Finding the Material

The 1976 Copyright Act outlines the criteria for protecting artists’ original creative work. Where ephemeral, performative works are concerned, the Copyright Act provides no clear guide to direct an institution’s right to display and maintain performance works in its collection. Knowing what the law provides and where the law is limited allows museums to navigate appropriate means of presenting ephemeral works of art. It is essential that collecting institutions work with artists to define material properties of their ephemeral works of art and decide upon appropriate means of display and maintenance for the future. [This article is a revision of the paper that won the 2019 Gerd Muehsam Award. The award recognizes excellence in a paper written by a graduate student on a topic relevant to art librarianship or visual resources curatorship.]