Space and value in the contemporary art museum: The journey of a performance document at Tate

Abstract

The space of the museum, rather than being monolithic and heterogeneous, is complex, fluid and fractured. As an institution, its multiple spaces relate to a variety of activities, motivations and attitudes towards the objects it collects, conserves and displays. By using Michel Foucault’s 1967 notion of the ‘heterotopia’ to read the museum as a space of spaces, and focusing on the complex object of the performance document, this article traces the link between the placement of objects in a specific space, and how this can be read as a perspective on their value. In tracing the journey of the Joseph Beuys performance document Four Blackboards (1972) through various spaces at Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) and Tate Modern, this article will demonstrate those acts of valuation being undertaken over a 50-year period in the institution, and explore how changing value perspectives result in a changing space, both physically and conceptually, for the performance document.