Works made from short-life materials used by modern and contemporary artists increasingly pose problems and challenges for those who handle or possess works: collectors, estates and foundations, conservators and restorers, curators and consignees, storers and transporters; and for those who have a legal and business interest in such works: would-be donees and inheritors, purchasers, sponsors and patrons, investors and insurers. Are such concerns shared by contemporary artists?

'Chris Burden: Extreme Measures' opened at the New Museum in New York last month where it runs until January 2014. The show is described as 'an expansive presentation of Chris Burden's work that marks the first New York survey of the artist and his first major exhibition in the US in over 25 years'. Burden is a US-based artist well known for his performances, sculptures and installations. This exhibition includes A Tale of Two Cities, 1981: a major installation work that Burden had recently resolved to destroy because its material components had badly degraded and he considered it unfit for public exposition.

The work reflects Burden's career-long interest in war toys, bullets, model buildings and antique soldiers. In this work, such bought and found items (5,000 or so from the US, Europe and Japan) are arranged on a large mound of sand and rock, surrounded by a jungle of houseplants. Metaphorically representing two 25th-century warring city-states, the work occupies around 1,200sqft, is 12ft high and weighs 20t. It is owned by the Orange County Museum of Art in California, whose conservators (together with the New Museum) proposed to Burden a major refurbishment of the work so that it could be included in the retrospective. Initially sceptical as to whether the refurbishment could be done effectively and in time for the New York show, Burden allowed a small part of the work to be tackled. 'Once he saw the first mock-up, it was like a...