Call for papers--Collecting and conserving performance art

From: Patricia Brozio <*brozio<-at-*> Date: Monday, May 11, 2015 · brozio<-at-

Call for Papers

"Collecting and Conserving Performance Art:
Symposium
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
June 2016

In June 2016, the specialty group "Modern Art and Cultural Heritage"
(MKKM) of the "German Association of Conservator-Restorers" (VDR)
will host an international, two-day symposium on the topic of
collecting and conserving performance art.  The symposium will be
held in English and will take place at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg,
Germany.

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?

This symposium 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.

Contributing papers are requested to cover a 20-minute talk and may
address issues of authorship, authenticity, originality,
ephemerality, documentation, audience experience, conservation
practice development, artist involvement, re-enactment of historic
performances, legal rights issues, and other relevant topics.  These
topics may be explored by means of practical case studies,
theoretical discourse, interdisciplinary research, or other
approaches of investigation.

Interested authors are invited to submit an abstract.  All abstracts
must be submitted in English.  Papers may not be presented or
published elsewhere prior to the symposium.  Subsequently to the
symposium, qualifying papers are intended to be published in a
peer-reviewed, electronic publication, edited and published by the
VDR.

Deadline for abstract submission: July 15, 2015 Send abstract to
performance_art<-at->restauratoren<.>de

Abstracts should include:

    Title of presentation
    Name and contact information of all authors
    Abstract text: approximately 400-500 words

The abstracts will be reviewed by the conference committee and
authors will be notified by October 15, 2015.

Please direct all questions to the conference committee at
performance_art<-at->restauratoren<.>de.

Conference committee: Andrea Sartorius, Esther Rapoport, Eva Riess,
Joanna Phillips