Glenn Wharton

University of California, Los Angeles, Professor of Art History and Chair of the UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, Faculty Member

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I am a Professor of Art History at UCLA and Chair of the UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials. Prior to this recent appointment, I was on faculty in the Museum Studies Program at New York University where I researched and taught about conserving new forms of contemporary art and social justice programming in museums. From 2007-2013 I served as Media Conservator at the Museum of Modern Art. I am currently a Co-Director of the Artist Archives Initiative based at NYU.

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Papers by Glenn Wharton

Institutional Assessments and Collection Surveys for Time-Based Media Conservation

Routledge eBooks, Sep 22, 2022

Preliminary Research into Education for Sustainability in Cultural Heritage Conservation

Studies in Conservation

The Painted King

Field conservation at Kaman-Kalehöyük: an holistic approach

Studies in Conservation, 1996

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An Art of Social Studies (catalog essay)

Decision

The Painted King, 2011

TheArtist Archives Project: David Wojnarowicz

Studies in Conservation, 2016

An interdisciplinary research team at New York University recently launched the Artist Archives P... more An interdisciplinary research team at New York University recently launched the Artist Archives Project to advance research on information repositories for the display and conservation of contemporary art. The initiative responds to a growing need for museum and archive professionals to work with artists in documenting their production methods, and building knowledge for future treatment and re-activation of their work. The first undertaking of the Artist Archives Project is to create an information resource devoted to the multidisciplinary artist/activist David Wojnarowicz. Project researchers are working in conjunction with curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art who are preparing for a Wojnarowicz exhibition, along with others familiar with his work. Since the artist is deceased, most of the information comes from archives, publications, and interviews with people who knew and worked with him. The project takes a digital humanities approach by assigning equal emphasis to the content and the database/web portal design. The resource contains technical and historical information about the artist's films, video, photography, paintings, drawings, and performance work. The research team creates transcripts from interviews, annotated guides to other resources, and information regarding the challenges of exhibiting and conserving his work. In addition to artist-specific resources, the project aims to stimulate discussion on topics that underlie curating and conserving contemporary art, including authorship, authenticity, and the ethical responsibilities of curators and conservators. In this article the authors describe the goals, methodologies, and initial results of the project.

President's Letter

Source Code Analysis as Technical Art History

Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 2015

As part of its program to conserve software-based artworks, the Museum of Modern Art undertook a ... more As part of its program to conserve software-based artworks, the Museum of Modern Art undertook a risk analysis of  works that use a variety of software programs, programming languages, and code libraries. Risks assessed in this study include the potential impact due to changes and upgrades to hardware, operating systems, and programming languages that would render the software obsolete. The assessment made clear that one of the museum's primary conservation strategies should be building technical documentation about the artworks. Consequently, the museum undertook a second project to build documentation about the software and hardware dependencies for  software-based works. While analyzing artist-rendered source code, the researchers in some cases discovered hidden information about the working methods of the artists and their programmers. This information includes the development of aesthetic properties such as color, movement, and sound. The discovery of these clues to the artists' concerns broadened the scope of the research to include an argument for source code analysis as a tool for technical art history. In this article the authors describe the potential for adapting documentation methods from software engineering for conservation purposes, and further argue for using these methods in art-historical research.

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The Challenges of Conserving Contemporary Art

Collecting the New, 2013

Reading between the lines: Source code documentation as a conservation strategy for software-based art

Studies in Conservation, 2014

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Indigenous claims and heritage conservation: an opportunity for critical dialogue

Public Archaeology, 2005

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Dynamics of Participatory Conservation: The Kamehameha I Sculpture Project

Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 2008

Abstract The conservation of the King Kamehameha I sculpture in North Kohala, Hawai'i demonst... more Abstract The conservation of the King Kamehameha I sculpture in North Kohala, Hawai'i demonstrates a dynamic of public involvement in conservation. It shows how information gained from material analysis and archival research can merge with cultural knowledge to inform conservation decisions. New knowledge gained during treatment alters what is done to the object, in a continuous process of discussion, feedback, and intervention. Such participatory engagement has potential to broaden conservation research while opening up relationships between communities and heritage objects. It enables people to take greater control over elements of their environment in the process of conserving objects and cultural sites.

Sweetness and blight: conservation of chocolate works of art

From marble to chocolate: the …, 1995

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Managing Contemporary Art Documentation in Museums and Special Collections

Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America

The authors present their research on wiki software to supplement standard collections management... more The authors present their research on wiki software to supplement standard collections management databases for art documentation in museums and special collections. Many new forms of documentation, particularly for installations, media, and performance art, are not well accommodated by standard relational database applications. The Artist Archives Initiative, a research project at New York University, was developed in part to address this concern. The first undertaking of the initiative is the development of an information resource for the artist David Wojnarowicz. An interdisciplinary team of archivists, art historians, computer scientists, and conservators spent two years developing the David Wojnarowicz Knowledge Base. This article reports the research undertaken that led to the selection of open-source software for the resource and the project website, the technical details of implementing the project, and its theoretical and contextual basis in scholarly research on contemporary art.

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AIC Advisor Council Meeting Report

Heritage conservation as cultural work : public negotiation of a Pacific hero

This thesis shows how heritage conservation can engage in cultural work. In the course of preserv... more This thesis shows how heritage conservation can engage in cultural work. In the course of preserving an object, it can reveal social patterns and stimulate dialogue about representing the past. At the same time, the cultural "findings" can enter into the physical intervention of conservation. The aim is to use a more participatory process of conserving material culture that simultaneously opens up relationships between communities and objects, while enabling people to take greater control over elements of their environment. Such a practice has potential for creating culture and community in the process of conserving objects and cultural sites. It expands the focus of conservation from its product to its process. In so doing it addresses heritage industry critics that charge conservation of freezing inauthentic versions of the past to sustain elite ideological control or facilitate commercial exploitation. The "participatory conservation" of the Kamehameha I monum...