The case of TV’s Back (1995) by Alexandre Estrela

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this fact, it can be inferred that the significance of this information was trivialised and undervalued. In other words, it can be assumed that the Team was not aware that in their decisions it was the authenticity of the artwork that was at stake. We can also observe that decisions about the work’s instantiation were based on the curator’s aesthetic judgment and not on what constitutes a property of the artwork; relatedly, the overall design of the exhibition seemed to be a bigger priority than the artist’s sanction for his work. Further, we can observe that there was no established protocol, either for documenting decision-making or for tracing the artwork’s biography in the museum’s archive. More generally, it is clear that there was no professional directly responsible for the creation and use of documentation. On the whole, it can be concluded that in CGM the significance of documentation seemed to be underestimated and documentation was not approached as a priority. Through the case discussed next, I will examine the attitudes of an artist regarding the documentation of his artwork and the expectations he has from the collecting institution.

133 of the room — where the actual back of the monitor is available to be visually scrutinised by the audience. I observed the curators experimenting with different placements before making their final decision.²²¹ At that point, I hadn’t yet researched the work, or even encountered it before.²²² However, I considered the decision to allow or not the audience to have access to the actual monitor’s back as a major decision that would determine the potential meanings of the piece. I wondered whether the artist intended to leave such an essential decision open to the curators.

As in the case of Untitled #336, the information available about TV’s Back in In Arte was very limited: list of components, one photograph of the piece, titles and dates of exhibitions and information about the date and cost of acquisition. CGM acquired the work in 2001, receiving a TV monitor and a video file. The artist provided nothing else and no further information about the artwork was kept on file. I decided to interview Alexandre Estrella, so as to trace his intent and understand what constitutes TV’s Back.

TV’s Back had been installed twice before it was acquired for the CGM collection, and three times after the acquisition. Already it had been installed in various ways: within a darkened, but also a well-lighted room; in a confined, and not, space; without, and on, a plinth;

with cables and DVD player present, or carefully hidden from sight. In the interview, Estrela specified both the essential and the preferred conditions for the installation of TV’s Back.

Estrela specified that there needs to be plenty of open space around the object that allows the audience to circulate freely. The exhibition room needs to be well lighted, in a way that the lighting conditions of the exhibition room match the lighting conditions of the footage. The monitor ideally, but not necessarily, is to be positioned on the floor. If a plinth is used, the plinth has to be similar to the size of the monitor. Cables and DVD player preferably are not hidden from sight. A long cable can be used to separate the monitor from the DVD player. If a plinth is used, also the DVD player can be placed inside the plinth.

The artwork, based on its material components alone, seems simple to install. In addition, after the set-up of an exhibition, when the artist met the curators in the opening, he did not give feedback on how the artwork was instantiated. The curators always worked with good intentions, utilising the materials that they had in their disposal. However, according to Estrela, there were cases where the artwork was compromised by the ways it was instantiated. In particular, Estrela remarked that when TV’s Back was displayed in a darkened room, in a

221 See: Image 4 (page 137).

222 As with Untitled #336, the CGM Curatorial Team did not considered TV’s Back as an artwork challenging to install and I wasn’t involved in its installation process in any way.

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confined space, on a plinth and with cables and DVD hidden from sight, the work was presented

“way under its potentiality” (Theodoraki and Estrela 2017).

Although Estrela, in our interview, was very specific when describing the details of his artwork, he never took sufficient measures to officially sanction its features, not even when he sold the work to the Modern Collection. During the interview, Estrela claimed that he never had a communication with CGM about how the work needs to be installed. He acknowledged:

“I always thought it was very simple to install, I think it’s my fault” (ibid.). However, he, also, remarked:

[T]his has to happen both ways, from the museum and the artist. I should have provided information, of course, but they also have to ask me for more information on how to install it. […] I was expecting that a discussion would happen and that we would crystallise in a document (or in another form) how to install the piece from that point on. (ibid.)

In 2006, Pip Laurenson had remarked that: “[t]he problem with TBM works of art is that many aspects of their installation are under-determined and are left to the artist, installation crew, conservator and curator to determine as part of the process of realising a new installation of the work” (Laurenson 2006, 6). More than a decade later, the problem seems to persist. And the consequences seem to be more serious when the artist is not even present in the installation process: the artist’s intent remains unknown and the instantiation can completely fail the artwork. Artists, in most cases, are personally involved only in the initial instantiations of their artworks, which usually take place outside the structures of collecting institutions. Afterwards, when an artwork has become part of a collection, the artist’s direct involvement with installation processes happens rarely, and only in special occasions: when this involvement is determined as unavoidable due to the complexity of the work and when the artist’s availability permits it.²²³ Relying on the artist’s involvement for each instantiation is not a realistic solution;

moreover, it can create additional problems — some of them explored earlier in this thesis: for instance, the artist wanting to adjust the artwork to his or her most recent artistic preoccupations.

223 In the case of Estrela, the artist commented that if he would be invited by CGM, he would be “more than happy to be involved in the installation process” adding “it is a very small community, it would have been very easy to contact me” (Theodoraki and Estrela 2017).

135 It is important to note that documenting artist’s intent is not solely about installation requirements. For instance, in my discussion with Alexandre Estrela with regard to TV’s Back, we did cover issues related to protocols of display, however, we also had to address issues of maintenance and to examine the status of the material components of the artwork. In particular, I asked Estrela to define what the solution should be in the event of the monitor breaking down.

After long, loud thinking, the artist concluded that CGM needs to buy (in advance of a potential break down) a replacement monitor and be ready to capture new footage as a substitute of the original one. He also commented that he would like to determine the type of monitor, since the aesthetics of it are of importance to him. Without this information, it seems that the future of the work is jeopardised.

Since there are artworks for which, without documentation, there are no ways to establish their defining properties with clarity, one could argue that, without documentation, these artworks remain incomplete. Documenting their work can thus be thought as the responsibility of the artist. However, as we see in the case of Estrela, artists, being very close to the artwork, can regard its defining properties as self-evident; and as they haven’t been trained to provide relevant information to collecting institutions, they do so very rarely.

A summary

Collecting institutions seem to be accustomed in managing artworks as self-contained entities:

contemporary art has challenged this status and collecting institutions need to adjust their practices to fulfil their role as guardians. The role of a collecting institution does not end when it acquires the material elements associated with an artwork: collecting a contemporary artwork entails collecting also the information that will safeguard the perpetuation of the work as the unique work it is. In this Chapter, I presented what can happen in a museum when there is no one directly in charge of documentation. As it could be observed, the fact that a museum has a Conservation and a Curatorial Team does not guarantee that there are appropriate documentation methodologies in place, which would protect the artist’s intent — and, thus, the artwork’s authenticity. In the following (and final) Chapter of this thesis, I will explore a way in which collecting institutions can move forward in confronting the challenges that contemporary artworks pose with regard to their perpetuation.

136 Image 1

Images copyright: Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal.

Artwork featured: Untitled #336, 2002 by Fernando Calhau (1948–2002).

Image 2

Photo-documentation of Untitled #336, 2002, by Fernando Calhau at the exhibition Portugal em Flagrante, Operação 3, photograph taken by MT on 02/03/2017.

137 Image 3

Images copyright: Unknown.

Found at: http://homelessmonalisa.com/obra/tvs-back-alexandre-estrela-1995/

[accessed 11 December 2017].

Image source:

http://homelessmonalisa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/image001.jpg [accessed 11 December 2017].

Artwork featured: TV’s Back, 1995, by Alexandre Estrela

Image 4

Photo-documentation of TV’s Back, 1995, by Alexandre Estrela at the exhibition Portugal em Flagrante, Operação 3, photograph taken by MT on 02/03/2017.

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Chapter V.