AIC's 46th Annual Meeting

The Museum of Modern Art's 4-year Thomas Walther Collection project culminated in December 2014 with a symposium, Object: Photo print publication, website and exhibition.  This material-based study of the Walter Collection is symptomatic of a larger institutional interest in materials characterization that is not confined to a single collection, medium or even institution, but part of an ongoing effort to promote materials-based scholarship at large. Three years hence, assimilation of conservation material content continues at MoMA as well as in related arts fields, as can be seen in curatorial, technical art history and academic initiatives focused on material culture.
In 2005 with the Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective, 2006 with Dada in the Collection, and on a yearly basis since, the department of conservation at MoMA has published formative work on individual artists, or artistic movements, in conjunction with curatorial initiatives.  Subjects include work of Pablo Picasso, Bill Brandt, Henri Matisse, Bruce Conner, Francis Picabia and Frank Lloyd Wright, among many others. In 2012, there was a considerable uptick in these studies which now include online publications.  Raisonné-style format to artistic studies is increasingly seen as a model. 
This presentation will outline the development of MoMA’s conservation scholarship, consider how this trend is reflected in and parallel to, sister institution's programming, posit views on the causes of this trend and review resources for these critical investigations.