New Strategies in Conservation

Organic Art. Unstable Materials and Contemporary Conservation

Introduction

In the last two decades, there has been an increasing number of works of art based on organic media, presented either in exhibition venues, during larger art events such as biennale or documenta or entering the public and private collection. Indeed, the tangible organic media, to generally name solely plant or animal materials or parts of the human body in its diverse state of existence, are more conducive to replication and modification than any other medium currently applied in contemporary art. Consequently, the lack of rules determining the original state of an artwork, as well as the absence of regulations concerning the re-installation, re-execution or re-assemblage of these artefacts, remains problematic. Since the organic art changes with every new exhibition venue (Reyers) or at regular time intervals (Hirst), the conservators pose difficult questions as to an object's authenticity. Additionally, the documentation issues which are considered to be essential in conservator's practice have to face and be adjusted to the transitory character of objects.

Moreover, the ambiguous character of organic artworks leads conservators to questioning their well-known codes and ethics. For a considerable time, conservation has been thought to be a discipline to theoretically investigate and practically maintain the culturally significant artefacts. The paradigm of conservation of physical objects, based on technological and scientific research, is no more applicable in the case of numerous objects of today, particularly to the organic ones. One of the reasons for this situation is the difficulty in finding the right terminological notions for the conservation of ephemeral art and in defining its meanings within the specialisation framework. As for the basic rules of conservation theory, namely the durability, authenticity, minimal intervention and reversibility, their applicability to organic artworks should be examined. Consequently, the criterion of "authentic condition" which conservation has been adhered to for decades seems to be arguable in the current art production and raises strong debates among specialists. The organic artworks, being re-makeable and replaceable, imply a claim for decisions that diametrically differ from those usually taken in museum context.

The focus

The focus of my study is to investigate a representative plethora of objects consisting primarily of organic materials through consequent tracing of their life spans. The method implies the investigation of those diverse life spans and creating artwork biographies on this basis. The aim is also to determine how various stakeholders influence the condition of perishable constituents by means of comparisons of diverse object's "editions" that might be found in different collections and in different display situation.

The museum, as an institution thought to preserve history on the basis of physical objects, will play a significant role in my thesis. As opposed to traditional art, the museum faces the problems of ephemeral objects, which may defy the notion of permanence and fixity. In contrast to the historical objects, the elusive character of the artwork of contemporary art, such as that made of organic materials, creates a fluid definition what a museum object is supposed to be. Moreover, due to the fact that not only exhibiting, but also maintaining and conservating contemporary artefact undergoes a fundamental metamorphosis, a redefinition of the notion of  „conservation" as a static discipline might be considered.

The maintaining of organic art poses amazingly similar problems to those of maintaining new media. The fragile, unstable and becoming rapidly obsolete constituents evoke the questions of emulation, reinstallation, migration or even replacement. How far does the change of a physical component, be it an organic material or a hardware component, alter the meaning of artwork? Is the real meaning of the artwork contained in the very idea of the object, or is it rather the material objecthood of artwork and its behaviour that produces meanings?

At the moment, various significant institutions are involved in the discussion on the mentioned aspects of the conservation of contemporary art, though the literature examining the notion of replication or exchange in art of today is very limited. Moreover, the precise rules on how to determine the originality of such "changeable" art are missing.

For the mentioned reasons, the question of originality and authenticity will be one of the focal points of my doctoral research.

Selected Artworks

The artists who I consider to include are Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst, Anna Gallacio, Zeger Reyers, Hans Hacke, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey. They are all applying unstable organic materials in their creative practice in various ways. Art objects in transformation, to name originally living elements becoming dead in the course of their life, create a particular genre within the term of plant art.

Giving an example of living plants, one has to deal with the question of disappearing, transformation, changability and re-execution in everyday museum practise. Exchanging the objects' constituents at regular time intervals, arranging a new situation on the occasion of every single exhibition venue, regardless geographical coordinates and accessibility to the original material, is solely one of the aspects that challenge the well-known conservation principles. Another interesting issue of conserving and exhibiting organic art is the artist's attempt to preserve it for the longest possible time, using low temperature of a freeze device, chemical substances or conservant coating to obtain 'longevity' of the artefact. In this case the scientific freeze paradigm is almost applicable, though the transformable character of the object nature is contradictory to the museum conservation paradigm. One of the themes of the thesis is to what extent the artists are involved in the process of creating new editions of their artworks and to what extend museums should involve the artists in recreating their ensembles as regards objects being purchased.

Conclusions

To recapitulate, the conservation of contemporary art consisting of unstable materials challenges the conservators with numerous questions addressing the basic notions of conservation theory. As we have seen, there is a need to rethink and re-evaluate the conservators' role. Conservation theory and its attendant values, as well as its four basic rules - durability, authenticity, minimal intervention and reversibility - must be redefined if we are to understand the more often relations in contemporary art objects and their display. On international and local levels this processes has already began.

Moreover, I would argue that a conservator of contemporary art ought to overcome the idea that there is a universal truth and a universal vocabulary to apply in his/her field. He ought to overcome the idea of reversibility and non-changeability as well as the attempt of holding on the aging process of material artefacts.

The transient art entered the collections and public consciousness a considerable time ago. It brought with itself the alteration and transformation, one of the specifications of materiality. The challenge in contemporary conservation is to understand the change in an art object as an integral part of it.