Perpetuation of Site-specific Installation Artworks in Museums : Staging Contemporary Art

Site-specific installations are created for specific locations and are usually intended as temporary artworks. The Perpetuation of Site-Specific Installation Artworks in Museums: Staging Contemporary Art shows that these artworks consist of more than a singular manifestation and that their lifespan is often extended. In this book, Tatja Scholte offers an in-depth account of the artistic production of the last forty years. With a wealth of case studies the author illuminates the diversity of site-specific art in both form and content, as well as in the conservation strategies applied. A conceptual framework is provided for scholars and museum professionals to better understand how site-specific installations gain new meanings during successive stages of their biographies and may become agents for change in professional routines.

Tatja Scholte is an art historian and conservation scholar at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. She coordinated several European projects in the conservation of contemporary art and, together with Glenn Wharton, coedited Inside Installations: Theory and Practice in the Care of Complex Artworks (Amsterdam University Press, 2011).