Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum

The research will consider manifestations of the precarity or persistence of the technological networks and their associated consequences for the conservation of these artworks. The traditional museum model, based on collection knowledge and conservation capacities that is held within the museum, is challenged. Instead, the contemporary art museum is increasingly dependent on socio-material networks outside the museum which are beyond the museum's direct control and which circulate in alternative economies, often dominated by different commercial concerns. The museum needs better understanding of these networks to inform and build upon methodologies such as risk assessment and other tools for imagining the future viability of particular works in contemporary art collections. Dirk will study from the collection of Tate three artworks that build upon diverse technologies such as 16mm film, CRT’s and programming language.The PhD research is part of ‘Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum’, a three-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Pip Laurenson, Head of Collection Care at Tate, and Professor Art, Collection and Care at Maastricht University.