Lost to museums? Changing media, their worlds, and performance

Hölling, Hanna Barbara (2017). Lost to museums? Changing media, their worlds, and performance Museum History Journal, 10(1), pp. 97-111. Routledge 10.1080/19369816.2017.1257873

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From the perspective of museums and conservation, where does a work lie, how and where is it? This essay sets out to analyse Mark Rothko’s Harvard Murals exhibited in the form of an augmented reality at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, MA. With the help of this and further examples, it argues that the changeable character of artworks does not comply with the traditional museum and its techniques of musealisation that privilege the idea of artworks as objects manifest in a physical matter. The traditional functionality of a museum has therefore been challenged. Accepting the changeable nature of artworks, contemporary conservation does not return artworks to their past condition but actively takes part in their actualisation on the basis of the archive. Further artworks by Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik are understood in terms of their duration, slow and fast, while the museum and conservation acquire a particular relation to time.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	Bern Academy of the Arts Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Materiality in Art and Culture > Contemporary Art and Media
Name:	Hölling, Hanna Barbara0000-0002-3063-4405
Subjects:	A General Works > AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General) N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
ISSN:	1936-9816
Publisher:	Routledge
Language:	English
Submitter:	Hanna Barbara Hölling
Date Deposited:	21 Sep 2023 13:04
Last Modified:	21 Sep 2023 13:04
Publisher DOI:	10.1080/19369816.2017.1257873
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Actualisation; changeability; contingency; continuity; duration; museum; slow and fast art; vehicular and artistic medium
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.19972
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/19972