Understanding Recent Initiatives to “Institute” by Contemporary Art Spaces

Understanding Recent Initiatives to “Institute” by Contemporary Art Spaces Rebecca Boswell MA Thesis, Semester 1, 2020-2021 Supervisor: Prof. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes Museum Studies, University of Amsterdam Student ID: 12791385 1 Abstract This study examines recent examples of ‘instituting’ by contemporary art institutions within the Netherlands. The central questions which guide this research ask: How do today’s art institutional experiments address issues of social change?, and, in what ways and for whom are artists and art workers instituting differently? This study was inspired by the recent surge in instituting and instituent practices by artists and contemporary art institutions in countries such as the Netherlands. It is also a response to the current lack of analysis and critique on the part of writers and theorists about these recent developments in art. The two main cases of my analysis are Kunstinstituut Melly’s name change initiative (2017-2021), Rotterdam, and the artistic-collaboration ‘Sites for Unlearning (Art Organisation)’ (2013-2017/18) between Casco Art Institute and Annette Krauss, in Utrecht. These case studies are both multi-year initiatives within small to medium-scale art institutions involving institutional actors and artists, and engaging different constituency groups. I aim to report on the purpose, nature and approaches of these initiatives, and understand what outcomes they achieve for their constituencies and the institutions themselves. This study finds that current initiatives of instituting are informed by legacies of institutional critique and developments in the curatorial, such as new institutionalism, as well as understandings of the institution as socially constructed and performed. Through analysis of individual case studies, my research also elaborates on various performative approaches deployed for art institutional change, as methods which engage constituents over the cause and direction for change, and – to varying degrees – involve them in the process itself. Keywords: Contemporary Art Institutions, Social Change, Instituting, Institutional Critique, Renaming, Decolonisation, New Institutionalism, Institutional Speech, Unlearning Institutional Habits 2 Table of Contents Introduction 4 Case Studies 14 1: Kunstinstituut Melly, Name Change Initiative, 2017-2021, Rotterdam 18 Part I: The Role of Political Activism in Bringing About Institutional Change 18 Part II: The Renaming Process 24 2: Annette Krauss and Casco Art Institute, ‘Sites for Unlearning (Art Organisation)’, Utrecht, 2013-2017/18 37 Conclusion 52 Appendix 55 Bibliography 63 3 Introduction In the context of social and political urgencies across the globe, artists and institutions are experimenting with ways that art can meet the social challenges of the present. Perspectives on how art institutions can best serve artists and the public represent an array of complex issues across representation and visibility, equal access and opportunity, labour conditions, decolonisation and climate action, to name only a few. Institutional reform and the trialling of new institutional models are important because they shape the context in which artists can continue to use the cultural sphere to challenge their social and political surroundings. Many share the belief that art plays an important role in society, yet national cultural policy influences what institutions can achieve.1 In countries like the United Kingdom for instance, public art institutions compete for limited funding, while at the same time working increasingly to fill gaps in social services to their local communities, as recent decades of austerity have led to cuts in public infrastructure, welfare and local governance.2 Political struggles have long held an arena in art. The dematerialisation of art which began in the 1960s with conceptualism led to developments in art which challenged its system, such as institutional critique. The emergence of collaborative, post-studio, social practices (Bishop 2021, 8) also engaged audiences in new ways, activating further the borders between art and social movements. Significantly, alongside continuous developments, the institutional hosts of this arena - such as the kunsthall or contemporary art space - have also contributed to the politicisation of art. Critical perspectives of the agency of institutions, including by the institutions themselves (Kolb & Flückiger 2013, 7), have emerged with the evolution of exhibition formats, with widening parameters of artistic, curatorial and research activities 1 Jeroen Boomgard (2006) has for example argued for the radicalisation of art’s autonomy as a way to free it from measures and criteria placed on it by public and private sectors. 2 This is an observation shared by a number of arts directors in the UK who were recently interviewed by Frieze magazine about how regional arts venues will be affected by post-Brexit government agendas focused on devolution and ‘levelling up’ (Anderson, Hundal, McAleese and Thurlow, 2021). 4 within the institution. This coincides with general developments in art which broadened the definitions of the artist,3 curator,4 ‘the curatorial’,5 and problematized the role of spectators.6 What are today’s visions for the art institution that meet wider demands for social change? In what ways and for whom should artists and art workers institute differently? This study will examine recent examples of ‘instituting’ by contemporary art institutions within the Netherlands. The selected case studies are multi-year initiatives by small to mid-scale art institutions who engage notions of instituting in efforts to bring about organisational change; in dialogue with their constituencies and specific issues of their local contexts. I wish to understand what methods, formats and concepts are used, and also examine the dynamics of their exhibition – the ways by which the projects are made public. Then, I am interested in what social-political urgencies inform these initiatives. What outcomes do they achieve for their constituencies and for the institutions themselves? Finally, what can these projects communicate with regard to relationship between art and society today? The definition of ‘instituting’ which I use for this study follows Simon Sheik and Athena Athanasiou’s use of the term, which sees the institution as something which is performed. Where ‘instituting’ describes an artistic project or institutional activity, the core intent is to bring about transformational change (Sheik 2017, 126). In the tradition of institutional critique and movements such as new institutionalism (outlined below), the activities of instituting or experimental institutional practice are performed by institutional subjects (whether directly belonging to, or in collaboration with the institution) in the field of contemporary art: such as curators, artists, researchers, educators and administrators. I also borrow from Andrea Fraser’s definition of institutional critique which describes self-questioning as a defining characteristic of the practice (2005, 105). Continuous self-examination and critique, as well as the close relationship between theory and practice are defining qualities of instituting. 3 Expanded notions of authorship in art were influenced by conceptual artists such as Joseph Beuys, who developed the concept of social sculpture in the 1970s, theorising that everything is art, that every aspect of life could be approached creatively and, as a result, everyone has the potential to be an artist. 4 Harald Szeemann’s 100 Days as an Event, Documenta 5 (1972) is often cited as a seminal exhibition where Szeemann introduced a non-static format of a busy programme of happenings and events organised around multiple centres, playing the role of exhibition-auteur. 5 Curator and researcher Caroline Rito defines the curatorial as an open-ended approach to programming and research. Distinct from curating, which she describes as a constitutive practice a part of the traditions of collecting and exhibiting in the museum, the curatorial is a disruptive mode of inquiry: allowing movements across disciplines, lateral connections, juxtaposition and unexpected arrangements of ideas, images, concepts and so on (2020, 26). 6 Art historian Claire Bishop (2012) has theorised the rise in collaborative practices in art in the 2000s coining the term ‘social practice’. She famously critiqued the political and emancipatory claims of ‘participatory art’ and problematized its politicisation of the role of the spectator. 5 Before introducing the case studies of my research I provide some background to institutional experiments in art. I will briefly elaborate on general political and economic challenges facing art institutions in Western Europe, before discussing institutional critique and new institutionalism as key developments behind today’s critically-engaged art institution. Then, turning to recent interest in the art world for ideas of “instituting differently”,7 I briefly explore the connection between the institution and the individual through Cornelius Castoriadis’ theories of instituting and the imagination. This research was inspired by the recent surge in instituting and instituent practices by artists and contemporary art institutions in countries such as the Netherlands. The two cases I have chosen can be regarded as trailblazers in this field, yet currently there is a lack of research and analysis into these emergent forms, and what contributions they are making to developments in contemporary

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