rainfall - and perhaps the presence of cats - the feathers on her figures have thermal properties that help conserve the sculptures. "They need to be inside with a constant temperature," she says. "But the wax never gets very hot because the feathers protect it," she explains.

Young advises collectors of contemporary artworks to establish relationships with conservators. "We often advise collectors before they make a purchase," she says. "We look at a painting or artwork and detail its condition. Having that baseline condition report can be really helpful as it allows their conservator to monitor for any changes in the condition of the work over time."

Conservators can also help make recommendations on how to safely display the artworks made with unconventional materials that may be sensitive to light or to changes in humidity.

When buying an artwork that may need careful conservation, these are critical considerations, says Young. "A collector is the steward of this cultural material," she says. "So it's really important to care for it so that it can last as long as possible."