ABSTRACT

The ephemerality of Artangel projects raises the question of what can be preserved for posterity. Indeed, conservation happens differently for temporary site-specific artworks. While mementoes exist in the form of artists’ multiples, and besides certain exceptional cases, such as Roger Hiorn’s Seizure which was, through much expense and using much expertise, relocated to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, what remains from Artangel projects are often mostly afterimages, which add to the other traces borne by the location which, itself, is an integral part of each work. Two programmes in particular, the former Artangel Afterlives, and The Artangel Collection have addressed these new conservation conundrums by providing new embodiments, most often books and videos, through which the works can live on and continue to be exhibited. Still, it is also often in the very way that these works are conceived that a blurring of the line between permanence and impermanence happens.