BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL DISASTER PROBLEMS OF CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY ART

On the occasion of the exhibition ELEVATION Zděnek Beran: Rehabilitation Department of Dr. Dr., the Central European Forum Olomouc and the National Gallery in Prague invite you to participate in an international colloquium dedicated to the preservation and presentation of works from the context of contemporary art. The meeting is intended for practitioners, restorers, conservators, curators and art historians or anthropologists specializing specifically in the field of contemporary art, problematic materials and ephemeral art forms. However, it has a natural historical dimension – the question of preservation, reconstruction or presentation of art environments cannot, of course, be limited to the last few decades. Trends associated with the material turn on the one hand. The performative turn on the other, the rise of poststructuralist strategies, as well as the increasingly complex rethinking of relations between individual actors across scholarly discourses, are generalizing and developing the field of art history in ways that have obvious and direct implications for a range of social practices or practices.
The imaginary motto of the meeting is one of the first complex environments created in the Central European space, the Rehabilitation Department of Dr. Dr., created in his studio at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s by Czech painter and visual artist, a member of the unofficial scene and later professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Zdeněk Beran (1937–2014). The work, on the borderline between installation, sculptural realisation and abstracted spatial painting, went through three dramatic phases with an almost biblical subtext: it was placed in a grave (1993–1994), then removed (1997) and reinstalled in a museum setting (2000/2023). It is precisely this symbolic “elevation”, i.e. not only physical but also meaningful preservation in the actual space-time, imagination and mentality, that is the key condition for the existence of an artwork.
Due to the importance of such interdisciplinary meetings, which offer the opportunity to view a given topic or realisation from multiple perspectives, the programme is divided into two stages – the first meeting will take place online at the Central European Database in April 2024, the second will then be organised taking into account the results obtained and the degree of synergies. The aim is to create a vibrant and functional network, capable of responding to the challenges faced by specific institutions or individuals. The long-established New Media Museums programme, focusing on new media art and working with advanced technologies, is a model for this.
We welcome contributions from individuals and groups, with a primary interest in the field of contemporary art, but prepared with an awareness of the general categories of theory and practice of conservation and restoration of complex art environments. The program will consist of separate panels, organized by theme, time and subject matter, and consisting of contributions of standard length (20 minutes).