Artistic Provenance Research

Tal Adler

ISBN 10: 3837665534 / ISBN 13: 9783837665536

Published by Transcript Verlag, DE, 2026

About this Item

What can art and artists bring to researching the origins and biographies of objects? How do they shed new light on - or even unsettle - existing approaches to such questions? Proposing the new term - artistic provenance research - the contributors to this innovative book illuminate art's capacity to expand provenance research in critical and provocative ways. Presenting in-depth examination of fascinating historical and contemporary examples, contributors to Artistic Provenance Research investigate knowledge-imagination dynamics, and questions of materiality, experimentation and speculation. They probe relationships between presences and absences, the aesthetic and the ontological, the scientific and the curatorial. The cases address a wide range of pressing issues of contemporary heritage research and practice, including those of colonialism and decolonization, ownership and art-markets, institutionalization, human remains, return and restitution. Through the exploration of selected artistic works in diverse media - including drama, performance, installation, photography and text - this book highlights the transformative potentials of artistic provenance research.

Seller Inventory # LU-9783837665536

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Artistic Provenance Research
• Publisher: Transcript Verlag, DE
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3837665534
• ISBN 13: 9783837665536
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

What can art and artists bring to researching the origins and biographies of objects? How do they shed new light on – or even unsettle – existing approaches to such questions? Proposing the new term – artistic provenance research – the contributors to this innovative book illuminate art’s capacity to expand provenance research in critical and provocative ways. Presenting in-depth examination of fascinating historical and contemporary examples, contributors to Artistic Provenance Research investigate knowledge-imagination dynamics, and questions of materiality, experimentation and speculation. They probe relationships between presences and absences, the aesthetic and the ontological, the scientific and the curatorial. The cases address a wide range of pressing issues of contemporary heritage research and practice, including those of colonialism and decolonization, ownership and art-markets, institutionalization, human remains, return and restitution. Through the exploration of selected artistic works in diverse media – including drama, performance, installation, photography and text – this book highlights the transformative potentials of artistic provenance research.

About the Authors

Tal Adler is a conceptual artist and researcher at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He specializes in creating collaborative, long-term projects for social transformation, engaging critically with difficult heritages, conflicts and ethical dilemmas.

Sharon Macdonald is Alexander von Humboldt professor of social anthropology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she directs both the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik and CARMAH (the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage).