NORDISK MU SE OLOGI 1999•2, S. 3 1-44

You CAN BE A MUSEUM OR YOU CAN BE MODERN, BUT YOU CAN'T BE BOTH

(GERTRUDE STEIN)

Chris Dercon

In 1974 David Rubin, the then director ofthe Museum ofModern Art in New York, admitted in an interview that «The Museum concept is not infinitely expandable». He ascribed this to the rupture between the traditional aesthetic categories ofpainting and sculpture and the earthworks and conceptual art that were all the rage in those days. According to Rubin, this latter group called for an entirely different museum environ­ ment and, he added, perhaps a different public too. In saying: «The Museum concept is not infinitely expandable», Rubin was, in my opinion, implicitly referring to the pro­ blem ofthe museum as a public institution.

In 1977, when the Centre Pompidou first slightest inkling that twenty years later the opened its doors, the sociologist Pierre umpteenth plan to renovate and expand Bourdieu prophesied that the desacraliza­ his museum would spark off a discussion tion of various items of cultural signifi­ which by MOMA standards was quite cance in a desacralized environment with unusual. Video artist Bill Viola suggested various cultural functions could place the the metaphor for MOMA's future renova­ museum in the position of the public tion, refurbishment and reorganization: an institution par excellence. Not only would Internet Website «where you can move the traditional aesthetic categories be eli­ vertically and laterally instantaneously minated, he said, but the perverted image across time and space». Not only did the of cultural consumption would also take a slogan «these collections tell the story of turn for the better. The Centre Pompidou modern art» come under attack, but increa­ too, envisaged 'a different public'; it did sing the visibility of the 'contemporary' not formulate the concept as a problem, should be at the core of the new design, however, but as a solution to the essential stressing the need for a more experimental problem, the problem of the museum. space. The new MOMA was going to be a In 1974 Rubin could not have had the heterotopic museum, a new model with CHRIS DERCON

32 lots of unprogrammed space. We know by But for MOMA which has a memorable now that this can only mean lots of space track record in the' field of photography, for disparate things labelled as visual cul­ cinema and video, this foregrounding of ture, under the guise of photography, the visual virtuality of contemporary videography, cinematography and, of lots media and the attention to cultural multi­ of, to use the trendy word, info-aesthetics. plicity on a global basis, to name two of In short, a melange of practices which the most pregnant characteristics of recent negate the displays and facilities of the art, is something that is hard to digest. As conventional museum. a result MOMA's university founded a

va:gt pa publikums voksende behov for at have mulighed for at kunne tilbringe en mere sammen­ Chris Dercon ha:ngende rid pa museet. Etableringen af museums­ - en introduction burik og museumsrestaurant blev saledes vigtige aktiver, som var med ti! at fastholde publikum Vibeke Petersen inden for museets omrade. Museum of Modern Art har gennem arene fun­ Chris Dercon har gennem mange ar Vt£ret bidragyder geret som model for de mange nyetablerede museer til europt£iske kunsttidsskrifter, hvor han har udovet for moderne kunst over hele verden. en skarp kritik afsamtidsk11nsten og dens position. Museets samlinger afspejler i dag de mange for­ Chris Dercon er idag direktorfor M11se11m Boijmans skellige medier, som kunstnerne arbejder i, og har i Van Be1mi11ge11 i Rotterdam. For han kom til 11111seet, allerh0jeste grad va:ret med ti! at skabe forsraelsen var han i 1980'eme leder af udstillingsstedet Witte de for de flydende gra:nser mellem kunst, kunstindus­ With Ligeledes i Rotterdam, der er et sted for den tri og indusrrielr design. eksperimentelle samtidskunst. Centre Pompidou i Paris er en type kunst- og I nt£rvt£re11de artikel er Chris Dercons t£rinde at pape­ kulrurinstitution, som sa dagens lys i 1970' erne. ge det problematiske forhold, der gor sig gt£/dende Der blev forst og fremmest karakteriseret som et omkring det etablerede k11nstm11se11m og samtids­ kulturhus, hvor der blandt institutionens mange k11nst11emes aktiviteter. Han sammenholder Mweum aktiviteter og rilbud ti! publikum ogsa fandtes en ofModem Art, New York, med Centre Pompidou, moderne kunstsamling. Kulturhusets identitet la i Paris og M11se11m Boijmans Van Beuningen for der at alle typer af aktivi teter blev ligestillet med kunst­ igennem at papege hvilke problematikker, der Ligger i samlingen. Tilbuddet ti! publikum om bade fordy­ etableri11ge11 afsadanne k1111sti11stitutio11e1; og det sta­ belse og adspredelse i den samme institution blev dig mere flydende kunstbegreb. en langt mere sammenha:ngende del. Det var et

constituent school in the recent merger was very much a side issue, if not an illusi­ 33 with the small, cutting edge P.S. l in Long on. The heterogeneity of activities at the Island City, Queens which is an entirely Pompidou had failed to overturn the hie­ different museum environment with a dif­ rarchy of the proffered items of cultural ferent public. Just as Rubin had predicted. significance. The public was the same In turn, and also twenty years later, public as anywhere else - aficionados of Bourdieu and other adherents of the contemporary art rubbing shoulders with Centre Pompidou were forced to realize library users. However, their numbers had that the democratization of high culture multiplied to such an extent as to impede the development of the activities themsel­ da:kker ligesom Museum of Modern Art ogsa kunst­ ves. The Pompidou's recent renovation handva:rk og industrielt design. and expansion plans bear witness to a far Diskussionen om hvor kunst- og kulturinstitutio­ greater compartmentalization and depart­ nen saledes beva:ger sig hen og om denne model kan mentalization than previously, and in the udvides i det uendelige er absolur til diskussion. Nar near future activities will be organized in Chris Dercon rager udgangspunkt i David Rubins various venues in the city. The glass front udsagn fra 1974, om at kunstmuseet ikke kan udvi­ which formerly invited exchange was tur­ des i det uendelige, er det nerop udfra der synspunkt, ned into an opaque facade behind which at forholdet mellem samtidskunsten og den a:ldre art and culture are disseminated. kunst ikke n0dvendigvis er sa indlysende et forhold, Taking MOMA and the Pompidou as som vi ofte gerne vii tro. Kunstnernes aktiviteter, our two points of reference, it is interes­ som i dag er afledt af en ganske anden kunstpraksis ting to examine the situation at the end tidligere, sa:tter sp0rgsmal ved, hvorledes vi i vor Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum during egen samtid definerer et kunstnerisk udtryk. the same period, roughly from 1978 to Definitionen pa et traditionelt va:rkbegreb er ikke 1996. In the seventies Rotterdam's arts nok i dag. Hvad g0r vi med de kunstneriske aktivite­ policy focused chiefly on linking welfare ter, som ikke drejer sig om at forholde sig til det and culture. In its simplest form the cul­ gammelkendce kunstobjekc? Er samtidens moderne turally relativistic message of the postwar kunscmuseer overhovedet gearec cil at rumme sadan­ social sciences penetrated the formerly ne aktivi tecer, der langc mere er knyccet cil socio­ closed circles of politicians, policy-makers antropologiske unders0gelser? Kunstnerne holder sig and other regulators of culture. Such was ikke cilbage for at udvide deres erfaringsrum. De er also the case in Rotterdam. The blevec et nomadefolk, der via cyberspace, uvirkeligt Bildungsideal envisaged by Wilhelm von og virkeligc beva:ger sig ud i rummer. Humboldt at the end of the eighteenth Chris Dercons a:rinde er, at bade kunsc- og kulcur­ century - when high culture was highly institutionerne og kunscnerne har en ansvarlighed rated, so highly that life itself was seen as over for offenrligheden. Om vi kan lide dee eller ej, one long process of education - was repla­ er alle involverede parter midr cil at g0re sig overve­ ced by a so-called democratic view of cul­ jelser over, hvilke va:rdivurderinger vi paforer kun­ ture. This no longer demanded democra­ sten, hvorledes vi skaber nye a:scetiske kriterier og tic access to high culture, for in terms of dermed er med til at a:ndre vore kulturinsticutioner. the new creed everything was culture and all forms of culture were equal. CHRI S DER C ON

34 Director Wim Beeren staved off the «good conditions» and a «good context». imminent threat of a policy fully attuned It was not long before the work of art's to a uniform total package for conveying autonomy was serving to gloss over the culture. In his opinion the museum's pre­ museum's loss of .... autonomy. At the sentation policy should strive to attain a same time the Boijmans Van Beuningen level at which everyone would be able to Museum had embarked on an aggressive appreciate the qualitatively exceptional businesslike course by stressing the impor­ expression of the work of art. He called the tance of the museum restaurant and a art works of Beuys, De Maria, Nauman museum shop. It was duly decided to enlar­ and Serra and others authentic, personal ge these facilities and relocate them on the messages, using autonomy as strategy and street side of the new wing. The public was as an emancipatory model. The poured now ushered into the museum past com­ concrete floor in the first-floor galleries of mercial enterprises. At the same time, the new wing was soon the accepted aes­ sponsors became an important factor in thetic setting for this new approach. boosting the museum's financial capacity. In the eighties, Rotterdam arts policy All this coincided with what Crouwel made an about-turn. Instead of the social called «a shift of interest on the part of the and educational attention which had been public away from permanent displays paid to the art sector up to then, a more towards exhibitions», to which the businesslike approach was now called for. museum responded with a full programme Art policy came to be increasingly regarded of temporary presentations both large and as an instrument that would give the city a small. The various scholarly departments new elan and upgrade its image. The eigh­ responsible for the growing number of ties saw the. gradual emergence of middle­ exhibitions, aided by specific budgeting of-the-road culture. Cultural legislation was and carrying concomitant budget respon­ supposed to blindfold itself, meaning that a sibility, began to function more indepen­ regatta had about the same chance of being dently. Acquisition and presentation poli­ subsidized as museums had. cy was split up into several parts. In his policy note of 1988, director Directorial deliberation still took place, Wim Crouwel expressed his concern that but no longer in Beeren's manner. Boij­ mans became a «multi-faceted» museum, in this new situation (and in view of the general not only in its programme but also in its phenomenon of dwindling government support), organization. The Bildungsideal was deli­ the maintenance and improvement of quality and berately and progressively discarded: in the continuity of the museum's task were expected the wake of the politicians and policy­ to require a more businesslike approach. makers, the museum itself now adopted a pluralistic, pragmatic outlook on culture. In addition, the work of art's autonomy Guest curators such as Harald Szeeman, was emphasized more strongly than under Peter Greenaway and Robert Wilson were Beeren, the chief means for conveying invited to illustrate that pluralism, under artistic values and insights for designer the guise of 'A Historische Klange'. Crouwel and his staff now were to create A variety of ambient factors began to You CAN BE A MUSEUM OR YOU CAN BE MODERN, ...

play a part in the nineties. At the begin­ These last remarks make it immediately 35 ning of the decade a few institutes of a clear that the Boijmans Van Beuningen quite different nature established themsel­ Museum was gradually being forced into a ves in the direct vicinity of the Boijmans competitive relationship with neighbou­ Van Beuningen Museum: the Witte de ring institutes - the Kunsthal, for exam­ With experimental centre for contempora­ ple. The original idea had been to build a ry art, the Kunsthal, the Netherlands Kunsthal in Rotterdam so as to divert hor­ Institute of Photography and the V2 expe­ des of blockbuster visitors away from the rimental centre for new media. As well as Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum. The enriching the palette, they also held up a Kunsthal was also seen as a solution to the mirror to the Boijmans Van Beuningen problem of the space required for such Museum. What really happened, though, exhibitions. However, things turned out was that the new institutes were mirrored differently than expected when the in the bastion of the museum. Kunsthal decided, for budgetary reasons, The Boijmans Van Beuningen Muse­ ro pursue an independent course. um's visitors were the subject of three It was in this context that the municipal reports published by Erasmus University council forced the Kunsthal and the in the spring of 1995. The researchers Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum to col­ were struck by the fact that there was no laborate in what came to be an unhappy significant rise in numbers between 1988 partnership. Today the two institutes go and 1995, despite the growing number of their separate ways. 'Treasures of the Tsar' exhibitions. In one of the reports we read at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum the following recommendation: demonstrated yet again the financial bene­ fits of the blockbuster exhibition for a The Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum should conventional museum, whereas the translate the common points of departure for com­ Kunsthal learned from its exhibition of munication, 'learning/reaching', 'life-enriching' and Pop Art that such presentations are unable 'occupying the mind', into a corresponding messa­ to generate a large public for months on ge. By the same token, the entire 'Boijmans Van end. The Kunsthal has since refused to Beuningen Museum' should be brought to people's programme an exhibition of contemporary attention. Furthermore, the advantage of this kind sculpture from the Boijmans Van Beun­ of message is that it permits emphasis to be placed ingen Museum's collection on the grounds systematically on the permanent collections. The that it «would not attract enough visitors». universa lly admired 'multi-faceted' quality of its The upshot of all this is that the educa­ collections enables the 'indivisible' Boijmans Van tional aspect has been more or less aban­ Beuningen Museum to offer variation and more doned in and around the Boijmans Van completeness than other museums m the Beuningen Museum. Numerical suprema­ Netherlands and Rotterdam. Emphasizing this will cy was the message. Instead of propaga­ prevent a section of the Boijmans Van Beuningen ting a daring, rhetorical vision of culture, Museum's visitors from transferring their allegiance the museum was expected to keep in step to other institutes which might cater better to their with the themeless uniformity of media cultural desi res. information. CHRI S D E R C ON

36 In 1994 the significance of the Kunsthal te it, but at the same time everybody ought was the subject of a political debate which to want to conquer it, and be able to do so. prompted the Rotterdam councillor for Is the museum then a showcase for art his­ cultural affairs to invite the Museum tory, or is it a centre for visual culture? Is Boijmans Van Beuningen to consider the museum a buffer against contemporary plans to extend its complex to a size that culture, or a participant in it? would do justice to the collections and By now it has become clear that progres­ programme of activities. The museum we sive as well as more conservative circles are had in mind was first and foremost one in asking the same questions and coming up which a distinction would be made betwe­ quite vehemently with the same answers. en «hordes of visitors» and «a very large So vehemently, indeed, that representati­ number of individual visitors». And an ves of both the left and right quite often architecture in which improved facilities dismiss the rise and fall of the avant garde for that kind of public would receive the as a historical mistake. Good riddance to same attention as the arrangement of the it, they say! But let us not forget that the works of art. rise and fall of the avant garde merely Our idea was to work from the inside reflect the fundamental change in the rela­ towards the outside, from Brueghel's tionship between art and society, a change Tower of Babel via Richard Serra's Waxing brought about by admitting the public Arcs towards a big new library which into institutes of art. Prior to the period would be the figurehead of the new during which art became integrated into Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum. social life, there had never been a public Instead of setting our sights on a new and for art and hence not for contemporary spectacular architecture, we wanted the art either. From the historical point of redesigned building to be a process, a lear­ view, the art public was a gradual pheno­ ning process, an instrument which in the menon which has grown explosively since hands of museum staff and of external 1960. This is something we have to live policy-makers would generate change. with. Not even geniuses like Markus Only then would our renovation and Li.ipertz can reverse the process! expansion answer the question about what There is something else: the layman - we actually expected of that multi-faceted, and not only the layman - makes little or indivisible museum. no distinction between the many forms of On the eve of a new millennium this is art production (even if we disregard the a pressing issue, for what will be the place flawed visual and linguistic competence of and significance of a museum such as the most recent art) and the general visual Boijmans, and indeed of any other culture that pervades our immediate sur­ museum, in the twenty-first century? In roundings. Much art and many consumer today's culture, moreover, in which the goods are based on the same logic and boundary between what are usually refer­ construction of visual thinking. The red to as low and high cultures becomes museum, then, is no longer an a priori blurred, it is high culture that is principally environment. Or is the museum, as Boris an unoccupied area. Noone can appropria- Groys puts it, 'the only guarantee for You CAN BE A MU S EUM OR YOU CA N BE MODERN, ...

making the difference'? A buffer which a representation machine. How can we 37 generates meaning for otherwise meaning­ then separate care for the work of art from less objects? care for the public? Moreover, we have come to realise that In addition to all this, we must take into all the things to be found in the growing account entirely new developments, such number of museums are merely fragments, as the rise of hypermedia, and the boom a small selection from a much larger whole. in photography and cinematography, Every item in a museum space has become which in my view constitute a highly sig­ a specimen, a piece of evidence. This is tur­ nificant aspect of the question of a muse­ ning the real and imaginary space of the um's relationship with the public. Against museum into almost a virtual space for the background of such new develop­ both the works of art and the public. ments, one can only hope that this ques­ One might even go so far as to say that tion will acquire greater topicality. Given today the museum is partly a representa­ collaborative projects between artists in tion model in itself. A direct consequence different fields, the expansion of media of this is today's spectacular, and above all and new technologies, as well as the desire photogenic museum architecture. In most of many artists and curators alike, to crea­ museums - and this goes for museums of te utilitarian products which can exist in new and old art alike - the temporal envi­ the real world and to participate in a ronment is gradually being abandoned in much wider visual debate, there should be favour of architectural signals which prio­ at least the possibility of investigating a ritize an intense experience of the space. new museum model. The role of the The museum and its objects are being cast public is at the core of such an investiga­ further and further adrift from history, tion. Do we find these and other concerns lost in an over-aestheticized space, not to reflected in recent designs and extension mention the magnificent spaces envisaged schemes for museums of art? Hardly. by artists, curators, politicians and busi­ The outcome of the competition for the nessmen when they turn their thoughts to New Museum of Modern Art in New a museum. Bilbao's Guggenheim, however York, let alone the recent merger with strong Gehry's vernacular architecture P.S.1, is typical of the status quo. Instead may be, is based on similar misunderstan­ of picking truly innovative schemes, with dings, for instance the misunderstanding a direct impact on the museum activities that the confrontation of internationalism themselves, such as the ones proposed by (read Americanism) and public relations, architects Rem Koolhaas or Bernard with a local dynamic creates a rich cultu­ Tschumi, the museum's powerful board ral fabric expressed through the creation decided to go for a safe bet with the of a new museum. modest package-like design of Yoshio To sum up: the museum's public accessi­ Taniguchi. New curatorial ideas, debated bility is responsible for the fact that it is so heatedly within the ranks of the no longer something «really special». Museum of Modern Art, allowing out­ Accessibility has also played a part in tur­ siders to have their say as well, seem sud­ ning the mfseum into a virtual space and denly to be gone with the wind. The text- CHRI S DER C O N

38 book «Imagining the Future of the Sao Paulo, is indeed a question, while the Modern of Modern Art», prepared by the buildings clearly signal their position of Research and Scholarly Publications wanting to be a museum (or something Program of MOMA, published on the else: a monument or a public square). occasion of the design-competition, will But where are the clients who dare to be an important source book for anyone commission those architects to design or trying to write or rewrite the history of to extend their museums? The design the museum. However, it is a book and Herzog & Demeuron propose for the new not a museum. Tate Gallery on the South Bank in One might say that popular «alternative London, does not go beyond the pivotal museum models» such as the Dia Center pioneering scheme and hierarchy of space for the Arts in New York or the Museum both above and below ground which for Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, praise­ Renzo Piano initiated for the Centre worthy as they may be, are by now reflec­ Pompidou. Moreover, their clients and ting ideas of the past rather than the futu­ others base their greater sense of a living re . Those institutions have clearly chosen museum, including praiseworthy initia­ an approach where the role of the art and tives for a greater audience involvement, the artist is absolutely central. There is a in principle on methods employed by firm belief, reflected both in the architec­ exemplary international exhibitions over ture and the activities of these museums, the past ten years. An excellent or chal­ that what is good for the artist might also lenging exhibition model is not the same be good for the public. This is no longer a as a truly innovative institutional strategy. workable strategy. The investigation of new, institutional The current interest of important archi­ models is needed to further develop the tects and other cultural figures for trans­ meaning of the museum. Or is the parency and mobility should indeed also museum concept only expandable on a be applied to museum programs and limited scale? architecture. Good examples do exist. First there was the encyclopaedia with Take for instance Libeskind's exciting rows of pictures on a white wall, dedicated Jewish Museum in Berlin or the brilliant to, or legitimized by, chronology and/or Museum for Sculpture/Public Square in style; now, however, the public suddenly Sao Paulo by Paulo Mendes da Rocha. becomes aware of a comprehensive museo­ Both buildings, to paraphrase Andrew graphic project without a real museum Benjamin in Present Hope: Philosophy, environment. An archive in which everyo­ Architecture, Judaism question display whi­ ne and everything relies on the latest le allowing for display. Benjamin reminds information techniques whose common us that Libeskind's building: «guards the feature is that they are image-text systems. question of representation, refusing its The digital modality and especially the finality and thus necessitating its retention binary oppositions on which the database as a problem to be investigated, while allo­ is founded are already responsible for the wing at the same time for presentations». recent phenomenon that art is hiding What has been built, both in Berlin and behind its antithesis: behind a kind of Yo u CAN BE A MUSEUM OR YOU CAN B E MODERN, . . •

«anthropomorphic fetishism». One of the great challenges issued by all 39 In his brilliant essay The Archive this, is indeed the notion of reading, of Without the Museum the American author the field of tension generated between Hal Foster, referring to a recent cover of image and text, between looking and rea­ the magazine Art Forum, lists a few exam­ ding. ples of this phenomenon: O.J. Simpson, People's avid interest in the photo-book Courtney Love, Broadway Boogie Woogie, provides ample evidence. The numerous Matthew Barney, Prada, Christian de exhibitions devoted to photo artists seem Portzanparc's architecture, Larry Clark, to be pilots or advertising campaigns for Hugh Grant, Georg Baselitz, Gilbert & some publication or other - they all look George, Calvin Klein, etc., etc. And in­ practically alike - of their works, the illu­ deed, it does not seem all that absurd to strations transcending the character of the maintain that the comparisons which steal reproduction. The exhibitions and the their way, cloaked in actuality, into con­ exhibits call to mind enlargements and temporary art shows and publications, are reproductions of the objects in the book. a consequence of the virtual space occupi­ The wheel has come full circle, for are not ed not only metaphorically but also lite­ the discipline of art history and in a sense rally by the museum: film and art, archi­ the museum, too, photography's children? tecture and art, fashion and art. Again, the The museum indeed presents itself as a question of greater public access and photographic-cinematographic space. public interest in forms of cultural expres­ Current interest in photography and cine­ sion figures importantly here. I venture to matography, characteristic of many maintain, however, that this no longer museums and the problems they are expe­ qualifies as a warm gesture towards the riencing, highlights the issue of whether public, but that the public itself is clai­ we still know what the museum is. I there­ ming its - interactive - rights and is fore regard the debate on the role of pho­ addressing the museum directly. tography and cinematography in the Be that as it may, it all goes to show that museum as crucial for all deliberations it is not only the museum that divides and about the museum's future and its rela­ conquers, displays and preserves. The tions with the public. museum has become just one of many If we are to believe Walter Benjamin, environments, part of a much bigger photography is supposed to have put paid museographic project being realised in to the exhibition effect. Photographs, other places too, from Scalo Verlag to Benjamin said, should have stayed where Phaidon Press. By this token the new they came from: books, magazines, post­ MOMA's slogan speaks volumes: ers, archives. Today we know that things have turned out differently. Perhaps T he primary reading of the collection will be inter­ Benjamin had forgotten or underestima­ rupted at multiple points by alternative readings or ted the fact that the mechanical reprodu­ opportunities to delve in greater depth into the cibility of the work of art kept pace with work of a given artist, period or iss ue. the duplication of the exhibition effect or, rather, with the curious duplication of the CHRIS D E R C ON

40 exhibition institute par excellence, the photographs by the American conceptual museum. Photography was not only artist Chris Williams awakened memories reproducible; it also merited exhibition of Renger-Patsch, pioneer of New and was therefore subject to museum law. Photography, and evoked the photogra­ There are plenty of examples: take the his­ phic distance of Neue Sachlichkeit (New tory of MOMA and photography's role in Objectivity) once again. But the ontologi­ that history. How should photography be cal distinction between photography and displayed, and more importantly, what painting, the difference between taking photography? Still confusion abounds. pictures and making pictures, was then We need not search very far afield for an nullified for the photographs were display­ example of this. In the Boijmans Van ed on large, white walls as if they were Beuningen Museum's exhibition Aim Left, precious paintings. Or was this almost meant to evoke the artistic climate in theatrical presentation a harbinger of the Rotterdam in the 1930s, photographs by institutionalisation of photography, of its Paul Schuitema, Piet Zwart and Wally literal and metaphorical placement/mis­ Elenbaas were «exposed» amidst objects placement in the museum? and examples of typography, designed and And what of the exhibition spaces whe­ made by the same artists and kindred spi­ rein dozens of projected images and many rits. This exhibition effect, this recon­ more info pixels, accompanied by oceanic struction, was to no mean extent respon­ like ambient music or rapid techno beats, sible for preserving the radical quality of consume the viewer's time-log, to such a the photographs and their continued sta­ point that some museums consider han­ tus as

to be a universal museum. Such a space acquire from what is out there. Indeed, 41 has to reflect both day and night, so there certain 'things' are m1ssrng in our need to be dark rooms in a museum. museum galleries and storerooms. For the Maybe we'll have to think of the solar and majority of museum people the verdict «it the lunar departments of the museum». does not fit in our collection» still tends to I'm curious to know if Wall will prove to cover the admission «we don't know how be right. to coop with the stuff». Such an attitude, In any case, we'll soon have to come up adopted by many museum curators and with a museum-architecture which is directors, is indeed tantamount to deny­ time-based, preferably defined by indivi­ ing and excluding much of the art being dual time rather than collective time. produced today. Given recent excellent examples of infor­ What would it mean to the museum mation-architecture, think for instance of and especially to the public if the term new scientific museums, new libraries or 'easy to preserve' were replaced by 'hard to archives, such a new museum typology I reconstruct', as has been the case for hund­ guess must be realisable. Yet, none of this reds of years in theatres, opera houses and has anything to do with the rupture of concert halls? The first presentation I traditional esthetical categories or criteria, initiated as director of the museum as Rubin feared. It does however concern Boijmans Van Beuningen was the film the question of a museum's intention in installation Four Rotating Walls by Bruce collecting, displaying and keeping works Nauman, a work the Boijmans acquired in of art in general. Omne bonum est diffusi­ 1970, but had failed to preserve and to vum sui: everything good finds its own show since. So the premiere and restorati­ place. But what happens when these con­ on of Nauman's pioneering media work sequences are no longer effective? occurred only in 1996. Indeed, serious discussions about play and replay, and Museums are indeed confronted with hence about an archive's status and acces­ another phenomenon which has far reach­ sibility, are rarely heard in museum circles. ing consequences for their exhibition and Restoration remains a technical term wit­ collection policies. Much of the stuff hout ideological content or context. nowadays labelled as art, is not suitable Many art museums have realised by now for selection, acquisition, preservation and that large illuminated photo boxes, slide storage in a museum, at least not in the projections which fade in and out, film conventional ways. This development has projections running in loops, multiple made itself felt since the early sixties and, video projections on automatic repeat, or going by Rubin's remark «the Museum interactive computers linked to the concept is not infinitely expandable», is Internet, have liberated their exhibition now rampant. The effect on the legitima­ spaces from the illusion of the static cy of our collections is gradually beco­ world. Or should we say they have sud­ ming apparent, at least if we assume that denly come to realise that there are static the foremost legitimisation of a collection images? Because of new applications for is to continue to collect, to continue to photography, cinema and video, we can CHR IS DER C O N

42 now really reflect in our museums on a digital logic that melts down the logic of what stillness is. From Jeff Wall's point of word and image, as the computer melted view, the stillness of still pictures has down the photo camera and the film pro­ become very different, otherwise, so he jector. As Hal Foster speculated, at the states, one cannot explain the current end of the 20th century art cannot be massive fascination for still photography. purified any further, not only in terms of In addition, it is the cinema which libera­ the optical, but also in terms of the infor­ ted photography from the rather high­ mational, due to new developments in brow orthodox theories of photography photography and cinematography. That and their relation to painting. is, art cannot be saved any more from its Photography has renewed itself as an art corrupt double: mass culture. form through the reflection of, the medi­ For artists like Hans Haacke, Daniel ation of, as an explanation of ... cinema­ Buren, John Knight or even David tography. Hammons the museum and its public And there is something else. Just as the were and still are something to conquer term 'still life' only came into being at a and to change. For a much younger gene­ moment in history when photography was ration of artists, curators and critics alike, introduced - before that moment one the museum is just one of the many places spoke about 'kitchens' or 'banquets' - , art where art can be shown. Its public is taken history relied heavily on techniques of for granted. photographical reproduction to attract a We often tend to forget that this deve­ wide range of objects into a system of sty­ lopment is only possible because those le. What then might, as Hal Foster provo­ who practise 'new ways of making art' catively asked, a digital reordering or digi­ have capital available to them other than tal reproduction underwrite? Art as image­ the capital of the museum, the gallery or texts, as info-pixels? An archive without the collector. The generosity of this new the museum? Art museums have involun­ capital has created a new kind of institu­ tarily liberated themselves from the static tionalization. Within those, so to speak, world, now they are also forced to get rid new institutions, the conventional values of the world of the image itself. If move­ of the museum or the gallery, such as au­ ment was the project of the 20th century, thenticity and criticality, return mainly as there might be a next project. That pro­ properties of the site - the choice of a par­ ject has to be growth, the capacity for an ticular neighbourhood, building or other organism to incorporate, which is where architectural infrastructure - engaged by intellectual gurus such as Rem Koolhaas the artist. and Bruce Mau think cinema and other Such displacements are easily marke­ cultural expressions in their purest sense table - comparisons with the worlds of as an ordering of temporal events, will be fashion, design and of course architecture left behind. immediately suggest themselves - as well The moral of this is simple: the primacy as relatively controllable by and through of the visual in visual culture may only be social and political bodies. Moreover, the apparent. Its new ordering is governed by object of contestation remains, the institu- You C AN BE A MU SE UM OR Y O U CAN BE MODERN , . . .

tion of autonomous art and its thousands lessness which characterizes so much 43 of objects or fragments of objects. This recent contemporary art are indeed mani­ fact makes 'new practitioners' - who are fold. Not only does the question of value often heard publicly stating that one needs judgement become much less important 'to connect' - Robin Hoods in the eyes of than ever before, there is also the naive many, not least those who are unaware of belief that everything good will find its the efforts of, say, the artists mentioned own place. And add to these the fact that above. many art practitioners aspire to give their There is little that is new about 'new work the status of field work, drawing ways of practising art', in the sense of from the start on the basic principles of denying the significance of established sociology and anthropology, and we will institutions, for the museum of (modern) end up in the realm of knowledge which art was born precisely when art was no has hitherto been the province of the soci­ longer possible. And as Hal Foster has al sciences. pointed out, most of the basic assumption There is nothing basically wrong with of the old productionist model as well as such rivalry, if only there is some evalua­ of the legitimation of the avant-garde per­ tion at work. Instead, though, we are con­ sists. What is really new is that art has fronted with an endless archive of highly recently begun to look for a global style unverifiable observations and theories and discursive form. And it is photograp­ which hopefully 'might find their own hy and cinema in particular which functi­ place'. But things go really wrong when on before the other arts as real global the practice stays unnoticed or is only media. Photography and cinema do not accessible for a select audience. Will this seem to be limited by different cultural lead to a situation where visual art will no characteristics and art was looking for longer be able to shape its own cultural that. Furthermore, it is now generally space, thereby invoking not only a pseu­ agreed that so-called new art practices, dology of social sciences but a poor imita­ such as for instance 'hyper public art' tion of other art disciplines as well? Is that interventions, observations, info aesthe­ what we want to achieve? tics, etc. in the urban realism - are Of course, it is absolutely true that thought to offer a 'relief', which the auto­ many artists are using 'new ways of nomous art objects in the museum can making art', to make truly innovative and not. invaluable critical works. But I remain As a result, visual art is slowly but stea­ sceptical when artists turn their backs on dily vanishing into an expanded field of what Thierry de Duve has described as an culture and of other artistic disciplines. aesthetic history of an institutions. This The linguistic and visual complexity and not only entails constant comparison and competence of the art object can only be evaluation, but also and primarily the diluted by such an 'enthusiastic cultural faculty of judging. This right to cast one's anthropology of modernity'. vote is not just one of the basic assump­ The troubles with the new flexibility, tions of our democracies, but of our unrestricted curiosity and apparent self- museum as well. CHRIS DERCON

44 All those who practice new ways of Architecture, Judaism, Routledge, London, 1997 making art', for instance outside the Stefaan Decostere, Chris Dercon, John Wyver, 'The museum, must allow for situations where­ New Museum', in: Mediamatic, vol. 3#4, summer by many people should be able to put 1997 themselves in a position in which they can Chris Dercon, Am I Now Getting Sentimental?, say: this is a significant part, move or step Parkett 33, 1992 in our culture. That responsibility must be Chris Dercon, Business As Usual, Arch is no. I 0, 1998 given back to the average viewer, which Hal Foster, 'The Artist as Ethnographer?', in Global can never mean just a client, a given com­ Visions. Towards a new intemationalism in the visu­ munity or a select audience. So my call - al arts, London (Kala Press), 1994 how idealistic this may sound - is a call to Hal Foster, The Archive Without the Museum, reintroduce the right and the capacity to October no. 77, 1996 assess - which all cultural producers Hall Foster, Dennis Hollier, Silvia Kolbowski and should nurture and underwrite. Rosalind Krauss, The MOMA Expansion: a We have to investigate new assessment Conservation with Terence Riley, October no . 84, models in order to confront the changes 1998 in the making and the meaning of con­ Boris Groys, Kunst im Museum, lecture delivered at temporary art as well as to develop the sig­ Basel Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, 1998, unpu­ nificance of the art institution itself. blished paper Heated discussions about the future of Boris Groys, The Restoration of Destruction, Witte contemporary art and the museum very de With, Cahiers no. 4, Rotterdam «Imagining the often tend to stop short at the question of Future of Modern Art», in Studies in Modern Art, how the existing disciplines and institu­ Research and Scholarly Publications Program of tions adopt new social and technological MOMA New York, no. 7, 1997 developments. What is lacking is a wil­ Rosalind Krauss, The C11/tural Logic ofthe Late lingness among those concerned to open Capitalist Museum, October 1990 all the factors to discussion, and if neces­ Donald Preziosi, Avoiding Museocannibalism, catalo­ sary simply to abandon everything in gue XXlV Bienal de Sao Paulo, 1998 favour of quite different act1v1t1es. Donald Preziosi, Brain ofthe Earth's Body: Museums Activities that we would no longer recog­ & the Fabrication ofModernity, unpublished paper nize for the domain in which they take Deutscher Kunsthistoriker Tag Technische place, but the effect that they achieve. Universitat Miinchen, 1997 Gianni Vattimo, Ort Moglicher We/ten zurRol/e des Mmeums in der Postmodeme, Lettre International, BIBLIOGRAPHY no. I, 1997 Ernst van Alphen, 'Artists as Observing Scientists and Artists as Critical Observers', in Chambres Chris Dercon is director ofMuseum Boijmans Van Sepan!es. Over hedendaagse kunst en macht, Gent Beuningen (Rijksuniversiteit), 1999 Adr. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Jean Baudrillard, The Beaubo111g Effect: Implosion and Museumpark 18-20 3015 CX Rotterdam, Deference, October no. 20 The Netherlands Andrew Benjamin, Present Hope: Philosophy,