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When restoring and preserving one of the largest ink paintings in the M+ Collections, the conservation team had to get inventive, using both modern tools and ancient techniques from the Asian scroll mounting tradition.

Hidai Nankoku’s Work (1964) is an immense 3.5 x 4.6 metre ink artwork. A documentary video recorded the performance in which the artist created the work: wielding an oversized brush and using the strength of his whole body, Hidai paints a large piece of paper lying on the ground outdoors, holding the brush upright like in regular calligraphy practice. However, his lines go against the standard movement and direction of calligraphic strokes and have no specific meaning, rejecting conventional practices of calligraphy.

Below, M+ Paper Conservator Jo-Fan Huang explains how she and her team dealt with this large work.

Conserving contemporary visual culture is both a challenge and an opportunity. For Noguchi for Danh Vo: Counterpoint, the conservation efforts were conducted by Albrecht Gumlich, Conservator, Objects, M+, and the M+ conservation team. Below, he discusses some of the factors that the conservators had to protect against in the exhibition.

Why do we preserve visual culture, and what are we protecting it from when we preserve it? That’s the question that conservators are often asked. Objects in a museum collection are not only worth money, but they also have a cultural, historical, and social significance, which museums want to preserve for future generations to learn from, be inspired by, and enjoy.

There are many factors that can cause degradation, even in settings as carefully engineered as a museum exhibition, from the sweat on our fingers to the light shining onto an object. Below are some of the key dangers that conservators protect against.

Danger #1: People’s fingers

In the current exhibition at the M+ Pavilion, In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections, you’ll find a video installation work next to two large, suspended nets filled with leaves. This is All Lines Flow Out by Charles Lim, a work that explores Singapore’s drainage system and how it reflects the city’s relationship to the sea. The work’s installation instructions state that the leaves should be freshly gathered for each display. So, how do you find these leaves? Below, four members of M+’s exhibitions team share how they did it.

Participants: Kieran Champion, Senior Manager, Installations and Displays; Natalie Harding, Associate Conservator, Objects; Nelson Tsui, Assistant Art Technician; and Howard Wong, Exhibitions Production Technician.

Every M+ exhibition presents new challenges and opportunities for the M+ Conservation team. For The Weight of Lightness: Ink Art at M+, the conservation efforts were led by Jo-Fan Huang, Conservator, Paper, and Karina Jagudina, Conservator, Paintings. Read on below for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the conservation process, as they recount some of the unique cases they faced. Find out what to do when dealing with losses, what microclimates are, and how difficult it can be just to put an artwork on the wall.