Contemporary art in the museum; responsibilities and professional roles of care (original) (raw)

2021, DOCTORATE IN CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE, NOVA University Lisbon

This thesis investigates the professional roles responsible for perpetuating contemporary artworks, using the term “perpetuation” to refer to a holistic preservation of the integral components (material and/or immaterial) of an artwork over time. A contemporary artwork is re-enacted differently between exhibitions: materials are replaced, time-based media equipment and formats are changed and spatial arrangements are altered. A work can start as a performance and over the years develop into an object, or vice versa. There is change to be prevented and change to be cherished; every artwork has its own rules, and there are even cases where these rules are meant to be altered over time. Contemporary art, as sociologist Nathalie Heinich has argued, constitutes a new paradigm of art, distinct from traditional and modern. Contemporary artworks transgress conventional barriers, are highly idiosyncratic, and have a disposition to embrace change. As a result, the identity and ontology of a contemporary artwork are not self-evident, leading to a requirement of extensive and thorough research and documentation of the artist’s intent, as well as of the artwork’s institutional life. This requirement has proven challenging to institutions. Through literature review, a field-study and 27 semi-structured expert interviews, this thesis seeks to investigate the ways in which this requirement challenges traditional museum roles, namely, conservators and curators. It concludes that this demanding requirement posed by contemporary artworks is difficult to be fulfilled when added as a peripheral responsibility to the many primary responsibilities conservators and curators have. The thesis proposes the establishment of a new museum role: a collaborator to conservators and curators; a researcher with the role of understanding and documenting the identity and ontology of a contemporary artwork, tracing the artist’s intent, as well as the rationale of institutional decision-making — supporting a clear, effective and well-documented reflection back and forth from the archive to the exhibition space.