Crumpled paper and brittle wax. What’s a conservator to do? A little bit of cleaning, repairing, and retouching transformed and stabilized a breathtaking and daring work. Conservation treatment of artworks is essential to the visitor experience at the Denver Art Museum. Treatment includes actions to physically stabilize artworks or improve their legibility, such as cleaning, repairs, and retouching. A unique treatment project recently took place in the conservation lab, finishing with transformative results!
Calligraphy Waterfall, a 5 ½-foot-tall sculpture, comprised of pieces of mulberry paper, ink, and candlewax, arrived at the museum in 2020 in a damaged state. Originally created in 2003 as part of an installation by the conceptual artist collective the Yangjiang Group, headed by Zheng Guogu, the work is now featured as the meditative centerpiece for the Chinese art gallery of the permanent collection of Arts of Asia (5th floor of the Martin Building). Layers of dripped wax cascade down a pile of crumpled, traditional mulberry paper that was brushed with ink. The visually stunning sculpture is reminiscent of gentle waterfalls often featured in traditional Chinese ink painting.
Over the years, the Yangjiang Group has explored the subject of calligraphy. Their conceptual artworks often subvert expectations, moving beyond the boundaries of classical calligraphy practice and expectations about sculpture. Calligraphy Waterfall contains over one thousand fragments of paper calligraphy by people who were not trained in writing calligraphy. The collective remarked:
"The intention behind Waterfall was to allow calligraphy to escape from the monotony of real life, to reflect upon the fact that it should no longer serve as a spiritually and culturally unwitting slave. We want to allow it to depart from merely being a vehicle for the study of elite or ordinary semiotics, to surpass the limitation that analyses [sic.] calligraphy purely on the level of form and allow it to be studied for its energy."
In an interview with The Oxford Art Journal in 2013, the group discussed their use of candle wax. “We were attracted by the natural properties of wax, as it allowed us to instinctively return to a more natural state. Wax has enabled us to observe the inner qualities of objects, transforming them from one-dimensional entities to things of infinite dimensions, then returning them back again to one-dimensionality.”
Upon arrival at the museum, Calligraphy Waterfall was not in a state to achieve its full potential and purpose as a work of art. There was extensive damage to the wax base at each of the four corners and severe breakage of the fragile drip details. The once diaphanous, white surface was obscured by cobwebs, grime, discoloration, and even remnants of dried leaves, perhaps original to the initial 2003 installation. All of which, of course, takes away from the intention of the work and no longer lets the viewer “observe the inner qualities of the object(s).”
As part of my completion of The Patricia H. and Richard E. Garmen Art Conservation program at Buffalo State University, I assessed, examined, and treated the sculpture. I collected the scattered wax fragments into numbered bags, organized for reattachment, then treated. Once in the lab, I carried out dry cleaning using gentle vacuuming along with a cleaning putty to collect any loose dirt. With the assistance of Faith Godwin, Conservation Assistant, I performed aqueous (water-based) testing and cleaning via the Modular Cleaning Program. We produced a specialized cleansing solution to remove the embedded staining and debris.
This systematic approach breaks down the cleaning process into manageable modules, or steps. Conservators adjust each module to address the cleaning task at hand, which might include surface dirt removal, stain removal, and/or varnish removal. This program ensures thorough yet gentle cleaning without risk of damage to the artwork. Because conservators work on all sorts of objects, having an approach that is flexible and customizable is a good tool to have in the repertoire.
After cleaning, I re-adhered the wax fragments and corner areas with a conservation-grade adhesive, a synthetic adhesive that is reversible in nature and has excellent aging properties. The polyvinyl butyral resin is not only tacky enough to attach the dangling tendrils but also forms a flexible bond once dry that works well with the fragile, brittle, and dried wax. The result is a beautiful, uniform, translucent wax surface that completes Calligraphy Waterfall as the meditative centerpiece of the gallery. Please come and see it, along with other calligraphy artworks, in our Arts of Asia gallery!
