95-AC-2021_Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, G. Penone, Propagazione, inv. S-468

Facilitated description:

 

Propagazione is a sculpture of contemporary art made of different materials.
Giuseppe Penone created the sculpture in 1997.
The sculpture consists of 5 square slabs of a material called paraffin and a long glass stick. One of the slabs is filled with water.
The sculpture is kept at the Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM) in Turin.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the sculpture in 2021 because it had been damaged during an exhibition.
The scientists did scientific analysis to identify small fungi that attacked the sculpture.
The restorers cleaned the sculpture. They repaired the damaged plates and rebuilt the broken glass parts.
Eventually in the slab with water they replaced the paper that lined it.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The opera Propagation has been the subject of an intervention that provided for the restoration of the surface flatness of the damaged slabs (hollows and scratches). The sculpture, exhibited at the Reggia di Venaria on the occasion of the exhibition An infinite beauty. Landscape in Italy from Romantic Painting to Contemporary Art (Citroniera Juvarriana, 2 June - 27 February 2022) had suffered anthropogenic damage on two of the five paraffin slabs and the detachment of several fragments of part of the glass-crystal element, fallen from the slab on which it was placed. Biological analyses were also performed on the work to document the presence of a fungal attack. 
The restoration began with the cleaning of the paraffin slabs from the inconsistent deposits with museum micro-aspirator and sponges, the shoe prints with volatile hydrocarbon swabs and the glass-crystal elements with soft brushes to preserve the sandy component on the surface. The restoration of the flatness of the two slabs with scratches and craters was performed with thermocautery and metal spatula, while the differences in height were filled with a wax/resin compound, laid on an acrylic-based sacrifice layer, necessary for the reversibility of the intervention. The chromatic agreement of the plates in the inhomogeneous parts was then performed. 
Subsequently, the fragments of the glass-crystal element were restored, making them adhere with two-component epoxy resin, also used to fill the gaps. The additions were treated with abrasive paper to recreate the opaque effect of the surface. Finally, the plastering on part of the glass element was removed with scalpels and the sheet of bi-silicone paper covering the first tank-panel, intended to contain water, was replaced with tissue paper to allow greater transpiration.

 

Bibliography

G. Curto, R. Passoni, V. Bertone, An infinite beauty. The landscape in Italy from Romanesque painting to contemporary art (catalogue), Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2021, p. 243.