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……………………………………………………………"That bottle keeps its blink on its side red from horizon." Clark Coolidge………………………………..

Robert Overby, Hall painting, first floor, 1971. Latex rubber, plaster, paint and burnt wood.

[Part two of a conversation, keyed to our One on One series, between Michelle Barger, deputy head of conservation, and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, assistant curator of architecture and design, on Robert Overby's Hall painting, first floor.]

Michelle Barger: How did you come to chose Hall painting, first floor for your One on One talk? Were you familiar with Overby’s work as a commercial designer prior to becoming an artist, and did this play into your decision?

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: In 2000, I was working at the UCLA Hammer Museum as the curatorial assistant when Robert Overby: Parallel, 1978-1969 was exhibited, so I have been familiar with all the various strains of his work since then, including the graphic design. However, this was before switching from a curatorial interest in contemporary art to architecture. When I was combing through the permanent collection database recently in search of works for an exhibition proposal, I was thrilled to discover that SFMOMA had one of the Barclay House casts.

Even though Hall painting, first floor is in the Painting +  Sculpture collection (and not Architecture + Design), I think it brings up interesting issues related to capturing and displaying architecture. I abandoned the exhibition proposal once I learned that it was on view in Vincent Fecteau’s show, but I jumped at the opportunity to spend some time thinking about this work and how it relates to Architecture.

As you know, an A+D department in an art museum is always working with secondary materials. We can never exhibit a building, only representations of a building. Of course, everyone experiences architecture every day, especially how it defines space and program. Hall Painting, first floor offers an impression of a familiar piece of architecture—a house—using a method I’ve never seen in the field. By creating a cast of a detail from the house—the hall where a painting was on the first floor—one is given a very personal view of an interior. This impression captures details that a photograph cannot—the paint from the walls and pieces of the burnt wood, which reveal an intriguing history of the house.

MB: Doorways and architectural passageways are represented in other early works by Overby, bringing up the relationship between the body and points of access. Can you talk about this relationship in Hall painting, first floor?

JDF: I hadn’t really thought about the door represented in this piece, because I consider this work a fragment of the larger project of capturing the whole Barclay House. But, of course, you are right that most of the other casts are only of doors or windows, and he also did concrete casts of doors. As you mentioned, it also relates to Overby’s other works and interestingly, even the later paintings of (mostly) female body parts with rubber S&M apparel, where the orifices are either covered by latex or are the only body part revealed. I’ve always considered the rubber casts as images of spaces special to Overby;  however, writer David Rimanelli wrote that Overby considered the casts as process art, in which case the works stand as an index to the action. To get back to your question, I wonder about the bodily action in “masking” the house (and finding parts of the house’s skin—plaster, paint and burnt wood—embedded in the cast) as a pseudo sexual act.

I look forward to speaking about the notion of the work as an index a bit more during the One on One talk on Thursday, November 5th at 6:30pm.

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Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Michelle Barger, Robert Overby

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Robert Overby, Hall painting, first floor, 1971. Latex rubber, plaster, paint and burnt wood.

[Alongside our weekly in-gallery curator "One on One" talks, we post regular ‘one on one' bits from curators & staff on a particular work or exhibition they're interested in. This week and next, Michelle Barger, SFMOMA deputy head of conservation, & Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, assistant curator of architecture and design, together take on Robert Overby's Hall painting, first floor.]

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: I was so excited to learn that Robert Overby’s large latex rubber cast of Hall painting, first floor from 1971 would be on view, because I had been working on an exhibition proposal that would incorporate this work that, to my knowledge, had not been on view at SFMOMA since it was acquired in 2003. When the One on One opportunity came up, I knew I wanted to talk about this piece, but only recently noticed that Michelle Barger, Deputy Head of Conservation, has also selected this piece. As luck would have it, the talks were scheduled one week apart: a great opportunity to highlight on the blog the many different interpretations and voices within an institution on a single work of art.

Michelle, we know that Hall painting, first floor was a cast from the Barclay House, which was a recently burned and abandoned building in Los Angeles. As a conservator, what do you think of Overby’s attempt to preserve an imprint of house surely slated for demolition?

Michelle Barger: It’s interesting to explore Overby’s Barclay project as a sort of preservation project. I often think of the surfaces of Hall painting, first floor as topography maps—literally a one-to-one record of every hill and valley in the flaking paint and loose plaster. In the field of conservation, we are always attempting to document the life of a work of art: what are the materials, how did the artist manipulate them and create the work of art, what are the best display conditions, are those conditions variable, how will the materials age, and is this acceptable, etc. It’s interesting to think of Hall painting, first floor in the way one can think of documentation for performance art—a record that proves or confirms that an event existed and happened. It becomes a second-hand version of the real thing. But in this case, one can consider Overby’s documentation as the performance.

JDF: I imagine that the fashion for entropy in artworks from the 1960s and 70s can complicate a conservator’s role in preserving a work that is supposed to “fade away’ eventually, especially if it is a valuable work in a museum collection. In contrast, Overby appears to be attempting to capture the house before its demise, yet the material—latex rubber—used for the casts must be particularly hard to maintain, especially as it is embedded with bits from the house—the paint, plaster and even charred wood. How do you treat such a piece? Are the artist’s intentions taken into consideration, even when there is no documented conservation plan from the artist?

MB: The conservation staff here is very committed to understanding artists’ intent for their work; we consider this information to be an integral part of developing a preservation plan for works in the collection. Yet, as you note, we don’t always have the luxury of knowing an artist’s thoughts for how a work should age over time, particularly when the artist is no longer alive. In such cases, we may work with our curators, colleagues at other institutions who are familiar with the artist’s work, and family members and studio assistants to better comprehend the best course for treatment.

On the subject of Overby’s material specifically, we were fortunate to have spent many hours studying and examining the work of Eva Hesse—so much of her later sculptural work incorporated latex rubber—in preparation for our 2002 retrospective of her work. During the subsequent tour of the exhibit to Wiesbaden, Germany, and London, I had the wonderful privilege of handling and installing her work, and observing the qualities and limits of aged latex rubber. One very basic thing I learned is that you can extend the life of an artwork made with rubber by simply storing it in the exact configuration in which it is displayed. In other words, rubber will eventually become hardened and brittle, causing the work to “freeze” in whatever position it happens to be in at that point in time. Many of Overby’s rubber wall paintings from the Barclay House are so large that they must be stored rolled on a cylinder—in much the same way that large tapestries or rugs are stored. Luckily, Hall painting, first floor is small enough that we can store it completely flat and still fit the crate into our freight elevator, through gallery doorways, and into storage.

As for the bits of paint, plaster, charred wood—and even a telephone wire—in this work, they are remarkably well-adhered to the rubber surface. Flexing of the work during handling and installation could compromise this, especially as the rubber continues to become more brittle. But we’ve worked out an excellent system where the storage crate also serves as a tray to support the work when moving it from a horizontal to vertical position.

I’ll be speaking about Hall painting, first floor in a One on One talk this Thursday the 29th at 6:30, and will specifically address the challenges we face in preserving works made from latex rubber. I’ll bring some show-and-tell items—including some samples of rubber and cheesecloth panels—so please come on by!

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conservation, Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Michelle Barger, Robert Overby

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