Working With the Artist: Between Conservation and Production

Award Martiel, Carlos (2014) by Carlos Martiel, a living Cuban performance artist, consists of a piece of skin removed from the artist’s body and sealed in a gold medal after desiccation. The medal, coupled with a video of the surgery, was made for the 2014 Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) Grants and Commissions Program exhibition Fleeting Imaginaries. The project was a collaboration of experts with different backgrounds. Pathologists and hospital laboratories were contacted for information on skin preservation. Natural history and medical collections were investigated to learn about the treatment of animal and human remains. Tattoo museums, leather manufacturers, and taxidermy practices were contacted. Professionals from various fields offered their knowledge and input to help make the project a success.

This paper describes the considerations involved in staging the 2016 exhibition Planetary Community Chicken at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare. The undertaking was a collaboration between the Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen; Chido Govera, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur; and museum staff. It included live chickens, chicken eggs, and fresh mushrooms. The exhibition of living matter in a museum environment poses numerous conservation challenges. In light of this, a spirit of innovation was demonstrated, and the Courtauld Gallery wing was transformed into a fowl run, an all-encompassing installation with appropriate conditions and facilities to support the rearing of chickens and the growing of mushrooms.

Nydia Negromonte’s ongoing artwork POSTA is made from fruit, tubers, and vegetables enveloped in raw clay and placed on a wooden table. Over the course of the exhibition, the vegetables undergo various stages of transformation. Some dry up until they are completely desiccated; others decompose; some sprout. This article outlines the process of constructing the work and the actions of each vegetable to free itself from the layer of raw clay, leading to aesthetic alterations and new interactions between the two materials and their surrounding space. The implications of such a work being acquired by an institution and an analysis of the limitations involved in replacement of individual elements are also considered.

Mexico’s Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía has developed the Seminario Taller de Restauración de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo (Workshop-Seminar on Restoration of Modern and Contemporary Art). The methodologies it employs take into consideration factors such as artist, production technique, context, compatibility and interactions of materials, as well as present and possible future deterioration dynamics. A related but separate research project titled Documentación, Registro y Experimentación Material en Arte Contemporáneo (Documenting, Registering, and Experimenting with Material in Contemporary Art) was aimed at documenting and experimenting with different organic materials. This allowed for collaboration with artists based on experimentation with biological materials to generate, conserve, and/or restore works of art.