Conference Details

A joint conference organised by the Stone and Metals Sections of UKIC and English Heritage, with the support of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association

Environmental issues are central to many schemes planned to mark the coming millenium. The re-evaluation and regeneration of public spaces falls within this category and central to this are the monuments that occupy these spaces. Regarded as a constant enduring feature and ranging from the everyday to the spectacular, these objects are of great artistic, historic and social value. The intention of the joint conference is to take a comprehensive look at the conservation and care of public monuments and sculpture as we approach the 21st century.

Topics will range from the philosophical and political issues associated with monument building to more practical aspects of conservation and repair. Speakers will include specialists representing a wide variety of disciplines from both the UK and abroad.

London has been chosen as the conference venue not only for ease of access for international delegates and speakers but also for its abundance of public art. In addition to lecture sessions, the conference will include guided study tours to various public monuments. Conference proceedings will be produced and distributed to all conference participants.

Programme (subject to change)

Wednesday 20th May 1998
MORNING 9:00 am - 12:30 pm

Registration

Opening Address
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport The Rt. Hon. Chris Smith, MP

Monuments and Dilemmas: The Millenium & After
Jo Darke (Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, UK)

Leeds: Patronising the Arts and Encouraging the Sciences
Dorcas Taylor (The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England)

The National Inventory of War Memorials
Nick Hewitt (Imperial War Museum, London, England)

SOS! 2000: A Project for the Millenium
Susan Nichols (Save Outdoor Sculpture, USA)

AFTERNOON 2:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Do Monuments Still Speak in Picasso's Vallaurius from Museum, Courtyard, Park and Street?
Helen E. Beale (University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland)

The Heroic and the Kitsch in Postwar Monuments
Margaret Garlake (Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England)

The Monument and other Examples of Architectural Exuberance
Julian Harrap (Julian Harrap Architects, London, England)

British Imperial Monuments in Ireland: Destruction or Preservation?
Paula Murphy (University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland)

Monument and Memory: Responses by Contemporary Artists to Public Commissions
Vivien Lovell (Public Art Commissions Agency, Birmingham, England)

Thursday 21st May 1998
MORNING 9:00 am - 12:30 pm

Outdoor Bronze Sculpture: History and Development
Andrew Naylor (Naylor Conservation & Sculpture Consultancy, Madeley, England)

Aberdeen City Council's Sculpture Conservation Programme
Charles Murray (Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Scotland)

Protective Coatings for Outdoor Bronze Sculpture
Hannelore Römich and Monika Pilz (Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Silicatforschung, Germany)

Laser Cleaning of Bronze Sculpture
M. Cooper, P. Fowles and J. Larson (National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool, England)

Kinder and Gentler: Evolving Bronze Conservation Practices in the US at the Dawn of the Millenium
Dennis Montagna (National Park Service, USA)

Conservation of Public Monuments in Melbourne, Australia
Robyn Riddett (Allom Lovell &Associates, Australia)

AFTERNOON 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm

PMSA Events and Tours

EVENING RECEPTION 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Friday 22nd May 1998
MORNING 9:00 am - 12:30 pm

The Scott Monument, Edinburgh: The Cleaning Debate
Ingval Maxwell (Historic Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland)

Statuary Controversy at the Customs House, Dublin
David Slattery (David Slattery Architects, Dublin, Ireland)

The Conservation of the Albert Memorial
Alasdair Glass (English Heritage, London, England)

Cathodic Protection of the Inigo Jones Gateway, Chiswick House
William Martin (English Heritage, London, England)

Problems of Inherent Weakness in the Megaliths of the Boyne Valley Monuments
John Kelly (Lithian Limited, Newtonards, Northern Ireland)

AFTERNOON 2:00 pm - 5:30 pm

The Final Touch: The Sculptor's Approach
Benedict Read (University of Leeds, Leeds, England)

Preserving the Conceptual Public Monument
Glann Wharton (Wharton & Griswold Associates, USA)

Conserving Florence for the Future: An Ambitious Task
Giorgio Bonsanti (Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence, Italy)

War Memorial Gardens as Dramatic Spaces
Paul Gough (University of the West of England, Bristol, England)

Commissioning Public Sculpture in Historic Lincoln
Vincent Schacklock (De Montford University, Lincoln, England)

Conference Conclusion

Logistics
Registration Fees
To include lunches, coffee and teas, evening reception and post-conference publication.

	3 Days (Early)	3 Days (Standard)	Daily
UKIC/PMSA Member	£150	£165	£70
Non-member	£220	£240	£95
Student	£85	£95	£40

Registration
A registration form is available here for you to print out, fill in and return. Early registrations must be received by 3 April. Booking received after that date will be charged at the standard rate. Please make your reservations early as space is limited for the tours and the evening reception.

Grants
A limited number of MGC grants are available for practicing conservators resident in the UK. Please ask the UKIC office for details and an application form:

Language
The official language of the conference is English

Conference Venue
The Conference will take place at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The museum is centrally located and easily accessible by public transport.

Cancellations and Refunds
Cancellations of meeting registration must be submitted in writing to the UKIC office. The cancellation notice must be received by 20 April to be eligible for a refund, less £15 cancellation fee. No refunds will be approved after that date.

Accomodation
A list of selected hotels will be sent with the conference pack. The London Tourist Information Service can provide additional information (Tel: +44 (0)990 887711). Conference participants are responsible for their own hotel reservations.

Events and Tours

Conference participants are invited to attend one of a selection of events on the afternoon of Thursday 21 May. These will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, with the maximum group size being 25 persons. Transport will be provided when necessary.

A description of each event is given below. Please indicate your preferences as requested on the registration form. Every attempt will be made to provide a place on the event of choice but this cannot be guaranteed.

TIME: 2 to 2.5 hours for each tour.

TRANSPORT: Public where possible; special coaches over distances; foot from site to site.

Printed itineraries will be provided stating date, time and meeting place for each walk, including travel details and concise directions. Specially amended PMSA National Recording Project Inventory Forms will be provided for the Monument Marathon participants.

 
TOUR 1
Coming to terms with Trafalgar Square
Tour Leader: Paul Atterbury, historian and broadcaster

Trafalgar Square: originally a crossroads, then a pivotal public space whose monuments were erected as celebrations of empire. Once more at a crossroads in planning terms, the Square is the focus of central London's regeneration schemes, the site of the Trafalgar Square Empty Plinth Project and part of Westminster City's proposed sculpture route. How will the planners accomodate the famed Nelson's column, lions, statues and fountains, and Hubert Le Sueur's bronze equestrian of the Martyr King, Charles I (recently restored) looking down Whitehall towards Banqueting House, the site of his execution?

TOUR 2
The Loved Ones: from Eros to Victoria
Tour Leader: benedict Read, author and historian

Beginning at Alfred Gilbert's brilliantly innovative 'Eros', intended as God of Compassion but adopted by the public as God of Love, and ending at the elaborate national monument to Queen Victoria by Thomas Brock who received a knighthood at the Sculpture's unveiling in 1911. The tour takes in the Mall and its environs to include Angela Conner's new (and perhaps novel) bronze of Charles de Gaulle outside the Carlton Gardens headquarters of de Gaulle's Free French Forces, and the statue by William McMillan of George VI unveiled by his daughter Elizabeth II in 1955, in a space landscaped by Louis de Soissons.

TOUR 3
Following Gill
Tour Leader: Dr. Judith Collins, Assistant Curator, the Tate Gallery Modern Collections

A great fusion of art and architecture in Eric Gill's highly individualistic stone sculptures, carved on site in Portland stone at Myer and Hart's BBC Building at the top of Regent Street (Prospero and Ariel, and relief panels of Ariel), and on Charles Holden's London Transport Headquarters at St. James (East, North and South Wind). En route, Gill's Stations of the Cross, created 1913-18 in the rich dark interior of Westminster Cathedral.

TOUR 4
Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens
Tour Leader: to be announced

Selected statues including 'Achilles' by Westmacott (featuring the vanishing fig leaf); Byron by Belt ('the worst statue in London'); the formerly vilified 'Rima' by Epstein, 1925, in a landscaped space by Lionel Pearson (architect for C.S. Jagger's Artillery monument at Hyde Park Corner); the Esmé Percy Memorial, a bronze mongrel and stone drinking trough by Sylvia Gilley; the immortal Peter Pan in bronze, by George Frampton, 1911 - and a nod to the Albert Memorial, once described as 'an episode in the landscape of Kensington Gardens', now in the final stages of conservation.

TOUR 5
The Albert Memorial
Tour Leader: Alasdair Glass, English Heritage

An inside view of the Albert Memorial, in the final stages of an intensive conservation and repair programme under the auspices of English Heritage. This large and complex monument, incorporating a great diversity of building materials, has proved a challenging conservation project, from philosophical, technical and administrative points of view. The tour will offer an opportunity to examine the monument and discuss these issues with representatives of English Heritage, its consultants and contractors.

TOUR 6
On-Site at the Tate
Study Leader: Derek Pullen, Head of Conservation, the Tate Gallery

Examination of bronzes outside the Tate Gallery: their conservation and maintenance. Followed by a tour of the conservation workshops and a display of selected material from the Tate Archive.

TOUR 7
Victoria Embankment Gardens, unknown corners of Fleet Street and the Conway's Red Boxes
Study Leader: Dr, Philip Ward-Jackson, Deputy Conway Librarian, Courtauld Institute

An exploration of sculpture in gardens and in courts and buildings around Fleet Street. Ward-Jackson's extensive and eclectic knowledge leads the tour to unknown sites and histories. To be followed by an introduction to the Conway Library's collection of sculpture photography at the Courtauld Institute of Art in Somerset House.

TOUR 8
On-Site at Hyde Park Corner
Study Leader: to be announced

Decimus Burton's Arch, the Quadriga of Peace; Boehm's magnificent equestrian bronze monument to the Duke of Wellington and the Artillery Memorial, one of the nation's most powerful war memorials by the chief exponent of the art, Charles Sargent Jagger. Dating from the 19th and the early 20th centuries and marooned on a vast traffic island, these disparate monuments are in various stages of repair. An examination of the challenges in their care and display.

TOUR 9
Sculpture in the City
Tour Leader: Ian Leith, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England

City of London post-war sculpture takes its place beside older works - Henry VIII's figure at Bart's, or the Monument with its graphic depiction of the Great Fire and greater rebuilding, in a relief carved by Cibber (1674). Leith examines the period flavour of a 1930's architectural frieze by Siegfried Charoux on St. Swithin's House; Erlich's 1950's 'Lovers' near St. Paul's Cathedral; or John Mills' energetic monument to fire-fighters of the Blitz, modelled under the keen eye of Mills' father-in-law, who is depicted in his former fire-fighting role (1991).

TOUR 10
Monumental Millenium Marathon
Whistle Blower: Jo Darke

Start: Achilles, Hyde Park Corner; Finish: Schackleton, Exhibition Road/Kensington Road. A race for the fleet of foot and nifty-fingered; selected monuments along a set route, each to be recorded on the PMSA's National Recording Project Survey Form in the shortest possible time. The first to cross the finishing line with a fistful of clearly, accurately filled-in forms wins the prize - one year's free membership of the PMSA including the receipt of the annual Sculpture Journal, a quarterly Newsletter, and news of more PMSA Events and Tours. Go for it!