Applied Arts Pavilion - A
World of Fragile Parts
Victoria and Albert
Museum – La Biennale di Venezia
Special Project
Curator: Brendan Cormier
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
Curator’s
Team: Danielle Thom, research (VandA) – Charlotte Churchill, Project Manager (VandA)
- Michael Brenner, graphic designer - La Biennale di Venezia - Ordinary
Architecture, Exhibition Design.
“The increasing accessibility of 3D scanning and printing
couldn’t be timelier in the context of cultural preservation, as the threat of
destruction and damage of our global material heritage rises. ‘A World of
Fragile Parts’ poses questions related to the legitimacy, ownership and
significance of copies while highlighting their preservation value as they
allow for physical, but also for cultural, emotional and political survival.”
Curator - Brendan Cormier
Presented
by La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, A World of
Fragile Parts looks at the threats faced by global heritage sites and how the
production of copies can aid in the preservation of cultural artifacts. Climate
change, natural disasters, urbanization, mass tourism and neglect, as well as
recent violent attacks have brought the risks faced by many heritage sites and
cultural artifacts into public conversation. Artists, activists and educational
institutions are beginning to respond to the urgent need to preserve; by
exploring opportunities provided by digital scanning and new fabrication
technologies. Several key questions emerge: What do we copy and how? What is
the relationship between the copy and the original in a society that values
authenticity? And how can such an effort be properly coordinated at a truly
global and inclusive scale?
Above.
Re-Materialization of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix – ‘The Borghese Venus’
– glass, wax and resin – Factum Arte with Giberto Arrivabene – 2016 – after –
marble original by Antonio Canova – 1805-1808.
Antonio Canova’s controversial nude statue of Pauline Bonaparte,
Princess Borghese, is reproduced here in glass.
A 3D scan was taken of the original marble in the Galleria Borghese in
Rome, from which an initial model was printed using stereolithography. This model was then cast in wax to create a
positive from which a glass version could be cast. Although completely transforming the material
and the scale, the form stays true to the original.
A World of Fragile Parts
– Bust and Mould of an Unknown Woman
Plaster cast – anonymous
– c.1889
After
An original marble by
Francesco Laurana – c.1470
Numerous
works of art and architecture only survive through copies. This bust is cast from a Renaissance artwork
once held in the Bode Museum, Berlin.
The original was smashed in half when the museum was bombed in 1945. Shown alongside it, is the mould from which
the cast was made, and which was formed from the original before destruction.
A World of Fragile Parts
– The Other Nefertiti
Nora Al-Badri and Jan
Nikolai Nelles – 2015
A
century ago, the Nefertiti bust was excavated in Egypt and displaced to
Germany. Since its public unveiling in
Berlin in 1924, Egyptian authorities have demanded its return. Currently at the Neues Museum, a detail
digital scan has been created but not made publicly available. In reaction, artists Nora Al-Badri and Jan
Nikolai Nelles staged an ethical art heist known as #NefertitiHack, whereby
they secretly scanned the bust using a Kinect Xbox controller. A digital file of the bust has since been freely
released as a torrent under public domain.
The artists exhibited the precise 3D print in Egypt for the first time.
A World of Fragile Parts -
The Knole Table
Franchi and Son - 1868
Electroformed copper and
electroplated silver on wood
After
A silver and wood
original by Gerrit Jensen – c.1680
This extravagant table is
an electrotype; a precis copy of the original, accomplish through cutting-edge
nineteenth-century technology.
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