Collaboration with Stakeholders for Conservation of Contemporary Art

Abstract

It is difficult to predict the kinds of damage to contemporary art because of the diversity of materials and experimental techniques used. This makes it hard to conserve. Furthermore, the artist’s intention in contemporary art is emerging as one of the important issues to be handled in conservation treatment. Thus, collaboration with various stakeholders such as the artists themselves, bereaved family members, and foundations have become more important than ever from the viewpoint of planning conservation treatment. The trustworthiness of conservation treatment would be significantly enhanced if conservation treatment reflected the understanding and respect of not only the appearance of the work, but also the social/cultural context inherent in the work. This should be done, in particular, through collaboration with the artists. In this study, various case studies at home and abroad were analyzed as to explore collaboration methods with various stakeholders for objective and trustworthy conservation treatment. Along the way, the study raised the need to establish new conservation ethics for contemporary art. It is expected that the outcomes of the study could be used as basic material to preserve the originality of contemporary artwork and to set the direction for conservation practice.