Christian Scheidemann
Christian Scheidemann, Preservation of contemporary art (Honorary professorship, § 17 HmbHG)
Contact:
- Mail: christian.scheidemann@hfbk-hamburg.de
Christian Scheidemann is a conservator of contemporary art and founder of Contemporary Conservation, one of the most renowned conservation studios for the preservation of contemporary art in New York. The studio specialises in developing strategies for methodology and technology in the conservation of complex artworks. Working closely with artists since the 1990s, Scheidemann has developed methods and strategies for preserving non-traditional materials in art, such as preserving doughnuts for Robert Gober, elephant dung for Chris Ofili, potatoes for Matthew Barney, and fruit peels for Zoe Leonard.
The significance of materials and manufacturing processes in their ritual and ethnological context, as well as the cultural-historical aspect of care and repair in Eastern and Western societies and cultures, are among his main areas of research. In numerous lectures and publications, Scheidemann has dealt with topics such as artistic intention and authenticity in contemporary art. From 2012 to 2017, he was a research fellow and lead conservator in the research project on the conservation of Wolf Vostell's Concrete Traffic, 1970, at the University of Chicago. As a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Christian Scheidemann has been teaching philosophical principles and strategies in the conservation of contemporary art since 2022.