“It beggars belief that some urgent “conservation” necessity should have struck all of these modern works at the same time….”
That’s Michael Daley, the conservation watchdog, opining on the reopening of the Picasso Museum in Paris, which is set for June. When it does readmit the public to the building — an operation of “restoration, renovation and extension” that began in 2009 and “was far more extensive than the preceding work in terms of both objectives and cost — it will be completely restructured (pictured at right), raised to new standards of safety and security. It started out costing €30 million and ended up costing some €52 million. More details about the makeover are here.
But as Daley, Director of ArtWatch UK, recently pointed out in a letter to The Guardian:Â
What comes as a truly horrible surprise is that all of Picasso’s 5,000 works have been “cleaned, restored and reframed” for the opening. It beggars belief that some urgent “conservation” necessity should have struck all of these modern works at the same time. We can only conclude that Picasso’s art has been cosmetically spruced-up to match the new decor. The consequence is that all of these works have been severed at the same historical moment and to the same prevailing taste from their previous and likely varying states of conservation or non-conservation.
I’m not an alarmist about conservation — some episodes of which, however, unquestionably go wrong — but Daley has a point here. I, too, find it hard to believe that all 5,000 works needed, well, work — despite the fact that many have been touring the world to raise money for the renovation project. According to The Guardian, the tours were “helping to raise €31m to partly finance the work” while “[t]he French government has paid €19m.”
If there is damage, it has been done, but Daley is right to raise the question.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Guardian