1st Edition
Performance The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care, Volume II
Representing the output of the research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, this volume brings together diverse voices, methods and formats in the discussion and practice of performance conservation.
Conservators, artists, curators, and scholars explore the ontology of performance art through its creation and institutionalization into an astonishing range of methods and approaches for keeping performance alive and well, whether inside museum collections or through folk traditions. Anchored in the disciplines of contemporary art conservation, art history and performance studies, the contributions range far beyond these to include perspectives from anthropology, musicology, dance, law, heritage studies and other fields. While its focus is on performance as understood in the context of contemporary art, the book’s notion of performance is much wider, including other media such as music, theater, and dance as well as an open-ended concept of performance as a vital force across culture(s).
While providing cutting-edge research on an emerging and important topic, this volume remains accessible to all interested readers, allowing it to serve as a singularly valuable resource for museum professionals, scholars, students, and practitioners.
Introduction: Sustaining Care for Performance
Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
Section 1: Expanding scholarly approaches to the longevity of performance
1. Hanna B. Hölling: “Once Upon a Time:” Performative Ultra-Conceptualism and Storytelling as Conservation—Florence Jung
2. Michaela Schäuble: Contesting Heritage: Artistic and Cultural (Re)appropriations of Apulian Tarantism
3. Thomas Gartmann: Can We Conserve Music?
4. Amelia Jones: Curating Performance as Conservation? Thoughts on Queer Communion: Ron Athey
5. Philip Auslander: Can We Conserve Performance? A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
Section 2: Confronting institutions
6. Emilie Magnin: Performance in the Museum: Shifting Roles in Performance Art Stewardship
7. Reviving Culture: Puawai Cairns’ Vision for Dynamic Museums and Performance Conservation—A Conversation with Jules Pelta Feldman
8. Black Art Conservators Valinda Carroll, Kayla Henry-Griffin, Nylah Byrd and Ariana Makau on Black Objects, Performance and the Future of Conservation––A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
9. Brandie Macdonald: Conserving “Us:” Caring for Living Heritage, Oral Tradition and Indigenous Knowledge—A Conversation with Emilie Magnin
10. Sandra Sykora: Copyright Implications of Preservation of Performance Art
Section 3: Conservation through artistic and embodied practice
11. Jules Pelta Feldman: Davide-Christelle Sanvee’s La performance des performances as Critical Conservation
12. Rosanna Raymond on Conser.VĀ.tion—A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
13. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi: Dance, Embodied Preservation, and Unlearning in India—A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
14. Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė: RYXPER1126AE, 2018
15. Gisela Hochuli: In Strange Hands—A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin
16. Joanna Lesnierowska: Performance Conservation as a Political Act—A Conversation with Hanna B. Hölling
17. Ido Feder: A Manifesto: Towards Conservative Performance
Biography
Hanna B. Hölling is Research Professor, Bern Academy of the Arts and Honorary Associate Professor, University College London.
Jules Pelta Feldman was formerly Postdoctoral Fellow, Bern Academy of the Arts and is now Assistant Researcher at the Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley.
Emilie Magnin is a Doctoral Candidate, Bern University and Bern University of Applied Sciences—Academy of the Arts and a Conservator for Media Art and Installations at the Kunstmuseum Bern.
