Following to the consolidation of the seven major German conservator’s associations into one strong federation, now called German Conservator's Association (Verband der Restauratoren, VDR) in September 2001, a working group on 'Modern Art - Cultural Heritage of Modern Times' (Moderne Kunst -

Kulturgut der Moderne / MKKM) has been established to discuss questions on technological and ethical issues in conservation of Modern Art and Design. Contributors to this ambitious project are about 80 conservators from both museums and individual conservation studios, mainly working in the field of modern and contemporary art, but also in the field of design objects and related areas.

First priority of this working group is to organize the professional knowledge of German based conservators concerning modern and contemporary art and make a connection with the international network for exchanging experiences, data bases and ideas.

Sections of this group will work on the following issues:

publish a bibliography of all publications in German language related to the field of conservation of modern/contemporary art works

develop a new art technology related to industrial products and relevant technologies in the German speaking countries

history of industrial development and industrial strategies i.e. trade marks, change of brand names (Patente) and copyrights

discussing the notion of ethical standards in the field of conservation of modern art and design objects

 establish a list of e-mail addresses of all modern art related conservators (German) to be  available to all our group members with information regarding their work, their specialisation, special skills,

experience, preferences and interests in the group.

On February 2nd 2002 the group will hold its first colloquium at the university in Cologne to discuss the State of the Art (Der Stand der Dinge) of those various fields of research, international programs, state

of discussion of the ethics in conservation, presentation of existing data bases and valuable sources of research.

Hamburg, January 14th, 2002

Contact: Christian Scheidemann, co-ordinator

e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Barbara Sommermeyer assistant co-ordinator

e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it