Developing a strategy for the conservation of performance-based artworks at Tate

Abstract

Over the past two years, Tate's approach to the conservation of performance-based artworks has been evolving. This development has been propelled by the increasing presence of performance and performance-based artworks in Tate's collection and Tate's participation in various research projects. Our current approach considers the altering views in performance studies around the relationship between performance and documentation, and recent considerations around the impact of performance on the systems and structures of the museum. One of the results of the development of our approach is the Strategy for the Documentation and Conservation of Performance. The Strategy takes into account advances in conservation theory around time-based media and performance across departments at Tate, aiming at ensuring the continued activation of performance-based collection works from our collection. This paper explores the process of developing this Strategy, including the defining of terminology and the creation of the three documentation strands which fall under it: the Performance Specification, Activation Report, and the Networks of Interactions map.

Preservando a performatividade de performances e respeitando sua efemeridade

“…As the authors argue, however, "the ways these strategies for preservation are to be applied are still nuanced at best, as actions cannot be stored, migrated or emulated." (LAWSON;FINBOW;MARÇAL, 2019: 116). They emphasize that, in dealing with performance art, using documentation procedures to preserve its traces is unavoidable because the physical form of performances is not tangible -and therefore, not conservable.…”

Trajectory and exhibition of a time-based media work. ‘The drawing of the girl running away from her support’ (2014), by Ana Vieira (1940-2016)

“…Sem a presença de Ana Vieira a documentação tem um papel fundamental na transmissão de conhecimento, de instruções e de especificidades relacionadas com a reinstalação da obra, podendo ser a única fonte disponível para futuras apresentações. Autoras como Andreia Nogueira [14], Joanna Phillips [15] ou Louise Lawson [16] propuseram estruturas para sistematizar a diversa informação para diferentes tipologias de arte: time-based media, performances musicais contemporâneas e performance, respetivamente. Andreia Nogueira sugere dois tipos de documentação, uma descritiva, mais extensa, pensada para funcionar a longo-prazo, e que inclui entrevistas, publicações e/ou artigos com referência à obra, documentação visual, anotações e esquemas da artista, etc.…”

“…No mesmo sentido, mas partindo da conservação de performance, Louise Lawson propõe dois tipos de documentação: 'Performance Specification' e 'Activation Report'. Definidas por uma equipa interdisciplinar, a primeira, uma documentação escrita única e central contendo diversas categorias, como 'Artworks requirements', 'Space', 'Time' ou 'Performance', registam as nuances da obra e reúnem um corpo de informação desde a sua aquisição até à incorporação na coleção; e a segunda, identifica as alterações das várias apresentações à semelhança do relatório de iterações proposto por Phillips [16].…”

Changeability, Variability, and Malleability: Sharing Perspectives on the Role of Change in Time-based Art and Utilitarian Machinery Conservation

“…The majority of early performance art works were brought into the museum context not as live performances, but as recordings of performances, using media such as photography, video, film, or installation. More recently it has become common to acquire the rights to 'stage' or 'activate' performance artworks rather than acquire recorded representations of earlier activations (Lawson, Finbow, and Marçal 2019). This means that both live and recorded examples of performance artworks are present in collections, a situation that is acknowledged in the current Tate definition of performance artworks as items 'created through actions performed by the artist or other participants, which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or scripted [emphasis added to] Lawson, Finbow, and Marçal 2019, 122).…”