This project came to fruition after a lengthy engagement process with the Painting Conservation department, working extensively with Nicola Christie – Head of Painting Conservation (now Conservator of the Queen’s pictures at Windsor Castle). This exhibition took me deeper into the institutional framework of the museum. I became fascinated by the various spectra used to establish the condition of the paint layer, and the bureaucratic ephemera that tends to accumulate around significant artworks.

Installation view 2

Kaleidoscopic Disturbances


The many coloured glass pieces in the kaleidoscope are shaken up and fall into a different configuration. Gleaming images affected by the light streaming through the frosted glass. Peering at the new image that has come to be, the ‘viewer/shaker’ marvels at the change. Will the same image ever show itself again? Realising that as soon as the kaleidoscope is put down the image is lost – its presence was only fleeting. Sad at losing the beautiful image, the shaker is also filled with excitement, anticipating the next new and different configuration that will appear upon the horizon.

An intense and concentrated atmosphere lies thick in the studio of the conservator – the painting undergoes a meticulous procedure of appraisal. Wiping, scratching, dabbing, teasing and tickling the skin of the painting, it re-emerges in a new set of clothes. The desire of the conservator is to reveal that which cannot be seen, often unveiling surprising aspects of the painting. It’s held up towards the light to become visible. What is it that the conservator is exposing by cleansing the object of its dirt? Is it strictly dirt that is removed, or is It a part of the painting? Or is it both? This action forms a different facet of the painting during its life; and simultaneously it reveals how we treat, value and engage with an art object. Yet this act conservation is hidden and veiled, its traces are not perceptible (known) to the ‘viewer’ in the gallery.

The fickle nature of the materiality of the painting has again been brought to the foreground. The activity of conservation is one of slow motion – of constantly playing catch up. We are forever one step behind, duration has already moved on. Is the cleaned-up painting corresponding with our view and understanding of it? Is it not forcing us to look again, to re-examine it, to engage with it anew with clear senses, for conservation reveals what we thought was, it was not.

As the shaker moves the kaleidoscope slightly, one of the coloured stones shines brighter and thus alters the image. What is fascinating with the process of painting, and the conservation of it, is the persistent and incessant effort in trying to make it stable, to try and contain it. The deterioration of the substance itself is a mark of time, a trace of its history. The painting is ageing and records history and time on its skin. The conservator asks us, to some extent, to step into the shoes of the ‘artist’ hundreds of years ago, to see the painting through their eyes. This is however an impossibility because the painting is not the same as it was then; and is not shown in the same era, not with the same cultural ideals and values that prevailed. Furthermore, we are not the same person engaging with it every time we experience it. Between each viewing we have changed and moved on, as has the painting.

If we just start to scratch the surface we notice that its core being is slowly changing, and at some point is manipulated by the many hands handling it. Ii is delicately being caressed and touched by the air it breathes and by the breath of its onlookers. Its relationship with the surrounding world is closely being knitted and re-knitted over again, intertwined into a myriad of possible transfigurations. The question isn’t which transfiguration is the most true to the piece; rather it is how we relate to it and its many clothes. What thoughts and feelings does it stir in us, realising that it moves on and changes its being (both physical and theoretical) as we stand in front of it engaging with it. We are affecting it and It affects us.

The moment of looking at the painting vanishes into the past as quickly as a breath is taken; the transitory nature of the painting and its life within art history is exposed. Its pieces have been shaken and fallen into a new multifaceted state of becoming. The light slowly moving across the glass piece(s) casting shadows and making visible another aspect of the object, and so another path on its journey is begun.


Dr J. Hällsten