Bark painting in Connecting Cultures. Bamboo, palm spathes, paint. X579.

After being exposed to a range of uncontrolled environments—first on the gables of a ceremonial house in tropical Papua New Guinea, then in the drier conditions of the Museum—the paint layer had become unstable, making the work too fragile to stand upright.  This is due to an inherent incompatibility of materials: as humidity changes the bark expands and contracts to a greater degree than the paint, causing it to crack and separate.

Old photos in the object’s conservation folder showed it in even worse condition, with paint tenting and curling. In 1979 conservators had treated this by consolidating the work with dilute methyl cellulose, a plant-derived adhesive. While this treatment made the work stable enough for horizontal storage over 30 years ago, it was in no state for exhibition.

1979 photograph showing detail of lifting paint. Credit: B. Appelbaum.

To complicate matters for us, the surface had grown very dusty in storage. It is tricky to clean such a fragile surface, but it must be done prior to consolidation to avoid trapping the dust.

Cleaning with a cosmetic sponge.

Our secret weapon for this was available at our local drugstore: cosmetic wedges. Highly porous and super-soft, these polyurethane sponges pick up dust without damaging the loose and brittle paint.

Once the surface was clean, we began testing consolidants—adhesives to secure the paint. When introducing a new material to an art object, conservators always need to balance aesthetics with longevity. We chose a specially processed methyl cellulose that satisfied both these goals—A) it didn’t dramatically change the sheen or gloss of the surface, as many consolidants do, and B) it is known to age well with the consolidant applied in the 1970s (also a methyl cellulose). We applied it at a high concentration with an air brush, strengthening the paint layer. Then, using a tiny heated spatula, we set down lifting paint flakes – bonding them to the bark.  The paint now had enough integrity to withstand the pull of gravity in a vertical orientation.

Consolidating with air brush, paint wet with consolidant.

The painting had also suffered a wound: in the bottom right corner was a gaping hole. The bark around the hole was curling: we had to flatten it to effectively bridge the gap. We used Goretex—a material developed by the sports industry that is waterproof yet breathable— to gently introduce water vapor to the distorted areas. This humidification softened the bark enough to allow us to flatten it and mend the hole with a bridge of toned, archival tissue.

Left: Hole before treatment. Right: Hole after treatment.

Now clean, much flatter, and hanging high in the galleries, the work more closely resembles its bold original incarnation. And, most importantly, it is now exhibited in a climate-controlled environment, ensuring a long-lasting bond between paint and bark.

Mummy Mask of a Man Consisting of the Face Only. Plaster, Lips: 1 1/8 x 4 1/4 x 4 3/4 in. (2.9 x 10.8 x 12 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 48.183a-d.

Such masks appear to have been created by coating the linen wrappings on the head of a mummy with plaster. So, while it’s not a “death mask” in the modern Western sense of the term, it was meant to portray the deceased. Only a few such plaster masks are known, and most of them date to the Old Kingdom (circa 2675–2170 B.C.E.). Very soon after, plaster masks went out of fashion, and were replaced by more elaborate and durable masks or head coverings made of wood, cartonnage and other materials.

This mask was excavated in tomb G 6104A in Giza, Egypt, by the Harvard-Boston expedition. In 1948 the fragile mask arrived to the Brooklyn Museum in four crumbling pieces. In this state, the fragments did not appear to amount to much of an image, and were carefully placed in our storerooms. But, with the wonderful work of our conservators, who put the pieces back together, the mask revealed a delicate face.

We discussed the best way to display this wonderful object. Although we have a pretty good idea of the original appearance of the mask, we simply could not know what the missing pieces were like. For this reason, we did not to fill in any of the losses. This meant that a hole in the middle of the mask would be very apparent and the color and kind of fabric for the backing had to be chosen. After some discussion, we finally decided on a fabric resembling the appearance of mummy wrappings—a neutral beige linen.

Kerith Koss was responsible for conserving the mask and creating its mount so that it could be properly displayed. The task of arranging and holding the fragments correctly required elaborate treatment. She told me about the work:

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The result is fantastic! Come and see the beautiful face made over 4000 years ago—it’s on display now.

Figurine of Woman, ca. 3650 B.C.E. - 3300 B.C.E. Terracotta, painted, 8 3/4 x 1 9/16 x 2 in. (22.2 x 3.9 x 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.501.

Like our “Bird Lady,” the “Female Figure with Stump Arms” was also made five and a half thousand years ago, and comes from a nearby tomb in Ma’mariya. Although this female figure is missing her head, she is just as delicate and charming as the better known “Bird Lady.” You may notice that her arms are stubbed rather than upraised. She’s an example of another type of figurine from the site of Ma’mariya that have these particular abbreviated “stub-arms.”

You’ll find her in our Egypt Reborn galleries in May, and she will remain on view with her more complete partner, the “Bird Lady,” when she returns from her venture across the river in August.

Connecting Cultures is the first museum installation to utilize Optium for every vitrine and glazed surface. Optium is an anti-reflective, anti-static, abrasion-resistant and clear-coated acrylic produced by Tru Vue. Unlike regular Plexiglas glazings which mirror and reflect adjacent surfaces, these Optimum cases appear completely transparent. Optium has various coatings and is not easy to fabricate into 5-sided vitrines, but Allen Blum at Grewe Plastics had developed a fabrication method. The second challenge was that Optium is produced in very small quantities and when Allen contacted Tru Vue about our project, the President of Tru Vue personally called Allen to assure him that they would guarantee enough material to complete all 32 vitrines and glazing for the Pitcher Wall.

A visitor activates a Smartglass case to view the light-sensitive object inside. Optimum is used on other casework (like the Buddha tower in the upper left), so the vitrines are anti-reflective.

Working with Van Wood at the Small Corporation (SmallCorp), we were able to develop a new type of exhibition case for light sensitive materials using Smartglass as an electronic curtain for art. Smartglass is often used in architecture for privacy; it looks white or grey, but when activated it diffuses light or becomes transparent. Many people have also seen it used for unique applications, such as the dressing room doors at Prada in Soho. Smartglass is composed of two sheets of iron-free glass, with a 1/64″ film between that contains microscopic particles. When opaque, these particles are scattered; when electrified, the particles align vertically to allow light to pass through. At the Museum, our Conservation lab tested the Smartglass and found that when opaque it only allowed less than 1% of light diffusion, and less than 1% UV. For light sensitive works on paper and textile, these Smartglass curtains will extend the exhibition period of fragile works and do away with the need for fabric coverings and light locks.

Smartglass curtains will extend the exhibition period of fragile works. Visitors push a button to reveal the object sitting inside the case.

Label troughs are not an area that would seem to be terribly innovative, but if you think about it, most labels are either on walls or on the sides of cases. There is also the variation of having a label installed on an angled deck inside the case. Though it has its advantages, I always felt that having angles above the collar line read too much with the artwork and changed the shape of the casework. My solution was to sink the label rail into a trough below the deck and collar line. This retains the casework’s squareness, doesn’t compete with the shape of the artwork, and perhaps surprisingly is very easy to read especially through reflection-free Optium.

Together these three advances in casework design give Connecting Cultures a state-of-the-art look and feel.

Art books have an advantage over other books since they offer many components that have an intrinsic quality. Hand colored images, good paper quality, innovative typography, overall design, types of binding—these are all elements that make art books a physical experience ranging from touching, holding, reading, smelling and of course understanding the message that the author intends. We are very fortunate to have many wonderful examples of the art book in the Museum Libraries and to have the opportunity to showcase some of these in exhibitions both held inside and outside the Museum walls.

Three great examples of the art book—ranging in dates from 1692 to 2011—are on view in Connecting Cultures and they each offer an opportunity for us to think about what the physical book offers in terms of textual and visual information (credible or not). Let’s start in 1692 with the Atlas nouveau : contenant toutes les parties du monde … (Paris: Chez Hubert Iaillot …,1692).

Atlas nouveau : contenant toutes les parties du monde ou sont exactement remarquès les empires, monarchies, royaumes, estats, republiques & peuples qui sy trouuent á present.

Known as the father of French cartography, Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667), was the patriarch of a famous mapmaking family who dominated map publishing in the seventeenth century. Hubert Jaillot, another most important French cartographer had a partnership with the Sanson family and re-published and re-engraved many of their maps. This rare atlas had been in the collection of the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library Association founded in 1823 and the first free and circulating library in Brooklyn. The Library was the nucleus of the Brooklyn Museum and this book is an excellent example of the original institutional vision as it documents a need to know about the world and the desire to share information. This book documents a view of the world in 1692 through French eyes and is a powerful example of how information has been created and circulated over time.

Sanson map is used as background imagery on one of the walls in Connecting Cultures.

In addition to being on view in a specially designed low light case, one of the maps has been reproduced on the gallery wall. This is one of many examples of how the Libraries and Archives add to the life of exhibitions here at the Brooklyn Museum!

The easy solution would have been to choose one color for each section, but since the room is 24-feet high, and most of the art is under 4-feet tall, that would have left a lot of empty visual space, even after double-hanging. And so I began to explore the idea of using over-sized murals as backgrounds, and asking myself questions like, “what is something visual that connects all of these works together?” Immediate answers for the place section for example would be to use the weather or landscape. I even thought about things like seismographs or lightning, which are universal experiences. Then, I moved to think about what structures, or frameworks, could hold each group together. I began to think map, and then met with the Museum’s librarian Deirdre Lawrence who showed me our 1680 Sanson Atlas, and its beautiful world map. Taken to greyscale, and then with a white-to-transparent overlay, the Sanson map clearly indicated Place and gave the artwork installed on top of it an instant cohesion; the greyscale then allowed the artworks’ color to pop forward.

One of the first things you'll notice upon entry are the gigantic murals that we've installed on the walls as background images, each one relates to the themes we are highlighting. Here, a world map from the 1680 Sanson Atlas is getting installed in the "Place" section.

I then extended this idea of structure and greyscale to the other sections. One common framework of all people is the skeletal system, and so I worked with a skeleton drawing by Daniel Hungtinton from our American collection. Skeletons and anatomy also being one of the first subjects you draw as an art student. For Things, I met with the planning department, and paged through decades of old blueprints produced for the Museum. A drawing of one of the Museum’s staircases from 1954 by Brown, Lawford & Forbes, became the background for a display of historical and contemporary mirrors.

The Egyptian eye that you see upon entry is just a mere 2.5 inches in real life, but has been digitally captured and rendered in hi-definition. Enlarged to 19' wide x 22' tall, its 1000% enlargement makes the statement, "look."

And last, was the question of what to use as an “entrance” for an installation about new ways of looking at out collection. Our common structure for looking is the eye, and in our Egyptian collection we have a life-size eye made 3,500 years ago, from Obsidian, limestone and blue glass. This 2 1/4″ eye was photographed in HD by Karl Rudisill from Duggal, in 6 parts, re-assembled into an 18GB file, and then enlarged to 19′ wide at 1,000% enlargment, without pixellation. A miracle of photography.

Together, these monumental murals form a dramatic set of indicators that provides unity for all of the places, people and things that artists in our Permanent Collection, have created as records of our amazing world . . . A world in Brooklyn.

Director Arnold Lehman greets visitors at the staff desk in Connecting Cultures. Each staff member at the Museum will act as a "connector" at the desk for two hour shifts once every two months. When you come visit us, you'll meet a different person each time and be able to give us your feedback about the installation and your visit with us.

At this desk, visitors will have the opportunity to meet diverse Museum staff and to interact with them about many different aspects of the Brooklyn Museum. Whether the conversation is as simple as getting directions to the cafe or as complex as discussing favorite works of art in the collection, the point is to provide a human connection between the visitor and the Brooklyn Museum. The conversation goes both ways. Not only can the visitor learn about the Museum, but the staff members, or “connectors,” can learn what it is the public needs to know, and what they are thinking about, so that we can better tailor what we provide to meet those needs.

Arnold reports that he had a great time during his term as a “connector.” Yesterday was a lively day at the Brooklyn Museum, and he talked to visitors from around the country and around the world. I happened to have a group of visitors from another American museum for a tour in the afternoon, and they were impressed to find our Director greeting visitors in the galleries, and they took full advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the institution. They went away astonished at the friendly and open spirit of the Brooklyn Museum.

Yesterday was a trial run for this program. It begins in earnest on Wednesday, May 2, when Brooklyn Museum staff “connectors” will rotate shifts at the desk in Connecting Cultures. You never know who you will meet, so come for a visit. I hope to see you there!

Art Handlers install Nick Cave's Soundsuit, 2008, one of several works by contemporary artists in the Connecting People section of Connecting Cultures. Soundsuit transforms the human body and allows the wearer to assume new identities by alluding to a range of rituals, from ceremonial African dances to Christian liturgy.

If you think about past visits to the Brooklyn Museum—or to any art museum, for that matter—you probably remember galleries divided into traditional categories. For instance, you might go to the Asian galleries or the African galleries, which are organized by geography. Or you might go to the ancient galleries or the contemporary galleries, which are organized by chronology or time; or you might visit paintings galleries or silver galleries, or period rooms, which are organized by medium or type. These organizational principles have been standard in museums for over a hundred years. We can learn a lot about objects and the cultures, eras and types they represent by seeing them organized in this way. But such a standard organization can also be limiting. It can prevent us from making new and exciting connections between geographical locations, time period and types of objects. It is these connections that often help us understand what it is to be human and how the arts express that.

Electricians test lighting in the wall of 90 pitchers in Connecting Cultures. These pitchers show the depth of the collections at the Brooklyn Museum and suggest what can be learned from assembling large numbers of objects together. The basic form of things is often defined by their purpose; pitchers, across time, place and cultures are meant first to hold liquid and then to pour it. As a result, pitchers have certain similarities no matter where or when they were made, but they also reveal, in their details, a great deal about their time and place.

So, Connecting Cultures breaks down traditional categories to challenge the viewer to see things in a new way and to make new connections. There are three very simple and straightforward themes in the installation—connecting people, connecting places, and connecting things. I hope that the new installation will do two things—first, introduce the visitor to the wide range of riches available at the Brooklyn Museum, and, second, stimulate some thinking about how to make connections between the museum galleries, as well as within them.

Many different themes could be developed using Connecting Cultures as a model: how does dance appear throughout time and among cultures; does the color blue mean the same thing in all cultures; how are concepts of death expressed in the arts? The possibilities are endless. Connecting Cultures can help us to begin to explore them.

Attributed to Thomas Hudson (British, 1701-1779), Mrs. John Wendt, circa 1745. Oil on canvas, 50 1/4 x 39 7/8 in. (127.6 x 101.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Kaywin W. Smith Lehman, 79.290.

While these galleries display works of vast diversity in terms of date, medium, style, and cultural origin, the featured artists have generally always worked in the Americas. We’re making an exception to include this British painting in the gallery devoted to the colonial experience, where it will join objects made in North and South America. From an historical and aesthetic standpoint, this addition makes a lot of sense. Anglo-Americans who settled in the British colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries frequently looked to the mother country for artistic inspiration. When elite patrons commissioned a portrait, they wanted to emulate the latest styles in London as a sign of their cultural refinement. And, during the mid-eighteenth century, Thomas Hudson was one of the most sought out portraitists by London’s high society. The portrait of Mrs. John Wendt is typical of Hudson’s manner in which he combines the grandeur of earlier Baroque images of royals, with the soft, pastel colors favored by the current Rococo style. Such portrait trends traveled across the Atlantic in several ways: by English-trained artists working in the colonies, by Americans traveling overseas, and by printed reproductions of works of art imported from abroad.

View of American Identities galleries with, from left to right: Robert Feke (American, ca.1707-ca.1752), Portrait of a Woman, 1748, oil on canvas, 49 3/8 x 39 9/16 in. (125.4 x 100.5 cm), Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund and Museum Purchase Fund, 43.229; and William Williams (American, 1727-1791), Deborah Hall, 1766, oil on canvas, 71 3/8 x 46 3/8 in. (181.3 x 117.8 cm), Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 42.45.

For this British “incursion” into the American galleries, Hudson’s work will hang near American-made paintings of the same period, including the stunning portraits of an unidentified woman by native-born Robert Feke and of the Philadelphian Deborah Hall by British immigrant William Williams. Comparing these works, you can see how the American ladies had themselves portrayed in the same manner as their European counterparts—with sumptuous dresses, elegant poses, and stylish accessories (lace, jewelry, and flowers). This grouping speaks to the vibrant nature of globalization in the eighteenth century as people, ideas (such as British portrait conventions), and things (such as the Chinese silks used to clothe such wealthy and fashionable women as these) moved throughout the world. Similar kinds of international cultural exchanges can be seen throughout the American Identities galleries.