Research

Reinhard and Christine publish, lecture and continue to inspire the next generation of conservators by leading workshops and teaching in academic institutions with a focus on kinetic and time-based media art conservation.

Bek & Frohnert LLC

Bek, Reinhard; Frohnert, Christine: Book Review: Nordegraaf, Julia et al (eds): Preserving and Exhibiting Media Art - Challenges and Perspectives, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2015

Bek, Reinhard; Frohnert, Christine: A Destructive Happening and its Relicts: Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York. In: Making and Transforming Art Technology and Interpretation, Proceedings of the fifth symposium of the ICOM-CC Working Group of Art Technological Research, ed. Dubois, Helen et al, London, 2014

Reinhard Bek 

Reinhard Bek: A Question of Kinethics. In: Rachel Rivenc and Reinhard Bek, Ed.: Keep It Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art. The Getty Conservation Institute, Proceedings. February 2018

Bek, Reinhard: Conserving the Kinetic: Mechanical Sculptures by Jean Tinguely. In: Museum Tinguely, Basel: The Collection. Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012

Bek, Reinhard: Between Ephemeral and Material – Documentation and preservation of technology-based works of art. In: T. Scholte, G. Wharton (Ed.): Inside Installations. Theory and practise in the care of complex artworks. Amsterdam, 2011

Bek, Reinhard: Collaboration in the three year European Union project Inside Installations: Publication of the research results forthcoming on the archived homepage as well as in the journal published at the end of the project, 2010

Bek, Reinhard: Conserving Junk and Movement: Machines by Jean Tinguely, in: The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC): Contributions to the 20th Congress in Bilbao, September 13-17, 2004

Christine Frohnert

Frohnert, Christine: Conservation of Custom-Engineered Analog Artworks of the late 1960s; In: E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology): Open Ended; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, 2019, p.109 – 117

Roemich, Hannelore and Frohnert, Christine: Time-based Media Art Conservation Education Program at NYU: Concept and Perspectives; Electronic Media Review, Volume Five: 2017–2018, p. 1–26

Frohnert, Christine: Conservation of Historic Cathode Ray Tube-based artworks from the 60s, In: Warda, Jeffrey (Ed): The Electronic Media Review, Electronic Media Group, American Institute for Conservation, Volume Two, Washington, 2013, p.113-117

Frohnert, Christine: Heart Beats Dust: The Conservation of an Interactive Installation from 1968 and an Introduction to E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), In: Warda, Jeffrey (Ed): The Electronic Media Review, Electronic Media Group, American Institute for Conservation, Volume One, Washington, 2012, p. 3 - 12 

Frohnert, Christine and Singer, Martha: Education in Electronic Media Art Conservation - Where We Are and Where We Should Be; In: AIC (American Institute for Conservation) News, Lead Article, 2010

Bek & Frohnert LLC

Developing a Media Lab, Lecture delivered at the workshop: Getting Started: A Shared Responsibility Caring for Time-Based Media Artworks in Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017 & 2018

Consultants on Contract – Part of the Team; Round table at the symposium IT’S ABOUT TIME: Building a New Discipline – Time-Based Media Art Conservation, NYU, New York, 2018 

No Message – No Medium? A Tale of Techno-cultural Dependency, Media in Transition, Tate, London, 2015

In collaboration with Richard Bloes, Whitney Museum of American Art: Preserving The CRT: Paik’s Magnet TV and V-yramid. Conference ‘Conserving and Exhibiting the Works of Nam June Paik’. June 26, 2013, Lunder Conservation Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington

A Destructive Happening and its Relicts: Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York. Conference ‘Making and Transforming Art: Changes in Artists Materials and Practice’. International conference of the ICOM-CC working group on Art Technological Source Research (ATSR), November 22/23, 2012, Brussels, The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA)

Reinhard Bek

Unstable futures: Conserving the immaterial, 1960-present. Lecture at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, February 24, 2020

A critical revue of the conservation of three works of the ‘Arte Programmata’. Lecture at the symposium “Energy lines, Beyond the Framework: Forms and Experimentation of the Sixties". Turin, February16-17, 2017

A Question of Kinethics. Keynote at the conference “Keep It Moving? – Conserving Kinetic Art”, Palazzo Reale, Milano, June 30 – July 2, 2016

Between Material and Conceptual: Ethical implications in the preservation of three Image Generating Sculptures. Lecture at the conference “Symposium on the Conservation of Industrial Materials and Processes in Art”, Department of Art History at the University of Chicago, November 18-19, 2016

When Contemporary Art Works. Symposium: “The First Crack – Conservation and Value in Contemporary Art”, SVA Theater, New York, April 29th, 2015

Preserving Moving Sculptures – Between Material and Ephemeral. Summer Institute in Technical Art History, Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, June 13, 2013

Walking the Line: Between Replacement and Exchange in Technology Based Art. Lecture at the conference Contemporary Art – Who Cares? At the Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, June 10, 2010

Possibilities for the Documentation of Movement. Seminar, Institut National du Patrimoine (INP), Paris, November 17/18, 2006

Recording Movement – Between Material and Ephemeral. Third workshop of the European Union project “Inside Installations”, Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany, December 2, 2005 

Christine Frohnert

It’s about time! Technology-based art meets art conservation, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, New York, 2020

It’s about time! Technology-based art meets art conservation, NYU Tech Summit 2018, New York The Development of TBM Art Conservation Education, Lecture delivered at the symposium IT’S ABOUT TIME: Building a New Discipline – Time-Based Media Art Conservation, NYU, New York, 2018 

TBM Art Conservation as a New Specialization within the MA/MS Degree at the Conservation Center; Hannelore Roemich and Christine Frohnert, Lecture delivered at the symposium IT’S ABOUT TIME: Building a New Discipline – Time-Based Media Art Conservation, NYU, New York, 2018 

Time-based Media Art Conservation Education Program at NYU: Concept and Perspectives; Hannelore Roemich and Christine Frohnert AIC, Annual Meeting, Houston, 2018

It’s about Time – Current Practices in TBM Conservation, Art Institute of Chicago, TBM Network, 2018

Time-based Media Art Conservation as a Consultant, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017

Afterlives of Performances in Visual Art, 101st Annual CAA Conference, New York, 2013

Power On – The Conservation of Electronic Art, Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professorship Inaugural Lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012

Conservation of Historic CRT-based Artworks from the ‘60s. AIC Annual Meeting 2012, EMG session, 2012

Overcoming Obsolescence: The Examination, Documentation, and Preservation of Nam June Paik’s TV Cello, 1996: Lisa Conte, Christine Frohnert, Lisa Nelson, Julia Sybalsky, Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, presented at the AIC Annual Meeting, 2011

Preservation of Interactive Installations from the late 1960s – at the Instance of the Artist/Engineer Collaboration E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), Lecture held at the EMG session of the 37th AIC Annual Meeting in L.A, 2009

Beuys: Fugitive Materials, Lecture at the Tate, London 2005

E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology  – The Collaboration between Artist and Engineers in the late 60’s in the US,  VDR 2.Conference: ‘Installations’, Modern Art Section VDR, Pinakothek der Moderne, Muenchen, 2002

Christine Frohnert

Selected Courses

F2012/S2015 Art with a Plug – The Conservation of Artworks containing Motion, Sound, Light, Moving Images and Interactivity, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, Conservation Center 

F2016  Topics in Time-Based Media Art Conservation, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, Conservation Center                        

F2018/F2019/F2020 Technology and Structure of Works of Art -Time-based Media, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, Conservation Center