MA Student preparing research for MA thesis. MA Conservation of Historic Objects, The University Of Lincoln, United Kingdom.
Period
Thesis research began in November 2011 and will be submitted in July 2012.
Title
Troubled Encounters: The Challenge of Conserving Artwork Conceptually Opposed to its Conservation (working title).
Keywords
politics of conservation, market influence, authenticity, replication, artist interviews, process art, time-based art, material fetishism, documentation.
Abstract
Aiming to describe the shifting paradigm within which conservators interact with artworks conceptually engaged with their own lifespan, the research identifies current practice across the spectrum of professional conservation. Drawing on wide a range of sources including interviews with a broad sample of stakeholders, perennial themes of authenticity, ownership, inhabited materiality, and the validity of differing epistemological methodologies are explored.
The specific phenomenon of self destructive and process based artwork is used to indicate sites where innovative conservation practice may be informed by vibrant ongoing
discourse challenging the fundamentals of traditional conservation theory. Worked examples of recent and live conservation projects are qualitatively analysed. From out of these
encounters a series of questions arise: What constitutes the satisfactory preservation of such works? What conditions must exist to realise this preservation? To what extent can the
interests of capital and museological historification influence conservation decisions? Are the needs of such works truly novel and does our troubled relationship with them reflect a shift for the role of conservation in general?
The evaluation utilises semiological and cultural theory to navigate through some of the conceptual challenges, and offers suggestions as to where the direction of contemporary
art conservation is/should be heading.
Supervisors
Sue Thomas (University of Lincoln MA co-ordinator and Conservation Ethics Lecturer), Dr Jim Cheshire (University of Lincoln Lecturer in the History of Art)
Language
English
Contact
James Muldoon
james@simplysovereign.co.uk