Artistic practices and alterations of materials

10th day of Study on the Contemporary February 7, 2025 ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS OF BOLOGNA

The tenth day of Study on the Contemporary will focus on the alterations of materials, intentional and unintentional, related to the modus operandi of artists. Specifically, it is intended to draw attention to the difficulty of conservation and restoration of works that, by natural or intentional process of transformation of matter, have undergone modifications. These alterations can be attributed to multiple factors, including: the direct consequence of a particular execution technique, the modification by the artist of a ready-to-use material, the combination of different materials, the lack of knowledge of the behavior over time of materials that have recently entered the market that leads to unpredictable modifications, not least, the modifications that manufacturers can make to the materials over time. To actively participate, send an abstract on one of the thematic areas:

Expressive choices and consequences: it is intended to emphasize the modifications of the materials due to the action of the artist that can be traced back both to modifications made during the execution phase on industrial products ready to use (mixture with other materials, dilutions, etc.) and to alterations of the supports or surfaces mostly of a mechanical and chemical-physical type (texture changes through abrasions, applications of reagent substances, combustion, etc.)
The identification of problems and the restoration methodology: it is intended to emphasize how to know and recognize alterations through the use of conscious and accessible diagnostics; in fact today there are many methods/tools that are easy to use and with low cost that can give significant support to the understanding of degradation and, in return, to the restoration solutions to be adopted.
Conscious conservation: the emphasis is to place emphasis on preventive conservation, in particular on the methods of monitoring works useful to control the alterations of materials over time. Also for this point, we would like to emphasize the accessibility to diagnostics that too often is not taken into consideration because it is considered complex and expensive.

More information: https://www.igiic.org/prodotto/pratiche-artistiche-e-alterazioni-dei-materiali/