Performing Documentation in the Conservation of Contemporary Art

Contemporary art conservation requires a re-assessment of the distinction between the work and its re-configuration in documentation. Although documentation is crucial for the survival of many contemporary works of art, it is never neutral: all approaches, formats, media and systems have their own inherent affordances and blind spots and always transform what they document. Furthermore, in process-centered, technology-based or performative artworks in particular, we often can no longer make a sharp distinction between an original work and its subsequent documentation or replication: documentation is part of the work's very core