The Gabo Trust welcomes applications for grants from conservators of modern and contemporary sculpture to assist them in attending ICOM-CC Triennial Conference: 14 - 18 September 2020 in China “Transcending Boundaries: Integrated Approaches to Conservation”.
The conference organisers aim to bring together conservation professionals from both East and West to exchange and discuss knowledge, traditions and skills in order to learn from each other’s practices, philosophies and materials. This will be the first time ICOM-CC goes to “zhōng guó”, 中国 (the Middle Country) for a conference on conservation.
(above: detail from chip filling workshop, attended by Brenda Keneghan
© J. Paul Getty Trust.)
'Surfaces': FutureTalks019 in Munich, November 2019
The Gabo Trust grant aided Brenda Keneghan from the V&A and Myriam Lavoie, a freelance sculpture conservator from Quebec, to attend this conference.
Brenda Keneghan chaired a session on practical treatments of polymers. She acted as a mentor in the 'speed mentoring' event where attendees could spend 10 minutes with more experienced practitioners. She also attended a practical workshop on repairing scratches and chips on MMA surfaces.
Brenda reported that she found this FutureTalks conference the most informative to date, as much of the research into the treatment of modern materials (especially plastics) was presented, for the first time; and the dialogue between researchers and practitioners helped to hone research. She will endeavour to transmit what she has learnt to her colleagues, far and wide.
Myriam Lavoie, who specialises in conserving public art sculptures in a variety of media, also gained valuable insight and ideas at the conference. She was particularly interested in papers on photogrammetry, which can make a 3D digital map of a very large outdoor sculptural installation, as well as its original maquette. The two maps are overlaid and the result can be used to reproduce, as accurately as possible, a painted surface lost to weathering and successive repainting.
Miriam intends to make her knowledge gained at FutureTalks019 as useful to as many conservators as possible, particularly her colleagues in Quebec. She is putting together a short document on the papers she heard, to share with them, and will apply to her own work what she learnt during the conference.
A Gabo Trust grant has enabled LU Arts (at Loughborough University) to employ a specialist conservator to carry out a survey of aspects of their modern and contemporary sculpture collection. The project coordinator at LU Arts reported, 'The funding provided by the Gabo Trust has played a hugely important role in the ongoing process of restoring this collection to its rightful condition, and to its rightful prominence on the University’s campus and in the University’s institutional reputation... The process has facilitated new avenues of co-operation between LU Arts and Facilities Management, helped raise awareness of the collection across the University more broadly, and resulted in interest and enthusiasm towards [it].'
Stop Press: two grant opportunities with the Gabo Trust: application deadline 5 Appril 2019
The Gabo Trust is inviting grant applications from conservators of modern and contemporary sculpture towards attending the following two conferences.
Newss from the Gabo Trust: IIC 2018 Turin Congress: Last chance to apply for a Gabo Trust grant; Leeds Art Gallery Sculpture Survey; Recent Grants Awarded; SPark Publication and Courtauld Institute Seminar Report
The Gabo Trust will consider grant applications for financial assistance from qualified conservators of modern and contemporary sculpture to attend the IIC 2018 Turin Congress
Furthering research into and supporting conservation of modern and contemporary sculpture through grants to individual conservators, institutions and educational organisations.
Grant opportunities, including ICOM-CC 18th Triennial Conference; reports from Keep it Moving? Conserving Kinetic Sculpture and Saving the Now: Crossing Boundaries to Conserve Contemporary Works of Art in Los Angeles; Conservation surveys of modern and contemporary sculpture collections and funding conservation research
New funding from George Dannatt Trust announced
Direct result of Gabo Trust Sculpture Collection Survey for Southampton City Art Gallery
February 2016 news from the Gabo Trust
Furthering research into and supporting conservation of modern and contemporary sculpture through grants to individual conservators, institutions and educational organisations.
Gabo Trust currently accepting grant applications for
‘Keep it Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art’ Conference
The Gabo Trust has expanded its role in furthering research and understanding of contemporary sculpture conservation. Museums in the UK have a shortage of expert conservators in this emerging specialism, which includes conservation, managing change, the understanding of new materials and how they age, the necessity to liaise with living sculptors, their fabricators and foundries. In response to this need, the Gabo Trust has created a new grant for specialist sculpture surveys of museum collections of modern and contemporary sculpture.