Oh! Sweet Nothing

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." Andy Warhol

Clearly, Warhol was not an art conservator.

Earlier this year, Nautilus posted an article titled "Should Science Save Modern Art?" Art conservators work to preserve art in its original form, and chemists have been developing newer, increasingly efficient chemicals to combat the decaying nature of common art materials. But what happens when artists don't want their work to last? The article cites a challenge posed by the minimalist art of Eva Hesse. Minimalist art, art not meant to refer to anything but itself, propelled the usage of non-traditional materials in the 1960s and 1970s. Upon trying to display her 1968 piece "Aught" at the San Francisco Musuem of Modern Art, the head conservator faced a dilemma. She didn't want to alter Hesse's art, but Hesse had intentionally chosen non-traditional materials not meant to transcend the tests of time. Her sculpture "Aught" was built of organic latex, a material quick to decay. According to Hesse, "Life doesn't last, art doesn't last".



A more in depth analysis of Eva Hesse's materials from the art conservator at the SFMOMA.

The Nautilus article raises the interesting question of whether or not art must be permanent. "Great" art is conventionally determined by a piece's timelessness, but must art be permanent to be timeless? And must art be timeless to be great, or is that an outdated notion?

Conceptualism began growing around the early 1920s, and is built on the idea of questioning the nature of art, believing that art is more than the physical manifestation of the artwork. It was the first movement to begin to question the permanence of art. This led to a dematerialization of art, prompting works such as Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and Yves Klein's IKB 79. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, alongside minimalism grew performance art, influenced by the Fluxus and conceptual art movements of the time. Performance art most delineated art from the conventional forms by creating live art, art that had no means of preservation. Klein (above) was a famous early performance artist, questioning materiality in his piece Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle. In the 60s Andy Warhol also participated in performance art beginning with his videos with The Velvet Underground.

One of Warhol's most famous performance pieces was in Jørgen Leth's 1982 film 66 Scenes From America. Warhol sits in front of a camera eating a hamburger for a little less than five minutes. Warhol, upon finishing his burger, looks directly at the camera and states "My name is Andy Warhol and I've just finished eating a hamburger".



Warhol's stint in the film is famous, but is that due to the timelessness of the piece or the timelessness of the artists? Warhol was fascinated by fame, claiming that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes". Everyone gets fifteen minutes, but only a special few get timelessness.


Check out the Department of Conservation at the Museum of Modern Art for more information on how conservation is done and to see videos of current and past projects.