Performance Art is a polysemic art form which circumvents live, recorded (filmed or photographed), and delegated or delegable events, among other possibilities based on artists’ poetics. This polysemy may challenge and affect the musealization process of the artworks, according to institutions’ means. Some research even underlines the impossibility of acquiring performance art due to its ephemeral nature. On this matter, the research project “Protocols for Musealization of Performance Art Conducted by Public Museums” aims to provide instruments to institutions to facilitate the collection of performance art in Brazilian public art museum collections. These protocols are preservation guidelines that consider four axes: [1] artwork identification (museum documentation); [2] conservation plan; [3] activation plan (contract and legal aspects), when necessary; [4] activation historical, when necessary. Accordingly, the project team has selected performance artworks in different forms from Brazilian museums’ collections ― two of which will be presented during this communication, “Dance with me” by Élle de Bernardini, and “Flecha 2 - talvez um raio” by Luara Learth (both photo-performance and video-performance) ― that may raise challenges, encourage debate, and offer possibilities. During the research, limited to a national scale, it could be observed a preference for acquiring delegate or delegable performances. Our hypothesis relates to copyright and patrimonial rights, with the disengagement of the performing body from the artist’s figure as a strategy to assure the artwork’s perpetuity/continuity. Meanwhile, the documentation may act as a constitutive part of the artwork or as an element that enables its recreation. Thinking of performance musealization usually leads to the acknowledgment of its materiality ― which comprehends its documentation as well as its remains/relics ―, hence the museum’s preconception as a place of art “materialization”. However, it can also handle “unruly” artworks. To that end, recognizing the inconstancy and the changeability potential in performance artworks, acknowledging the possibility of creating different versions in each activation of some performances is another key aspect of the project. The development of strategies to preserve artworks is one of the silent and less-known activities that take place in a museum. Therefore, the project may contribute directly to the work developed by museologists, conservators, and curators among other museum’s staff.
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Anna Paula da Silva is a professor at Bahia Federal University (UFBA), Brazil. She has a Visual Arts Ph.D. She is also the coordinator of the research group Musealization of Art. She is invested in the history, archievement, and musealization of performance art artworks and performance remains.
Fernanda Werneck Côrtes is a museologist and researcher who holds a master’s degree in Information Science from the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil. She is an undergraduate substitute lecturer in Museology at UnB. She is also a member of the research group Musealization of Art. As a member of the group, she organized academic events and publications on the presence of contemporary artworks in museological institutions.
Performance Art is a polysemic art form. This polysemy challenges and affects the musealization process of the artworks, according to institutions’ means. Some research even underlines the impossibility of acquiring performance art due to its ephemeral nature. On this matter, the research project “Protocols for Musealization of Performance Art Conducted by Public Museums” aims to provide instruments to facilitate the collection of performance art in Brazilian public art museum collections. The project recognizes the inconstancy and the changeability potential in performance artworks. Therefore, the project may contribute directly to the work developed by the museum's staff.