 Good afternoon. Today I will be presenting an in-progress project focusing on the light stability of the color photographs collection at the Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. The Hirshhorn opened its doors to the public in 1974. Joseph Hirshhorn's founding collection was diverse in its holdings and includes unexpected treasures for a museum renowned today for its modern and contemporary collections such as 220 objects by Thomas Aikens, many of which are photographs and works on paper. Hirshhorn was known for his close personal ties to the artists that he collected. The importance of connecting with the artists continues to be reflected in the museums, meet the artists and other public programming and especially in the conservation department's artist interview program. Though conservation at the Hirshhorn was established with the opening of the museum, in practice the department remained treatment and installation driven. While scientific analysis and technical research guided treatment decisions, there was until recently little emphasis on broader collections care practices. Still, material sensitivities to light was understood across the museum, providing impetus for specific projects to support improved practices and the creation of a written exhibition policy. The study of the light sensitivity of the photographs in the collection is one facet of this initiative. The Hirshhorn's collection contains approximately 480 works classified as photographs or works containing photographic materials as a component. Of these works, approximately 200 can be broadly classified as color photographs, a manageable number for a focused study. The types of materials represented in the collection include chromogenic photographs, silver dye bleach, and digitally output materials including inkjet and electrophotographic prints. At least 15 to 20 percent of these works are face mounted or protected with an adhered laminate film and of these many are oversized and mounted overall to aluminum, centra, or acrylic as would be expected with works of their size. To highlight a few artists represented in the collection, we have chromogenic photographs from Anna Mendieta and these are works from her 1974-1975 Untitled Body Tracks series and they document the artist's performance of the piece. This image represents one photograph from William Christian Berry's Green Warehouse Newborn Alabama series, which is comprised of 16 chromogenic prints. Here is an example of a Thomas Struth face mounted chromogenic photograph in our collection. These two works, which will be discussed in further detail, are a transparency and light box by Jeff Wall on the left and a laminated chromogenic photograph by Liz Deschenes on the right. Shortly, I'll go over the light stability project that we're working on at the Hirshhorn. As has been expressed, we are interested in developing exhibition guidelines for our color photographs with specific focus on the laminated and face mounted materials. In doing this, we'd like to utilize the technique of microfatometry in the development of these guidelines. Other aspects of the project include physical examination of objects and colorimetry in tandem with microfatometry. Most of this audience is familiar with the significant research on the stability of face mounted and laminated works, as well as various color photographic and inkjet processes. Through a survey of the literature, we relied on the findings of these studies to give us a general idea of what we could anticipate with the microfading of different processes. Microfadeometry was selected because it can provide object-specific light sensitivity information, and it is most useful as a preliminary screening tool for establishing object-specific display parameters. As many will be familiar, the microfade tester was developed by Dr. Paul Whitmore and has been refined and utilized on many classes of materials to collect object-specific light-fastness information. The test exposes a spot of 0.3 to 0.5 millimeters to intense light and measures in real-time the reflected color, allowing us to stop the test before it goes too far. The Delta E value of five is where most people can see a change in color, and the test can evaluate a Delta E change of less than 0.1. As will be discussed later, our preliminary testing was carried out by conservation scientists at the National Gallery of Art, and the standard for running a test on artwork at the NGA is to stop at a Delta E of two or five minutes, whichever comes first. To date, there are a few published findings on use of MFT on face-mounted and laminated works. Dr. Gregory Smith and colleagues at the Indianapolis Museum of Art have done some work in this regard and have established a method for performing MFT on face-mounted photographs, and this protocol will be described in the talk. Regarding its use on photographic materials, we refer to the following studies. In separate studies, Lavadrine and Casella et al. developed methodologies for applying the technique on transparent materials. Freeman et al. used the technique to monitor albumin photographs during exhibition, and in a forthcoming publication, Westling et al. applied it to diazotypes. Ford and Batterham applied the technique to historic office documents, including early electrophotographic processes. Now I'll describe the project at the Hirshhorn. Before performing microfading tests on collection objects, we wanted to assess the viability of this technique, and therefore prepared, unmounted, laminated, and face-mounted mockups for this purpose. The mockup samples were laminated or face-mounted to represent recent and current commercial and artistic practices as represented by the Hirshhorn's collection. The source materials chosen as samples are familiar to this audience, as they were selected from the AIC PMG digital sample set. This choice was made since the processes, papers, ink sets, and printer settings are all known variables, and when the study was developed, there was little published on light stability tests using this combination of digitally output materials. Discussions with the mounting studio informed decisions relating to mounting or laminating specific processes, and the impact of the mounting studios on the decisions made by artists in galleries is of particular interest to the Hirshhorn's current acquisition practices. The chart on the screen shows the different classes of materials that were mounted. At it includes chromogenic, silver-dyed bleach, Fuji pictography, direct thermal transfer, dye diffusion thermal transfer, electrophotography, and inkjet. Both dye and pigment-based inkjet and drop-on-demand and continuous. Although this totaled 15 unique combinations of materials, 13 were face-mounted, the electrophotographic prints were not face-mounted, and 14 were laminated. The silver-dyed bleach print was not laminated. The samples were laminated and face-mounted by Lamont Photographics, a New York-based mounting studio. The laminate used was Maktak Permigarde, a pressure-sensitive glossy polypropylene UV-blocking film, and the face-mounting was done in a dissect-style method with a crystal-clear pure silicone liquid adhesive. In regards to material choices offered by Lamont, in their online mounting and lamination guide, they describe the various options in a way that indicate the protective nature of the materials, which would appeal to the artist's interest and the permanence of his or her work, as well as the quality of the materials. While the samples were in production, we really wanted to discuss the observations that the mounting studio had made in the permanence of these materials. And they mentioned that some of the issues seen in earlier film laminates, specifically the yellowing that occurred over time, and that was something that they had seen over time. In their experience with the film laminate that we used for these samples, yellowing should not occur, but the material will likely shrink along the outer edges. However, overall, they've found the material to provide protection against color shifts in certain photographic materials. As for material compatibility issues, it's been found that the laminate peels easily off of chromogenic print surfaces, but forms a more secure bond with inkjet print surfaces. And I interpreted this as a difference between a coated polyester or RC-based paper in the case of a chromogenic support and an uncoated paper in the case of an inkjet support. To date, preliminary testing of the photographic and print mockups has been carried out in collaboration with Dr. Christopher Manus and Dr. Molly McGaff of the Scientific Research Department at the National Gallery of Art. To elaborate further on our testing protocol, in addition to Dr. Manus and Dr. McGaff, we consulted Dr. Gregory Smith and Dr. Paul Whitmore in his work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Dr. Smith and colleagues published a technical note in which the results of microfading through glazing are discussed. In a personal communication, Dr. Smith described his method for microfading face-mounted photographs and our setup followed the same approach. All scientists consulted agreed that this was the most reasonable setup for having a blue wool standard for comparison of the microfading data. And here's a diagram of that here. In the setup, a blue wool card is sandwiched behind the same type of acrylic sheet used for face-mounting. For the laminate material, it was initially felt that the film layer was thin enough to be a negligible variable in data collection. However, we did decide to secure a sample of the film laminate in order to have comparison and these tests will be performed a little later date. And consultation with Dr. Manus and Dr. McGaff, determinations were made on the testing sites and which ones would be appropriate. Three sites were chosen, the paper base, a gray color patch and a mixed color patch. The approach to testing adhered to a philosophy of gathering comprehensive and inclusive data first. For example, testing a gray patch containing all image-forming material would inform the stability of the image materials as a whole. When or if a material exhibited sensitivity or an unpredictable response, then one may proceed with isolated color or dye specific test sites to identify the dye or color exhibiting fugitive properties. Similarly, if an unmounted sample showed no sensitivity to light, then testing on laminated or face-mounted mockups was not done. Although there are concerns about the interactions between the image material adhesive, excuse me, adhesive layer and light, the testing to date is preliminary and further testing will be carried out. Also, prior to micro-fading, color density readings were taken on the three testing sites and on individual colorants using an X-rayed exact spectrophotometer. Micro-fading measurements were carried out for 300 seconds with real-time monitoring to ensure no change of more than two Delta E units during measurement. Triplicate reference micro-fading measurements were obtained from iso-blow-wall standards one and two and demonstrate the stability of the system. Blue-wall standard one is the most light-sensitive material, with blue-wall two being approximately half as sensitive. The fading rate of iso-blow-wall standard three cannot be directly measured on the microfade tester as this material does not exhibit appreciable fading in the absence of ultraviolet radiation and this is filtered out both in the system and in gallery lighting conditions as we all know. An estimate for blue-wall standard three is calculated based on the fading rates of blue-wall standards one and two. Overall, most of the photographic or print image material samples were equal to or slightly less than what would be the estimated equivalent of blue-wall three, which means that the materials are still highly sensitive to light and fall into category one sensitivity. For most processes, the paper base was the least stable of all test sites and in the next few slides I'll go through some of our results in more detail. For the sake of time, I'll highlight the findings for select processes. I'll start with the unmounted chromogen example printed onto Kodak Endura Superpaper. Looking at the fading of the paper testing site, which is the red line, it started fading at a rate similar to blue-wall one but by the end of the five-minute data collection it had a rate less than blue-wall two but not equal to blue-wall one. It's delta E was 1.3. The mixed and gray color patches, which are the purple, the green and purple lines respectively, had fading rates equal to an estimated blue-wall three reference line and initially the mixed color patch started fading at a rate close to blue-wall two. The delta E of the gray patch was 0.6 and the mixed color patch was 0.4. For the laminated sample of the same process, the paper started fading at a rate equivalent to blue-wall two but by the five-minute mark the delta E of the paper was 0.7. For the gray patch and the mixed color patches, the fading rates were equivalent to the estimated blue-wall three and the delta E of each worked 0.4 and 0.2. In the case of the face-mounted sample, for two of the test sites the fading rates were lower than that of the previous sample. For the paper after five minutes there was a delta E of 0.5, an initial rate equivalent to point to blue-wall two but by the end of the testing period it was along the same rate as the estimated blue-wall three. For the gray patch the delta E was equal to 0.3 and that this rate was less than the fading rate of the estimated blue-wall three and for our sake we reported as blue-wall three. For the mixed color patch there was a delta E of 0.5 at the five-minute mark which is greater than the delta E of both of the other mixed color patches. It is still fading at a rate that is more stable than the blue-wall three and we report this is equal to blue-wall three. For the unmounted silver dye bleach sample after five minutes the paper test site had a delta E of 0.6, a rate that's very close to blue-wall three but between blue-wall two and three. The gray and mixed color patches faded at a rate along with blue-wall three and both had a similar delta E of 0.2 after five minutes. Since the mixed color and gray patches were more stable than the estimated blue-wall three those test sites were not run on the face mounted sample of the silver dye bleach and only the paper test site was run. In this run the paper site had a test a delta E of 0.3 after five minutes resulting in a rate more stable than the estimated blue-wall three. And this is an inkjet sample. This dye-based ink jets was printed using an iris printer and it's printed on a Somerset radiant paper. For this particular sample after five minutes the paper had a delta E of 0.1 resulting in a fading rate more stable than blue-wall three. After five minutes the gray patch had a delta E of 1.1 and the mixed color had a fading rate of 0.6. For both of these test sites the fading rate was less than blue-wall three but not as but not quite as unstable as blue-wall two. The laminated and face mounted samples we did not test the paper site and since since its fading rate was close to blue-wall three. As you can see the fading rate of the gray patch dropped significantly to 0.07 resulting in a fading rate more stable than blue-wall three. While the mixed color patch faded at a rate less than blue-wall three but not as unstable as blue-wall two. Its delta E was 0.6 after five minutes. For our face mounted iris print sample the gray patch still faded at a rate greater than blue-wall three and its delta E was 0.06. The mixed color patch the fading for the mixed color patch the fading rate decreased and compared to that of its unmounted and laminated counterparts after five minutes its delta E was 0.5 and less than a blue-wall three. For these three processes here's the data again and as these results are object specific and from this we can gather that's possible that for select processes the more protected the surface the more the reduction in fading and to highlight a couple interesting results that I with things I thought were interesting for the chromogenic sample the mixed color patch on the laminated sample had greater stability when compared with its unmounted and face mounted counterparts and from this we're speculating that the adhesive layer may play a role in the degradation or stability of the media and that there might be interactions occurring with when the materials are exposed to light. We're not sure exactly what's going on so we're going to do some more testing of the samples that had blue-wall three readings and we'll perform additional analysis on those samples that were laminated and face mounted as well as doing some FTIR on adhesives. We do anticipate that this research will help to inform exhibition guidelines and recommendations but there are two other areas that we anticipate that this will impact and those areas are acquisitions and artist interviews since we're a contemporary art museum so much of our work falls into variable media and often these works will include photographic or digital print elements and in some cases it's the responsibility of the museum to oversee the fabrication of the resulting prints. Hito-Steros How Not To Be Seen is one example of this. This work although it's a variable media artwork it has 11 chromogenic photographs with varying finishing and mounting techniques and it will be the museum's responsibility to fabricate all of the components and during the acquisitions process we've been having discussions that pertain to the long-term viability of the work which include assessing the stability of the materials used in fabrication. The Hirschhorn is also known for its artist interview program and this began development in 2012 by Gwen Ryan who's head of the conservation department and Stephen O'Banion who was at the time a postgraduate fellow. This project is now fully underway and overseen by Brianna Feston Brunet our variable media conservator and we conduct artist interviews on a case-by-case basis. They're typically preservation focused and we really want to understand the artist's intent evolving technologies and potential material obsolescence. The goal of the interviews is to develop a relationship that continues beyond the interview and strengthens relationships between the artist and the conservation department and for this part of the our project we identified a couple of artists in the collection that we wanted to interview based on whether their work was laminated face monitor on a plastic support and I just want to briefly go over two case studies that we have done have started. So the first is Jeff Wall's transparency and light box. We have one of Jeff Wall's pieces in our collection and this work was acquired in 1998 and it's been installed once since acquisition. We're currently in conversation with the studio to better understand the physical construction of the work and those vulnerabilities and how they'll inform a plan for monitoring this work. The other is with the artist Liz Deschenes and this piece as I mentioned it is called entitled Moret number 14 and it's a unique chromogenic photograph that has a applied UV blocking polyester film laminate and we were most interested in better understanding you know why she chose to laminate the work and if she had had any conversations with the mounting studio regarding the permanence of the the laminate and if this was an area of concern for her. As has been outlined the conservation department at the Hirschhorn is seeking to gain a better understanding of its photograph collection. We're having particular focus on the light stability of the face mounted and laminated color photographic and digital print materials. The combined use of scientific analysis physical examination and consultation with the artists and their mounting studios helped inform the best care practices and stewardship of these complex materials. This work is merely a foundation of a larger project to better understand how light impacts art objects in our collection and we ultimately hope to shed light on the viability of using microfade geometry to assess complex laminate photographic and print materials. And I would just like to extend thank you to FAIC and the CCP for hosting us and inviting us to speak and also I would like to extend a tremendous thank you to the individuals listed on the screen and I would like to highlight that this work would not be possible without generous support from the Smithsonian Institution Office of Fellowships and Internships, the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Gallery of Art, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thank you. This concludes the presentation.