International Symposium: How do you do it?

Abstract: Collecting Expertise in the Artist’s Studio

Artworks are often the result of a messy cycle of experimentation and failure. Through a unique combination of science, material knowledge, and art history, the conservator seems to be particularly privileged and well positioned to respectfully engage with the nonlinear creative process. Where the artist develops an idiosyncratic material knowledge and the skills to express their ideas in the studio, the conservator can contribute an empirical explanation for their findings and offer technological advice for future projects. Through regular studio visits and conversations with the artist, their assistants, or fabricators, the conservator gains insight into not only the materiality of an artwork, but also into the intangible and intuitive aspects of their artistic practice as a whole. This talk focuses on the reciprocal transfer of knowledge between artist and conservator over the course of a long working relationship.

Bio: Christian Scheidemann

Christian Scheidemann is a conservator and honorary professor for preservation of contemporary art at the HFBK Hamburg. He studied the conservation and history of medieval art and held a position as conservator at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In 1984, he opened his own studio practice in Hamburg, focusing exclusively on the conservation of contemporary art. In 2002, he founded Contemporary Conservation Ltd., one of the most renowned conservation studios for the preservation of contemporary art in New York. The studio is specialised in developing strategies for the conservation of complex artworks. Working closely with artists since the 1990s, Scheidemann has developed methods and technologies for preserving non-traditional materials in art, such as doughnuts for Robert Gober, elephant dung for Chris Ofili, potatoes for Matthew Barney, and fruit peels for Zoe Leonard.
From 2012 to 2017, Christian Scheidemann was a research fellow and lead conservator in the research project on the conservation of Wolf Vostell's Concrete Traffic, 1970, at the University of Chicago. He has been teaching philosophical principles and strategies in the conservation of contemporary art as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago since 2022. In numerous lectures and publications, Scheidemann has dealt with topics such as artistic intention and authenticity in contemporary art. In 2018, he organised the symposium Body of Work: Contemporary Artists’ Estates and Conservation.

Abstract: Transmitting Embodied Knowledge and Social Practices

There is a long tradition to distinguish two types of knowledge: ‘knowing that’ and ‘knowing how’ (Ryle 1949). While ‘knowing that’ refers to factual knowledge that is easily accessible and can be put into words, ‘knowing how’ refers to ways of doing things in the material world, it is rather implicit and resides in the body. This paper will firstly address key notions that have been developed to refer to the latter kind of knowledge, highlighting it’s ‘tacit’ (Polanyi 1966), ‘procedural/performative’ (Anderson 2009) and ‘embodied’ (Fuchs 2016) character. Secondly, the process of transmitting embodied knowledge will be considered. More specifically, the paper will focus on social practices (Deppermann et al. 2016) that are used to transmit embodied knowledge in instructional contexts (Ehmer/Brône 2021). The paper adopts the perspective of multimodal interaction analysis (Stivers/Sidnell 2005) and uses data from dance instruction.

Literature

• Anderson, John R. (2009): Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications, New York: Worth Publishers.
• Deppermann, Arnulf/Feilke, Helmuth/Linke, Angelika (2016): Sprachliche und kommunikative Praktiken: Eine Annäherung aus linguistischer Sicht. In: Deppermann, Arnulf/Feilke, Helmuth/Linke, Angelika (Hgg.): Sprachliche und kommunikative Praktiken, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1–23.
• Ehmer, Oliver/Brône, Geert (2021): „Instructing embodied knowledge: multimodal approaches to interactive practices for knowledge constitution“, Linguistics Vanguard 7 (s4), 1-12.
• Fuchs, Thomas (2016): Embodied Knowledge – Embodied Memory. In: Rinofner-Kreidl, Sonja/Wiltsche, Harald A. (Hgg.): Analytic and Continental Philosophy. Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Berlin: De Gruyter, 215–229.
• Polanyi, Michael (1966): The Tacit Dimension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Ryle, Gilbert (1949): The concept of mind, London: Hutchinson.
• Stivers, Tanya/Sidnell, Jack (2005): „Introduction: Multimodal interaction“, Semiotica 2005 (156), 1-20.

Bio: Oliver Ehmer

Oliver Ehmer is professor in Romance Linguistics at the University of Osnabrück (Germany). His research focuses on language in its context of use, mainly in oral communication but also in written media. He works with interactional, cognitive and usage-based linguistic approaches.

Abstract: Beyond technological literacy: Finding a common language

For the preservation of technology-based artworks, conservators are faced with the challenge of understanding the underlying technology of the work. The knowledge of early, now obsolete technologies is in danger of becoming lost. In addition, artworks might be entirely or partly custom-designed, built and programmed by artists, by their assistants or third-party contractors. Presenting examples from both conservation and teaching practice, I explore how finding a common language, the commitment to building trust and understanding the artistic process are key for the transfer of knowledge.

Bio: Agathe Jarczyk

Agathe Jarczyk joined the Guggenheim’s conservation staff in 2020. Prior to her Guggenheim appointment, Jarczyk was a lecturer at the conservation program at the Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland and a guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria.

In 2008 Jarczyk founded the Studio for Video Conservation serving numerous museums, artists and archives in Switzerland and internationally. Jarczyk is a founding co-organizer of the conference series “TechFocus”. She holds a diploma degree in Conservation of Modern Materials and Media from the Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland.

Abstract: Legacy assets: embodied knowledge and the financial assetization of contemporary artists’ estates

A legacy asset in financial terms is an obsolete asset that has been kept on the accounting books for an extended period of time and runs the risk of becoming a liability. Many contemporary artists’ estates also face risks of obsolescence, the necessary transfer of embodied knowledge about ephemeral artistic practices being one of their liabilities. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the estates of contemporary artists from private market actors, such as gallerists, legal consultants, and financial advisors. Private investment in the maintenance of artists’ estates beyond their immediate marketability – keeping them on the books for an extended period so to speak – may make conservation possible in the first place. However, when artists’ estates are acquired and controled as financial assets, that is with an eye to generating continuous (future) streams of income, this may have an impact on the transfer of relevant embodied knowledge. For instance, art historians, conservators, and curators embedded in public institutions may not be granted ready access because of copyright concerns. Comparing imperatives of conservation with the repertoires of financial estate planning, I inquire into the associated risks of obsolescence: when does the financial assetization of artists estates become a liability, and for whom?

Bio: Christoph Rausch

Dr. Christoph Rausch is associate professor of Economic Humanities at University College Maastricht (UCM).

He co-founded (and serves on the steering committees of) the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH) and the Maastricht Experimental Research in and through the Arts Network (MERIAN).

Dr. Rausch’s current research is on the global relations between art and finance in the 21st century. Studying the emergence and proliferation of novel types of art storage spaces, including so-called freeports in offshore financial centers, he asks how an increasing financialization of art in and through storage problematizes public and private relations of ownership and display, speculation and risk, as well as regulation and taxation.

As Principal Investigator (PI) Rausch leads the research consortium Priceless Assets of Subversion: Financial Crime and the Valuation of Unique Goods (PRICELESS).

Abstract: Studio Azzurro’s Documentation Practices: Collaborative Knowledge and Material Engagement

Among the founding nodes in the creative practice of the Italian art collective Studio Azzurro, is the collaborative dimension, which since its formation in 1982 has constituted a differential factor, a specificity and an anticipatory distinction with respect to the ramified international panorama of artistic research that in those years focused on video, multimedia and new technologies. The idea of collaboration according to the dynamics of the workshop, often explicitly associated with those of a Renaissance “bottega”, conceived as a concrete space of work and exchange of knowledge, is both an ideational fulcrum and an interpretative key of Studio Azzurro’s path, which has matured its own creative practice at the convergence of different research coordinates. In this plural declination of creativity, the collaborative dimension has never been a simple operational modality, functional to connect different specificities and professionalism in order to realize an idea, but a true creative paradigm, dynamic and active, underlying the added value of the work. The lecture explores the implications of this collaborative practice in connection to the idea of “embodied knowledge” and its transfer, reflecting on its links to notions such as collaborative knowledge, material engagement, and living heritage.

Bio: Francesca Pola

Francesca Pola is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, where she coordinates the Master's Degree Course in Theory and History of the Arts and the Image and is deputy director of ICONE - European Research Centre in History and Theory of the Image. Among her lines of research, she pays particular attention to the relations between art, symbolic imagery, new media and the digital horizon, with a focus on the intermedia declination, narration and valorisation of documentary and audio-visual archival heritages, and the materiality of experiences in hybrid systems. In this context, she has been developing studies and collaborations about and with Studio Azzurro: in various publications, in the workshop Stanze Laboratorio (2022), in the exhibition Studio Azzurro. Il colore dei gesti – Sinfonia Mediterraneo for the project Europa anni ’20. L’UE nel mondo (2022), in the conference Le immagini e le storie (2023), and for the network project LAS. Legacies of Artists' Studios (2024 – in progress). She directs the editorial series “ICONE – opere”, inaugurated with the transdisciplinary publication by Studio Azzurro (and others), Portatori di storia. Portatori di storie, Mimesis, Milan 2023.

Abstract: Documentation and Conservation of software- and data-based art from the studio practice. Works of Studio Daniel Canogar

With over 30 years of work in the intersection of art and technology, Daniel Canogar and his studio consider documentation and conservation of its work a cornerstone to the long-term sustainability of the work and the preservation of its legacy as much as to provide collectors and institutions the information needed for the future live of the artworks. This presentation will show the strategies and protocols of the studio for different kinds of works, how it has been developed during the years, especially since the develop of the studio practice in the field of computer- and data-based artworks, through the research of its Technical Director, Diego Mellado Martinez.

Bio: Diego Mellado Martínez

Diego Mellado Martínez is an engineer for new media arts and a new media arts restoration researcher with a strong focus on technical solutions and documentation models for software-based artworks.

Since 2010 he has used his background in communications engineering (MSc degree) to design and produce new media artworks for several artists. Since 2013 he is project manager at Daniel Canogar's studio, where he is in charge of public art commissions.

In 2020, he graduated from the MediaArtHistories MA program with a master thesis on computer-based art conservation. He has taken part of AIC EMG as presenter and Program Chair, as part of the faculty of the Media Art Preservation Institute and MediaArtHistories programs at Donau University Krems and ENCRyM Mexico digital conservation workshops.

He also collaborates with several Spanish collections such a Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo or Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

Abstract: Navigating Change: Transmitting Artistic Legacies Across Generations through Embodied Acts of Care

Artists' estates are becoming increasingly important as repositories of knowledge for the preservation of contemporary art, distinct from traditional memory institutions such as museums, archives, and libraries. This shift represents a significant change in how contemporary art is preserved, both structurally and practically. The individuals responsible for caring for artistic legacies embody a decentralized source of knowledge. In confronting the challenges of managing contemporary artists' legacies, there is an urgent need for innovative skills aimed at transferring embodied knowledge and maintaining non-institutional relationships. The presentation will focus on the experience of caring for the estate of Anna Oppermann as an already second-generation caretaker. Moreover, it will provide curatorial insights into Oppermann´s recent retrospective at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn and the process of passing on the posthumous preservation practice to the next generation of stakeholders.

Bio: Anna Schäffler

Dr. Anna Schäffler is an art historian, author and curator. Her research on the contemporary preservation of art and cultural assets includes theory and practice at the intersection of art history, conservation, and curating.

Together with media conservator Andreas Weisser, she advises artists, private and public institutions on long-term preservation strategies. In addition to artistic estates, another focus of Anna's interests is on commons in the context of art, activism, and urban development. She curated the exhibition "Anna Oppermann. A Retroperspective" at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2023.

Her most recent books include "The Art of Preservation. Anna Oppermann's Ensembles, Contemporary Conservation and Estate Practice in Transition" (Munich 2021) and "Networks of Care. Politics of Preserving and Discarding" (Berlin 2022). More information about her research on www.annaschaeffler.info.

Abstract: Mobilising Embodied Knowledge from the Museums Perspective

The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg was founded in 1994. It has a high level of staff continuity. Over the last three decades some staff have cared for and installed complex installations many times. Several, however, will be retiring soon. Their knowledge is a powerful resource for the museum. In view of the collection, we have to ask how we can shape generational change so their knowledge, their ways of working, can be mobilised, documented, transmitted, and reused. 

Currently we are trying to find ways to realize that task. As daily practices and organisational structures do not emphasise the transfer of embodied knowledge, retaining and even localising the information scattered at various structural and organisational levels is a challenge. We will therefore initiate a process to map it, guided by several questions about embodied knowledge: What does it look like? Where do we need embodied knowledge? How and when did it enter the museum? How is it remembered? Does it change? Where does it reside? When is it put into practice and by whom? We will look at internal but also at external actors that shape embodied knowledge in the museum. As a work-in-progress-example from museum practice, the contribution will focus on the process of uncovering and mapping knowledge.

Bio: Elena Engelbrechter

Elena Engelbrechter is a curator at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. She studied art history, philosophy, and art technology at the University of Osnabrück and the Technical University of Berlin. Alongside jobs as a student research assistant at the university, she worked for the Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation in Hannover and the Olbricht Foundation in Berlin.

At the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and before, she worked continuously on the realization and conception of various exhibition projects on artistic positions in contemporary art with international partners. Together with director Andreas Beitin, she recently co-curated the exhibition Re-Inventing Piet. Mondrian and the Consequences.

Having been involved in the realization of the catalogue of the collection as well as exhibitions of the collection at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, going forward, she will increasingly focus on the various fields of collection work within the institution.

Bio: Artemis Rüstau

Artemis Rüstau is the conservator at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. She holds a degree in painting conservation from the HfBK Dresden and completed a postgraduate internship at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge University.

She is a member of the steering committee of the working group Modern and Contemporary art of the VDR (German conservation association). At Maastricht University, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Renée van de Vall and Dr. Vivian van Saaze, she is writing her PhD “Private Collections as Care-takers” as part of the The Marie Skłodowska-Curie funded NACCA project.

Abstract: Experimenting with Transmission in the Conservation of Performance

This talk will unpack transmission as an operative concept to discuss the conservation of performance in its sensu lato. Performance can be a productive way to characterise not only works that are part of the category of performance art, but also works and objects that engage with the performative, such as objects that are intentionally ephemeral, engage in forms of ritualised practice, or unfold over time. In a way, one could argue, all objects are performative (but that is an argument for another time!). Still, conservation issues emerge when the performance in and of objects and practices is self-evident or part of what we consider to be the artwork's identity (see Castriota 2021, on how this is also a slippery concept). In those cases, transmission has been put forward as an operative concept to indicate a process of conservation that is beyond what we typically expect to see: it can rely on explicit or implicit (or tacit knowledge), it can be, and usually is, performed by others than the conservator, and it hints at the possibility of creating new forms of knowledge (perhaps even through what Mary Louise Pratt calls  ‘contact zones’ (1991)). Discussions around transmission in conservation, however, also tend to propose this method as somewhat inter- (instead of intra-) personal, with its interpretative possibilities being seen either as secondary or as something purely beneficial.
In this paper, and through the example of the transmission of Tony Conrad's Ten Years on the Infinite Plain (1972-present), I will reflect on the interpretative imperative of transmission. I will start by briefly describe the artwork as well as its transmission process (see Marcal, Ribeiro, and Lawson 2021 for an extended perspective), and I will follow this with an analysis of what transmission meant and could mean in the optics of what Antonia Darda calls a Subaltern Interpretive Research (2019). Drawing on this framework and example, I will argue for a reflection on the power dynamics inherent to transmission in museum contexts, the ways in which transmission can promote or, instead, be a force against epistemic exclusions, and how promoting radical relationality can work towards reversing positions of subalternity in conservation processes.

Bio: Hélia Marçal

Hélia Marçal is Lecturer in History of Art, Materials and Technology at University College London’s Department of History of Art. Prior to this appointment, she worked as a Fellow in Contemporary Art Conservation and Research of the Andrew W. Mellon funded research project “Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum" at Tate (2018-2020) and has been the Coordinator of the Working Group on Theory, History, and Ethics of Conservation of the International Council of Museums’ Committee for Conservation since 2016.
Her current research interests are positioned within feminist new materialisms, material histories of activist artworks, ethics and performativity of cultural heritage, the conservation of time-based media and performance art, and both the materiality of contemporary art and the ways it is positioned and negotiated by museum, heritage, and conservation practices.
She has published about conservation theory and ethics, embodied memories and the body-archive, and public policies of participation and stewardship of cultural heritage, having been awarded the Taylor & Francis and ICON Outstanding Contribution Award in 2017. Her recent book project is on posthumanism and collection care practices in museums (under contract with Routledge, co-authored with Dr. Rebecca Gordon).

Abstract: Transmission of Knowledge in the Context of Collaborative Conservation

In the field of contemporary art conservation, the incorporation of non-stable materials in sculptures or object-based installations has sparked a vibrant discourse on 'replication' or 'remaking' as potential preservation strategies. For artworks created using casting molds, 'replication' performed without the presence of the artist requires the prior transmission of both explicit and implicit knowledge. 
The knowledge transfer process employed in the case study “Washing Day” (1976) by artist Renate Bertlmann is being compared to the educational framework for developing conservation skills. The cast latex sheets required to assemble the installation were in advanced state of degradation. In collaboration with the artist, new natural rubber skins were produced by students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2014, using the original casting molds. Working closely with the artist facilitated the transmission of implicit procedural knowledge. The subsequent reflection on the learning process emphasizes the importance of a multi-perspective approach in documentation.

Bio: Martina Pfenninger Lepage

Graduating in 2004 with a degree in Conservation of Modern Materials and Media from the Bern Academy of the Arts, Martina Pfenninger Lepage worked at Documenta 11 and Schaulager in Basel. She served as a Case Researcher and Assistant Co-organizer for the EU-project Inside Installations at Restaurierungszentrum Düsseldorf (RED).

From 2007 to 2020, she held the position of Head of the Studio for Contemporary Art Conservation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Simultaneously, she contributed to the preservation efforts at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) as a part-time conservator.

Since 2020, she has been co-leading the program in Conservation of Modern Materials and Media, concurrently serving as Head of the Master’s study program in Conservation at the Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB). Her research focus lies on installation art and contemporary
sculptures.