Lecture by Carolin Bohlmann and IJsbrand Hummelen. Re-enactment as conservational and restoration practices
Left (detail): Remnants of early overpaint showing a relief of Apollo and Daphne (during treatment)
Right (detail): Later overpaint showing a relief of Apollo and Daphne (during treatment)
The method of reenactment, ‘to repeat an action in the past’, has been applied in the practices of historical studies, performative arts and archaeological research. Since the 90s the method also has been prevalent in conservation and restoration studies and the related technical studies in art history. In this lecture Carolin Bohlmann and IJsbrand Hummelen will investigate the interest for re-enactment as a strategy in current artistic theory and practices in the field of conservation and restoration. They will explore the strategies in the decision-making processes of some case studies in conservation with a special focus on the differences between copying, reproduction and reenactment.
Lecture in English
IJsbrand Hummelen is guest professor at the Institute for Conservation and Restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He has been research conservator at the State Heritage Laboratory of the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency since 1992. Before he headed the department of color and material research of the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, and was director of the Restauratorenkollektief Amsterdam. He did research on the materiality in studio practices of a.o. Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian and Barnett Newman, strategies for conservation of ethnography collections, conservation theory, new strategies for the conservation of contemporary art and conducted ethnographic research of contemporary artists’ practices. He has been responsible for the content of several national and international research programmes in the field of the preservation of contemporary art and gives guest lectures at various universities.
Carolin Bohlmann is professor for Conservation and Restoration of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her research focus is on conceptions and materiality of contemporary art and media, conservation theory and the intersection of art history and conservation. She worked as a conservator at documenta 10, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin. Exhibition projects on the preservation of contemporary art: Open studio on the Conservation-Restoration of Joseph Beuys Richtkräfte Restaurieren (2013) and E-Erhalten, Exhibition Series Marzona A-Z (2014-2016) on display at Hamburger Bahnhof. In 2019 she held a fellowship at the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (IKKM) of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar with a Research Project on Questioning Material and Immateriality in Conceptual Art.