This article analyzes different ontological categories and how they relate to the conservation of
contemporary art. Faced with the necessity of apprehending the work of art from an ontological
point of view, a theoretical approach is made on the concepts that most affect the conservation
of contemporary art: quiddity, truth-authenticity, identity, quality, consistency, and
interpretation. These are analyzed from an empirical perspective, based on the experience of
conservation and restoration. Since conserving and restoring require making decisions that
will affect the material and conceptual plane of the works, several possible paradigms that
must be introduced into the deontological code of the profession are analyzed. In addition,
the study of a new paradigm is provided, that of the death of the work of art. This paradigm
can serve as a frame of reference, given the impossibility of bringing the ‘Truth’ of the
artwork into the world of the sensitive. This may occur due to different conditioning factors
and limitations of a material, technical, or intentional type, which affect issues that were
once established as essential to the entity. On the other hand, different types of time that
are related to the conservation of contemporary art are studied: biological time, the eternal
present of the work, time as a constructor agent, and destructive time as a facilitator of the
appearance of ruin or ruin-relic in the work of art.
