Conserving Whaam! | Tate
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.พ. 2018
- Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! is one of the most popular works in Tate's collection and has been on almost constant display since it was acquired in 1966.
The materials used to create the painting are challenging for conservators, as they don't react well to traditional cleaning methods. Our conservation team have spent months trialling and evaluating different techniques for treating the work.
At last, a ground-breaking gel treatment broadly based on nanotechnology has allowed us to clean the work in a safe and controlled way, for the very first time in the painting's history.
The treatment has been made possible thanks to a new gel created by CSGI Florence. The NANORESTART project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 646063.
Find out more about Roy Lichtenstein: goo.gl/ruXSf4
Subscribe for weekly films: goo.gl/X1ZnEl
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA W3D5 | Summer | ชี้ชะตา 16 ทีมสุดท้าย](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PabKlXzcK8c/mqdefault.jpg)
I was also surprised at the painterly quality of the piece. I’ve never seen it in person.
I really enjoy watching these restoration and conservation videos. Keep 'em coming ✨👌
agreed
I have a print of this and it's one of my favourite things to see. Need to get them back on the wall.
Roy Lichtenstein swiped the composition from Irv Novick's Star Jockey in DC's All-American Men of War #89, but replaced and copied the similarly positioned attacking plane from Jerry Grandenetti's following issue work, and the target plane from Russ Heath's story in the same issue as Irv Novick's
All artist do that tho.
@@saptakmukherjee7615 Not all artists, or there would never be original composition.
I absolutely love these restoration videos - artistry and care science all rolled into one. Just brilliant.
I came here thinking they were gonna restore George Michael....
No bringing him back from the dead. No "wake me up before you go-go".
@Wyatt Matthias so what's your girlfriend's name and address? Phone number?
I'm dyin!
I saw this painting in June! It might be my favorite thing at Tate.
These people should be commended and reccgnized for maintaining great art for future generations, to be seen as the artist intended.
My favourite painting! Thanks for the wonderful work you all do to keep it in great shape, Roy would be very very happy!
I saw the paintings there about 8 years ago when i went to see either 'American Sublime" or Rothko's Segram Murals. Whatever - I was impressed.
I remember seeing that painting at the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art 1970 (I was a student there 1969-70). It became the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena so that's probably when the Tate got it.
"We are now going to be able to provide Tate visitors with a more appropriate viewing experience of this painting" Now! For the first time since the iPhone, no filters needed!
oh i love this band
He used the Lucy Tool! Love it. We have non-glare glass now, they can throw it behind that. It still has a dirty, faded look to me. Could be wrong, but I think it popped much harder decades ago.
Thank you !
It’s frustrating that Roy never credited the original comic book artists.
The Cinematic Mind his work is different though
@@raebaddings1521 care to explain?
He culled images from the American unconscious... archetypes have no authorship.
Rae Badding's With the context and message I agree. I definitely respect he got comic book art to be taken more seriously. However the lack of mentioning other comic book artists is disappointing as they always got the lack of respect given especially as Roy took their art into his own. Then again I blame the comic book industry more for the lack of respect towards comic book artists than the art industry itself.
It was his own image that he projected on to a larger canvas. Do your research.... It shouldt take too long to do.
Great video!
Excellent
After this particular painting was cleaned was there anything done to the surface that would make future cleanings easier?
The paint won't tolerate any varnish removals if it gets varnished.
Adding anything permanent to a piece of art is considered vandalism.
New technologies will make future cleaning easier.
Personally I'm kind of surprised the artist didn't have the decency to put something on it himself to make maintenance easier.
With an attitude like that, in an era where the materials are abundantly available, the art can good and well rot in my opinion. If you don't do anything yourself to have it preserved then other people should have to sweat over it either. Just snap a photo and move on. Let it be some kind of symbolical statement of how pop can't survive the test of time or something.
@@helenanilsson5666 One of the reasons it can be considered vandalism to make permanent changes to a painting is because it can change the artist’s intent. Lichtenstein could very well have meant for this to be a piece that would eventually fade and decay. That is a common part of pop art that has continued through to contemporary art, where we see artists using inherently unstable materials, like making sculptures out of chocolate. The other factor that Lichtenstein may have considered is that he wanted the painting to have a certain texture or reflect/capture light in a certain way, and that drove him to choose certain paints and exclude the use of varnish. Most varnishes have some reflective quality to them that would’ve made this look more like a classical painting, and less like a comic printed on paper.
many have tried . . . and Failed. love learning about process
It would Be a dream To hang out in Tate..
Sooo interesting. I'm wondering why they are not using compressed air to remove some of the dirt?
seemed like a fair question to me so i did a little research and found this:
"Never use compressed (“canned”) air to blow away dust. The propellant may damage the paint surface, and the volume of air may be strong enough to dislodge flaking paint from an unstable surface." www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/canadian-conservation-institute-notes/cleaning-paintings-precautions.html
which sounds logic because you'd be essentially spraying a rather strong chemical over the painting and its surface, and because paint has been made from different materials over history, they may not react well together
surface dust & dirt would have first been removed using a brush or velvet cloth. the dirt they are dealing with here won’t just be sitting on the surface, dirt accumulated over time tends to become more embedded in the paint film (particularly as this is a mid 20th century work - the paint is still relatively fresh and won’t actually have dried out yet, and the painting is also unvarnished - meaning there isn’t a protective layer on top of the paint). which is why they are using this gel technique here, to draw up the dirt from the paint surface, without affecting the paint itself.
also yes - using compressed air is not typical conservation practice as you’re likely to damage the paint!
Martin Kronström from what i can gather the paintings would be too volatile due to not having a glacé over them.
Am I correct one is not allowed to drink coffee or juice at the restoration space?
What @BronwynOrmsby what your and @Tate position on the conservation of Matisse's "Swimming Pool", esp the destruction of the original burlap and pin holes in the original art?
It is interesting to think that a painting made so recently (1960s) needs this very careful conservation. I have always been aware of how millions of artworks get dirty and dusty. Most of them will never be cleaned.
My dream job ❤️
I swear this is the same artwork on Paul Wellers guitar
Can y’all talk more about the artificial aging chamber? What does it actually do to the painting to age it? I’m so curious! 🖼 🤓
Hey Meredith,
In order to approximate the age of 'Whaam!' Tate scientists placed their newly made mock-up samples into an environmental chamber (in our case one originally developed for germinating plant seeds!), which has very high light levels equivalent to the exposure of say 50 years daily display at Tate. Our chamber also has temperature and relative humidity control, that we frequently match to our museum conditions.
We use these chambers to speed up the ageing process of our samples, so that when we use them to test and fine tune our cleaning systems, these samples stand a better chance of behaving in the same way as 'Whaam!'. For most artists’ materials, their properties change over time - even those used in the 20th and 21st centuries! - and this is a great way of exploring how they change, including their appearance, physical strength, and how they may respond to conservation treatment.
This is a key part of conservation ethics, i.e., ensuring the safety and appropriateness of any conservation treatment. This can be challenging when approaching the conservation treatment of modern and contemporary art, where there can be vast numbers of material combinations possible, and where works of art are conserved for the first time in their lifetime.
Hope this satisfies your curiosity 🤓
Tate
I feel as if a lot of people who get upset over Lichtenstein "stealing" this art or plagiarizing would never have a problem of finding out a song they've heard a million times is a cover of another song. That's how I perceive what Lichtenstein is doing here.
The problem is probably more with the institution of art - you put anything on the walls of a museum and it seems to put this bracket over a piece of "THIS IS IMPORTANT" which has a tendency to make people nervous, especially when you add money value to the story; personally, I'd agree with that last point...you say any object in the world is worth 5 million dollars and my first instinct is to say "bullshit."
But, as a creative person who doesn't work in fine art I find a lot of personal value in his art and what he has to say and even how he composes a portrait. I feel a little bad that people get caught up on the plagiarizing side of his art, because there's so much to say about him.
Hell, his "cartoons" represent only the first ten percent of his career. He had his style, but he explored every possible avenue you could think of for that style.
Lichtenstein wasn't this flashy pretentious car-salesman con artist personality, he was just a quiet family man who loved to paint. I think my point being is that he didn't make those painting in bad-faith. He meant what he did. Hell, nobody can get to the level he got to just trying to "trick" an audience.
I love Lichtenstein. I love his paintings. I love what he said about art. I love turning a corner in a museum and seeing one of his pieces. And I think if what he does make you mad, just take a second and maybe try to think of reasons why some people genuinely love him. All that would happen is you lose your chance to hate something and gain the chance to love something.
As far as music goes the orignal of a covered song can are credited and often are. But the truth is that a lot of singer don't write the music. The guy who wrote it gets his credit and his money too. Just because someone is second to cover a song doesn't mean they to pay the first singer, they just need to pay the guy who wrote it. The point is that even though they aren't the face of the art they still are rewarded.
@@FallingStary
I'll put it like this; I think if we judge him in modern contexts, then there's a legal argument to be made that the original artist has the right to be cited and possibly to be owed some compensation.
A modern case that is comparable to this is Shepard Fairey's "OBAMA" poster (like, that famous one that says "HOPE") where Fairy used an image of Obama from a photo and was successfully sued over it - although that case was made complicated by the fact that Fairey lied to his legal team about the nature of the sampling and they all quit on him. (dumbass),
But at the same time, we live in an age of sampling and re-mixing...one that Lichtenstein managed to trail blaze all the way back in the 1950s and 60s. His art was a comment on how a lot of our reality was built on a consumer culture and I think that's a potent comment to make and is a concession that we all take for granted nowadays.
Warhol was doing the same thing with his Soup Can series, but nobody complains about how he "stole" that design of the soup because it's origin is not from comic books - this medium that people hold dearly to their hearts - but commercial graphic design...this cold, ephemeral art form.
All artists remix, all artists "steal" from other artists. Hip-hop is built on this concept, and it is the most popular form of music in the world. If you love comic books, then a lot of modern comic artists...even the great, respected ones...use plenty of reference, especially photo reference, literally in the same way that Litchenstein uses. A technique that comic book artists will use is to download an image from the internet and "trace" over it digitally to get an image they want.
I would argue that Litch committed a sin, and his use of crediting wasn't done in the way that it should have been done, but it's a small sin and one that shouldn't overshadow his great talents as an artist.
Of it's fine for him to copy art than it's fine for other people to do the same and make millions. Yet many are hated for doing that.
Really would have liked to seen the parts you probably think are boring which is seeing it actually cleaned and worked on. Not just hearing about it.
Baumgartner Restoration channel is delightful.
Angelica Bartoletti
Somewhere in Botswana there is a copy on an art room door from when I was there in the 1980s. I failed to credit any of the artists. My apologies.
To be perfectly frank, George Michael was quite underrated, so anything that corrects that, I'd applaud.
Respekt whammmm
대박 엄청 큰거였구나 ㄷㄷㄷ
But did they glaze it or protect it at all? I need to know lol
No they did not
The layout was tottaly copied yet its not the same. Hmm
Ah yes, "I don't have to share credit with people I traced cus I am famous lol" Lichtenstein.
Scurvy Dan he didn’t trace. Only his own work at large scale. Which is very common. This art work is similar in theme to the original comic artist but is also not anywhere near an exact copy
Oh god yes. We had this conversation in my computer art 1 class. There is a huge difference between using reference and tracing. Lichtenstein did the latter.
@@mandipowell2418 Nobody cares what your highschool class thinks fam.
@@TACOGOODLOOKING Well 5 people did and that's good enough for me.
@@mandipowell2418 Lichtenstein did not project the original comic strip image directly onto the canvas - he drew his own version of the comic strip, which he then projected onto the canvas.
Wake it up before he go-goes.
Whaam!
Seriously - No mention of the artist whom Lichtenstein plagiarized the image from - you all know... Russ Heath - the Whaam images were taken from a story he drew in All-American Men of War #89 for DC Comics in 1962.
So, he projected someone else's illustration onto canvas and got all the credit?
Andrey Romashchenko when? Is that what you got from this video? MOST artist project their work or use a grid system when doing large scale detailed works.
Right, but he did not come up with that image. He plagiarized. It belongs to Novick.
Yes.
@@andreyromashchenko8967 Sure does!
So basically Lichtenstein was a famous human photo copy machine.
gio penn how? That’s how most artist enlarge their works for large scale paintings. You either use a projector or a grid system.
@@raebaddings1521 But it wasn't his artwork that he enlarged.
@@horipet yes it was. Read before you speak.
I wasn't speaking, I was writing. After a considerable amount of reading about this subject, over the past 50 years or so.
I wish I were a cool guy and didn’t like Roy Lichtenstein, but silly me just sees a visually exciting work and thinks it’s cool. I am so dumb.
Love these videos but Lichtenstein was a hack who stole the creativity of comic artists.
It really is unfortunate that he (apparently) refused to acknowledge their contributions, whether it be not sharing credit or profits or what have you. The works appear to be brilliantly executed, so I suppose it must have legitimized his plagiarism.
Really is too bad though, if none of the comics artists successfully sued him. That verdict would be on the fence since he changed just enough to claim fair use.
He's also an artistically talentless artist. Look at his ouvre. It's total garbage. He was third-rate until he blatantly stole the work of living, better but unappreciated artists and ran along with the credit. His best work is actually free from artistic theft, but he built himself on other people's genius. A con artist for the most part.
Almost all the artist of the pop wave are really not that good, original, anarchist, etc etc
it pays to have no talent.
Bitter much? Roy was the first one to compartmentalize comic styles to make it fine art. He was all about how even the mundane details of comics and bright colored advertizing have their own life and voice, like the shapes of speech bubbles, fonts, broadness of panel divisions. All of those abstractions are what constitutes a comic style and yet most people will never notice because they're constrained by a story or brand/franchise identity that is pursuing a desired narrative. A big reason art schools dissuade people from developing comics and anime is that they really are their own category, not quite art, not quite literature, and not quite graphic design/advertizing. Any visual innovation or growth students might achieve could be stunted or prevented as the craft of comic/anime requires narrative, storytelling, and relatability. And also, nobody "started" the style of comics. It was a slow development over time, and everything is referential to some degree whether you consciously know it or not. People like Lichtenstein gain respect and admiration because they can single-handedly innovate art and what visual culture can be by using unexpected tools, and in his case the concept of the emerging comic style in contemporary life *was* a tool, just like any paint or canvas.
He literally projected someone's art onto a canvas and copied it. That's not art. That's plagiarism
When did he ever do that? This was his own work projected on to a canvas to enlarge it. That’s what a lot of artist do. You don’t just hand draw perfectly a large Scal artwork from your head.
Rae Badding's please take the time to do a little research on Lichenstein's method.Projection of comic book art was very elemental in exposing the abstract and graphic qualities that RL said were worthy of being fine art.
It is so weird to see people want to expose their ignorance to a large audience, so willingly. RL used those images as a starting point, but changed the images and text. Additionally, these represent a very small portion of RL’s oeuvre, having created thousands of paintings, drawings, etc...unrelated to any comic source material...
These complex thoughts are better left to the people with intelligence. Stick with your MTV, Bravo and real housewives of wherever. We all know that is what you consider “art”.
“Man I really hate Roy Lichtenstein...time to go on youtube and watch videos of him...”
Alex Wyman
All art is derivative.
Frank Butta
Yeah but literally tracing someone else's art (assuming that it is someone else's of course, copying yourself is all fine and well) is generally looked down upon. It's kind of like when someone copies the entire Harry Potter series word by word and tries to sell it off as their own. Legal or moral implications aside, it reeks of laziness, especially in the eyes of people who are used to having to do their own work themselves instead of coasting on someone else's labor.
This is a prime example of what a joke the "fine art" world is. They wrinkle their noses at comics.....but once someone with the right connections puts it on a canvas and brings it to their elitist club, they orgasm and celebrate the hack who just plagiarizes actual innovators.
There have been many art gallery displays of original comic artworks too, If anything we have to thank him for getting the art world to take notice of comics as back then comic artwork was considered disposable, Marvel for example had a destruction policy on most of it's original artwork until the late 60's / 70's.
Aeonterbor i agree with you. And yes there are museums for comics.. this was is a painting.. hehe
That's a bold-faced lie, considering there have been so many art galleries happy to host Comic art and the work of comic artists in the last 30 years or longer. Also, insulting this artist for the reproductive works he made a half century ago is useless and in bad faith.
Tell me which comic artist has their work sold for millions in the fine art world and you may have a point. Otherwise you are being rather disingenuous.
Also criticizing a known art plagiarizer who launched their career off the work of others isn't "bad faith". Us actual artists don't have much patience for these hacks.
Ivory Oasis i'd like to say first off that i'm not opposed to your argument in every single way- specifically for "Whaam!"s appropriated original comic artist, Russ Heath, who never made much money in his life despite this work of art making 4 million dollars.
But Lichtenstein's paintings become a seperate object the moment he began to paint them. Appropriation and reproduction is at the heart of his work, and it's morality(?) And technique were his interests.
I'm a printmaker, personally not interested in reproduction of images (like japanese woodcarvers would reproduce against art from other businesses doing the same), but being taught by a member of the Outlaw Printmakers and gaining an insight about how to use imagery, scale and reproduction as part of my art was vital to my education and getting to whatever "success" i can honestly say I have now, in or out of the gallery space.
Also, many comic artists have gained quite a following in and out of fine arts- Chris Ware, Spiegelman, Morrison, Crumb, Fiona staples, Hernandez Bros, Matt Rehbolz, all have had gallery representation in some form. Maybe not selling works for millions of dollars, but the art world has a capitalism problem if anything.
I'm just saying, as a fellow "real artist", if I can say that.
I'll give you 50 quid for it.
Looks the same to me. They should have done a side by side before and after, instead of showing one dusty gel.
It would be better to preserve Angelica's bread basket instead of that comic crap!
Just paint a new one, you crazy buggers.
He didn’t really draw it if he used a projector
Evellyn Lichnov umm well that’s not exactly true. Although this isn’t his creation, it’s very common for artist to protect their work onto a larger scale.
Art isn’t about how well you draw. It’s a story telling medium.
it could be argued that the patination of 'Wham!' added dimensions to the experience that have now been destroyed
So, the REAL artists invented, developed and drew the REAL comic book art and this guy copied it and got all the recognition and dough? Same with Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Appropriation = fame and wealth. To Warhol's credit, he admitted his work was empty. Koons is still slingin' the self-promo BS. The Art World ran out of ideas and integrity after Abstract Expressionism and it has been copying ever since.
Reading the comments; I searched for Russ Heath's art, and find myself blown away by a brilliant artist. Whom the video isn't even about. Roy Lichtenstein is a damn joke, he made millions stealing another persons art. Pathetic.
You are pathetic if you think that is the case. People dont know shit about what pop art was about and think they have the slightest right to talk trash about someone.
I really want to learn to speak in that effortlessly, blindlingly pretentious cadence of people who regularly talk about art. It's universal and distinctive; like a perpetual verbal sneer. Quiet, measured, impenetrably self-assured, and completely full of shit all at the same time.
It would of been easier to simply produce a new painting.
Etienne 777
That would make an even worse case of plagiarism.
Would you say the same for Botacelli or Da Vinci’s paintings?
Maybe Botticelli, he wasn't a genius. But not Leonardo, nor Turner, nor Cezanne. Hope this helped.
you can say that for most modern minimal shit paintings still its not the ORIGINAL
Etienne 777 you’re a simpleton
Just bin it and trace another one from a projector 📽 waste of time and money.
Keep in mind if he never copied the original artists work you would never of known the original artists work.
I'm very old, and I knew the original artist's (actually, artists', more than one) work when I read the comicbooks on their first publication. And unless the gallery puts up a side panel with a copy of the original artists' comicbook work alongside Wham! - then most visitors still won't know the original artwork.
tracer
Eat them.
Shame about all the background noise, quite insulting to those speaking.
This is unbelievably offensive to comic book artists and cover artists; & colourists, etc. A vulgar video; nonsense the way these people talk about this conservation because it’s not profound by any stretch of the “pre-primed” canvas he used. I’m in awe of the astounding (vivid) Elektra comic book covers, for example-Now that’s art! Not this childish, plagiarised garbage.
Those people are singlehandedly destroying art. They should feel ashamed.
It’s just nothing. A lot of fuss over nothing. These people need to go back to childhood and re read The Emperor’s New Clothes.