In 2008 and 2013 the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig presented two representative inventory publications under the title Vessel / Sculpture. German and International Ceramics since 1946, which attracted great interest from across the globe and were regarded as standard reference works. This third volume continues the series, against a backdrop of a renewed and extensive increase of modern studio ceramics in the museum’s collection. As in the previous publications, the objects in the book enter into aesthetic dialogues, thus facilitating interesting perspectives in the development of artistic ceramics up to the present day. In doing so it becomes clear how ceramic objects are developing from a servient-functional gesture into ever consistent autonomous artworks yet without necessarily losing the vessel theme. Its multitude of current artists’ biographies and illustrations of makers’ marks make this a highly recommendable reference work.

Contents: Contributions from selected artists: Felicity Aylieff, Thomas Bohle, Werner Bünck, Carmen Dionyse, Allesandro Gallo, Louise Hindsgavl, Beate Kuhn, Sonngard Marcks, Ken Mihara, Sarah Pschorn, Elke Sada, Carolein Smit, Julian Stair, Robert Sturm and Henk Wolvers.

Published to accompany an exhibition at GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts Leipzig (DE), 10 November 2018 – 13 October 2019.

Text in English and German

Vessel | Sculpture refers to the direction studio pottery has taken since the mid-20th century, developing from primarily functional vessels to artistically designed vessels, ceramic sculpture, installation and conceptual art. The aim is to trace the history of how ceramics has evolved and developed into an autonomous art medium, which is continually self-renewing. Focused on the GRASSI Museum’s collection of contemporary ceramic work since 1946 when Germany was divided into East and West after the World War II, this book provides a fascinating and instructive overview of developments and trends in the two Germanys. Moreover, a broad-ranging selection of works by ceramicists now active in both the new and the old Federal German states is supplemented by contemporary pieces from all over the world. The publication is devoted to one-off pieces and limited editions from the past six decades. Reproductions in large formats of approximately four hundred selected objects are accompanied by biographies of as many artists and their signatures. Text in English & German. Artists include: Gordon Baldwin, Richard Bampi, Hedwig Bollhagen, Jan Bontjes van Beek, Hans Cooper, Dieter Crumbiegel, Anne Currier, Ruth Duckworth, Karl Fulle, Walter Gebauer, Ewen Henderson, Gerd Knäpper, Maria Teresa Kuczynska, Beate Kuhn, Bernard Leach, Heidi Manthey, Sonngard Marcks, Gertraud Möhwald, Colin Pearson, Walter Popp, Gilbert Portanier, Renée Reichenbach, Lucie Rie, Antje Scharfe, Karl Scheid, Ursula Scheid, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, Alev Siesbye, Bärbel Thoelke, Jindra Viková, and many more.

“For Iris Fishof, a piece of jewelry is not merely an ornament but it can be a reflection of societal history. Her extensive, beautifully illustrated history, “Jewellery in Israel Multicultural Diversity 1948 to the Present” is the first book of its kind. Fishof, an Israeli art historian and curator, begins with folk artists who worked in pre-state Israel and covers the establishment of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in 1906 and the role of immigrants, like the Germans who brought the modernist Bauhaus tradition with them in the 1930s and Yemenites who brought their own intricate silversmith traditions in the 1950s. She describes contemporary internationally recognized artists working in various materials and styles, still with a ‘distinctly local flavor’.” – The Jewish Week

In Israel East meets West. Their jewelry traditions blend, resulting in creative innovations. In the 1930s, European immigrants introduced the spirit of the Bauhaus, while oriental craftsmanship was invigorated in the 1950s and 1960s by immigration from Islamic countries. State jewelry companies preserved traditional crafts, while at the same time developing a new and elegant style, designed to express the national identity of the still young state of Israel. There are important links between native jewelry makers and European and American jewelry artists, who were guest lecturers at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in the 1970s and had a lasting influence on Israeli artists. The transition to art jewelry was finally completed in the 1980s, paving the way for artists who are now internationally renowned. A further chapter is dedicated to contemporary works by some outstanding young artists. Although their works are part of the global jewelry scene, they are also dedicated to their homeland, for example through unequivocal references to local political tensions.

Artists (a selection): Bianca Eshel Gershuni, Esther Knobel, Deganit Stern Schocken, Vered Kaminski, Attai Chen.

This book follows the author’s popular title ‘Fungal Facts’ and is designed to help collections managers, conservators, curators and students (of materials and material culture) to understand the properties of fibrous proteins. The author presents relevant information to assist in developing new approaches to care, conservation and research of objects and understanding conservation treatment interactions. Subject areas include: the link between heritage objects and natural history specimens; the different collagenous tissues used in heritage artefacts including the skin structure of several different specimens; amino acids; the numerous agents of protein deterioration; the effects of water in fibrous protein materials; collagen structure and the deterioration of collagen; tanning processes; striated muscle and elastin in fluid-preserved natural history specimens.

This volume of post prints of a conference held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is a record of current perceptions and considerations of plastics within museum collections. Artist’s concepts of plastic as a medium and their views of ageing and decay challenge museum ethics. The dichotomy between an artist’s intent and engagement with their contemporary culture and longevity has resulted in many different resolutions. The balance between using and preserving ‘plastic’ artwork is a fine and delicate line of compromise, and the complex enigma of how to identify which of the many synthetic polymers, mass-produced ‘plastics’ within collections are formed from remains, as yet, unsolved. Now, through experience, observation and research, museums are developing collecting policies, recording techniques and preservation strategies which take pragmatic and utilitarian approaches, differentiating between stable and unstable plastics on the grounds of many aspects including age, color and design.

In 2003, Salvador Muñoz Viñas published Teoría contemporánea de la Restauración. Two years later, he wrote Contemporary Theory of Conservation, a different, revised version of the first work. In these books, the philosophy of conservation was analyzed, and, building from different authors and sources, an alternative approach was outlined. Since 2005, the author has continued working on this topic, revising the ideas presented in these books, and developing new ones. Many of these ideas were presented in papers or in lectures. On Theoretical and Ethical Principles of Conservation gathers together fifteen of these contributions. While the papers and lectures included in this volume were not conceived as part of a whole, a coherent line of thinking can be easily detected: in all of them, the core notions of conservation ethics are discussed and analyzed. In different ways, they all aim at showing that, simply put, the so-called ‘principles of conservation’ are not what they may seem at first sight. Heritage conservation is a well-established activity in many societies – an activity that does work, and that serves its purposes in an overly successful way; however, the reflections presented in this volume suggest that conservation might benefit from a different, less traditional interpretation of some of its ethical and theoretical tenets. Contents: A Brief History of Conservation Philosophy; The Metamorphosis of a Profession; The Battle of Clio and Euterpe; Authenticity – Beyond Authenticity – The Problems of Authenticity; On Minimal Intervention – Minimal Intervention Revisited; On Artist’s Intent – Authorship – Reasons to Ignore Artist’s Intent; On Objectivity – You are not being objective. The Changing Criteria Argument – Sense and Sensibility and Patina – Pride and Prejuduce and Patina; Technical Authority – Whose decision; On Conservation – The Frankenstein Syndrome – Imperfect Conservation; On Conservation Ethics – These are my Principles.

This volume seeks a solution to the problem of methods of preservation for the rapidly developing and complex field of contemporary and modern visual art. Despite adopting the new concept of heritage, the aims and methods of conservation have remained the same, evolving very slowly by following some changes in the history of ideas, human experience and techniques of conservation. The authors of Innovative Approaches to the Complex Care of Modern and Contemporary Art relate complex conservation practices to an awareness of the need for a multidimensional approach to the care of modern and contemporary art. Maintaining a dialogue with history, they boldly confront the typical patterns and accepted evolution of the theory of conservation by looking at the wider perspective including the most recent history of any work of art – documentation, interviews with artists, records of image, the sound of performance, consent to e-installation, emulation etc. – and bearing in mind as the first principle primum non nocere and various legal issues.
This volume seeks a solution to the problem of methods of preservation for the rapidly developing and complex field of contemporary and modern visual art. Despite adopting the new concept of heritage, the aims and methods of conservation have remained the same, evolving very slowly by following some changes in the history of ideas, human experience and techniques of conservation.

The authors of Innovative Approaches to the Complex Care of Modern and Contemporary Art relate complex conservation practices to an awareness of the need for a multidimensional approach to the care of modern and contemporary art. Maintaining a dialogue with history, they boldly confront the typical patterns and accepted evolution of the theory of conservation by looking at the wider perspective including the most recent history of any work of art – documentation, interviews with artists, records of image, the sound of performance, consent to e-installation, emulation etc. – and bearing in mind as the first principle primum non nocere and various legal issues.

This title, published in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum and with the assistance of The Getty Foundation, contains papers from a two-day conference on the ‘Mazarin Chest Project’ a UK-Japanese collaborative effort at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Text in English & Japanese Contents:
Material Culture: The effects of consolidation on the appearance of powdery pigmented Japanese lacquer surfaces; The autofluorescence of Asian lacquer; Japanese lacquered armour in context: cross-sectional analysis as an aid for appraisal; An investigation into the cleaning of red urushi lacquer; The French connection: developing a conservation treatment plan for eighteenth-century Chinese lacquer panels adapted for an American Beaux Arts-style house; A cornucopia of carving techniques: an analysis and treatment of a Qing dynasty lacquered screen; Light-induced deterioration of urushi, maki-e and nashiji decoration; Conservation of the photodegraded surface of the Mazarin Chest; Maritime trade in Asia and the circulation of lacquerware; How many ‘Mazarin Chests’ were there?; Two boxes and two balustrades: private orders for fine Japanese export lacquer; Japanese lacquer in eighteenth-century Europe: status and value – market price of craftsmanship and the canon of the grand arts; Mid-Edo period lacquer production seen through historical European collections. Science and Conservation: Developing a methodology for the artificial ageing of urushi and a preliminary examination of urushi-based conservation options; Solvent effects on East Asian lacquer (Toxicodendron vernicifluum); Stress measurement in East Asian lacquer thin films due to changes in relative humidity using phase shifting interferometry; A methodology for modelling the mechanical response of urushi lacquer under varying environmental conditions; New evidence for the use of Southeast Asian raw materials in seventeenth-century Japanese export lacquer; Delamination and flaking of East Asian export lacquer coatings on wood substrates; Construction methods of Japanese writing boxes (suzuribako).

This refereed volume contains the proceedings of a conference ‘Conservation Science’ in Edinburgh in May 2002, organized by the Institute of Conservation Science, COST Action G8 ‘Non-destructive Analysis and Testing of Museum Objects’ and the National Museums of Scotland. The book is divided into three sections. The first, ‘Preventive Conservation’, includes contributions on the deterioration of historic textiles; the movement of painted wooden panels; dimensional changes in bark paintings; showcase environments; particles and dust in museums etc. This is followed by the section on ‘Conservation Methods’, which includes laser cleaning; chromatography; adhesives for textiles; mortars for mosaics and corrosion inhibitors for iron artefacts. In the final section, ‘Non-Destructive Testing’, the reader is taken into a world of acronyms – XRF, SEM, LA-ICPMS, PIXE, THM-GCMS, ATR, CPSEM-EDX – while some more easily written techniques including dendrochronology, colorimetry, eddy current testing, accelerated light testing, neutron radiography etc. are discussed. These techniques are applied to a range of materials – from Rembrandt to Roman coins; from aero engines to alkyd resins; from hats to hallmarks; manuscripts to mercury.

The 4th International Architectural Paint Research Conference in 2010 illustrated the developing maturity of a discipline confident in its position within the heritage sector. Specialists in the field discussed ‘Moving the Profession Forward’, ‘The Public Face of APR’ and ‘Decision Making: Communication with Clients and Heritage Bodies’. The papers in this conference volume explore the organizational and financial context in which architectural paint research is practiced, the application of research findings to interpretation and the paint researcher’s role in the decision-making process.
The 4th International Architectural Paint Research Conference in 2010 illustrated the developing maturity of a discipline confident in its position within the heritage sector. Specialists in the field discussed ‘Moving the Profession Forward’, ‘The Public Face of APR’ and ‘Decision Making: Communication with Clients and Heritage Bodies’. The papers in this conference volume explore the organisational and financial context in which architectural paint research is practiced, the application of research findings to interpretation and the paint researcher’s role in the decision-making process.

This is the first book to explore the work of the forgotten ceramics concern – Chetham & Woolley. The original partnership of James Chetham and Richard Woolley established a factory in Longton, Staffordshire in 1795. The partnership was responsible for developing a new ceramic body – semi-transparent stoneware, properly termed Feldspathic Stoneware. In its day the Chetham & Woolley factory occupied a very important position in the Staffordshire ceramics industry. Until recent research carried out by Colin Wyman practically all memory of Chetham & Woolley had been lost. This book re-establishes the factory’s well-deserved reputation.