Artistic provenance research

Abstract

"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"--Provided by publisher.

Contents

Introducing artistic provenance research / Sharon Macdonald and Tal Adler -- A note on terms -- Who is ID8470? / Tal Adler -- We are ID8470 / Tal Adler -- The performer ; The prisoner ; The architect ; The maid / Tal Adler, Clara Dröll, Ricarda Rivoir, Laura Strott -- Intervening potentials : artistic research on human remains in university collections / Friedrich von Bose -- Searching for fingerprints on ID8470 : provenance research on a Gall skull from the Anatomical Collection of Berlin Charité / Marion A. Hulverscheidt -- Filling gaps in provenance research : between plausibility and experimentality / Larissa Förster -- From performing provenance research to community-centred engagement : Flinn Works and the ancestors in boxes / Konradin Kunze -- Unsettling spirits : an unfinished conversation towards provenance and artistic work / Duane Jethro and George Mahashe -- Provenance is many journeys : it's plural, it's complicated, it's contingent / Edmund de Waal, Tal Adler and Sharon Macdonald -- List of exhibitions of the so-called Gall skull.