Preservation and Presentation of Installation Art

Rosenbach, Ulrike

Glauben Sie nicht, daß ich eine Amazone bin

Condition Report
Conservation Concept
The arrows
The colour photographs
The target photograph
The Videotape - Master or Copy?

Condition Report (2007)
creator(s) Martina Pfenninger (conservator); Heike Koenitz (conservator)

The installation, which consists of various photographs, a target made of straw and metal, sports arrows and a single-channel videowork shown on a monitor, is in a problematical condition. The examination focuses on the restoration and re-installation of the artwork.

The b/w photograph of the 'Madonna im Rosenhag' mounted on the target frame (photographic target lining) is physically damaged. The damage consists in cracks, holes at the edge due to once being hung with drawing pins and further holes possibly caused
during an exhibition. The front and back of the item are also slightly soiled. The photographic work reveals slight, even yellowing and a strong tendency to curling. The steel frame of the straw target has taken on an oval shape in the horizontal plane.
The target has aluminium arrows lodged in it, and these have become slightly misshapen. The polyurethane arrow vanes at the back have become very brown and brittle. Most of them have broken off completely and their function and colouring (transparent, green and yellow) are no longer recognisable. Plastic threads with the same original colouring are tied to the nocks. These have yellowed only slightly, but have numerous kinks in them. One of the nocks is missing.

The four Umatic tapes forming part of the artwork all contain the same b/w video work, which was recorded during a performance. On this the face of the artist has a detailed picture of the face of the Madonna superimposed on it. A further documentary recording of the performance can be seen on one of the archived tapes.
Presumably because of their earlier function as archive masters, exhibition copies, etc., the four Umatic tapes are in various states of preservation. The most frequently occurring faults in the images can be described as follows: drop-outs caused by loss of the magnetic coating and soiling of the tape surface, skewing in the upper part of the images due to deformation of the videomaterial (displaced videohead switching pulse) and slight tracking in places (synchronisation error).

The photographic work of a documentary nature has been produced by different photographic methods and in different sized formats. The coloured Amazon photographs reveal pronounced chemical change in the form of fading and a change in original colour to red. Chemical changes like silver mirror, yellow staining and brown spots on the surface can be identified on the five b/w photographs.
Slight colour fading and fading to blue can be seen on the colour transparencies which were given to the museum by the artist.
The three documentary photographs, six colour photographs of the video stills and all eleven photograph frames are in a good state of preservation.