We develop sustainable conservation strategies for art and cultural assets and can manage your collection on a short or long-term basis. Holistic, innovative and reliable.
Our team combines conservation with art historical expertise and many years of experience from working with public and private partners.
We provide independent advice: from bespoken concepts for individual artworks to full-scale management of large collections.
Services
We support museums, collections, estates and archives as well as artists in securing, maintaining and assessing their collections. Depending on the respective need, we can expand our team with specialists from our network to provide professional support.
Your advantage: We provide you with a single source that can take care of everything.
Consulting
The core competence of our consulting:
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Art historical and conservation evaluation
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Strategic planning for long-term preservation
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Analysis for the optimization of storage conditions
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Formulation of standards for acquisition and handling
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Preparation of specifications for digitization projects
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Inventory and metadata registration
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File analysis and forensic examination of data carriers
Support
Our proposed solutions are based on the respective framework conditions and thus enable a realistic implementation of the required measures.
During the implementation phase, we support the project participants. In addition to written reports, we also offer in-depth workshops for you and your employees.
In the case of more extensive transformation projects, we are also happy to support the process as moderators.
Implementation
As reliable partners, we also ensure long-term maintenance and can take over the execution of specific collection management tasks as an external service provider.
Our main areas of expertise are:
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Art historical processing of convolutes
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Arrangement of details and communication for exhibition conditions
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Accompanying loans and new installations
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Regular condition checks / reports
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Coordination and supervision of complex acquisitions (purchase agreement)
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Organization of digitization projects
Ressources
Interdisciplinary knowledge transfer for the preservation of cultural heritage is an important task for us at Preservation as a Service. Embedded in the international research community, we regularly contribute articles on preservation theory and practice to renowned publications. In addition to academic teaching, we offer seminars for practitioners on specific tasks, e.g., long-term archiving of audiovisual cultural property or the processing of artists’ estates.
Please find below a selection of our contributions. We will gladly send you a reference list of our previous projects upon request.
Publications
Anna Schäffler et al. (eds.), Networks of Care. Politics of Preserving and Discarding, Berlin 2022.
Anna Schäffler; Andreas Weisser, Nachlass im Kontext, in: „Handreichung für Künstlernachlässe“, Sächsische Landesstelle für Museumswesen (ed.), Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden 2022.
Anna Schäffler, Total Loss. Vom Kunstwerk zur Materialprobe und darüber hinaus, in: “Kunst und Material: Repräsentation, Stofflichkeit, Prozesse”, conference proceedings edited by Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, 2022.
Anna Schäffler, “Die Kunst der Erhaltung. Anna Oppermanns Ensembles, zeitgenössische Restaurierung und Nachlasspraxis im Wandel”, edition metzel, Munich 2021.
Anna Schäffler, Reorienting Custody through Common Care for Artists´ Estates, in: “ARTISTS´ LEGACIES. Preservation, Study, Dissemination, Institutionalisation”, conference proceedings edited by Fundação Arpad Szenes Vieira da Silva, Lissabon 2021, 23-33 (e-book).
Anna Schäffler; Andreas Weisser, Erste Schritte für den praxisorientierten Umfang mi tAudio- undVideodateien in Gedächtnisinstitutionen, Handreichung im Auftrag der Landesstelle für die nichtstaatlichen Museen in Bayern, 2021 (online).
Anna Schäffler, New Perspectives on the Historicization and Preservation of Media Art, in: Kunstchronik, Heft 1, Januar 2020, 13–19.
Anna Schäffler, Out of the Box. Preservation on Display, in: Hanna Hölling; Francesca Bewer; Katharina Ammann (Hg.), „The Explicit Material. Material and Object Inquiries on the Intersection of Academic, Curatorial and Conservation Cultures”, Leiden 2019, 167–185.
Anna Schäffler, Praxiserhaltung – Erhaltungspraxis, in: Ausst.kat. “Anna Oppermann. Künstler Sein”, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Köln 2019, 137-141.
Andreas Weisser; Irene Glanzer, A cape for the Buddha. Notes on Pipilotti Rist’s Himalaya Goldsteins Stube, in: ICOM-CC preprints of the 18th Triennial Conference, Copenhagen 2018.
Andreas Weisser, Generation change: the ermergence of the ephemeral collection, in: „Generation Loss. 10 Years Julia Stoschek Collection”, Bielefeld 2017, 46–67.
Workshops
Anna Schäffler: Networks of Care. New Approaches to Collecting and Preserving Complex Research-Based Art and Art Projects, M+, Hongkong, 2022
Andreas Weisser: Time-based Media Art. Von analogen Datenträgern zu digitalen Problemfällen, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Schenkung Hoffmann, 2021
Anna Schäffler; Andreas Weisser: New Collaborations in Practice: Joining disciplines for the preservation of contemporary art, Universität Amsterdam, Time-based Media Art Department, 2021
Anna Schäffler; Andreas Weisser: Der Umgang mit audiovisuellen Medien in der Museumspraxis, Landesstelle der Nichtstaatlichen Museen Bayern, 2021
Andreas Weisser: Ways to digital long-term archiving of audio and video dataBavarian State Ministry for Science and Art, 2020
Andreas Weisser: From "source" to "destination": sustainable digitization strategies, EDV-Tage Theuern, 2020
Anna Schäffler: Methods of self-reflection, conference "Acting in Contemporary Art," Foundation for the Conservation of Contemporary Art, Netherlands, 2018
Lectures
Anna Schäffler, New Agencies and Alliances in Media Art Preservation, New Media Museums Colloquium: Collecting and Preserving Media Arts, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2022
Anna Schäffler, Die Kunst der Erhaltung. Zeitgenössische Restaurierung und Nachlassbearbeitung, ART TALK, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 2022
Andreas Weisser, Degradation of Carriers. Time’s up: Conserving Media Art and the inevitability of Change, National Gallery of Singapore, 2022
Andreas Weisser, Patina, im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung “best available copy” am Institut Restaurierung-Konservierung, Akademie der Künste Wien, 2021
Anna Schäffler, Challenges and Chances of Common Care for Artists´ Estates, Konferenz “ARTISTS’ LEGACIES. Preservation, Study, Dissemination, Institutionalisation”, Fundação Arpad Szenes Vieira da Silva, Lissabon, 2021
Anna Schäffler, Wen kümmert´s? Nachlässe in privater Verantwortung, Panel mit Aino Labarenz, Alexander Koch, Eva Meyer-Hermann; Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, 2020
Anna Schäffler, Networks of Care – Dezentrale Erhaltungspraxis an der Schnittstelle von Restaurierung, Kunstgeschichte und Kuratieren, Veranstaltungsreihe „FOKUS: Die Zukunft der Kunst – Sammlungen im Wandel“, Verband der Restauratoren, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2019
Andreas Weisser, Die Patina des Ephemeren – Schichten der Alterung bei Medienkunst, Tagung „Patina: Spuren der Vergangenheit in der Kunst der Gegenwart“, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, 2019
Andreas Weisser, Time-Based Media Art. Wie sich das Verschwinden von dezidierten Datenträgern auf die Konservierung und Restaurierung auswirkt, Tagung: „analog | digital | mixed media. Fotografische Sammlungen im Wandel“, Stadtmuseum München, 2019
Andreas Weisser, Ethical Challenges in the Conservation of Time-based media art – do we need a digital Code of Ethics?, Tagung „Archiving the Unarchivable – Das Unarchivierbare archivieren“, documenta archiv, Kassel, 2018
Team
Our unique feature is the combination of conservation consultancy and art historical expertise in one team. Thanks to our many years of experience in the practice and theory of preserving cultural heritage, we have been combining the perspectives of technical know-how and the latest specialist research in "Preservation as a Service" since 2019.
When developing long-term preservation concepts for contemporary art, this interdisciplinary collaboration is indispensable. In this case, the decision-making process involves consideration and assessment of both material and conceptual aspects of the work, according to ethical preservation guidelines.
With our combined expertise, we bring together these diverse perspectives in a structured process to ensure the comprehensive consideration of all value-relevant characteristics.
Andreas Weisser
Graduate restorer Andreas Weisser has been working as an expert in the restoration and conservation of audiovisual data carriers and media art for almost 20 years. His clients include public and private collections as well as state archives in Germany and abroad. He studied conservation and restoration at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne and founded the company “restaumedia” in 2002, focusing on conservation and restoration of audiovisual media as well as the development of strategies for long-term digital preservation.
In addition to his freelance work, he has been responsible for the supervision of the video art collection of the Museum Brandhorst and the Pinakothek der Moderne at the Doerner Institut in Munich on a part-time basis since 2015. Andreas has been a guest lecturer at FH Köln, HTW Berlin and FU Berlin, University of Amsterdam, and Danube University Krems, among others. He has also given international workshops on behalf of the Deutsche Welle Academy for the Middle East and North Africa and for Goethe-Institut in India. He is a member of the Professional Association of Restorers (VDR), the International Association of Sound Archives (IASA; Section DE/CH), ICOM and Memoriav.
Dr. Anna Schäffler studied art history as well as modern and contemporary history in Berlin and Madrid. In addition, she brings many years of curatorial experience in installing contemporary art. Her close collaboration with artists and her academic and curatorial activities for exhibition venues and private estates include both the structuring and content-related processing of variously sized artwork collections, as well as the elaboration of work-defining properties and display possibilities.
Building on her practice-based research, she teaches and writes internationally on contemporary art. In her most recent book, "The Art of Preservation" (edition metzel, 2021), she analyzes current challenges and upheavals of traditional conservation conventions and new contemporary conservation concepts. Anna co-coordinated CoCARe (Conservation of Contemporary Art Research), an interdisciplinary PhD and postdoctoral network (2015–18) and is a member of INCCA (International Network of Conservation of Contemporary Art) and the Bundesverband der Künstlernachlässe.
For more information, see www.annaschaeffler.info
Contact
contact@preservation.services
+49 (0) 89 23144509
Locations
Berlin, Munich and
wherever you need us.
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