Restorer Travelogue

Restoration works worldwide are unfortunately limited by various circumstances of their professional and social functions. Of these countless limitations, many represent insurmountable barriers which separate professional interventions by restorers, curators and conservers from the artisan, artistic and antique objects which require intervention. We will emphasize four easily noticeable limits which are dominant and stand in the way of professional interventions by restorers, conservers and curators, on valuable creative, artisanal objects. Firstly, transience and a change in the characteristics of the matter where the natural process which cannot be influenced more significantly; secondly, general ignorance of the basic principles of restoration and conservation work and an undefined place and role of that profession within the societies of various political, economical and other features worldwide. Thirdly, western civilization, as well as most of the rest of the world, basis its existence upon the private ownership legal system, which basically defines the right to private possession of every object, inclusive of the right to destroy the objects. Unfortunately, because of this well known, legal maxim dating from Roman law, the obligations of private owners, regarding the preservation of valuable artistic objects, are not defined; these objects, apart from their monetary value, which represent the historical genesis of human creative work, go beyond egotistic, financial every day value. This egotistic, authoritarian capital-relation, often at work in the richest communities of the world, is the cause of international interest and selective negligence towards human creativity, and is used as the basis for our socialization, worldwide. Fourth limitation; often against their will, restorers are exposed to imperative compromises, by the owners of artistic and artisan objects. New York, 2018 Boro Stipanovic