New Approaches to Documenting Performance in the Museum: Value, History, and Strategy

This chapter shows how over the past two decades the relationship between the museum and performance has undergone a radical shift with the acquisition of performance-based artworks into the collection, shifting the role of the museum from that of a repository to that of a vital participant in the activation of the work. This chapter reflects on the new value this turn affords to documentation, and on how it is being used to support the effective activation of performance-based artworks in the museum. It reflects particularly on Tate’s development of documentation practices that address these new institutional needs and on how these navigate both immediate and potential future value.

Opponentinlæg: Valtonen, Hannu - From Commonplace to Curiosity – The Museum Value of two Messerschmitt Bf 109 – Aircraft at the Central Finland Aviation Museum

Staff officer Hannu Valtonen’s doctoral dissertation in museology ”Tavallisesta kuriositeetiksi – Kahden Keski-Suomen ilmailumuseon Messerschmitt Bf 109-lentokoneen museoarvo” (From Commonplace to Curiosity – The Museum Value of two Messerschmitt Bf 109 Aircraft of the Aviation Museum of Central Finland ) is based on three previously publis- hed works on Messerschmitt aircraft by the author: 1) Lapin lentokonehylyt. Yli 20 vuotta pohjoista lentokonearkeologiaa (Aircraft Wrecks of Lapland – Over 20 Years of Northern Aircraft Archaeology,1993), 2) Luftwaffen pohjoinen sivusta. Saksan ilmavoimat Suomessa ja Pohjois-Norjassa 1941–1944 (The Northern Flank of the Luftwaffe – German Air Force in Finland and Northern Norway in 1941 – 1944, from 1997) and 3) Messerschmitt Bf 109 ja Saksan sotatalous (The Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the War Economy in Germany, 1999). The dissertation is the first doctoral thesis in museology to be submitted in Finland, which must naturally be taken into account when evaluating Valtonen’s success in this venture and the scholarly significance of the study for museological research. The only comparisons are to be found in studies in ethnology and art history among other subjects, but there is no counterpart to Valtonen’s work in material culture studies .

An aircraft as a museum object

Complicated technical museum objects differs greatly from traditional museum objects. This article tests both the museological concepts of authenticity and originality and the concepts of conceptual, factual and actual identity with two aircraft in the collections of the Aviation Museum of Central Finland. The main issue is how these concepts may help to solve some problems of conservation, restoration and presentation. This article is an translated and slightly edited excerpt of the PhD thesis ”Tavallisesta kuriositeetiksi – Kahden Keski-Suomen Il- mailumuseon Messerschmitt Bf 109 – lentokoneen museoarvo (From Common- place to Curiosity – the Museum Value of two Messerschmitt Bf 109 Aircraft of the Aviation Museum of Central Finland”), examined in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, on March 24, 2006.