Entrevista com Anabel von Shönburg, conservadora do Swiss Institute of Art Research (SIK-ISEA) e participante na II Masterclass 20|21 – “Working with Plastics” - Março/2010
1. How did you start doing restoration?
I`ve started ten years ago as an assistant of a antique dealer, from there on there was a big interest for the field of restoring.
2. In which area within restoration do you work today? Did you work in different ones?
Yes, before I started my internship restoring wood and sculpture I was trained as a carpenter. After the two year internship on wood I studied conservation and restoring of modern materials and media. At the moment I am assistant at an atelier for mainly paintings, so I`ve tried to cover a wide spectra of problems which could come up around contemporary artworks, may it be plastic, wood, gold, media or whatever.
3. What do you like the most doing in your area? Why?
I like most the idea that every artwork has its own history, belonging to the material, the artist, the collector and the exhibition-trips. So every case is a special one, it`s not practicable to follow a strict way how to solve a problem. To find a good compromise between the artworks needs and the owner wishes is the most satisfying thing for me.
4. Is there any technical challenge that you haven’t surpassed?
Yes there are a lot – for example this matt painting, technique acryl on perspex, which was hanging in the kitchen and showed a lot of oil spots because of that reason. I did tests trying to extract the oil from the mechanically sensible paintlayer with different combinations of absorbing materials and solvents. But before the technique could be brought to perfection the owners decided to send it back to the gallery in Korea, to let the artist do the restoring.
