The volume Innovative Approaches to the Complex Care of Contemporary Art contributes to the debate on the care of the most recent cultural heritage - modern and contemporary art. A new understanding is required, which takes into account the care and conservation of both the tangible and intangible aspects of visual art. The paradox of current conservation practice has been that despite adopting the new concept of heritage, the aims and methods of conservation have remained the same, evolving very slowly by following some changes in the history of ideas, human experience and techniques of conservation.
The authors of this book relate complex conservation practices to an awareness of the need for a multidimensional approach to the care of modern and contemporary art. Maintaining a dialogue with history, they boldly confront the typical patterns and accepted evolution of the theory of conservation by looking at the wider perspective including the most recent history of any work of art – documentation, interviews with artists, records of image, the sound of performance, consent to e-installation, emulation etc. They bear in mind as the first principle primum non nocere and various legal issues.
Foreword
Iwona Szmelter
An innovative complex approach to visual art preservation
Iwona Szmelter
Legal framework of the conservation and restoration of modern and contemporary art
Wojciech W. Kowalski
Artists’ legacies: lost but not forgotten? Some comments on the documentation of contemporary art in Germany
Ursula Schädler-Saub
The brain in the museum
Dorota Folga-Januszewska
On (former) Eastern Europe. discussing the post-communist condition in art
Piotr Piotrowski
Back to the future: authenticity and its influence on the conservation of modern art
Monika Jadzińska
‘Info-virus’ art and restoration: some reflections
Hiltrud Schinzel
Conservation and preservation of photographic heritage: challenges of technology in transition
Dusan C. Stulik and Art Kaplan
Implementation of INCCA models and guidelines in collection care practice at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland
Joanna Waśko
What is to be preserved in contemporary art? A question for the curator or the conservator?
Hilkka Hiiop
Video collections: preservation, management & restoration – Cricoteka case study
Ela Wysocka
Chen Zhen vs. Julije Knifer: two different aspects of preservation
Mirta Pavic and Zlatko Bielen
Preserving the polysemantics of a work of art set by an extraneous cultural context: the case study of the Ilya Kabakov installation School No. 6
Kinga Olesiejuk
Preservation of the complex identity of a contemporary work of art: a challenge for the curator and conservator
Natalia Andrzejewska
Painting materials and media in the development of the aesthetics of painting as exemplified by the contemporary work of Upper Silesian artists
Anna Zadora
Appendix: Issues in the conservation management of contemporary art collections, based on the INCCA model
Hilkka Hioop
