Pace by Nino Migliori: Examination, Analysis and Treatment of a Contemporary Color Photography Experimental Artwork

The present work intends to focus on the examination, analysis and treatment of Pace, a contemporary color photography experimental artwork created by Nino Migliori in 1973. Given the particular nature of the artifact, in which the photographic materials and the media of contemporary art coexist in a complex interaction, an in-depth study of its creation, structure and components was deemed necessary to plan and perform an adequate conservation treatment. The preliminary research was conducted in order to contextualize the artwork within the author’s production, to understand the creation process, to identify the photographic technique of the print and the stratigraphic sequencing, and to characterize the constituent materials of each layer through non-invasive and micro-invasive diagnostic analysis. The severe detachments and lifts of the print from the underlying aluminum panel and the subsequent planarity alterations of the photograph, strongly compromised the legibility of the artwork and put its future conservation at risk. Therefore, the elaboration of a minimally invasive intervention methodology was required. Approaching contemporary works of art, which are at the same time also photographic objects, can present some theoretical and practical challenges, and in the near future lots of professionals in the field of art conservation are probably going to face analogue conservation problems on similar objects. The results obtained through the preliminary study phase and the conservation treatment may offer a good starting point for further research on how to examine, analyze and treat this kind of photographic objects.