Conserving Performance: An Interview with Louise Lawson
The conservation of performance-based art is an intriguing and relatively new area of conservation. The presentation of live works has become more prominent in museums and galleries as these institutions strive to become more participatory and relational spaces. Works based on live performance are being increasingly acquired by major collecting institutions around the globe and this has prompted conservators to develop novel strategies and tools for the documentation, activation and care of these fluid and ephemeral pieces.
One of the pioneering figures in this emerging field is Louise Lawson, Head of Conservation at Tate, and previously Tate’s Conservation Manager (Time-based Media). Louise visited Melbourne in 2022 in connection with Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, an ARC Linkage project developing the theory and practice around performance-based works by bringing artists, curators, archivists, museum educators, theorists and writers into the discussion. During her visit, Louise sat down for an interview with student conservator Aslı Günel.
Time-Based Media and Performance Research at Tate: Layering and Bursts
As a leading UK institution at the forefront of research for the conservation of time-based media (TBM) and performance works, Tate have been developing and sharing strategies and tools for the care of these works for more than a decade, and Louise has been actively involved in this. Tate’s research into Performance started in 2012 with the Collecting the Performative project (2012–2014) that challenged the belief that performance-based art was uncollectable. One of key project outputs was a comprehensive set of guidelines, the Live List: What to Consider when Collecting Live Works.
The Tate’s time-based media conservation team built on this output as they embarked on the project Documentation and Conservation of Performance (2016–2021). Louise describes this project as having “a very practical perspective”, focused on assessing and building on existing practice, identifying the gaps in the documentation approach and working as a team to develop ways of addressing these gaps. When we spoke, Louise recounted the moment of acknowledging the need for this new direction, when the team realised that:
We had developed some great tools, but we didn’t have an overall strategy for performance. We needed to step really far back and ask: ‘What’s our overall approach to performance? What are the challenges? How do we understand performance? What are the opportunities?’ That’s when that next phase came through.
The team built knowledge around the care of TBM and performance-based works by responding to the needs of their collection and pivoting accordingly. Louise describes the progression of these research projects and interactions with each artwork as a process of ‘layering’ and constantly building on and expanding previous knowledge. At times, this process can be informed by bursts of insight which are then tested and incorporated into the tools and strategy if they are deemed to add value. Louise describes one such moment of collective insight when talking with her colleague, Ana Ribeiro, who had observed a recent performance:
I remember, the team were working with an artist and their artwork for the first time. This was a work by Kevin Beasley, Your Face Is / Is Not Enough. And, again, it was that moment where we were discussing our role within different moments of a performance’s materialisation. It was the realisation about the importance of the rehearsal process because the artist [Kevin Beasley] delivered them more like workshops involving community engagement. And this was the moment when we said, “Oh, we need to think about that and reflect on which works we need to be involved in at different moments such as rehearsals or auditions processes”.
In this case, the Tate’s TBM team discovered that having an involvement in the rehearsal process facilitated a deeper understanding of the work’s context and the artist’s intent and this in turn enriched the documentation of the work. As the value of this experience was validated, the practice of having conservators present in rehearsal was extended to other works. This example demonstrates the need for thinking outside the box, being open to trial and error, and incorporating knowledge obtained into institutional workflows. A flexible mindset is especially important for TBM and performance-based works due to the fluidity and variability braided into most of these works.
Caring for Fluid and Variable Works: Loss or Change?
Conservation of traditional and static works of art is guided by two chief principles: minimal intervention and re-treatability/reversibility. Conservators do their best to avoid changing artworks/cultural heritage in any noticeable way (minimal intervention) and endeavour to undertake their interventions so that they can be undone (where possible) in the future if necessary (re-treatability/reversibility). The variability and fluidity of TBM and performance-based works challenge these two principles and necessitate a case-by-case reinterpretation of them.
In discussion, Louise outlined that TBM works may change and evolve throughout their biography, citing the case study Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain by artist Tony Conrad. The Tate team did extensive work on this as part of the project Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum (2018–2021). This was the first work where the artist was not present, due to his passing in late 2016, just as the work was proposed for acquisition. Consequently, the project research and TBM conservation teams interviewed and worked with Conrad’s close collaborators as part of their efforts to deepen their understanding of the work and document the artist’s intent for the work. Louise described an ‘epiphany moment’ upon realising that “what was missing was the artist”. When working to activate Conrad’s work, this led to a focus on how to present the artist more fully, but equally realising the permanent loss. Louise explains that paradoxically, “even though we brought in his close collaborators with whom he’d worked multiple times over the years, and we spoke to everyone who had potentially been involved with that work”, this highlighted even more sharply the absence of the artist:
And it’s that realisation. It came for me when we were talking about what clothes the performers should wear and they [Tony Conrad’s close collaborators] were saying “Oh, sometimes Tony would come up with really bright clothes and he was so funny”. So, [the challenge] was how to reflect the artist even further in our conservation processes and documentation.
Knowledge about the work gleaned from close collaborators who have worked directly with the artist is incredibly valuable. However, there will come a time eventually when even close collaborators are no longer available to continue the transmission of the work. TBM conservators embed the management of these realities and risks into their preservation strategy. While there are established workflows that are universally applied, each work is also considered in-depth individually, allowing conservators to come up with creative and practical methods for the work’s care. When working on Conrad’s Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, the idea and the imperative to map the collaborators and new performers came into focus, so that the Tate team could identify potential vulnerabilities in the network of knowledge holders.
I think his [Tony Conrad’s] close collaborators brought a lot, in terms of their memories and experience. And that was transferred to the new generation of performers. I think there’s something in this model of exchange from established performers. This is something where institutions who then borrow the work, really need to engage with the fact that we need to bring in an existing translator of the work, one of the artist’s close collaborators, and support them in bringing in new performers and to keep that as a way to sustain the knowledge around the work. But obviously that will only exist for a particular period of time, because then you will have people who perform the work who’ve never met or known Tony. They will have only known his close collaborators. And I think that’s an interesting model. And that’s come up in another work, so I said, “we need to start to map this out, a bit like a ‘family tree’”. I said, “that will also tell us whether we’ve got any precarity, any vulnerabilities as well”. “Do we only have one performer left? What does that mean? What does that look like?”
Caring for fluid and variable works means accepting that the work will change across its lifespan. The Tate team choose not to view this change as ‘loss’ but instead use the terms ‘constant’ and ‘flux’, where the former refers to what should not change about the work and the latter refers to acceptable change. This is one of the ways in which TBM conservators reinterpret the core principles of minimum intervention and re-treatability. The elements of the work that are ‘constant’ should ideally be treated with the minimum intervention approach, whereas those elements in ‘flux’ can be subject to ‘treatment’ for the ongoing activation (re-performance) of the work. Such re-interpretation requires a deep understanding of each work and the technical and social networks on which the work depends for its survival.
Variability and Documentation: Is Knowing Everything Impossible?
Knowledge of the artist’s intent, which is documented through interviews with the artist and/or with the artist’s estate and collaborators, is instrumental in distinguishing the constant and flux elements. In some cases, the artist’s intent can also extend to institutional processes. In all cases, conservators do their best to honour the artist’s wishes.
The artist Tino Sehgal asks those who own his work This is Propaganda that it not be documented, and that instead, an exchange of memory and understanding should be used. Documentation is a core part of a conservator’s work and conservators are acutely aware of the fact that memory is fickle. So, Tino Sehgal’s request is enough to cause palpitations in your average conservator but Louise’s perspective on this work offered an alternative way of looking at the limits of written documentation:
I think it’s quite freeing because it is based on memories. And that’s okay. And it speaks to the fact that you can’t recreate performance exactly. That’s not the purpose. What you’re trying to do is create space for the work to be.
Every time a work is shown, there’ll be differences, there will be omissions, there will be additions. And that doesn’t mean that it’s not the same work. It’s just how it’s evolved in that particular moment. So, when we think about artwork requirements, what we’re really thinking about is what has to exist in order for the work to be the work. And then, what are all these other things that are in flux? It’s these bits in flux that add and take away and using ‘take away’ doesn’t mean it’s negative. And that’s kind of the space that we’re working in. Because not everything can be written down – it can’t be! Not everything is said. And you just see that more and more.
So, it’s about how you engage with the work and what it reveals to you. While written documentation is a tool and it provides a framework, you have to accept all of the unknowns and get really comfortable with that as a space to be in. Because we always want to know everything, but knowing everything is impossible.
The Tino Sehgal artwork exemplifies another vector of variability that was introduced by the artist’s use of memory and exchange. Not having a written record of the work elevates its variability as the work is supported in a different way. Managing such variability means revisiting the evolving identity or semantic patina of the work and the role of the conservator in the stewardship of the work’s changing identity. This particular artwork also highlights the fact that conservators have a lot to learn from Australian Indigenous communities, who have successfully transmitted cultural heritage knowledge to younger generations orally and through performance for millennia.
Final Word: Is TBM and Performance Conservation for Me?
If you are intrigued or excited about what you’ve read so far, this is the advice Louise has for those who would like to specialise in TBM and performance conservation:
I would say: great choice! Stick with it. Getting into conservation can be challenging. And it means different things to different people, depending on whether you work for an institution or you go into private practice. What does that look like? I think as long as everyone’s open to that continual learning and development, then you’ll have the right skills to be successful. That kind of openness is hugely important. We really like to try and create spaces in my teams for creativity, engagement, learning, because you just don’t know what’s going to come in. That’s the amazing thing about modern and contemporary art.
When I tell Louise that as emerging TBM conservators we are drawn to this area because of the creative challenge and not despite it, she agrees wholeheartedly:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it’s those softer skills around your decision-making, your drive for learning – all these different things will make you a really good conservator. Because you can always be taught the technical aspects, but it’s all the other things: good communication, being able to work with artists, being open yourself to learning and reflection and development, all of those things.
Louise suggests conservation students and emerging conservators work to acquire a broad skillset and then develop specialisations on top of this toolbox:
What I love about performance conservation is how much it lends itself to conservation more broadly. It does present specific challenges that are reflected in time-based media art works and contemporary works. But in some ways, these are challenges that all conservators face; the immediacy of the challenge is just much more focussed in this case.
I struggle at the moment to see whether performance conservation will necessarily become its own profession. We’re still in a position globally where many institutions are yet to appoint a time-based media conservator, but this is slowly changing.
Actually, what we need are conservators who understand performance and how they can bring that into their day-to-day work. And maybe this won’t necessarily mean having an official specialism in performance and time-based media, because different institutions are set up in different ways.
An institution may not even have a time-based media conservator but they might still find it hugely helpful to have a conservator who is interested in developing this area of conservation. So that’s where my current thinking is, because even within my own team, the conservators have a specialism within their overall repertoire in relation to time-based media. So, whether that’s software-based art, film, performance-based art, electronics, music – that kind of develops over time. And you support individuals in developing a particular area of interest or multiple areas of interest.
TBM and performance conservation aren’t for everyone, but those of us who are drawn to this field revel in the challenges and opportunities these variable, fluid, ephemeral and often whimsical works present us.
If you are interested and would like to find out more, please check the links embedded in the text and Tate’s website. For any feedback/questions or just to talk TBM/performance conservation please reach out to Aslı via email or LinkedIn
Aslı Günel is in her final year of the master’s in Cultural Materials Conservation at the Grimwade Centre, University of Melbourne. Asli’s conservation practice is focussed on TBA conservation (her thesis is titled Exploration of the creative and authorial agency of time-based media conservators) and community partnerships for the safeguarding of tangible and intangible heritage. Asli brings 20+ years of qualitative market research experience to conservation and thoroughly enjoys interviewing conservation stakeholders whether they be artists, fellow conservators or members of source communities.
Acknowledgements
This interview was conducted as part of Louise Lawson’s visit to the University of Melbourne, which was assisted by Grimwade lecturer Dr Robert Lazarus Lane and organised by Master of Cultural Materials student Aslı Günel and SC@M, with guidance from Lisa Mansfield, AGNSW Time-Based Art Conservator.
I would like to extend a big thanks to Louise for being so generous with her time and sharing her experience.
Last but not least, special thanks go to Dr Julie Fedor and Lisa Mansfield for their editorial support and suggestions.