International Symposium “Collecting and Conserving Performance Art”

REGISTRATION OPEN! International Symposium “Collecting and Conserving Performance Art”, Wolfsburg/Germany, June 9-11, 2016

The German Association of Conservator-Restorers (VDR) is delighted to announce the major international symposium “Collecting and Conserving Performance Art”, to be hosted by the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in Germany on June 9—11, 2016.

FULL PROGRAM: http://bit.ly/1Mhs4HW
REGISTRATION (EARLY BOOKING RECOMMENDED: LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE!): http://restauratoren.de/index.php?id=632 (English); http://restauratoren.de/index.php?id=630 (German)
Registration fees before April 30: 200,00 € VDR/SKR/ÖRV Member; 240,00 € Non-Member; 80,00 € VDR/SKR/ÖRV Student Member; 120,00 € Non-Member Student
Registration fees after April 30: 240,00 € VDR/SKR/ÖRV Member; 280,00 € Non-Member; 120,00 € VDR/SKR/ÖRV Student-Member; 160,00 € Non-Member Student

Over the last decade, art collections and museums around the world have seen a rapid increase in the acquisition of historic and contemporary performance art and its relics. This emerging collection practice challenges artists and collection caretakers alike: How can the time- and site-specific experience of an artist’s live performance be expanded and transformed into an artwork with a sustainable collection life? What status do performance props and documentary materials hold within a collection, and how is their status determined? How can the artwork’s identity and integrity be preserved and experienced now and in the future? What information and components should be entering the collection to ensure the authentic reactivation of the work? How are copyright laws, artist’s rights and future interpreter’s rights accounted for in the acquisition contract? What are the vulnerabilities inherent to a performance artwork? And how are preservation risks identified, documented and responded to?

The two-and-a-half day event approaches issues surrounding the acquisition of performance art by bringing together conservators, curators, art historians, artists, collectors, researchers, art educators and other professionals, who are involved in the production, distribution, collection, documentation and conservation of performance art. Perspectives on heritage development and documentation in adjacent disciplines, such as theater and dance, are invited to inform the discussion. Under investigation will be a variety of existing practices for bringing an artist’s live performance into a collection, including the license to re-perform the work based on an artist-provided score; film and video recordings of historic or recent performance iterations; autonomous art installations; documentation created by former audiences, participants and producers; and performance props and other objects that represent the live event.