Masterpiece Online is delighted to host a programme of digital debate and discussion co-organised by the Fair and Thomas Marks, editor of Apollo, to bring together the pre-eminent museum curators and conservators of tomorrow with the emerging stars of the art and antiques trade - with the aim of encouraging constructive discussion, networking and the exchange of knowledge and practical advice.
 
Conservation has sometimes been regarded as an inscrutable discipline – or at least, an area of specialist knowledge that might be seen to be remote from the prevailing modes of art history and the work of curators. But the condition of artworks, how they change in time and how they have been altered, restored, preserved or protected ought to be fundamental to how both experts and the wider public approach any painting or object. In recent years, museums have been increasingly keen to communicate the principles and processes of conservators to visitors. But do public conservation projects or explanatory videos really help to convey the enigmas of the field?
 
How might curators and conservators work together more productively? What does transparency mean in a field of undeniable scientific complexity? How might new technologies and approaches, from evolving digital methods to innovative thinking  about the role of reproductions, further the work of conservators? And what are the responsibilities of, respectively, museums, art dealers and collectors in relation to conservation?