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CONFERENCE PAPER: “The Expert in the Loop: Developing a Provenance Linked Open Data Management Platform”, 07/25/2022 – 07/29/2022.

Following a hiatus in 2021, the international Digital Humanities Conference (DH2022)  took place again this year. The event, which ran from July 25th to 29th, 2022, was an opportunity to share research results and exchange knowledge among international research teams.

On behalf of the Provenance Lab, Fabio participated with a presentation entitled: “The Expert in the Loop: Developing a Provenance Linked Open Data Management Platform”. In the talk, Fabio presented for the first time the development of a ‘human-in-the-loop’ platform to extract, structure, and enrich provenance data from texts compiled by institutions. The ‘human-in-the-loop’ approach consists of providing a digital interface that allows a human (in our case, a provenance expert) to easily interact with artificial intelligence without any technical prerequisites. In this way, we can combine the quantitative benefits of automatic knowledge extraction via machine learning with the intellectual work of domain experts.

The abstract to the talk can be found in The Book of Abstracts of DH2022.

PROVENANCE LAB WORKSHOP: “Uncertainty and Subjectivity in Provenance Linked Open Data”, 06/29/2022 – 06/30/2022.

On June 29th and 30th, 2022, the Provenance Lab hosted a workshop on the role of subjectivity and uncertainty in provenance Linked Open Data. Researchers and practitioners engaged in modeling art history information through Linked Open Data were invited to participate in the event. Participants showcased real-world examples of the role of subjectivity and uncertainty in provenance records and discussed different approaches and solutions to addressing them.

How we structure the subjectivity and uncertainty of a statement in LOD is still very much an open question and challenge. This is the same for structuring provenance LOD. After all, the reconstruction of an artifact’s history is only ever achieved through the interpretation of historical sources and the formulation of hypotheses by scholars. Such hypotheses are subjective, however, and may contain degrees of uncertainty depending on the scholar’s confidence in them. It is thus crucial to translate subjectivity and uncertainty when structuring provenance in LOD, since false objectivity only prevents debate and multi-perspectivity. 

CONFERENCE PRESENTATION: “Probably Sold to Paalen, Possibly by Exchange”, 06/09/2022.

On June 9th and 10th, 2022, the University of Lausanne (UNIL) hosted the second edition of the Workshop on Computational Methods in the Humanities (COMHUM 2022). Fabio participated in the event with a presentation entitled “Probably Sold to Paalen, Possibly by Exchange: Vagueness, Incompleteness, Subjectivity, and Uncertainty in Digital Art Provenance”. Taking the example of the provenance of Picasso’s  ‘Head of a Woman’ (1927) now preserved at the MET, the talk focused on the challenges of, as well as modeling solutions for, VISU information (Vagueness, Incompleteness, Subjectivity, and Uncertainty). 

VISU information—from the Latin ‘de visu’ meaning “with your own eyes”—represents the effort and difficulty in reconstructing the provenance of a work of art. In digitizing and publishing art provenance as linked open data, Fabio argues, it is important that we include and model the complexity of VISU information. In so doing, we can avoid making historical records clear, complete, objective and certain, when they are simply not.

NEWSLETTER REPORT: “A New Approach to Provenance: The ‘Provenance Studies’ Program at Leuphana University Lüneburg”, 05/31/2022.

For the May 2022 newsletter of the Network of European Restitution Committees on Nazi-Looted Art, the Provenance Lab published a report on the outlook and activities of the ‘Provenance Studies’ program at Leuphana University Lüneburg.

In the report, the Lab observes that they are the first university research program producing Provenance LOD. “Such a transformation”, the report continues, “requires a shift in perspective: from provenance as a sequence of ownership periods to provenance as a sequence of events, which mark the beginning and end of consecutive ownership periods. That is, from an object-centered perspective to an event-centered approach.”

You can read the report in full here.

PANEL DISCUSSION: “Frenemies? – Provenance and Art Market Studies”, 02/17/2022.

On February 17th, 2022, Max chaired a panel discussion called “Frenemies? – Provenance and Art Market Studies”, hosted by the The International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA). Against the backdrop of digitalization of research and knowledge production, as well the increasing availability of art market information, the panel brought together three experts in provenance and art market research to discuss shared challenges: Executive Director of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., Elizabeth Gorayeb, head of The Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance at the Getty Research Institute, Sandra van Ginhoven, and the director of the Provenance Lab, Lynn.

TEACHING: “Old Knowledge, New Techniques – Understanding Museum Data”, Winter Semester 2021/2022.

In the winter semester 2021/2022, Lynn and Fabio co-taught the seminar “Old Knowledge, New Techniques – Understanding Museum Data” as part of the Media Cultures module of the Digital Media Bachelor, a joint degree of Leuphana University and Hamburg Media School. The teaching proposes an experimental hybrid learning of provenance studies with digital knowledge representation.

“In the brave new electronic world, few bastions of the humanities have withstood the march of technology more tenaciously than the art museum.”

—Everett Elin, 1969

With the first Executive Director of the Museum Computer Network, Everett Elin’s, observation in mind, students were provided with theoretical and practical insights to critically analyze the current digital practices of museums in publishing art provenance online. On the one hand, the course presented the traditional methodology of provenance studies, providing literature and case studies. On the other, with continuous cross-disciplinary references, students learned the techniques and logic necessary to publish structured and machine-readable knowledge. These notions thus allowed students to practice what they had learned, experiencing the potential and the limits of the multidisciplinary approach. Working in groups, the students produced new and unique application scenarios of digital art provenance. Below you will find some examples of their work.

Fundamentally, the seminar was an opportunity to experiment on an educational level with what is already taking place at the Provenance Lab. It was motivated by the belief that academic training with a hybrid background is essential for providing institutions with adequate museum professionals who can meet digital challenges head-on.

AUTHORS: Nele Husen, Melanie Neuer, Hannah Prasuhn and Luise Pohlmann.

CONCEPT: “On a large screen in the museum there is a map of the world and a timeline, on which colourful dots represent different artworks. On Tablets or smartphone visitors can choose paintings, events and people they would like to learn more about.”

AUTHORS: Lelia van Hees, Isobel Hingston, Viktoria Dorothea Kamps and Nemanja Pulja.

CONCEPT: “Provenance data is displayed on a map paired with timestamps, making visible the space and time dimensions of a painting, as well as its possible network dimensions. This map is both accessible on the museum website and by way of a QR code in the museum itself .”

AUTHORS: Rebekka Skjørestad Halter, Marek Jakob Gollan, Charlotte Albert and Felizitas Klara Sophie Bader.

CONCEPT: “An interactive exhibition game in which school children go on a journey through time and space to track down a painting, collecting provenance data along the way. A trained educator guides them through the game, filling in any gaps and providing further context.”

CONFERENCE PANEL: “Digital Provenance and the Art Market”, 01/22/2022.

On January 22nd, 2022, on a panel called ‘Art Market, Art Trade, Cultural Property Smuggling’, Lynn talked to her colleague Meike Hopp about digital art market and provenance research at the annual conference ‘Collections – Provenance – Cultural Heritage 6.0’, hosted by the Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg. This year, the focus of the conference was expanded to include aspects of digital collection. Among other things, Lynn and Meike discussed historical art market realities, such as joint businesses, the role of agents versus owners on the auction market and the challenge of recording the complexities of provenance research in a structured way. This is especially difficult, they concluded, when you want to include all the nuances and uncertainties.

CONFERENCE PAPER: “Modern Migrants – Provenance Studies at Leuphana”, 11/19/2021.

From November 17-19th, 2021, Fabio participated in the Second Culture Community Plenary of the NFDI4 Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage. In his talk “Modern Migrants – Provenance Studies at Leuphana”, Fabio presented the project Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums at Leuphana University Lüneburg, which aims to digitally collect, structure and, ultimately, analyze data on modern paintings from Europe in US museum collections, with the view to generating knowledge about art markets, the circulation of artworks, and other networked aspects of art history. Using the provenance of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Harlequin’ (1915) as an example, Fabio’s presentation focused on the challenges of extracting knowledge from provenance texts, as well as the possibilities and limitations of natural language processing.

CONFERENCE PAPER: “Towards an Emancipated Provenance Research”, 04/20/2021.

On April 20th, 2021, Lynn delivered a closing remark at the annual conference of the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V., which, this year, went by the title “Searching for clues and coming to terms with the past – the state of provenance research in Hamburg”. Lynn’s talk, “Towards an Emancipated Provenance Research”, argued that provenance research is, fundamentally, not a temporary but a long-term project, and, if given time, will be able to “unfold its scientific and memory-culture potential, especially in cultural heritage institutions and at universities”.

PUBLICATION: “Provenance Research in Museums: The Long Run”, 12/03/2020.

On December 3rd, 2020, Arthur Tompkins’ released his reference handbook ‘Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems‘ co-published with Lund Humphries, London, and the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). Together with Iris Schmeisser, Lynn co-authored an article in the handbook called “Provenance Research in Museums: The Long Run”.

“To illustrate the shift from ‘traditional’ art-historical to interdisciplinary Nazi-era provenance research and its challenges”, the article centres upon the complex history of a Swiss landscape painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, which, over the course of many years, and multiple re-visits to its provenance, changed both names and date. In the conclusion to their article, Lynn and Iris thus argue that provenance research in museums is not only “case by case”, but also “as much about history as it is about historicity”.