New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art

A significant part of European cultural heritage, modern and contemporary art, runs a great risk of getting lost for future generations, because it is particularly difficult to preserve. Proper care requires resolving fundamental questions concerning the identity, values and authenticity of modern and contemporary artworks and the consequences for their conservation, rethinking historically grown professional distinctions as those between the curator and the conservator, re-organizing the institutional ecosystem, and establishing frameworks for international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral research and training collaboration. The aim of this Marie Curie Innovative Training Network is to educate a new generation of professional curators, conservators and academic researchers who are properly equipped to face these challenges. The key notion guiding the research and training programmes will be the notion of reflective practice. Starting from the theoretical framework of practice theory, the research programme will investigate conservation practices through the comparative analysis of their impact on modern and contemporary artworks’ biographies. The training programme will focus on the development of a reflective professional attitude, which is a pre-requisite in this increasingly complex and collaborative field.