CM: If you were to speak with him again after being able to ruminate on these ideas for -- I think it’s been 14 years since you interviewed him?
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: Mm-hmm.
CM: Is there anything you’d ask?
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: That’s a good question. Yes. I would ask him if his ideas had changed, if he has seen the wall drawings installed in places that in the end he had second thoughts about. I think I asked him a little bit about that, but I think I would have dwelled on that a little bit more. We live in a very different age now. We live in an age of 3D printing and replications and a lot of things that are considered normal, so his stance, his conceptual stance, is not nearly as progressive as it was at that time. So it would be interesting -- knowing the quality of that intellect, the extraordinary quality of that intellect, he’d be way ahead of us. So, you know, I mean, we’re catching up now, but he’d be 20 years ahead of us. So I don’t -- I would be so interested to know what he was thinking at this point. I loved his scribble drawings, which is what he was doing toward the end of his life. And I remember one day getting a package in the mail from the Post Office, a great big plastic thing with a zipper or something, saying, “So sorry,” you know, “this was damaged in transit.” I’ve never had one before; I didn’t even know what it was -- that something was torn in transit and they’d put it in the big plastic things. And it was a postcard from Sol with a scribble drawing on it. (laughs)
CM: Of all the things to get damaged in the mail!
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: I know! For one time in -- how many years -- how old am I? The one time in all of these decades anything’s ever been damaged in the Post Office. It just wasn’t meant for me to have. It just wasn’t meant to be. Yeah. So anyway... Yes, I would love to -- I wish he were here, because I’d be very interested in where his thinking is now.
CM: And with the Replication Committee that you have here, it’s my understanding that you began it thinking that some of these case studies could ultimately result in a more standard -- “standardization” is not the right term, but a way to think of other artists and to set some kind of mandate. It seems like Sol LeWitt could be one of those case studies that we can apply some of his conceptual framework to other artists.
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: He would never come up at the Replication Committee. The reason why he wouldn’t is that he considered every iteration of a single wall drawing a recreation. So it wasn’t a replication in anyway, right? It’s a complete recreation. And again, rereading my notes from our lunch -- either then or later, I don’t remember -- he made a big point of that -- that it’s not a replication; it is a recreation. We understand that in conceptual art, and so we’ve never had a conceptual artist -- at least an artist who’s -- you know, a conceptual artist through a broader frame. But we haven’t had a -- Sol would never be at the Replication Committee, no. Because he was very clear about that. He was also clear about his sculpture: If it was nicked or scratched, it needed to be repainted. So we’ve done that here with good conscience, because he was very clear about that. A very different mindset from replication.
CM: And an artist who is so clear and articulate about his desire for the art to remain contemporary and to look contemporary. Do you think there is any room for a plurality of approaches to the conservation, or is that...?
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: You mean, other artists?
CM: Other artists.
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: Yeah, it would be different. I mean, in the case of Sol, the work was created that way. Right from the beginning, that was the intention. That was the framework, conceptual framework, of the work. With another artist, if, you know, something is faded or something doesn’t look quite as great as he’d hoped or she’d hoped or the main problem is it doesn’t look the way I remember it because it was younger, then that’s the grayer area. And we enter into very long discussions with artists about that -- and what would be acceptable. Because museums are basically keepers of history, and so we feel a responsibility to have a 1960s work look like 1960s -- I mean, I want to keep redoing them and giving them facelifts. On the other hand, I have to admit that, again, given the age we live in, artists do want their work to look new. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking now about the way in which we preserve art, contemporary art, and what our responsibility is to the object and history or to the artist, and sometimes they’re not in agreement.
CM: And with Sol LeWitt, do you see them as being in more in agreement?
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro: No, I see it very clear with him. Because his art and him -- his art and his ideas were the same. I mean, he was very clear from the beginning that everything was to be remade -- recreated. No question about it. He talked about the Sistine ceiling, he talk about all kinds of art that he felt had been -- it was almost unethical for us to be looking at this aged. Yeah. So he was very pleased about the cleaning of the Sistine ceiling and the bright colors back. I don’t think -- he wasn’t naïve; he certainly understood works of art that would have aging -- an oil painting or a tempera painting or something. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand that; that just wasn’t his art. And I -- it’s interesting, because I think he was -- he was very concerned about the role of the artist, the importance of the artist, the significance of the artist’s intent and opinion. So it mattered to him. He was very pleased the Sistine ceiling had bright colors again. That was fairer. I’m putting words in his mouth, but I think he felt that was a fairer representation of Michelangelo’s work than the darkened colors.