On Copies and Reconstructions: A Visual Asset for the Exhibitions of Modern Art History since the 1960s

Abstract

This paper analyses the fact that most of the works pertaining to the so-called “Historical Avant-garde” -as well as to some of the Neo-Avant-garde- from the first half of 20th century have been gradually rebuilt since the 1960s to fill the gaps in some temporary exhibitions, and in many museums. We mean those works that were created with an ephemeral or plain temporary intention; we refer to others that articulated a critical discourse against the compulsive hoarding of museums, as well as to the greater part of works with an environment-like, interactive or conceptual nature which were produced during the 1960s and the 1970s.

These copies are not usually destroyed; they end up, almost without exception, in the vaults of museums and collections. And, in the foreseeable future, they are to be employed not only to support a museographical discourse, but also to be loaned for temporary projects of third parties. The paradox lies within the fact that museums tend to use the same set of formalities for preservation that they apply to original works, cancelling then most of the educational values that those copies had in origin. Locked up inside every manner of display cabinet, these materials are protected from the hand and, therefore, sadly absent from the experience of viewers.