Research network LACUNAE: LAsting Legacies: Contemporary Artists’ Estates Between PUblic Heritage and Private Inheritance
The inevitable passing of a generation of groundbreaking visual artists active in Europe during the latter part of the 20th century marks a significant loss. These artists revolutionized art practice through engagement with innovative forms such as performance and time-based media, challenging conceptions of authority, power, and identity. Their complex legacies, intertwined with critiques of politics, technologies, and ethics in art preservation, have resulted in a failure of public and private institutions to adequately engage with contemporary artists’ estates. This issue is exacerbated for BIPOC, LGBTQI+, and women artists, facing systematic marginalization and denial of their artistic legacies by established museums and the art market, as highlighted by movements like Black Lives Matter. Artists working in ephemeral media are especially at risk, facing double exclusion and neglect.
The LACUNAE research network aims to explore how emerging networks of care for contemporary artists’ estates can better involve marginalized artists and their communities in co-constructing lasting legacies. The surge of interest in these estates from private market actors necessitates a delicate balance, recognizing the rival efforts of powerful market forces and the need for established institutions to reconsider their collecting practices.
To address these challenges, our research delves into politics, technologies, and ethics surrounding contemporary artists’ estates. The central research question focuses on how networks of public and private actors can contribute to more inclusive practices in caring for marginalized artists’ estates and sharing their legacies.
Our project responds to the urgent need for a forum bridging the private and public sectors in dealing with artists' estates. By concentrating on challenges faced by marginalized artists' estates, developing frameworks, and providing guidelines, LACUNAE seeks to diversify, de-canonize, and decolonize existing institutional structures. Recognizing the risk of losing unique historical sources, the project aims to strengthen networks of care through shared expertise and collaboration and address the challenges in preserving the transnational cultural heritage of contemporary art.
Who we are:
Oriana Baddeley (University of the Arts London, UK); Joana Baiao (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, PT); Lydia Beerkens (SRAL, NL); Valentina Curandi (artist and PhD candidate in artistic research, D/IT); Adrian Glew (Tate, UK); Robert Jarosz (Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, PL); Marika Kuzmicz (Fundacija Arton, PL); Pip Laurenson (Tate and Maastricht University, UK); Susana Martins (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, PT); Adam Mazur (University of the Arts Poznán, PL); Christoph Rausch (Maastricht University, NL); Vivian van Saaze (Maastricht University, NL); Anna Schäffler (Preservation as a Service, Berlin, D); Eliza Steinbock (Maastricht University, NL); Mark Waugh (Art 360 foundation, UK); Miriam Windhausen (independent advisor artists‘ estates, NL); Renée van de Vall (Maastricht University, NL)
