Is a New Restoration Theory Really Necessary? Some Observations on Salvador Muñoz Viñas’ Book

Abstract

The volume originates from the belief that today’s principles of restoration no longer correspond to those proposed in the ‘canonical’ texts, judged to be obscure and incongruent, which the Author wants to submit to criticism to constructo a new theoretical structure. This necessity derives from reasons such as the boom in the conservation of contemporary art, the unstoppable rise of digital, the rise of the Heritage category, open to the ‘intangible’, and the explosion of Postmodernism. The contemporary Theory aims to replace the previous ‘myths’ of classical theories (“truth, history, knowledge, science …”) with others, more proper to the problems that restoration seeks today to solve: democracy, sustainability, satisfaction, intersubjectivity. The conceptual watershed is represented by the Burra Charter and the consequent refusal of the recognized restoration principles, starting with the one of ‘reversibility’. The proposed vision is strongly relativistic and subjectivistic, so that restoration objects are not considered as such for their intrinsic cultural value, but as socially recognized symbols, or evidence of ethno-historical disciplines. Little or nothing, in fact, we speak in the volume of history and memory. The author rejects, in particular, the Theory of Cesare Brandi and his not familiar language. He does not want go into thoroughly its logic, which feels far from their sensitivity and preparation, more adherent to an empirical Anglo-Saxon vision. However, he does not renounce the word ‘theory’ so much that one could well say that his is na ‘empirical theory’, that is, in substance, a ‘non-theory’. But perhaps today is not the time to found a ‘new’ theory but rather, in the wake of a long and authoritative tradition, to develop and expand previous acquisitions, with acts of refinement and conceptual integration.