Die Kunst der Erhaltung

Based on her practical experience with the estate and the installation of the ensembles of the conceptual artist Anna Oppermann (1940-1993), Anna Schäffler investigates the preservation of processual installation works in the field of tension between material and concept as well as the consequences for the concept of work and authorship at the interface of art history, restoration and curating.The focus is on both the profound upheavals of previous conservation conventions in restoration and the consequences of including knowledge of action and work-constituting processes in art historical analysis. In view of the new significance of contemporary conservation practice and its dissolution into collaborative "networks of care", the theoretical implications of the book go even further: they suggest a profound restructuring of the museum as an institution of memory.