Public Access in the Age of Documented Art
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PUBLIC ACCESS IN THE AGE OF DOCUMENTED ART GLENN WHARTON falta afiliação ABSTRACT FALTA TRADUÇÃO Ephemerality and variability in contemporary art is fostering an age of documentation within museums. Conservators, curators, and other museum professionals spend an increasing amount of resources documenting technical details and conceptual underpinnings in an effort to provide a knowledge base for future staff that will design new exhibitions and conduct conservation interventions. The resulting archives contain information about production methods, materials, past manifestations, and artists’ concerns that can inform art history, art criticism, and public understanding. This article proposes activating these closed archives by opening them to scholars, educators, and the public. In addition to providing access for greater awareness, further benefit can be gained through participatory programming that promotes public contributions in a form of crowd documentation. The article traces ethical, legal, and artistic challenges to greater transparency of museum documentation. Despite these hurdles, tools are emerging that facilitate public access and participation in documenting the art of our times. KEYWORDS CONTEMPORARY ART; CROWD DOCUMENTATION; MEDIA ART CONSERVATION; METADATA; PUBLIC ACCESS RHA 04 174 DOSSIER PUBLIC ACCESS IN THE AGE OF DOCUMENTED ART – – – – – – – – – – – – Introduction This buildup of documentation is now common practice 1 For more information about IKEA arly in 2012 I was contacted by the Architecture for conceptual, ephemeral, and variable works. Creating Disobedients see: http://www.moma.org/ collection/object.php?object_id=156886; Eand Design Department at the Museum of Modern this documentation involves considerable time and labor http://cargocollective.com/anapenalba/ Art (MoMA) where I served as Media Conservator. They to record what the work has been, what it is, and what it Collaboration-ANDRES-JAQUE (Accessed July 20, 2014). alerted me to an upcoming acquisition and exhibition of an can be in the future. Artists fill out questionnaires, create 2 IKEA Disobedients exhibition at PS1, architectural performance/installation by Spanish architect installation manuals, and participate in interviews. Museum September 2012. Andrés Jaque.1 The work is a participatory, community-based staff produces their own documentation through each life project that features local residents who altered products stage of the artwork. New documentation practices extend from the IKEA retail store. The performance includes protocols established for more traditional collections, as the selected residents activating their re-use of the products for artwork portfolio builds from acquisition through each phase museum visitors, on and around an architectural construction of an artwork’s institutional life, including storage, exhibition, designed by Jaque. In Figure 1, we see “disobedients” cutting loan, and conservation. hair, making music, and cooking with altered IKEA products Variability from one manifestation to the next forces that they use in their daily life.2 attention to documentation, since future staff will rely on it Realizing the complexity of the work, I immediately for interpretation. It may be argued that through multiple began working with the curatorial department to build iterations, documentation grows to define the work. critical documentation for future display and conservation. Decisions that are made based on this documentation can The pre-acquisition documentation we received from the dramatically alter public experience of the artwork. artist’s studio included a statement about the work, floor Museum visitors experience a snapshot of how a plans, images, and video from prior iterations. We asked variable work may be realized when it is on exhibition, Jaque to fill out a detailed questionnaire, and I conducted a but they cannot easily learn what museum staff knows conservation interview with him. Our documentation grew about past iterations and artist sanctions for exhibition. during the September 2012 exhibition at PS1, as more plans, For instance, IKEA Disobedients is a social process images, videos, interview transcripts, curatorial descriptions, performance/installation that functions as a critique of participant statements, critical reviews, and input from social IKEA’s advertizing message about harmonious domestic media programming began to pile in. After the exhibition, urban life. As described in Jaque’s IKEA Disobedients we were left with a multitude of analog and digital files Manifesto, which was provided to the museum, the process in various formats that would comprise the beginning begins long before the exhibition opens with a call for local of MoMA’s documentation record. The archive will be a residents who have altered the function of IKEA products. resource for staff at the museum in planning and executing Resident “disobedients” are selected through a series of the next exhibition. interviews, and then work with the artist’s team to jointly FIG. 1 IKEA Disobedients. Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Architecture & Design Purchase Fund, 2012. Credit: Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation. RHA 04 176 DOSSIER PUBLIC ACCESS IN THE AGE OF DOCUMENTED ART – – – – – – – – – – – – design the exhibition. Knowledge about the extensive The Museum Culture of Documentation 3 European Confederation of Conservator- selection and exhibition design process, along with the While new art forms require new methods of documentation, Restorers’ Organizations (ECCO) Professional Guidelines http://www.ecco-eu.org/ social critique, enriches one’s understanding of the work, recording information about collections isn’t new for about-e.c.c.o./professional-guidelines.html; but cannot be easily gained from experiencing the exhibit museums (Heydenreich 2011). In fact, it is at the core American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Guidelines itself. of traditional museum practice, from acquisition and for Practice http://www.conservation-us.org/ Since works such as IKEA Disobedients cannot be fully cataloging to exhibitions, loans, and conservation. Museum about-us/core-documents/guidelines-for- practice#.UtayQGRDt39 (Accessed July 20, understood without background knowledge, scholars, critics, records typically extend back to their founding documents, 2014). and the general public all deserve at least some access and include inventories with annotations about donors, to museum archives. The aim of this article is to provide a prices, and information about artists. Framed objects that window into how this growing body of documentation can circulate on loans bear witness to their travels through be shared, with particular focus on public access and public an accumulation of exhibition labels on the back of the contribution. As suggested in the following sections, attempts frames. Condition notes detail every scratch and tear, while to make museum documentation available even to internal conservation reports describe each step of analysis and staff are hindered by many technical and logistical obstacles. intervention. Efforts towards greater transparency to the public face even Museum professionals divide up the tasks of greater barriers, including ethical, legal, and artistic concerns. documentation. Curators begin documenting potential Despite these challenges, museums need to open their acquisitions well before they arrive in the museum. Their archives for public access and to contributions from outside initial art historical and provenance research feeds into sources. their artwork files and is picked up by catalogers who add My focus is on variable art, including installation, media, additional information once the artwork arrives, including a and performance works. The reason for this is that these art unifying accession number, dimensions, medium and date of forms force dramatic changes in documentation practice, as production. Registrars add tracking, storage and insurance artists transfer interpretive authority to museums. Physical information. Conservators contribute to the growing alterations include new exhibited objects, new exhibition profile with more detailed information about condition, equipment, and new exhibition formats. Environmental past conservation campaigns, and chronicles of their work. changes include new spatial dimensions, new wall and floor They are ethically bound by professional codes to produce surfaces, and new levels of light and audio. Performance art and maintain accurate records from their examination, inevitably changes as new performers activate the works, sampling, scientific investigations, and treatment, along with bringing their own body and their own interpretation into the the rationale behind their decisions.3 Images of artworks gallery. accumulate as they move through each stage of museum life, from standard documentation in acquisition and display RHA 04 177 DOSSIER PUBLIC ACCESS IN THE AGE OF DOCUMENTED ART – – – – – – – – – – – – to technical imaging associated with material research and about works they are contracted to perform, from costuming 4 Hanna Hölling discusses micro-archives in conservation. to choreography and interpretation. Media conservators, the context of understanding the multiple incarnations of works by Nam June Paik in Re: Traditionally, documentation resides in multiple exhibition designers, and audiovisual technicians need Paik: On Time, Changeability and Identity