Care to value. Preservation strategies in the Art Market’s context

In the art market, it is a real possibility that the conduct to be adopted in the preservation of contemporary art cannot be put into practice without secession with the conservation and restoration guidelines. The aim of this study is to analyse if the most prominent professional guidelines fit into the market framework, or if it is possible to find divergences or reasons to lay aside in commercial practice. The work compared the fundamental guidelines with the practical objectives of the art market, qualitatively analyzing the results with the personal testimony collected from the agents of the national market on the issue raised. From this analysis, it was possible to identify the need for diagnostic models balanced with the safeguard of the commercial circumstance of the assets, seeking to develop a line of diagnostic guidelines that offer analytical usefulness to the conservator, in actions in the context of the contemporary art market in Portugal.