Some of the most successful and interesting exhibitions I have seen are
those that "demystify" conservation.  They show X-ray photos, photos of the
cleaning process, and the cleaned/conserved work.  People LOVE these.

Actually, another really cool exhibition I saw was many years ago at the
Brooklyn, when the Egyptian department showed their "fakes and forgeries"
collection and explained why they were at the time thought to be original
and pointed out in detail why we now know they are not.  There was recently
another exhibition (Met?) that did something simillar that I missed.  Kind
of shows that museum people are NOT infallible--we're just people after all.


Julia Moore
Indianapolis Art Center