Editorial

Conservation, philosophy, and authenticity can be seen as contiguous bedfellows whose mutual discussion is definitely beneficial now, as we struggle to include more varied voices and viewpoints in our conservation and cultural heritage world. There are many debates concerning conservation, restoration, replication, and wider ranging issues such as the demands of local and national communities for control of their own cultural heritage, impacting the way values and authenticity are discussed in conservation. There are philosophical questions regarding the legitimated instances of a work whose condition is now very different from its original state, whether copies made by conservators can act as surrogates for contemporary art, the status of forgeries made hundreds of years ago, whether ethics can be maintained as a universal feature of conservation practice, and whether restoration itself, as distinct from preventive conservation, is a form of forgery. All of these questions are of interest. We also have to deal with problems created by the recognition of intangible cultural heritage as ratified by the Nara conference (ICOMOS 1994), and which has led to a series of national and international charters. Much of this post-Nara activity seemed long overdue, in terms of the recognition of the importance of conceptual art, as a necessary departure from logical positivism, or the purist concern for original material substance. Intangible authenticity is often influenced by the values that a community may place on its cultural heritage, and this has become increasingly important, where monuments and sites are contested between communities and where opinions between different stakeholders regarding rebuilding or restoration can be hard to reconcile.

Since the Nara conference, the corpus and extent of conservation actions and decisions has become enveloped in an increasingly important philosophical discussion, itself covering a wide range of topics, many discussed here. The IIC virtual conference on Conservation and Philosophy: Intersections and Interactions was held over two days on 26–27 November 2020, based in Hastings, UK, while Covid-19 forced us all to work remotely. Its aim was to draw together the disparate threads of our conservation heritage and some of the more philosophical issues, with various contributors speaking to this diverse subject matter, followed by online discussion sessions after each session. Not all of the papers presented could be published in this special issue of Studies in Conservation, nor the discussions.

Authenticity is an important concept for debating the nature of art, conservation and art restoration and I would like to make a few comments here. As Dutton remarked (1998), authenticity is a word whose meaning remains uncertain until we know what dimension of its referent is being discussed. For conservation we have several dimensions and one way to tackle this problem is to talk of authenticity as a triangular set of relationships between material authenticity, intangible authenticity and historic-aesthetic authenticity. By doing that we can talk about the process of authentication, which largely depends on material authenticity: in the case of modern art, it may depend on some intangible parameters, or even on a ‘certificate of authenticity’. Consider Yves Klein’s seminal work, The Room of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility 1961: Klein exhibited an empty room, as his recent paintings had been declared to be invisible. In order to exhibit this work legitimately, a certificate of authenticity would be necessary, as the work itself possesses only an intangible ‘authentic’ presence. Of course, these certificates can themselves be forged: they might exist as conceptual or digital events, and now even as non-fungible tokens. In other cases there are works, such as Renaissance marble fakes of Roman copies of Greek bronze sculpture, where we value the historical-aesthetic authenticity, even if materially the Renaissance copy is not representative of Roman or Greek origin. Because of the contested, performative and historical dimensions of authenticity in its cultural signification, there has been considerable hesitancy to accept that there is a useful concept of ‘authenticity’ at all, but here we think that there are authenticities which can be elaborated further, with beneficial description or argumentation concerning the nature of the authenticity under discussion.

Our speakers took up the themes of museum display and interpretation, audience and reception. One of the topics was the role of copies and replicas, from ‘double trouble’, as the title of one paper has it, to the status of classical art copies. That subject leads naturally to considerations of forgery that are the subject of some of the papers. Values-based conservation decision-making adds substance to both the participatory notion of audiences and points to how the profession can better incorporate these voices into the discussion, which was the subject of another of the presented papers. The diachronic aspects of conservation as well as the new subjectivism of conservation ethics proposed by some, are relevant subjects for debate. I think that the latter very much depends on what is considered to be authentic, in terms of the three categories noted above. I will mention only a few of the papers here.

In order of presentation the papers given were: Jessica Lewinsky (Authenticity: Integrating Philosophical Tools for its Determination); Bill Wei (Authenticity and Originality, Objectivity and Subjectivity in Conservation Decision-making, or is it Just a Matter of Taste?); Maria Chatzidaki and Anthi Soulioti (Double Trouble: the Impact of Replicas in Contemporary Art Decision-making); Iryna Somyk-Ponomarenko and Antonina Mykolaichuk (Identification and Preservation of Authenticity in the Process of Conservation and Educational Copying of Artworks); Hélia Marçal (Becoming Difference: on the Ethics of Conserving the In-between); Elisa Bernard (Lacking ‘0riginalities’: Evaluating the Cultural and Aesthetic Status of Classical Art Fakes and Copies); Iris Kapelouzou (The Ethics of Forgery); Monica Salvadori, Monica Baggio and Luca Zamparo (The Anthropology of Forgery: New Themes for the Contemporary Archaeologist); Andrew Calver (Does Authenticity Matter: is there a Role for Conservation Ethics in Interpretation?); Jacob Nadal (Frameworks for Preservation: Allegory, Isogory and Professional Practices); Ellie Sweetnam and Jane Henderson (Fake Neutrality in the Quest for Authentic Conservation); Jonathan Ashley-Smith (Let’s be Honest. Part 2.); Brian Castriota (Replication and Re-creation: Artwork Ontology and Authenticity in Pauline Cummins, Inis t’oirr/Aran Dance 1985); Sophy Rickett and Jenny Williamson (Cupid, Canvas, Circle, Plane: a Conservation-intervention at the Intersection between Conservation and Conceptual Fine Art Practice); Nicola Foster (Exhibition Reconstruction: when Attitudes become Form, Bern 1969/Venice 2013); Angela Squassina (Time as a Key Issue in Preservation); Lisa Giombini (Beyond the Veil of Authenticity: Notions of Respect in Heritage Conservation.); Kate Clark (Taking the Lid off Pandora’s Box? Values-based Thinking in UK Heritage Practice); Andreas Sampatakos and Dimitris Chatzigiannis (Exhibiting Damage: the Presentation of Byzantine icons in Greek Museums); Rebecca Gordon (Ethics of De-extinction and Contemporary Art Conservation); Tomas Markevicius and Nino Olsson (The Role of Scientific Inquiry in Authenticity Questions: Bridging the Gap between Contemporary Art Conservation Theory and the Philosophy of Science).

Jessica Lewinsky, for example, talked of the judgements that we generate while addressing authenticity as involving an interaction between several disciplines. From a conservation point of view, this means actively researching the different attributions of value that converge in an object in order to understand it. Philosophy focuses on a different, yet crucial, aspect of the artwork – its spirit and intention. It deals with concepts, essence, meaning and ideas. This is to say that by including the philosophical perspective when studying art we move beyond material theories as we seek the multi-valent, and focus on subjectivities that might appear to have no place within evidence-based conservation.

Dr Bill Wei spoke about the Socratic method of enquiry and how that may be used to debate the subjects of authenticity and originality. These two concepts could be considered to be the most important used in the decision-making process for the conservation of objects of cultural heritage in the Western world. They form the basis of many different types of decisions. He asks about the importance of well-supported conservation decisions, given that most objects are unique. However, if this solid reasoning is so important, why are there still so many heated discussions, and decisions which are controversial? Do other factors play a role? His answer to this rhetorical question is yes. There are, in fact, two factors which drive conservation decisions in his view: the first is taste, more diplomatically stated as professional preference. Some professionals will deny that taste plays a role in how they make conservation decisions. They argue that science-based conservation provides objective evidence to support treatment decisions, and that well-educated historians can objectively determine the historical context surrounding a given object. However, one only needs to look at the wording of arguments between heritage professionals about how a painting or a repurposed historic building was restored to draw the opposite conclusion. The second factor that affects conservation decisions is fear. Fear of being in contempt of codes of conservation ethics is the problem here, which resulted in Dr Jonathan Ashley-Smith proposing at the event that bespoke codes of ethics in future conservation codes and guidelines are the way out of this potential straight-jacket.

Dr Anthi Soulioti and Dr Maria Chatzidaki spoke of the problems posed by the increasing use of replicas in the conservation of contemporary art. Here the conservator is faced with ephemerality, unstable materials, the rapid obsolescence of technology-based elements and with components that need constant reinterpretation. Undoubtedly, the most impactful change can be attributed to the emphasis placed on the conceptual integrity of contemporary artworks. As a consequence, the perception of the ‘uniqueness’ of the artwork derived from the originality of its material elements is put into question, with conceptual authenticity assuming a new importance. The Benjaminian aura (Benjamin 1968) is not lost, according to these authors, but divided and redistributed into the different aspects of each artwork’s sphere of context and content, its universe. A constellation of facets exist in the artwork’s universe, containing amongst others its manifestations depending on the different instantiations of its condition, the aforementioned interpretations by stakeholders, and the various replicas. The relationship between original and replica is strong yet flexible, with the artwork’s ontology being constantly redefined through this relationship.

Iryna Somyk-Ponomarenko and Antonina Mykolaichuk gave a presentation based on the reconstructions and scholarly copies that their students are taught to produce in order to undertake skilful conservation and restoration work. Predominantly these apply to the treatment of paintings with large areas of loss. Since the issue of aesthetic reintegration and reconstruction is often controversial and ambiguous, it involves a contradiction between the scientific and creative methods in its practical application. The alternative approach is the implementation of a reconstruction of such artworks, which may provide a visual reproduction of crucially damaged original artwork’s losses within its copy. To diminish the influence of any subjective factors during the reconstruction, there is a need to systematize scientific methods addressing the issues of the reproduction of lost images through the lens of conservation ethics. It was not possible for the authors to provide a paper during the global pandemic, so readers are referred to an earlier and shorter paper already published in this journal (Somyk-Ponomarenko 2020).

Dr Hélia Marçal spoke of the ethics of preserving the liminal. She discussed the challenges liminality poses to how we understand ethics in conservation. The paper incorporated feminist approaches to materiality to analyse the notion of liminality, or in-betweenness, and to reflect on the affordances of the liminal in rethinking the ethical positioning of conservation. The new materialist approaches examined here were principally influenced by the writings of Haraway (2010) and Barad (2006), who have explored topics on epistemology and ontology connected to post-Marxist feminist ethics. Conservation practice has always been challenged by practices that work within the liminal – the interstitial space between what the object material is, what has been, and what it can become. For example, contemporary polyurethane sculptures, in which the premature degradation of the polymer has led to their early disfigurement, has prompted their re-fabrication with the purpose of recovering their material form. Performance art is another example of an artistic practice that defies binary characterisation, with works existing in a state of material dormancy up until the moment of their activation through processes of so-called re-enactment. This status of in-betweenness can also apply to works which have been extensively restored and have been recognised as something other – the famous cleaning controversies in London at mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries are an extensively documented example of the hard-to-get balance between recognising the artwork as the artwork, and dissociating the artwork from the material object itself. Another important example, which has emerged recently in conservation debates, relates to issues of provenance and restitution of looted art and objects – how is the authenticity of these objects, or their status of objecthood, defined by the practices that led them to be conserved? And how much of their conservation treatment should be linked to their capacity to act within the communities that have produced them?

Dr Elisa Bernard discussed the problems of fakes and copies. Not only do these lack novelty, they lack the originality of the authentic work, achieved only in the context in which the original work existed. Fakes and copies also lack historical reliability and pluralistic identity, regarding both their life in the ancient world and their ‘afterlife’, a term which refers to the events surrounding the object after its non-original status has been discovered, including its reuse, restoration, reproduction, collecting, exhibiting, looting, and return, at successive stages in its history.

This gives a snapshot of some of the papers contained in this special issue. I hope that you enjoy reading them, and that IIC may be able to have another conference devoted to the theme of philosophy and conservation in the not too distant future. IIC members can also access the presentations from the event online, by signing into IIC Community on the IIC website, and clicking on Bonus content.

This special issue captures the essence of the virtual event Conservation and Philosophy, organised by IIC’s special interest group for authenticity, led by me. I would like to thank Dr Jonathan Ashley-Smith for materially helping with the planning of the programme, as well as Sarah Stannage, Executive Director of IIC; Kate Smith, Engagement Editor; and the whole IIC communications team. IIC Secretary-General Professor Jane Henderson and her doctoral student Eleanor Sweetnam have been especially helpful with presenter communications. The moderators and volunteers who provided technical help were: Katherine List, Mary-Jo Lelyveld, Pia Kristina Edvist, Henry Rincavage, Charlie Scovell, Emily Franks, and Aly Singh. I thank all who participated in the virtual event.

The guest editors for this special issue are IIC Director of Publications Dr Joyce H. Townsend, and David A. Scott.

The IIC conference on Conservation and Philosophy: Intersections and Interactions was held online over two days on 26–27 November 2020, and had been advertised with this image. IIC members can access the recorded presentations for all papers at https://iiconservation-community.org/resources.