Image: Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe
A special exhibition commemorative symposium will be held on 1 November, under the title ‘The Use and Management of Sculpture in Museums.’ The program will address how museums can protect the works entrusted to them and pass them on to the future, with a focus on the conservation and restoration of sculpture.
The first session will examine Rodin’s production techniques, as well as the conservation and use of his works. It will feature a conservator who has worked on the restoration of Rodin works in the National Museum of Western Art’s collection and a curator from a museum that holds numerous Rodin works. Through those perspectives, the session will consider how learning about the works and their value can support their transmission to the future.
The second session will bring together three museum conservation curators specializing in metal, stone and composite materials. They will discuss the conservation challenges that differ according to material characteristics, along with daily management and approaches to restoration, as they examine the conservation and restoration of sculpture in museums.
The event is scheduled for 13:00–17:15, with doors opening at 12:30, at KOBELCO Museum Hall. Its five speakers are Tōru Fujiwara, a French-certified conservator and former professor at Tohoku University of Art and Design; Tatefumi Nitta, senior curator at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art; Naomi Henmuki, chief researcher and head of the Conservation and Restoration Section at the National Museum of Western Art; Asuka Tsuchiya, a researcher at Yasuda Kan Sculpture Museum Arte Piazza Bibai; and Tomoyoshi Iwamatsu, a curator in the museum’s conservation and restoration division. Framed as a movement from ‘collection’ to ‘inheritance,’ the symposium offers an opportunity to encounter and consider the museum’s work of supporting artworks’ futures so that the works can continue to exist.
