a varied approach
V. Conservation training and the contemporary art paradigm
77 they are universal; therefore, ethics developed for the care and preservation of the traditional arts should and must apply to modern and contemporary art as well” (Hess Norris 1999, 131).
However, the applicability of traditional conservation ethics to contemporary art has now been contested widely152 and new theoretical frameworks are being explored.153
It becomes rather clear that, in the case of contemporary art, the practice of conservation has become rather complex: there are diverse focusing points and diverse ethical principles;
and there are requirements for new attitudes, new practices and new collaborations. The crucial question then is: have conservators really been trained to respond to those challenges? Does academic training equip conservators with the set of skills required to respond adequately and responsibly to such diverse and complex roles? In the concluding section we need to address this important issue.
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CC.154 The meeting opened with the bold statement that “[m]odern and contemporary art presents enormous challenges to the conservation profession”; the relevant challenges were described as pertaining mainly to new materials, new technologies and new ethical dilemmas (ibid., 1). The meeting aimed to map the ways in which conservation training would need to change, in order to support more efficiently the care of contemporary artworks. As in the case of Scheidemann’s description, discussions mostly revolved around competencies that lie beyond material and technological expertise. Participants, for instance, highlighted the skills needed for effective collaboration and negotiation, understanding of artist’s intent, documentation, knowledge brokering, and problem solving. Further, the need for the conservator’s acute awareness of their own influence to the work and the need for transparency were said to require training in subjects of social sciences. It is useful to consider some representative contributions, in order to gain an insight on these directions of thought.
When asked what she feels is missing from the training that fellows had before working at SFMOMA, Jill Sterrett commented on a lack of accord between the university and the museum and a disagreement on what a specialisation in contemporary art should entail: “they are getting materials training but are not getting rigorous training on problem‐solving […] I often hear that the training programs think that they are covering contemporary art, but I don’t think we are speaking the same language” (ibid., 10). Sterrett also referred to interpersonal skills: “This idea of collaborating is not fundamental to the programs at all. To work in contemporary museums, one needs to collaborate more than is necessary with traditional conservation disciplines. This needs to be modelled more in programs” (ibid., 11).
Glenn Wharton was one of the participants to refer to the relevance of the social sciences and wondered whether universities should actually drop parts of their curriculum, in order to be able to add new subjects:
It seems to me that there are a range of skills and knowledge that we need to address, related to the art that is produced today, such as: social science understanding and the approach towards the artists. In order to add these skills to training programs, do we drop some of the traditional subjects we’ve been teaching, or do you learn this after you graduate? For example, do we still teach how to cast bronze, and to treat wood, or do we just drop them? (ibid., 11)
154 The meeting took place at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, immediately after the Contemporary Art: Who Cares? conference.
79 Christian Scheidemann, on the other hand, attempted to highlight a knowledge gap in the museum stewardship practice and to map an area of research that fails to be addressed by either art history or conservation:
What I’m focusing on falls in the gap between art history and conservation. Art history deals with history and theory, conservation deals with treatment; we need to focus on what artists were trying to express not just in the material, but also in their attitude. Here I’m thinking of the history of concepts in art, not the history of art. (ibid., 11)
Reflecting on the documented discussions of the meeting —the incidents shared and the many suggestions and opinions voiced over the two-days,— a particular shared concern seems to prevail: that traditional conservation training is not appropriate to the perpetuation of contemporary artworks and leaves conservators mostly unprepared for many of the challenges raised by contemporary art. The confirmed gap between education and industry was, in other words, the shared concern and the shared target of the meeting’s discussions.
Reflection on how conservation training should be adjusted to correspond to the demands of contemporary art perpetuation is not new to the field: it has been undergoing at least since 1997. For instance, during the MAWC conference (1997), in a seminar dedicated to the subject of training, such reflections were expressed by the representatives of two educational establishments (Anne van Grevenstein from the Limburg Conservation Institute (SRAL) and Mikkel Scharff from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK)):
The concept of modern art155 might also change the conservator’s traditional focus from material aspects to more abstract ones — that is, towards conservation of ideas and experiences […] Starting from the existing programmes for the education of conservators of traditional art, we are comforted with the awkward task of selecting relevant components and discarding others […] The basic point is to teach people how to analyse and solve conservation problems of modern works of art
155 Looking on the particular artworks researched as part of MAWC, it is clear that the term “modern art” was used in the MAWC conference to refer to what the discourse today terms as “contemporary art”.
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while paying due attention to the meaning of these works. Because teaching materials and techniques will perforce be limited to general knowledge, in this case the emphasis should be on knowing where to find expertise […] The aim is an education that balances basic conservation skills against context-oriented conservation and includes knowledge of art, approaches to composite materials, multidisciplinary communication, decision-making, and ‘functional ethics’.
(Grevenstein and Scharff 2005 [1999], 296–7)
There are indications that this proposal was not widely embraced by educational institutions.156 In the Conservation Issues of Modern and Contemporary Art (CIMCA) meeting,157 which GCI organised in June 2008, participants reported “a significant amount of disagreement on how best to achieve the most appropriate training for [modern and contemporary art] conservators, and on how to get around the limitations of existing educational models” (GCI 2008, 4).
Participants also reflected on desirable qualities for “the new breed” of modern and contemporary art conservator, such as: “problem solving skills, ability to evaluate complex and abstract data, ability to make collaborative decisions, ability to arrive at negotiated outcomes, skills in engineering or structural issues, and experience with all aspects of digital imaging and processing” (ibid., 9).
What is currently (i.e., in 2020) the official conservation training regarding contemporary artworks? In Appendix V158, I explore the training provided by four academic institutions: University of Amsterdam (UVA), Netherlands;159 Universidade Nova de Lisboa
156 Even in the case of the two institutions whose representatives jointly developed the proposal, only one of them materialised their plan of addressing contemporary art in their curricula. In 1998 SRAL established the first training programme fully devoted to modern and contemporary art in the world (ICOM-CC 2010, 3). The programme claims that it offers great expertise in the field of restoration; at the same time, it provides training on artist’s interviews and puts emphasis on interpersonal skills (see: www.sral.nl/en/wat/moderne-en-hedendaagse-kunst/ [accessed 1 May 2019]). However, in the case of KADK, while in 2019 (when I researched the School) Mikkel Scharff was still the Head of the Conservation Department, a specialisation in contemporary art is not on offer (see: https://kadk.dk/program/kunstlinjen/om-programmet [accessed 1 May 2019]).
157 As participants were listed: “conservators from a number of key institutions and in private practice, as well as scientists, collection managers, and those involved in conservation training programs and professional networks for contemporary art” (GCI 2008, 1).
158 Page 191.
159As a reminder: the Inside Installations project as well as the MAWC conference and publication were initiatives of SBMK and ICN. While in UVA, Program Leader in Contemporary Art Conservation is Sanneke Stigter, a leading scholar in the field.
81 (UNL), Portugal;160 Bern University of the Arts (BUA), Switzerland;161 and finally, the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), in New York University162. On the basis of the different curricula discussed in Appendix V, one can observe that training institutions approach the conservation of contemporary art as requiring standard conservation training, with an added expertise on a range of different materials and technologies, as well as an added training on artist’s interviews.
This is certainly progress. But —at least from the standpoint of the participants of the 2010 ICOM-CC meeting,— it may not be progress enough.
As will be discussed in the following Chapter, it is arguable whether curators are in a more privileged position to care properly for contemporary artworks: in this case, there may even be further reasons for concern.
160 The University was represented in the 2008 CIMCA meeting, with conservator Stephan Schaefer (at the time Professor for Painting and Contemporary Art Conservation at the University) being one of the 26 invited experts.
At the same time, Rita Macedo (Professor of Contemporary Art History and Documentation for the Preservation of Contemporary Art and Coordinator of the Art History area at the Department of Conservation and Restoration) has been actively participating in leading international initiatives, while her doctorate of 2008 addressed conservation and documentation challenges of Portuguese Art from the 60´s and 70´s.
161 BUA has been a pioneer in the field, offering specialisation in modern materials and media conservation since 1999.
162 The time-based media specialisation in IFA is the most recent entry in contemporary art conservation training (established in 2018) and it was chosen for this research with the understanding that it would possibly address the most recent developments in the discourse.
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