Our project team has organized two sessions at the 36th Congress of the International Committee of History of Art in Lyon. Join us live this summer in France!
36th Congress of the Comitรฉ International dโHistoire de lโArtโ, June 26, 2024, Lyon, Salon Roseraie 2, Centre de Congrรจs de Lyon
With contributions by Adebisi ADEMAKINWA, Michele MARINCOLA, Naomi KROLL HASSEBROEK, Lynda ZYCHERMAN, LARIS COHEN, Gayathri ANDATHODIYIL, Sara Wookey, Anna Paula DA SILVA, Fernanda WERNECK CรRTES, Claire VALAGEAS, Clรฉlia BARBUT, Rebecca PEABODY, Markรฉta KRAUSOVร , Evelyne SNIJDERS.
Chairs: Hanna B. HรLLING, Andrej MIRฤEV and Megan METCALF (guest moderator)
Organizers: Hanna B. HรLLING, Emilie MAGNIN, Jules PELTA FELDMAN and Andrej MIRฤEV
Performance art is often considered an immaterial medium. Yet its immateriality is belied not only by the material physical traces it leaves behind โ including documents, costumes, and other objects โ but also by the insistent, if ephemeral, materiality of the human body. This proposed panel seeks papers on the topic of performanceโs materiality considered through the lens of conservation. What is the relationship between a performance and the materials it leaves behind, and what experience of the performance can be gleaned from them? Do photographs, โrelics,โ and other objects replace an absent body, thus smothering performanceโs liveness, or do they refer melancholically to an unfillable lack? How might we understand the materiality of the body or, indeed, that of non-human performers such as animals, machines, or even bacteria? How can the material or immaterial elements of a performance be conserved? Though performance has sometimes been considered beyond the realm of art conservation, its increasing presence in museums and museum collections has rendered these questions urgent.
Encouraging global perspectives and particularly those from underrepresented contexts, we have called for papers from scholars, conservators, artists, curators and others that take a theoretical or practical approach to exploring the various materialities of performance and their role in its continuation. The session’s contributions from all over the world explore the conservation of contemporary, historical or indigenous performance; comparative examples of modern Western and non-Western conservation practices of performance conservation; performative elements in material art forms; the materiality of the performing body and its documentatory potential; the persistence of performance through physical elements or traces; the role of orality in the conservation of performance; aspect of continuity of performance in indigenous cultures; non-human performance and its conservation; and care-thinking and communities of care in performance conservation.
This panel is organized by team members of Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, a research project sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and hosted by the Bern Academy of the Arts. While there has been increasing interest within scholarship and curatorial practice in performance and its afterlives, this research project is among the first to specifically address the problem of performance conservation.
For more information, see the session website: www.materiality-history-archi-urba.org. For a full program, follow this link.
SESSION 1, 2:00-3:30 pm:
- Adebisi ADEMAKINWA – Performance Materials and the Vagaries of their Conservation in two Nigerian Tertiary Institutions Theatres
- Michele MARINCOLA, Naomi KROLL HASSEBROEK, Lynda ZYCHERMAN (paper contributor), Yve LARIS COHEN (paper contributor) – Preservation and Conservation: Yve Laris Cohenโs Studio/Theater
- Gayathri ANDATHODIYIL – Experiencing Performance through Photographs: A Study of Materiality and Meaning in the Contemporary Performance Art of Rummana Hussain.
- Sara Wookey – Dance is Hard to See: Transmitting Trio A and
other Acts of Preservation
SESSION 2, 4:00-5:30 pm:
- Anna Paula DA SILVA, Fernanda WERNECK CรRTES – Collecting performance art in Brazil: the establishment of protocols for musealization in public museums
- Claire VALAGEAS, Clรฉlia BARBUT – Mettre des gants : la performance comme dรฉfi pour les pratiques de conservation et de transmission. Diffรฉrentes รฉtudes de cas issues des collections publiques franรงaises
- Rebecca PEABODY – Conserving Dance Through Archives, Oral Histories, and Exhibitions
- Markรฉta KRAUSOVร , Evelyne SNIJDERS – Preserving and Presenting Performative Multiplex Hologram Installations: A Case Study Research of Angel (1976) by Simone Forti and Lloyd Cross.
Location:
Salon Roseraie 2
Centre de Congrรจs de Lyon
Download the program here.
About the CIHA Congress
The 36th CIHA Congress is organized under the aegis of the Comitรฉ franรงais d’histoire de l’art (CFHA) in partnership between the CFHA, the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), the Universitรฉ Lumiรจre Lyon 2 and the Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhรดne-Alpes (LARHRA CNRS UMR 5190).
The main aims of this internationally-renowned scientific and cultural event are to share and disseminate research by bringing together communities of art historians around a unifying theme.
Visit the website to discover the program of sessions, and very soon the various scientific and cultural programs.
The organizers look forward to seeing you there, and to the lively discussions that will take place in Lyon!
Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge 