by Andreia Magalhães

Faculdade de Belas Artes, University of Porto

Period

Doctoral program began in October 2007

Title

The dissemination of the moving image in art museums: from its history to a plan of collection

Keywords

time-based art, film, video, collections management, documentation,  art museums

Abstract

The subject of this study is the role that art museums played in the dissemination of the moving image within the visual arts context thus contributing not only to the preservation of artists’ film and video, but also to it’s validation as artworks. 

The work carried out by art museums towards the preservation and presentation of the moving image during the twenty century is not yet thoroughly studied. There are studies about the pioneer and paradigmatic case of the Museum of Modern Art of New York but we tend to look at the MoMA case as an isolated episode as we lack similar studies about other important museum collections. It is our belief that museums played an important role in the recognition of the artistic value and in the preservation of the moving image, specially the artistic and experimental production.  Institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), the Whitney Museum (New York), Stedelijk (Amsterdam), the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), the Center Pompidou (Paris), Jeu de Paume (Paris), or more recently Reina Sofia (Madrid) among others, have incorporated film and video in their collections, have organized exhibitions and screening programs, and even have been involved in the production of films and video installations. When their initiatives are considered collectively, the actual contribution of museums to the dissemination of the moving image in the context of the visual arts becomes visible.

The critical critical history of museum collecting will be followed by the examination of specific problems and challenges involved in collecting, presenting and preserving film and video, as well as in establishing best practices. This part will focus on the implications and difficulties of the bringing this works into the museum.  To collect video or film is to incorporate works that do not conform to the principles of collecting based in the value of the unique object, consequently related to values of immutability and originality/authenticity what causes this great tension and complexity in the musealogical processes. The goal is to identify the problems and try to define procedures and look for "best practices" in the three main dimensions of museum’s activity: to collect, expose and preserve, keeping in mind findings and recommendations of international projects and studies that are currently debating these issues.

Planning a collection of artists’ film and video with a management plan, preservation recommendations   and an exhibition outline constitutes the third part of the thesis.  The interest of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art to form a structured collection of film and video, constitutes an opportunity for this study to have actual application and institutional support. The history of Portuguese production of artist’s film and video from the 60s will be  traced, studied and documented. While since mid 90s video has become an elected medium for a great number of the younger artists, film and video were being used much sooner. However, because these early works were  not exhibited, and often constituted isolated and experimental works in the career of a number of artists, they remain barely known and are not being properly preserved.   One of our main goals is to recover works in eventual risk of loss or degradation or in obsolete formats. Another is to document these works by researching personal and institutional archives and interviewing the artists.

Supervisors

Lúcia Matos (University of Porto)

Co-supervisor: Glenn Wharton (Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Language

Portuguese and English

Contact

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