Rosco Spectrum: One of the main functions of museums is protecting the artwork and artifacts in their care from damage. At the same time, a museum must also display their collections, which involves balancing adequate lighting for proper visibility, while addressing preservation concerns at the same time. Light can slowly cause discoloration and structural damage in materials as it breaks down the molecular structure of dyes, pigments and substrates.
9 comments:
I really love this article and this idea. All my life I have gone to museums and galleries and the struggle for any museum is real. How do you protect ancient artifacts while giving the public a chance to view them? This is why many museums forbid the use of a camera flash. The harmful spectrum of light emitted from the flash 1000s times over can do some serious damage to a painting or work of art. This reminds me of a recent article about the use of ETC LED lights to light a display of the original field tent of Gen. George Washington. In that article, much like in this one, they talk about weighing the need for preservation of the historical artifact above all else. That article too uses science and light technology charts to highlight the various ways that light, even LED light, can damage a product. For anyone who works in theatre, lighting is an essential element and its use critical to a show. Many shows use costumes made from modern fabrics so they are less likely to fade quickly with repeated use, but where the issue turns is props. While some are made, many others are found or donated and some of these props can be quite old. This article could be a good start on learning ways to light the stage with the idea of keeping older props and costumes protected.
This article is so interesting! I’m surprised that this museum would have been using florescent lights for so long without filters! So much damage would have already have been done. I have often wondered why museums are so dark. This explains it so well. I like understanding the science behind why you are told not to take flash pictures in museums. I wish there was a way to make people read something like this when entering a museum so they understand what a flash will do to an artifact or a work of art. With everyone using phones as their camera more and more, I wonder if there is a way to have a warning pop up on phones that reminds patrons not to use flash and give an option to turn it off. Sometimes when people use flash, it is because they forgot or don’t know how to turn it off more than willful destruction or spurning of rules.
How cool! I have known for a little while that museums need to use special lights to presents the exhibits, but I never knew that the kind of light had to come from a specific are of the UV spectrum. The article states: "The Vanderbilt Museum uses fluorescent lights in its displays to showcase its organic-based collections. Fluorescent lights, while cost-effective and attractive for display cases, also produce a high UV component. To protect the exhibits from the fading, discoloration and deterioration caused by prolonged UV exposure, Gaylord Brothers provided the museum with three hundred, 100” UV GAMTubes, which are currently getting cut to size for installation inside several of the Vanderbilt’s exhibit halls. When complete, the musuem will have covered nearly 800 slim fluorescent light bulbs with our UV-absorbing GAMTubes." Which I liked learning. I do agree that we need to try our best to preserve ancient pieces of art and history, even if it is more expensive than using more widely spread lighting instruments.
I knew this was an issue, I just didn’t know how it was solved. Making sleeves to fit over fluorescent tubes is an interesting idea. Any one that seems cost effective and easy to retrofit into any installation that uses fluorescent lighting. For a new installation, I wonder if there aren’t other solutions. Perhaps LED lights emit less ultraviolet radiation. In the picture, the sleeve looked like it had a tint to it. I suppose that the transmission through it only has an effect on the UV rays, and not anything in the visible spectrum. This also seems like a strange market for Rosco. Although, who else would do it? Although there are a lot of museums, the market for this kind of item is probably small by comparison to other industries. Since lighting is one of the primary concerns of a museum, I suppose it does make sense for Rosco to manufacture these products. Also, they make filters for film and TV lighting (where color may not be as important), so going to the museum industry doesn’t seem like that big a leap.
This is really cool.. I've always wonder what sort of things were being done to help keep so many of these artifacts in good condition. This is also a large concern and discussion among artists as not all mediums are archival and over time can break down and be lost. Which means that artists who want to have work that lasts through the decades have to be thinking about these kinds of thins which has not always been the case and which means that over time we are losing beautiful pieces of art and artifacts of the past. Thankfully there are people who are committed to the restoration of items from the past and to create processes and environments that can help to protect and sustain these items for many years to come. Getting rid of UV alight is not the only solution here of course but just one tiny piece of the many possibilities that can help museums and exhibits.
When I was a kid my grandma put a baby picture of me on the window sill and it is still there to this day. However, at this point the majority of the color in it has been washed out and the details are much harder to distinguish. I always knew that visible light is able to damage photographs or artifacts, but I never considered that UV rays could be doing the most damage. In a museum or art gallery this could have the potential to be both a matinence and financial issues. If an artifact has been badly damaged by light the museum would have to do some major repair on it, and a good restoration has the potential to cost a lot. Using these GAM Tubes seems like a fairly simple and relatively cost effective solution to something that if not controlled could be very damaging to the artifacts. As this technology continues to be developed maybe we will see its use become more widespread across other larger galleries.
To be honest, I'm surprised (much like Sylvi) that the museum decided to use fluorescent lights to begin with due to their wide range of spectrum coverage. As the author writes, "The Vanderbilt Museum uses fluorescent lights in its displays to showcase its organic-based collections. Fluorescent lights, while cost-effective and attractive for display cases, also produce a high UV component." The article suggests that the museum went for a long period of time without the UV filters mentioned in the article. The spectrum thrown by fluorescent is by no means new information. As such, the museum appears to have been negligent in maintaining not only its own collections, but that of visiting exhibits as well. Although I do believe that museums do incredible work by making so much information so accessible to the general public, when doing so risks damaging the artifacts and information, perhaps we should reconsider how available that information actually is.
Having worked with several lighting designers that do both museum and architectural lighting, these are the little things that you learn throughout the process of doing and not necessarily will ever know just by walking near the art. It is incredible the number of things that have to go into considerations when making choices about adequately lighting artwork and specific pieces. This is nice for people who don’t want to redo a whole install and just need to modify what has already been put in especially in space. This will go a long way in the small studio museum pieces that tour of the country. A lot of those little spaces don’t have the proper lighting installed and merely have your Standard fluorescent tube of light.
This is an important example of the role the museums play when people question the effectiveness of need to support museums. Many museums employ experts in art degradation that understand the horrendous effects of UV on artwork and artifacts. Housing artifacts in a museum is necessary in order to preserve the artifacts for the public to see. Most critically, this is very much so an exact science of sorts. Too little light and museum goers will be unable to see the artifacts and artwork on display, but too much light and the artifacts themselves will be slowly destroyed by the light. Such a precise and exact science necessitates hiring skilled curators and experts to maintain and properly display artwork. Hiring such skilled individuals means proper funding is needed. This accentuates the need for museums to be properly funded. Hopefully as technology and lighting equipment become more advanced museums will be able to even more precisely manage UV light levels to ensure the absolute highest levels of preservation.
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