Vase, 1990, Andries Copier COLLECTION Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Project
Project Glas – Collection Knowledge 2.0
STICHTING BEHOUD MODERNE KUNST | SBMK
Glass is widely represented in various museum collections, yet there is limited knowledge regarding its manufacture or condition. It is a complex material that has been produced and utilised in many different ways. Glass is considered a stable material, but an estimated ten to twenty-five per cent of glass objects are susceptible to climate fluctuations, moisture, temperature, etc., leading to irreversible degradation. Its management and preservation continually raise new questions, requiring further research. The project primarily focuses on glass objects from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Dutch and Flemish museum collections, including art objects, factory glass, and studio glass.
Firstly, the project will lead to a digital platform where existing knowledge and research results about glass, which are currently not publicly available, can find a place and be linked. This will make available knowledge visible, discoverable, and usable. Furthermore, the aim is to make the unique, versatile, physical study collection of glass artist Sybren Valkema (1916-1996), comprising around a hundred objects, accessible to researchers as a reference collection.
Digital platform
The platform forms a foundation that can be further developed and expanded in the future. The breadth of the digital infrastructure ranges from images with art-historical information about objects to information on recipes, degradation phenomena such as ‘glass disease’ (atmospheric glass degradation), and natural science research results for diagnosing the condition of glass and underpinning (preventive) conservation measures.
Existing information and research will be incorporated or referenced. The digital platform illuminates the relationship between aspects of the design and manufacturing process, the recipe, composition, and condition of the glass, and places the whole in an art-historical context. It is possible to add comparable objects from other collections, initially those of the SBMK partners.
Two sources
The two sources for the content of the digital platform are the so-called ‘Gidscollectie’ (Guide Collection) from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and parts of the ‘Archief Valkema’ (Valkema Archive), managed by Stichting Vrij Glas (Free Glass Foundation). The ‘Gidscollectie’ comprises approximately eighty objects from the museum's glass collection, the condition of which has been closely monitored for fifteen years. Recently, further research has been conducted into glass instability. Due to the age and the period over which this collection has been built, the collection can serve as a reference point for, for example, degradation phenomena.
The ‘Valkema Archive’ is a unique archive, compiled by glass artist and teacher Sybren Valkema. It contains a lot of information about the design process of glass and various techniques, including recipes and experiments. The archive consists of more than 100,000 (digitised) documents about the production of specific glass objects with recipes, design drawings, and teaching materials, alongside more general information about processes, tools, etc.