The risks in approaching an artwork’s identity as determined by the museum and malleable to its volition

As it has been already discussed in this thesis, instantiations of an artwork can vary significantly, without always reflecting the intent of the artist. Addressing these phenomena, conservation scholar Gunnar Heydenreich has commented that “different spatial and economic conditions, as well as the co-operation of exhibition organizers, artists and technicians, influence the appearance of the work at different venues” (Heydenreich 2011, 158). Similarly, Joanna Phillips has remarked that “the artist is rarely the sole decision-maker behind the appearance of an iteration, especially after the work enters a collection” (Phillips 2015, 169).

Scholarship in the lines of Van Saaze interprets the phenomena described above as an artwork having plural and/or evolving identities, which are constructed and re-constructed by an extended network of stakeholders. Additionally, it is argued that the claimed plurality and mutability of the work is what museums need to honour, safeguard and make public.

At first glance, this might seem as a harmonious arrangement that honours a collaborative social order. However, I am concerned that from this perspective, which considers the identity of an artwork as being continuously reshaped by the museum’s decisions and/or limitations, the artwork is ultimately equated with compromised instances and the artist’s voice becomes all the more obscured. Most importantly, I sense a danger of canonising practices of institutional assimilation, offering museums the entitlement to interfere with personal expression and consequently with diversity. I want to suggest that what is ultimately at stake here is the dynamic between two distinct authorities, that of the individual (the artist) and that of the institution (the museum). In case of a conflict between the two parties, the conflict needs to be acknowledged and made visible. By declaring the artwork’s identity as malleable to institutional volition, any potential conflict is just hidden from view, while the artist is striped from artistic authority on the work that is presented as their own.

83 See, for instance, the case with the National Gallery of Canada and artist Jana Sterbak (Irvin 2006, 154).

44

I would like to point to a different way of conceptualising the museum’s influence in an artwork’s change. First, I want to note, again, that change is not ipso facto antagonistic to a stable identity. Stephen Davies has pointed out with reference to living things that they “retain their identity though they change over time” and has convincingly argued that this also applies to artworks (Davies 2016 [2006]: 95). I embrace this perspective and I would like to discuss from this standpoint the museum’s influence in an artwork’s change. In the case where the variation is within the boundaries of what has been sanctioned by the artist as acceptable change, the variation is intrinsic to the artwork, so there is no ground for a discussion about the museum constituting the identity of the artwork. An artwork can defy notions of fixity in terms of its material make-up, and/or its mode of appearance, and/or the technologies it involves, however, this would alter its identity only if, for the specific artwork, it was a constitutive property that those need to remain fixed. In fact, the level and type of designated change that an artwork may undergo is part of the properties that define the identity of the work — it is not antagonistic to this work’s identity. In the case where the artist is part of the museum’s instantiation process, and the artist is not objecting to a change, it is the artist’s non-objection that sanctions it as acceptable and determines it as relevant to the artwork’s identity. Whereas, in the case where the variation falls outside the boundaries of what is sanctioned as acceptable change, the instance needs to be considered as not representative of the artwork and needs to be addressed as such.

Vindicating artist’s sanction

This perspective is in agreement with Sherri Irvin’s approach, according to which it is always and solely the artist’s sanctions that determine the features of their artwork, so that no other stakeholders can determine the identity of an artwork (Irvin 2005). Irvin has variously illustrated and discussed in her work the ways in which museums and their representatives can play a central role in the artist’s determination of sanctions.⁸⁴ For instance, she has shown how museum professionals are often the ones prompting artists to communicate their sanctions effectively, by involving them in the documentation of their work with interviews and questionnaires.⁸⁵ At the same time, she has discussed cases where artists are invited to take part in negotiations with the museum in order to adjust their artworks to institutional and/or

84 See: Irvin 2005 and 2006.

85 See, for instance: Irvin 2006, 145.

45 pragmatic constraints.⁸⁶ However, Irvin argues that only artists can determine sanctions about their artworks, and that, consequently, it is only artists who can cause a change to their artworks as an effect of modifying their sanctions.

From this perspective, stewards are not in a position to determine sanctions about the works in their care. In cases where stewards proceed unilaterally with decisions about a work’s treatment or installation, which go against the artist’s sanction, they do “jeopardise our access to the work” and mislead us as audiences — however, the work is not changed (ibid., 319).

Irvin compares such unauthorised interventions with the calamity of a fire or with a poor restoration of a painting which “changes the object, but it does not change the artwork” (ibid.).

These events are presented as factors that may influence an object’s state “while remaining irrelevant to what the artwork is or how it should be viewed” (ibid., 318). In cases of conflict between what the artist has specified and what the museum adopts in the presentation of the work (or as Irvin puts it: cases where the museum violates some aspects of the artist’s sanction), Irvin argues that museums have the responsibility to, first, make audiences aware that the given instantiation diverges from what the artist has sanctioned as constitutive of the artwork, and second, to inform them about how it diverges, so audiences can try to form an accurate understanding of the artwork (Irvin 2006, 151–2).

This theoretical perspective (which will also be operative in my analysis) accommodates the concerns from which the accounts of Tina Fiske and Vivian Van Saaze proceed, while still taking into due consideration the values museums claim to endorse as guardians of works of art. By investing on the idea that it is always and solely the artist’s sanctions that determine the features of their artwork, while also highlighting the distinction between the artwork and its instances (the work as authored and the work as instantiated), it becomes possible to account both for the input of the artist and for the input of the steward.

Most importantly, it becomes possible to distinguish between the input of the artist and the input of the steward, in this way honouring transparency, while also honouring accuracy.

A summary

This Chapter had two objectives. On the one hand, to explore different perspectives on what constitutes an ethical and effective museum practice for the perpetuation of contemporary artworks, including some key discussions on artist’s intent and artwork’s identity and different

86 See, for instance, the case of Time and Mrs. Tiber (1976) by Liz Magor (Irvin 2005, 316–7).

46

theories concerning their institutional management. And, on the other hand, to illuminate what this thesis recognises as appropriate guiding principles for contemporary art stewardship.

In closing, I want to provide a very brief summary of the theoretical framework that has been outlined thus far and which will be operative in the analysis of the proceeding chapters.

This thesis discusses the contemporary artwork as transgressing conventional barriers, being highly idiosyncratic, and embracing change in multiple and diverse ways. Considering what the focus for preservation efforts should be, the thesis aligns with conservation scholars who point towards the artwork’s core identity as determined by the artist who authors the artwork.

The thesis acknowledges that, in particular cases, the artist’s sanctioning of the artwork’s constitutive properties is a dynamic process and museum professionals can play a critical role in this process. With regard to changes that occur between instantiations, the thesis does not consider them as antagonistic to the protection of the work’s identity, while the status of any physical elements is understood as being determined by what is relevant to the work’s conceptual integrity.

Having identified in the Introduction the main characteristics of the artworks that this thesis focuses on and then, in this Chapter, what the thesis considers as the main principles appropriate to guide their stewardship, I will now proceed to the examination of the professional museum roles that are involved in this task: the role of Conservators, discussed in Chapter II, and the role Curators, discussed in Chapter III. The aim of this examination is to shed light on the ways in which museum professionals, entrusted with the task of stewardship, respond to this task in actual practice, and thus also on the attitudes or impediments or tensions that may undermine responsible stewardship.

47

48

49

Chapter II.