Installation art and the museum : presentation and conservation of changing artworks

226 Pages·2013·3.81 MB·English

by  Saaze

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InstallatIon art and the MuseuM
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Installation Art
and the Museum
Presentation and Conservation of Changing Artworks
VIVIan Van saaze
Amsterdam University Press
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This book is published in print and online through the online OAPEN
library (www.oapen.org)
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collabora-
tive initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publi-
cation model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high
quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access
publications from across Europe.
Cover illustration: ensemble autour de MUR (1998) by Joëlle Tuerlinckx.
Collection Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, Bel-
gium. Installation view 2003 at S.M.A.K. Photo by Dirk Pauwels. Courtesy
photographer and S.M.A.K. © Joëlle Tuerlinckx
Cover design and lay-out: Sander Pinkse Boekproductie, Amsterdam
ISBN 978 90 8964 459 6
e-ISBN 978 90 4851 751 0 (pdf)
e-ISBN 978 90 4851 752 7 (ePub)
NUR 751
© V. van Saaze / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2013
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (elec-
tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the
written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the
book.
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For Kaat
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Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction: Challenges of Installation Art 11
On Changes and Challenges 13
Installation Art and the Museum 17
Decisions and Discussions 21
Doing Artworks 27
Outline of the Book 32
1 Key Concepts and Developments in Conservation Theory
and Practice 35
1.1 Introduction 36
1.2 The Emergence of Conservation as a Profession 37
1.3 Authenticity and Artist’s Intent: Key Concepts and
Stumbling Blocks 48
1.4 Conclusion 57
2 From Singularity to Multiplicity: Authenticity in Practice 61
2.1 Introduction 63
2.2 More than One One Candle? 73
2.3 Authenticity as a Matter of Perspective 74
2.4 From Perspectives to Practices 80
2.5 One Candle as Singular 83
2.6 Disruptions and Dispersion 88
2.7 External Multiple One Candles 95
2.8 One Candle: More than One, Less than Many 103
3 From Intention to Interaction: Artist’s Intention Reconsidered 109
3.1 Introduction 111
3.2 Problems of Reinstallation: Artist’s Intent in Practice 115
3.3 By Means of Measuring: A Stretch Museum Scale 1:1 122
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3.4 Never Stop Starting: ensemble autour de MUR 131
3.5 Conclusion: Multiple Practices 139
4 From Object to Collective, from Artists to Actants:
Ownership Reframed 143
4.1 Introduction 144
4.2 The Emergence of No Ghost Just a Shell 151
4.3 Searching for New Concepts 156
4.4 Acquiring No Ghost Just a Shell: From Artists to Museum 159
4.5 A New Artwork: Travelling Pod 161
4.6 The Museum System 165
4.7 ‘What Exactly Have We Acquired?’ 168
4.8 Another No Ghost Just a Shell 172
4.9 By Way of Conclusion 178
Conclusion: Challenges and Potentialities of Installation Art 181
On Challenges and Potentialities 182
Foregrounding Practices 183
New Vistas 185
List of Illustrations 189
References 193
Interviews 213
Index 217
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Acknowledgments
For giving me the opportunity to write this book, I thank the Faculty of
Arts and Social Sciences (FASOS) at Maastricht University and the Neth-
erlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN) (now part of the Cultural
Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE)). Many colleagues at FASOS
and RCE contributed to this research. I warmly thank you all for the many
insights and constructive feedback. I am especially grateful to Renée van
de Vall, Rob Zwijnenberg, and IJsbrand Hummelen, who have been inval-
uable during the process of research and writing. I thank you for your
trust, encouragements and sharp minds. Special thanks also to Tatja
Scholte, Pip Laurenson, Glenn Wharton and Sherri Irvin for comment-
ing on earlier versions of the manuscript. I am indebted to Maaike Groot
and Chantal Nicolaes for their guidance and support throughout the pro-
duction phase of this book.
Furthermore, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all those involved
in the Inside Installations research project for allowing me to integrate
into their work and who took time out of their busy schedules to give
interviews. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the museum staff
of MMK in Frankfurt am Main, Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht,
S.M.A.K. in Ghent and Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. It was a great
pleasure to be part of your worlds and I shall be looking forward to fol-
low future developments in the field. I am grateful to be able to continue
this line of research and thank my colleagues of the research project New
Strategies in the Conservation of Contemporary Art — Renée van de Vall,
Deborah Cherry, Tatja Scholte, IJsbrand Hummelen, Hanna Hölling,
Sanneke Stigter, Angela Matyssek, Annet Dekker, Panda de Haan and
Paolo Martore — for the many fruitful conversations far beyond the edges
of this book.
This book started out as a PhD project and parts of the case study research
have been published in: J. Noordegraaf, C. Saba, B. Le Maître & V. Hediger
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