Conservation News, June 2024

International Course on the Conservation of Modern Heritage

Spring–Summer 2025


Online and In-Person in Los Angeles

Application deadline July 15, 2024.

Targeting mid-career professionals, the course aims to advance the conservation of modern heritage, landscapes, and architecture by providing participants with methodological and practical tools through lectures, discussions, exercises, demonstrations, site visits, and field projects.

Learn more and apply online

Mechanical Insights: Shaping the Future of Museum Collection Preservation Symposium

November 12–15, 2024

Getty Center, Los Angeles

Registration now open.

This symposium brings together an international group of experts in the mechanical characterization of historic and artists’ materials to discuss current and future trends in the study and preservation of museum collections.

We will create a forum to discuss how mechanical research can inform decision-making in the management of museum environments, practical conservation, and the transportation of art objects.

Register online

2024–2025 Conservation Guest Scholars Announced

We’re pleased to welcome ten new residents in our Conservation Guest Scholars program beginning this fall.

The program, now in its 25th year, provides opportunities for established scholars as well as professionals who have attained distinction in the cultural heritage conservation field.

Recipients are in residence at the Conservation Institute for either a three-month or six-month term, in which they pursue their own projects free from work-related obligations, make use of research collections at the Getty Center and Getty Villa, and participate with other Getty scholars, fellows, and interns in the intellectual life of Getty.

See the list of 2024–2025 scholars

Applications for 2025–2026 residences will open in August.

Workshop for Conserving Black Modernism Grantees

Recipients of Getty’s Conserving Black Modernism grant program arrived at the Getty Center in April for a 4-day training developed by staff from the Conserving Modern Architectutre Initiative. 

Funded by Getty in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Action Fund, Conserving Black Modernism seeks to recognize the contributions of Black architects to American modern architecture with preservation-planning grants for 8 modern buildings.

The workshop enhanced the skills of recipients to help them fulfill their grant projects, and provided them a chance to meet, interact, and learn from one another.

Learn about the 8 buildings supported by Conserving Black Modernism 

Recent Advances in Characterizing Asian Lacquer Workshop

In April, we held the 2024 “Recent Advances in Characterizing Asian Lacquer” workshop, co-organized with the Palace Museum, in Beijing. It included two pre-workshop days on microscopy, followed by a five-day workshop. Participants came from 17 institutions across mainland China.

Conservators and scientists worked together in research teams to study and discuss historic lacquer samples. This was a unique opportunity for collaboration and discussion of topics such as the compositional variation in lacquered objects made in different geographical areas and time periods, the relevance of analytical research to their conservation and interpretation, and the identification of research priorities and potential collaborations.

Care of Neon Light–based Art Workshop

In May, we presented the pilot workshop “Care of Neon Light–based Art,” organized by Associate Project Specialist Ellen Moody, in collaboration with the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation, the American Institute for Conservation’s Contemporary Art Network and Objects Specialty Group.

Offered in conjunction with AIC’s Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, the workshop was taught by neon artist Meryl Pataky and time-based media conservator Taylor Healy, with contributions from objects conservator Joy Bloser.

Participants learned about the technology of neon art, treatment options, and recommendations for handling, packing, and display. They then tried their hands at assessing and installing neon objects, temporarily transforming the convention center’s meeting room into a glowing exhibition space!

Towards Art in Transit 2.0 Symposium

Held in conjunction with the American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting in May, this symposium examined the development of crating and shipping of collection items since the seminal “Art in Transit” conference in 1991. It included a full day of programming prior to the start of the annual meeting, as well as a 90-minute session during the meeting. 

Speakers and panelists included conservators, preparators, registrars, scientists, insurers, and shippers. Over 200 in-person and virtual attendees were present. Organizers envision this as the first in a series of symposiums at professional conferences that include the various stakeholders concerned with the safe transport of museum collections.

“Towards Art in Transit 2.0” was organized by Vincent Laudato Beltran, Getty Conservation Institute; JP Brown, Field Museum; Cayetana Castillo, Art Institute of Chicago; Dale Kronkright, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; Kevin Marshall, PACCIN; Mark Ryan, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; and Kaitlyn Sturgis-Jensen, San Diego Museum of Art.

Learn more about our project, Assessing the Transportation Environment 

Greener Solvents in Art Conservation

A Report from an Experts Meeting Organized by the Getty Conservation Institute and The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), December 13–14, 2022

Starting from the premise that the most safe effective solvent application is the most ethical choice, this publication includes key concepts, research priorities, and workable approaches to lessening the harmful effects of solvent use in the cultural heritage field.

Available in PDF and EPUB formats.

Download your free copy 

New Buildings in Old Cities

Writings by Gustavo Giovannoni on Architectural and Urban Conservation

This illustrated critical anthology is a representative sample of Giovannoni’s seminal texts related to the appreciation, understanding, and planning of historic cities.

The thirty readings, which appear with their original illustrations, are grouped thematically into six parts organized around key concepts in Giovannoni’s conservation theory—urban building, respect for the setting or context, a thinning out of the urban fabric, conservation and restoration treatments, the grafting of the new upon the old, and reconstruction.

Order your copy from the Getty Store

Projet de conservation de la mosaïque de Bulla Regia: Un projet de terrain modèle de l’initiative MOSAIKON

Projet de conservation de la mosaïque de Bulla Regia is the French translation of Bulla Regia Mosaic Conservation Project:A Model Field Project of the MOSAIKON Initiative, the summary report of the model field project that took place between 2010 and 2017 at the archaeological site of Bulla Regia in northwest Tunisia as part of the MOSAIKON Initiative.

It presents the conservation methodology and the project’s planning and implementation components.

Download your free copy

Conservation Perspectives: Art & Science Issue

This fall will mark the start of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, the third iteration of Getty’s landmark arts event, PST ART.

PST ART: Art & Science Collide will feature fifty exhibitions in Southern California—including several organized by the Conservation Institute—that will delve into the intersections of art and science.

In conjunction with this regional exhibition series, we’re devoting this issue of Conservation Perspectives to exploring the connections between art and science—and conservation.

Read the issue (PDF)

New in the Conservation Collection

Recent additions to the collection include books about Syrian textiles, Alexander Hamilton’s Harlem neighborhood, Blythe House in London, Gustav Klimt landscapes, architectural conservation in Oceania, history of conservation practice, and stone conservation.

See the full list (PDF)

Preserving the Past and Honoring Communities

Now in its 20th year, the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Master’s Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heriage uses purpose-built conservation and research laboratories at the Getty Villa and is the only graduate conservation program on the West Coast.

It’s also the only graduate program in the United States that focuses on the conservation of Indigenous and archaeological materials.

Read the story

Why I Changed My Mind About Concrete Architecture

In this episode of Becoming Artsy, Jessie Hendricks joins up with the Interantional Course on the Conservtion of Modern Heritage held last summer to learn all about concrete and brutalism.

Along with an international roster of modern heritage professionals, she visits a couple of Southern California landmarks (including the Salk Institute and University of California San Diego) to learn about the importance of conserving concrete.

Jessie also tags along on a concrete conservation day at the Getty Villa Museum, and sits in on some course lectures at the Getty Center!

Watch the espisode

Acoustic Emission Monitoring

Our lastest video demonstrated how acoustic emission montioring, typically used to inspect airplanes and bridges for potential issues, can also be used to prevent damage in cultural heritage objects.

Watch the video

New Podcast: ReCurrent

A podcast about what we gain by keeping the past, present.

Listen to host Jaime Roque explore the everyday places and stories that shape our cultural heritage.

Episode 2

América Tropical

Art, Activism, and Los Angeles’s Hidden Story

This episode explores how public murals in Los Angeles, like David Alfaro Siqueiros’ América Tropical, connect generations and preserve cultural narratives.

Listen to the episode

Digital Content Editor

We are looking for a Digital Content Editor to develop engaging stories for broad, non-specialist audiences that draw from the Conservation Institute’s work to research, develop, and model best practices for the long-term preservation of the world’s cultural heritage.

Deadline for applications: June 28, 2024

Apply online

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