Towards A Decolonial Museum Practice Delinking permanent collection exhibitions in Western museums of modern and contemporary art
University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities MA Heritage Studies: Museum Studies Master Thesis
M.L. (Marleen) Schans Student number: 10483721
Supervisor: mw. dr. M.H.E. (Mirjam) Hoijtink Second Supervisor: dr. D.J. (Dos) Elshout Word count: 22,440 Date of submission: 13 Aug. 2019
, They say that history repeats itself
But history is only his story
You haven’t heard my story yet
My story is different from his story
My story is not part of history
Because history repeats itself
But my story is endless it never repeats itself
Why should it?
– Sun Ra, A Joyful Noise, 1980
I say you fit never release yourself
Colo-mentality
He be say you be colonial man
You don be slave man before
Them don release you now
But you never release yourself
– Fela Kuti, Colonial Mentality, 1977
Abstract This thesis focusses on the question of how museums of modern and contemporary art can use their permanent collection displays to play a role in the current decolonial discourse. Three different museums are analysed in order to find answers to this question by using contemporary socio-cultural, art historical and cultural analytical concepts and theories. The first chapter provides an extensive explanation of these concepts and theories. First, the theory of rewriting as proposed by German artist and curator Peter Weibel is discussed. Second, French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernity provides other elements to approach the research question at hand. Lastly, the theory of decoloniality and its pragmatic project of delinking as formulated by Latin American semiotician Walter Mignolo is discussed to provide tools to move beyond a Eurocentric approach. The second chapter analyses three permanent collection displays using the theories and concepts provided in the theoretical framework. The first analysis discusses STEDELIJK BASE at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The second analysis discusses The Making of Modern Art at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The final analysis discusses Hello World. Revising a Collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwardt in Berlin, Germany. The analysis of these three exhibitions demonstrates that museums of modern and contemporary art have ample tools to put their permanent collection into practice with regard to current societal debates, but that these tools are not used to their full potential in some of these cases. Furthermore, this thesis claims that these museums should approach their collection as a story of art amongst many still-to-be discovered stories and that it is necessary to formulate regional vocabularies to approach these stories of art. By working collaboratively, art historical and ethnographic museums should be able to achieve this.
Key words: decolonisation, decoloniality, delinking, museums, modern art, contemporary art, rewriting, history of art, canon, permanent collection displays, exhibitions, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Hamburger Bahnhof
i
Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has made it possible to bring together multiple topics of my personal interest: studies in art, cultural differences, history and museum practice. During my BA in Language and Culture Studies, where I majored in art, culture and history since 1750 until present day, I realised I was not so much interested in the art works itself, but in what meaning these works of art, sometimes centuries old, still have today and how this meaning changes throughout time. Being able to write my MA thesis on how museums use the sometimes centuries old works of art in their collection to generate meaning for people today seems like a dream come true. But I have to admit, it has been a bumpy, longer ride than I had expected. The first person I would like to honour is my late friend Anne Faber, who unexpectedly passed away in the month I started writing this thesis. We both shared a passion for art history and the ambition to become museum directors. Sometimes we felt the need to compete with each other and even had arguments about it, but most importantly we supported and stimulated each other to grow bigger and better. Losing you, Anne, has been a major setback for me. But it is you whom I have to thank, because your ambition and passion for art continues to live on inside me and it has given me the strength to continue at times I was at the verge of giving up. You keep reminding me of what I am doing this for, so thank you. I want to thank mw. dr. Mirjam Hoijtink, dr. Dos Elshout and prof. dr. Bram Kempers for having faith in me and my subject, for continuously supporting me throughout my MA during difficult times and lastly for guiding me and giving me constructive advice when needed. I want to thank Charles Esche, Leontine Coelewij and Bart Rutten for graciously setting aside time in their busy schedules to participate in interviews with me. Thank you, Aly Westwood, for being my co-interviewer and for being the dear friend you are. I want to thank my family and friends, but especially my sister Laura Schans, for being my thesis confidant and whose incredible and unconditional support has pushed me through limits when needed. And my dad Jan Schans, for providing fresh insights on the topic and whose years of professional experience has helped me structure my text. I want to thank my bestest of friends, Nienke, for proofreading my text and supporting me with your love the past months. And Levi, thank you for always being there for me, giving me your shoulders to cry on. You always support me and keep me grounded when my mind runs away with itself. Thank you for inspiring me and reminding me of what I am capable of.
iii
Table of Contents Abstract ...... i Acknowledgements ...... iii Table of Contents ...... 1 Introduction ...... 3 Repatriation and the Changing Vocabulary of Museums ...... 4 The Canon ...... 5 Research ...... 7 1. Theoretical Framework ...... 13 Introduction ...... 13 The theory of Rewriting ...... 16 Rewriting the Canon ...... 18 Altermodernity ...... 19 Theory of Decoloniality ...... 21 Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality ...... 22 The Project of Delinking ...... 24 AestheSis/AestheTics ...... 25 Delinking in Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art ...... 26 Conclusion ...... 27 2. Three Case Studies ...... 29 2.1 STEDELIJK BASE ...... 30 Introduction ...... 30 ‘High Art’ merges with Design ...... 32 The Labyrinthine Exhibition ...... 34 Vocabulary ...... 35 Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking ...... 36 Conclusion ...... 37 2.2 The Making of Modern Art ...... 39 Introduction ...... 39 Walter Benjamin has Resurrected ...... 41 Desacralisation and Dearticisation ...... 43 Cubism and Abstract Art ...... 44 A Utopian Perspective ...... 45 Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking ...... 46 Conclusion ...... 47 2.3 Hello World!...... 49 Introduction ...... 49
1
Agora ...... 52 Making Paradise ...... 53 Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking ...... 56 Conclusion ...... 57 3. Conclusion ...... 59 Bibliography ...... 65 List of Images ...... 73
2
Introduction In early 2018, Marvel Studios released their superhero movie Black Panther, which caused excitement in African communities across the world, as it is considered to be the first Hollywood production featuring an almost fully black cast. Fifteen minutes into the movie, there is a scene that can be viewed as revolutionary. A fictional National Museum, the ‘Museum of Great Britain’, is introduced. A male of African descent is looking at African artefacts inside a glass display case, when the curator responsible for the artefacts, a white, middle-aged female with blonde hair, approaches him to answer some of his questions. The man claims she could never know as much about these works of art as he does, and eventually he asks her: “How do you think your ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it like they took everything else?”1 This is the first scene in a Hollywood movie to address the (de)colonial debate in museums so directly, bringing the discussion on the origins and restitutions of former colonial artefacts within collections of Western national and ethnographic museums to a wider audience. This discussion is considered a key factor in the discourse on decolonisation. What the scene does not introduce, however, is a more complex part of the decolonial discourse. Within this critical theoretical framework, multiple attempts have been made to make sense of the complex world. One of these attempts wass made by Latin-American sociologist Walter Mignolo, who claims that the European narrative of ‘Modernity’ hides its darker side, ‘Coloniality.’2 Coloniality can be considered the Western attitude after the decolonisation practices of the twentieth century, during which former Western colonies became independent nation states. Coloniality is the contemporary global political, economic and social structure of the world: the Western hegemony (including Western European countries, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) versus the rest (non-Western countries). Whereas ‘Modernity’ is considered to be the ensemble of socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in Europe in the 16th century (Renaissance) that developed throughout the 17th and 18th (Enlightenment) centuries, simultaneous to the European expansion, which resulted in colonialism, exploitation and slave trade.
1 This particular scene can be viewed on YouTube. Watched online on 7 Jan. 2019. “Black Panther: Museum Scene HD Complete.” YouTube, uploaded by Music Wizard, 5 May 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwr6Q1Hl_4. 2 Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Duke University Press, 2018. 3
During the 19th century, the museum as we know it today was developed.3 The establishment of the European nation states caused an urge for national leaders to gather collections that represented the nation’s history, knowledge, wealth and power. This illustrates the direct link museums have with coloniality. Whereas the decolonial discourse with regard to museums mainly focuses on national and ethnographic museums, this thesis will focus on museums of modern and contemporary art. More specifically, this thesis will analyse three permanent collection displays of modern and contemporary art and examine if and how these exhibitions treat issues concerning coloniality.
Repatriation and the Changing Vocabulary of Museums It is not a strange development that National Museums and ethnographical museums aim to deal with the colonial past, as their collections consist of a tremendous amount of cultural artefacts taken from former colonies. The repatriation of these artefacts is a concrete action for National and ethnographic museums in their aim to act fairly in the light of the historical unjust done during the European expansion.4 Another recent development and key factor in dealing with the colonial past is the changing vocabulary in museums. After all, language is not neutral, as the choice of certain words, phrases and perspectives (un)consciously can have an exclusionary effect.5 In 2015, the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands started a project to change the problematic vocabulary used in their database, archives and in the exhibition texts.6 Together with the National Museum of World Cultures (NMWC), the Rijksmuseum worked on the publication Words Matter, published in 2018, to support museums in decolonising their language providing them a list of (non)racial words. Museums hope to change and shape our perception of the world and the way
3 Bergvelt, Ellinoor, and Mieke Rijnders, editors. Kabinetten, Galerijen En Musea. Het Verzamelen En Presenteren Van Naturalia En Kunst Van 1500 Tot Heden. Rev. Ed. WBOOKS, 2013. 4 French President Macron instigated a research project to investigate the possibilities French national museums have in terms of repatriation of colonial artefacts. The NMWC and Rijksmuseum have followed with instigating their own restitution policies in 2018 and 2019. These developments merely function in this thesis to illustrate recent developments in Western-European countries with regard to their former colonies. If you are interested to learn more, you can read these policies online. The French rapport is accessible via the following link: http://restitutionreport2018.com/; The policy of the NMWC is accessible here: https://www.volkenkunde.nl/en/about-volkenkunde/press/dutch-national-museum-world-cultures-nmvw- announces-principles-claims; The press release of the Rijksmuseum can be accessed here: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/research/provenance-research-into-colonial-collections. 5 Lelijveld, Robin. “Heden Van Het Slavernijverleden: Een Poging Tot Museale Dekolnisering.” Article, 22 Apr. 2019, p. 15. 6 Kammer, Claudia. “In Het Museum Heet Een Negerbediende Voortaan Een Jonge Zwarte Bediende.” NRC Handelsblad, 12 Dec. 2015, www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/12/12/in-het-museum-heet-een-negerbediende-voortaan- een-1566431-a749694 and Lange, Henny de. “Neger, Wijf En Moor Taboe in Rijksmuseum.” Trouw, 10 Dec. 2015, www.trouw.nl/home/neger-wijf-en-moor-taboe-in-rijksmuseum~af9fd0f9/. Both accessed online, 10 May 2019. 4 we interpret what we see around us, using our past to think about our future.7 They do so by decolonising the vocabulary that is used to describe the objects, its maker, location of origin, as well as by decolonising the use of words to explain the cultural, historical and/or artistic context. Of course, languages are continuously changing and the suggested changes in the publication can be disputed. Nonetheless, it is important to open up the discussion on the vocabulary used in exhibitions. Take for example the case study of the collection display at Fundação de Serralves, a museum of modern and contemporary art in Porto, Portugal. In Serralves Collection: 1960- 1980 (May 2017 – Jan. 2018) the museum uses words such as ‘globalisation’ to prove they are up to date with contemporary art historical and sociological debates. These words, however, were lacking in meaning as the museum did not provide any further (verbal) context throughout the exhibition.8 Curators of the Fundação de Serralves thus expect its visitors to know about the Western art historical narrative in relation to the contemporary themes such as globalisation. This example illustrates Van Abbemuseum’s curator Steven ten Thije’s argument that most museums of modern and contemporary art are solely experienced and understood by a white, Western, higher educated audience and that these museums are considered to be a toy for what he calls ‘the globalised elite.’9 In the analysis of the permanent collection display of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in chapter two, this thesis will demonstrate that the use of vocabulary accompanying the works of art can give a profound understanding of the decolonial discourse and other contemporary sociological issues.
The Canon Museums function as educational institutions, responsible for taking a stance and to guide its society through complex societal developments.10 The practice of changing the vocabulary in museums and the restitution projects of non-Western artistic objects are obvious and concrete steps for the decolonisation of museums. But for museums of modern and contemporary art,
7 Schoonderwoerd, Stijn. “Foreword.” Words Matter: An Unfinished Guide to Word Choices in the Cultural Sector, edited by Wayne Modest and Robin Lelijveld, National Museum of World Cultures, 2018, pp. 7–12. Accessed online 10 Jul. 2019, via https://issuu.com/tropenmuseum/docs/wordsmatter_english. 8 Schans, Marleen. “Van Abbemuseum & Fundação de Serralves: Permanent Collection Presentations in times of Globalisation and Decolonisation.” 3. Aug. 2018. Current Issues: Excursion Abroad, University of Amsterdam, student paper. 9 Thije, Steven ten. The Emancipated Museum. Mondriaan Fonds, 2016, pp 37-53. 10 Eilean Hooper-Greenhill wrote a book on this subject in 1992, called Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge. In addition, the most recent museum definition, formulated by ICOM in 2007, talks about the educational and societal role of the museum as well: “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” Fall 2019 a renewed museum definition will be published. 5 decolonial practice this practice is less obvious and often disregarded. History has shown that museums can have a big influence on the shaping of knowledge through their exhibitions. Take for example the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, curated by Alfred Barr Jr. in 1936. The cover for the exhibition catalogue illustrates perfectly how Barr envisioned the development of modern art as a synchronic, linear development of “isms” (fig. 1). With this approach, he took up an international approach emphasising a shift of Western European avant-gardism to the abstract expressionism of New York. It is worth noting that this international approach was limited to art produced in Western- European countries and North America, excluding artists and works of art made in countries elsewhere. It was both bold and visionary for its time, which is one of the reasons the exhibition achieved such an iconic status. The exhibition has formed the basis of most art-historical textbooks and curricula, which in turn have accepted Barr’s story as the story of modern art.11 Yet, it is this linear structure that enables parochialism, focusing only on works of art and artists that fit in these boxes, making it possible to easily exclude all that do not fit in. The acceptance of Barr’s story of modern art as the story of art illustrates the important role museums can play in shaping knowledge. The adaption of the exhibition as the story also demonstrates how difficult it can be to realise that there is no such thing as one truth. Many museums of modern art have until recently presented their collections in a chronological, linear order. With the growing awareness of the exclusivity of such a singular narrative, more and more attention has been given over the past three decades by art historians and cultural sociologists to break away from this traditional, limiting approach. The focus has shifted towards an ‘inclusive’ art historical narrative, by instigating new academic fields such as ‘World Art Studies’, dealing with artistic practice outside the west. Several scholars working the field of art history are trying to formulate concepts and theories to define this changing focus. For example, art historian and curator Nicholas Bourriaud formulated altermodernity to describe the twenty-first-century art and curatorial practice, whilst art historians Peter Weibel and Hans Belting claim that art historical theory is being rewritten by adding other perspectives and new narratives. Furthermore, since the 1990s independent art spaces, such as Framer Framed in Amsterdam, have established to organise temporary thematic exhibitions around societal topics such as decoloniality. In addition, temporary exhibitions and biennials have been giving profound attention to this subject matter as well, such as Documenta and the Venice Biennial.
11 Reilly, Maura. Curatorial Activism. Towards an Ethics of Curating, Thames & Hudson, 2018, p. 13-14. 6
Late Nigerian art historian Okwui Enwezor (1963 – 2019) was appointed as the first African curator of Documenta XI from 1998 – 2002 and of the Venice Biennale in 2015. He named his Venice Biennale exhibiton All The World’s Futures, for which he selected 136 artists hailing from 53 countries. Most of these artists came from Africa and Asia, of which 88 exhibited their works of art for the first time at the Biennale. Nancy Jouwe accurately observes that within art history and theory the phenomena of rewriting the canon is intensively discussed, with multiple attempts to expand it, to broaden it up.12 She claims that within museums and art institutional practice, however, this rewriting is little reflected. Although these institutions are known to be ‘innovative’ and the contemporary art world is considered to be ‘progressive,’ they persist in forms of selective blindness and mechanisms of exclusion that are historically embedded. This illustrates that museums of modern and contemporary art are capable and willing to address the problematic, limiting aspects of the Western traditional art historical canon and their colonial roots. Many examples can be given of temporary exhibitions and events that open up the discussion on (de)coloniality through the practice of changing vocabulary and by giving artists from outside the Western art historical canon a temporary stage. It is worth noting the word ‘temporary’ here, as exhibitions of permanent collections are usually left out of these discussions. It might be suggested, however, that these collections actually offer a better understanding of the colonial past, as they have been formed throughout the past century and show the ruptures and changing attitudes of curators and directors throughout time. This is exactly why this thesis claims that these collections should not be left out of the decolonial discourse.
Research The permanent collection presentations in museums of modern and contemporary art are often left out of curatorial analysis in relation to decolonial discourse. Recent publications, such as The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds (Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg, Peter Weibel (eds.), 2013), Curatorial Activism (Maura Riley, 2019), Changing Perspectives: Critical Views on Collecting and Presenting Contemporary Art (Mariska ter Horst (eds.), 2012), The Transhistorical Museum (Eva Wittocx, et. al. (eds.), 2017) all discuss temporary exhibitions (exhibitions that have been on show for a maximum of six months) to illustrate the issues of contemporary art and museology in relation to the contemporary globalising, decolonising world. It is an omission to not include permanent collection displays of museums
12 Bouwhuis, Jelle, and Nancy Jouwe. “Ontleren in Het Museum. Nancy Jouwe En Jelle Bouwhuis - Reflections #3 ( MOED & Joyce Vlaming in Centraal Museum).” MetropolisM, 17 Apr. 2019. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.metropolism.com/nl/features/37964_reflections_3_nancy_jouwe_jelle_bouwhuis. 7 of modern and contemporary art in the discourse, as these exhibitions serve as a tool for the bigger understanding and shaping the knowledge of (Western) art history. Moreover, permanent collection displays are usually on show for a longer period, giving room for the curators to create multiple layered, detailed and complex multiple narratives for the visitor to comprehend. If we are to decolonise museums and the Western art historical canon, we cannot omit the permanent collection displays in museums of modern and contemporary art, as these institutions are important, if not the most important, places where art history functions publicly.13 This thesis aims to include the permanent collection displays of museum of modern and contemporary art into the decolonial discourse, asking what exactly the role of these permanent collections is and whether they should be included in the decolonial discourse. By analysing three different permanent collection displays it aims to provide insights into how collections can be used to address (de)colonial issues and to bring these to a wider audience. In addition, it will critique how decolonial thought and the project of delinking is reflected in these presentations. To be able to analyse the subject matter, a societal and cultural analytical approach has been chosen, combined with an art historical approach, as a large part of the research investigates societal and cultural theories that can be reflected upon the art historical narrative. This socio-cultural approach allows the research to take a step back in order to examine the art historical canon and permanent collection displays in a critical manner. As was illustrated above, Latin American decolonial scholars claim that modernity has a darker side, coloniality. If we follow this line of thought, ‘Modern’ art is, like modernity, inevitably and implicitly connected with its darker side, coloniality. Should museums with a collection of ‘modern’ art deal with this darker side? And if so, how does a museum successfully address the darker side in a collection display? The first chapter of this thesis will provide an extensive theoretical framework in order to be able to answer these questions later, through the analysis of three different permanent collection displays. First, attention will be given to the theory of rewriting, explained by German artist and curator Peter Weibel in 2013 and elaborated upon by Dutch art historian Hestia Bavelaar. Second, the concept of altermodernity as proposed by French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud will be explained. These two approaches, however, seem to be limiting as they are formulated in the West by Western scholars. Lastly, the theory of decoloniality and its pragmatic project of delinking as formulated by Latin American scholar Walter Mignolo will be drawn into the framework trying to move beyond the Western boundaries. This chapter will thus critically review the exhibitions and theories
13 Bouwhuis, Jelle. “De kunsthistorische Ander: Kunstgeschiedenis in Dekoloniaal Perspectief.” Article, 22 Apr. 2019, p. 6. 8 mentioned above and eventually will try to come up with practical tools to decolonise collection presentations of museums of modern and contemporary art. The analysis of these three exhibitions can be found in chapter two. For the purpose of this research limitations have been drawn to focus on two museums in the Netherlands and one in Germany that are in the possession of a collection of works of art created in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Because each of these museums has different roots and origins, they all have a very different approach to their collection and organisation structure. These differences are visible in their collection displays and therefore make it possible to compare the different approaches of display methods in relation to the current decolonial debate. The first museum to be discussed, is the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, founded in 1874 and considerably the most well-known museum for modern and contemporary art in the Netherlands. The Stedelijk Museum is trying to actively engage with the current societal debates, by organising talks, events and temporary exhibitions. Its mission is to enrich the life of people with modern and contemporary art and design, and providing them with a better understanding of our present society.14 To fulfil its mission, the museum often organises temporary events and exhibitions. One good example is the three-year project Global Collaborations, launched in 2013, focusing on the global art practice, especially in those upcoming regions such as Africa, the Middle-East and South-East Asia.15 For this project, the museum organised several temporary exhibitions and a diverse programme of activities, such as roundtable discussions and lectures. Part of this three-year project was the temporary exhibition HOW FAR HOW NEAR – the world in the Stedelijk (19 Sept. 2014 – 31 Jan. 2015), which centred around the question of how museum collections and exhibition policies, historically and presently, are limited and challenged in relation to geographical emphasis, arguing for a greater focus on art from regions outside Europe and North America, using its own collection as its starting point.16 This project and exhibition illustrate the museum’s recent aims to pay more attention to art from other regions of the world. In December 2017, the Stedelijk Museum celebrated the opening of their renewed museum model and collection display. Former director Beatrix Ruf divided the building into
14 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Organisation. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/museum/organisation. 15 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. “GLOBAL COLLABORATIONS.” 5 Nov. 2013. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/digdeeper/global-collaborations. 16 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. “HOW FAR HOW NEAR – the World in the Stedelijk.” Exhibition. 19 Sept. 2014-31 Jan. 2015. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/how-far-how-near. 9 three parts. The first is called STEDELIJK BASE, located in the renewed annex building (commonly known as ‘the bathtub’ because of its shape), which shows the collection of the museum through a new model of presentation. Secondly, STEDELIJK TURNS shows temporary exhibitions with hidden, repressed works of art from the depot that almost never have been exhibited before on the ground floor of the original museum building. These frequent changing presentations of the collection might influence the collection display of STEDELIJK BASE. Lastly, located on the first floor of the original building, temporary exhibitions are presented under the name of STEDELIJK NOW. The focus in the research at hand lies solely on STEDELIJK BASE. The second museum to be discussed is the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. The museum was founded in 1936 as a way to preserve and exhibit the collection of Dutch contemporary and modern art, collected by cigar manufacturer Henri van Abbe who generated wealth and success through his tobacco business in one of the Netherlands’ former colonies, Indonesia. The museum thus has a direct link to the colonial past. Since the appointment of director Charles Esche in 2004, the museum has been actively engaging in the decolonial discourse, by organising research groups, events and temporary exhibitions dealing with the colonial past, trying to actively engage with minorities in Dutch society. Because of their active role in the national debate, the museum serves as an important pillar in this research. In September 2017 the museum opened their renewed permanent collection display, which is separated into two main exhibitions. On the ground floor of the original collection building the first part, named The Making of Modern Art, can be found. This exhibition deals with the Western art practice before the World War II. In the large hall circuit of the collection building the second part, named The Way Beyond Art, can be found. This part deals with artworks made after the World War II. The focus in the research at hand lies solely on The Making of Modern Art. Lastly, the third collection display to be discussed is Hello World. Revising a Collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin. The museum is part of the umbrella organisation Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and opened its doors in 1987, after the old eponymous train station had been unused for 40 years. At first sight, the museum might be a strange addition to the research corpus as it is a fairly young museum located in Germany, a country that has a completely different national history and colonial past. Moreover, it is a museum that has a temporary exhibition policy: all exhibitions last no longer than six months. Although the museum differs on many aspects as compared to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Van Abbemuseum, it has been chosen as it organised an exhibition in 2018
10 that dealt with the question of how a collection predominantly committed to the art of Western Europe and North America can broaden its scope through non-Western artistic tendencies and a transcultural approach.17 Because of this, the exhibition Hello World. Revising a Collection might provide insightful views on the topic. The analysis of the three case studies will not solely focus on the non-Western works of art present in the collection and it will therefore not be a collection analysis. Instead, it will focus on what choices these museums have made to exhibit the works of art in their collections and on what narrative is told by them, what dialogue is opened up for the visitors to engage with. As museums are important institutions shaping knowledge, a focus is placed on the narratives museums represent. Some art historians, cultural anthropologists, curators and other scholars might suggest that decolonisation can only be realised through the acquisition of non- Western and decolonial works of art, but this process and its rationale is not visible to the public. These works seem to end up immediately in the museum’s depot most of the time, not accessible to the general public. It is the exhibition made with these works of art that tells a narrative visitors will come to understand. Exhibitions therefore function as an important tool in decolonising knowledge. In the third and final chapter a conclusion will be formulated providing an answer to the question of how permanent collection displays in museums of modern and contemporary art can be used within the decolonial discourse, based on the results from the analysis in chapter two. Here, it will be outlined that museums of modern and contemporary art have ample tools to make choices on several levels to create paths towards decoloniality.
17 Stoff, Julia and Ströbel, Iris (eds.). Hello World. Revising a Collection. Exhibition booklet. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2018, p. 9. 11
1. Theoretical Framework
“In this pilgrimage in search of modernity I lost my way at many points only to find myself again. I returned to the source and discovered that modernity is not outside but within us. It is today and the most ancient antiquity; it is tomorrow and the beginning of the world; it is a thousand years old and yet newborn. It speaks in Nahuatl, draws Chinese ideograms from the ninth century, and appears on the television screen.”
– Octavio Paz, 199018
Introduction 1989 can be considered a year in which a significant cultural shift occurred. It was a year during which the Soviet Union fell, as did the Berlin Wall. These events caused a change in the way the world was divided: the division of First, Second and Third Worlds was not applicable anymore, for the Second World ceased to exist. That year also hosted two revolutionary exhibitions, Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou and Grand Halle de la Vilette in Paris and The Other Story at the Hayward Gallery in London. Both exhibitions tried to challenge the Western (or First World) hegemony in art history by including, or solely focussing on, non-Western (or Third World) artists. Since that year, increasing attention has been given to the social structure of the world. Terms such as postcolonialism, postmodernism, neo-colonialism, multiculturalism, interculturalism, globalism and globalization were coined to illustrate the complex situation of Western culture and thinking, and its continuing hegemony over the rest of the world. According to many, decolonisation is not a closed chapter, but very much still relevant. Several theories have been developed to understand the changing position of art and museums in the decolonised society, of which Nicholoas Bourriaud’s altermodernity, Peter Weibel’s theory of rewriting and Walter Mignolo’s theory of decoloniality are major examples. This chapter will critically review the exhibitions and theories mentioned above and eventually will try to come up with practical tools to decolonise collection presentations of museums of modern and contemporary art. As mentioned in the Introduction, museums are important institutions when it comes to shaping knowledge and writing history. Nonetheless, examples of exhibitions illustrating the growing awareness and changing attitudes towards the Western hegemony are often located in
18 Paz, Octavio. “In Search of the Present.” Nobel Prize Lecture. 8 Dec. 1990 Accessed 21 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1990/paz-lecture.html. 13
Western museums, curated by Western art historians and/or curators and/or museum directors. Whilst museums are currently focussing on decolonising their institution, art history’s main focus lies on the implementation of other art histories into the art historical narrative related to globalisation. Art historian Hestia Bavelaar illustrates these academic developments towards a global art history and theory in her essay Re-Imagining the Western Art History Discipline in an Age of Globalization (2015).19 Here, she observes two main approaches in the art historical discourse: a contextual approach, which tries to understand art in its original context; and a universal approach, trying to understand art as a universal commodity, claiming the intrinsic values of art are universal. These two approaches combined form the current framework for writing contemporary art history. Eventually, she claims that “the best way to define a new art history is not by imposing radical solutions, but by gradually introducing new valuable changes, that follow from an open and critical mind.” Bavelaar refers to intercultural comparative analysis as a means to increase transcultural understanding by highlighting differences as well as discovered universal patterns.20 She further claims that by using the Western art historical perspective as a starting point (provided its own assumptions, blind spots and preoccupations are defined), the existing canonical thinking can be adapted “through a critical and conscious attitude towards the own position and the acquaintance with other cultures and the way they are studied.”21 Of course, many present day art historians find their art historical base in this Western traditional perspective, which has been useful in forming an in-depth understanding of the Western culture. However, if we are to decolonise art historical practice, or in Bavelaar’s words, if we are to define a new art history, it is exactly this Western hegemonical perspective that we might need to leave behind. As art historian Hans Belting illustrates, most non-Western modernist movements were excluded from official Western art history not because “they were ‘forgotten;’ they were rather dismissed in order to keep the picture of modernism clear.”22 The following two exhibitions illustrate the continuous Western hegemony in art and museum history. In 1989, Pakistani-born, London-based artist Rasheed Araeen curated the exhibition The Other Story. Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain at the Hayward Gallery, London. Araeen had already formulated his ideas
19 In her essay, she provides an extensive overview on art history books that have been published in the past 30 years to illustrate a changing mindset towards non-Western art and artists. Note: Bavelaar, Hestia. Re-Imagining the Western Art History Discipline in an Age of Globalization. GlobeEdit, 2015. pp. 5-9. 20 Ibid, p. 17. 21 Ibid, p. 18. 22 Belting, Hans. “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate.” The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Hatje Cantz, 2009. p. 12. 14
for this exhibition in 1978. Despite multiple rejections by the Arts Council, he finally managed to persuade the director of the Hayward Gallery in 1989. In the exhibition, Araeen included 24 Afro-Asian artists working and living in Britain and presented a strong focus on the relationship between Western modernism in the visual arts and these works of art, aiming to illustrate that “the absence of Black and Asian artists from the history of British modernism and national patrimony could only be attributed to racist discrimination,” as there were several non-Western artists working in the UK that developed an artistic signature in line with Western modernism.23 At the time, the exhibition gained a lot of attention and appraisal, as the exhibition toured to Wolverhampton and Manchester the following year. Yet, nowadays, when it comes to discussing the changing attitudes towards the Western hegemony in art history and museum practice, little attention has been given to the exhibition and it has made little difference to the institutional mindset so far, when it could function as a perfect illustration an example used to open up the traditional, Western art historical narrative. In the same year, art historian Jean-Hubert Martin curated the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Grand Halle de la Vilette, Paris. This exhibition is often referred to as being the first to consciously attempt to discover a post-colonialist way to exhibit objects together and as a first attempt to take non-Western art seriously. 24 Because of its aesthetical presumption, Martin avoided using the term ‘artists’ and referred to them as ‘magiciens,’ trying to emphasise the magical, universal qualities of art. It was exactly this lack of contextual elaboration that he was criticised for. Artist Rasheed Araeen pointed out that there was no theoretical and conceptual framework used to link these culturally different works of art and that Martin even used different criteria during the selection: “while African and Asian artists are identified by their own cultural roots, Western artists are recognized by their concern for cultures other than their own.”25 In addition, Martin was criticised because of his pretention to, as a white male art historian, be able to select non-Western artists and for the under- representation of female artists. In the face of these criticisms, Magiciens de la Terre is still seen as the exhibition said to have changed momentum, so much so that a revised version of the exhibition was organised 25 years later, in 2014, at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
23 Fisher, Jean. “The Other Story and the Past Imperfect.” Tate Papers. 12 (autumn) 2009. Accessed 16 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/no-12/the-other-story-and-the-past- imperfect. 24 See for an elaborative description of the exhibition: Reilly, Maura. Curatorial Activism. Towards an Ethics of Curating. Thames & Hudson London 2018, pp. 106-111. For a more detailed overview of its criticism, see: Bavelaar, Hestia. 2015 (note 18), pp. 14-15. 25 Araeen, Rasheed. “Our Bauhaus Others’ Mudhouse.” Third Text, vol. 3, no. 6, 1989, pp. 3–14. 15
Jean Fisher describes the juxtaposition between these two exhibitions: “If Magiciens was instrumental in drawing global cultures into the orbit of Western institutions, initiating a ‘postmodern’ wave of neo-imperial ‘explorations’ of the exotic, the somewhat ironically titled The Other Story was understood internationally, if not domestically, as a major breakthrough in ‘de-imperialising’ the institutional mind.”26 Despite all efforts to address racial discrimination in the art world that followed after 1989, it seems that not much has changed. Institutional changes with regard to accepting non-Western artists and artists of colour as equals seem impossible to achieve. Even in 2016, film critic Richard Brody perfectly illustrates that “the underlying issue of the Academy’s failure to recognize black artists is the presumption that baseline experience is white experience and that black life is a niche phenomenon.”27 Here, he is talking about the Academy selecting the Oscar-winners, but the same can be said for the academic discourse of art history and museum studies. As Bavelaar proposes, we should use the Western traditional art history as a standard, a base, to further expand the narrative. This attitude does not seem to treat non-Western life as equal, instead it seems to validate the idea that the West is superior. So could the solution be to turn the art historical narrative upside down, starting from scratch by writing a non-Western history of art? Although this would definitely change the narrative, it would still keep the fundamental basis for the hierarchical structure intact. This chapter will provide a more in-depth analysis of some of the theories to illustrate the contemporary art historical, cultural and museological situation. It will then try to establish a set of tools that can be used for the analysis of the three permanent collection displays in chapter two.
The theory of Rewriting One prominent work of reference in defining the contemporary, globalised art scene is The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds, edited by art historian Hans Belting, curator and artist Peter Weibel and art historian Andrea Buddensieg in 2013. In one of the first chapters, Weibel introduces his own explanatory model, the theory of rewriting, to explain how globalisation has caused intensified encounters between different cultures, religions and between different ethnic and national identities:
26 Fisher, Jean. 2009 (note 22). 27 Brody, Richard. “The Oscar Whiteness Machine.” The New Yorker, Jan. 21, 2016. Accessed 17 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-oscar-whiteness-machine. 16
“Our perspective is that we are experiencing an epoch of rewriting programs: rewriting art history, rewriting political and economic history on a global scale. Translations and transfers from one culture to another, in a multilateral and multipolar world, no longer create the hegemony of an international art, but the re-evaluation of the local and the regional. We are witnessing the re- entry of forgotten and unforeseen parts of geography and history, we experience how historic concepts and events are re-enacted contemporary art and the contemporary world are part of a global rewriting program. We observe how Indian art rewrites European art and how European art rewrites Indian art, how European art rewrites Asian art and how Asian art rewrites North American art. We are witnessing new cartography of art in the making. What we see today is a rewriting of technologies, economies, politics, cultures, and art forms. We intend to expose the traces of these rewriting programs in global art that articulate the confluences and influences of cultures. In this sense we are living in a post ethnic age; we encounter the post ethnic state of art.”28
Now, to rewrite art history means to start with the foundation of the art historical canon that we still refer to today. As was mentioned above, art historian Bavelaar proposes to use Western art historical perspective as a starting point (when its own assumptions, blind spots and preoccupations are defined), to adapt the existing canonical thinking “through a critical and conscious attitude towards the own position and the acquaintance with other cultures and the way they are studied.”29 This could of course provide a better understanding of contemporary art, but how could a contemporary artwork made in Kazakhstan, for example, be defined and understood, if the work of art reconsiders its cultural history? We need to move towards an art theory practice that does not work with a fixed perspective to transcribe contemporary global works of art, instead we need to define a practice that fluctuates, that can consider both modern works of art made in Paris and in Kazakhstan. African curator Azu Nwagbogu shares this idea in the exhibition catalogue of the to-be-discussed exhibition Hello World. Revising a Collection. After stating that the idea of a fixed collection of works of art is becoming unsustainable
28 Weibel, Peter. “Globalization and Contemporary Art.” The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds. ZKM, 2013. p. 27. 29 Bavelaar, Hestia. 2015 (see note 18). 17
because of globalisation and a growing awareness of coloniality, he proposes that an approach of a more fluid collection that can expand and embrace new mediums.30
Rewriting the Canon The theory of rewriting presupposes that art historical museums, the institutions that have a profound influence on the formation of art history, can actually continue their practice without having to change their attitude. They just need to rearrange, add or translate, whilst operating within their established modernist framework. Art historian Gregor Langfeld focusses in his work on the formation and continuation of the art historical canon, its concepts and its approaches. He claims that it is of importance to understand the origins of the canon to be able to change it:
“A canon lays claim to permanence, as it is thought to be valid independent of time and place. Works of art that in their day were locked in an irreconcilable struggle with one another exist harmoniously side by side in the neutralised state of the canon and enter history. The institutionalised hierarchy of artists and styles is continually fed to society; it is ‘parroted’ out and accepted as something self-evident. For that reason alone, it is important to remain conscious of the canonisation processes that led and still lead to some artists being included in the canon and entering history and others being excluded.”31
Based on Langfeld’s claim, art historian and curator Jelle Bouwhuis points out that every attempt to expand the canon or to implement the idea of multiple canons continues to emphasise the exceptionality of the traditional art historical canon, which therefore continues to remain the fundamental base in art history.32 Changing the canon, whether through expansion or multiplication, would not change the fundamental Western hierarchy. The Western, hegemonic tradition would thus still remain the point of reference. The theory of rewriting thus proves a tool for expanding our knowledge on the current contemporary art scene, but does not provide useful tools for discussing non-Western practices. Scholars active in the art historical and theoretical discourse often refer to this theory of rewriting, claiming that it is possible to ‘open up’ or ‘add narratives to’ the existing hegemonical
30 Beckstette, Sven and Nwagbogu, Azu. “Colomental. The Violence of Intimate Histories.” Hello World: Revising a Collection, edited by Udo Kittelman and Gabriele Knapstein, Hirmer Verlag, 2018, p. 359. 31 Langfeld, Gregor. “The Canon in Art History: Concepts and Approaches.” Journal of Art Historiography, no. 19, Dec. 2018, p. 1. 32 Bouwhuis, Jelle. 2019 (note 13), p. 6. 18
art historical canon in order to give attention to globalisation and colonial pasts. Yet, this canonical expansion is hardly reflected in museums and other art historical institutions. As we have seen in the introduction, museums have had a profound influence on the establishment of the art historical canon. It would therefore be ignorant to leave museums out of this discussion. But what can museums actually do to come to terms with the growing awareness of the problematic side of the art historical canon?
Altermodernity As the previous section has illustrated, the theory of rewriting aims to expand the Western art historical canon, but with the tools that are provided, this can only be carried out within the same Western hierarchical framework. Another theorist that has introduced a concept trying to deal with the contemporary changing art scene is art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud. In 2009 he published The Radicant, a book that he wrote between 2005 and 2007 providing some theoretical reflections on contemporary art in the twenty-first century. Here, he claims that “postmodern multiculturalism has failed to invent an alternative to modernist universalism.” Within this framework of postmodernism, an artwork is still inevitably explained by the ‘condition,’ ‘status’ or ‘origin’ of its author.33 Using the botanical radicant, a plant that grows its roots from its stem, like ivy, Bourriaud illustrates that the contemporary artist is “setting one’s roots in motion, staging them in heterogeneous contexts and formats, denying them the power to completely define one’s identity, translating ideas, transcoding images, transplanting behaviours, exchanging rather than imposing.”34 Following his claim that postmodernism has failed to offer a constructive framework to define the globalising artworld, Bourriaud introduces the concept of altermodernity, a concept that he believes will allow to create intercultural connections. Because the contemporary artist is a wanderer, travelling through time and space, translating the world he encounters, altermodernity promises to be a translation-oriented modernity.35 The altermodern artist is considered to be a Semionaut, a semiotic explorer, who is able to “transcode signs, to reinterpret them, translate them, subtitle them and repatriate them. Art becomes hypertext, linking together signs and symbols; the output becoming the journey, and vice versa.”36 Replace ‘artist’ with ‘curator’ and an altermodern curatorial practice is defined. Altermodernity does not consider
33 Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Radicant. Sternberg Press, 2009, p. 34. 34 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (note 32) p. 22. 35 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (note 32) pp. 40-43. 36 Holloway, Timothy. Altermodernism, 2011. p. 21. Accessed 3 Aug. 2019, via: https://issuu.com/timoholloway/docs/altermodern_final_web1. 19
the world to be fixed in time and space and implies that art should not be considered in that context either. It acknowledges that there are certain developments within the world that cannot be explained according to postmodernist theory anymore: “multiculturalism and the discourse of identity is being overtaken by a planetary movement of creolisation; cultural relativism and deconstruction, substituted for modernist universalism, give us no weapons against the twofold threat of uniformity and mass culture and traditionalist, far-right, withdrawal.”37 What altermodernity offers, that postmodernity does not, is illustrated in the eponymous exhibition that Bourriaud curated for the Tate Triennial in 2009. Based on the model of an archipelago, he tried to show how clusters of artists, ideas and cultures are intrinsically linked but not homogenised. To do so, Bourriaud divided the exhibition into eight thematical areas, which were functioning as islands on a map (fig. 2). These eight themes, or islands in the archipelago, were given the names of Energy, Travel, Viatorisation, Borders, Archive, Exiles, Heterochronia and Docu-fiction. A website was designed to provide a more in-depth background on altermodernity, these themes and the exhibited artists. Here, it becomes clear how Bourriaud’s idea of the contemporary artist as ‘homo viator,’ a traveller or nomad, relates to concept of the radicant, as the selected artists fall within more than one of the above- mentioned themes/islands. The ‘paths’ that the artist has been walking across these different islands can be considered as the roots the radicant sprouts from its stem. The selection of the artists and works of art in the exhibition are claimed to be some of the best that current British art has to offer, alongside international artists who are working with similar themes. Having a closer look on the artists and their origins, it becomes clear that the majority of artists are in fact British artists, living and working in Britain. Where the theory of altermodernity tries to offer a new definition to the current contemporary art scene, the choice to mainly focus on British artists is quite remarkable. One would expect the exhibition to illustrate the contemporary, global situation, where indeed many artists are able to travel the world and in which differences are equal. Focussing almost solely on British artists that travel and translate their experiences into works of art seems to be a very limited approach to the theory of altermodernity as proposed in The Radicant. Even though altermodernity focuses on twenty-first-century artists and their art practice, it is possible to translate the concept to present day curatorial practice. As has been established above, altermodern artists translate their experiences, their intercultural manoeuvrings, into art.
37 Bourriaud, Nicolas. Altermodern Manifesto. Tate Britain, 2009. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/altermodern/altermodern-explain- altermodern/altermodern-explained. 20
Altermodern curatorial practice could thus mean to offer a translation of intercultural encounters between works of art, artists and collections, to provide a fundamental understanding of what is going on in the globalising art world. It offers a dialogue between artists working with different media and within different themes. The difficulty with the concept of altermodernity, however, lies mainly in the prefix ‘alter,’ as it suggests an opposition to modernity by definition. If twentieth-century modernism has come to its end, the term illustrates an ‘other’ modernity, keeping the division between original versus other intact and therefore it does not escape from classic modernist Western thought. You cannot use the prefix ‘alter’ without bringing a differentiation/opposition into the world.
Theory of Decoloniality This is exactly what decolonial theory wants to avoid. In this section, a theory that moves beyond both altermodernity and rewriting is discussed. Focussing largely on the writings of Latin-American semiotician Walter Mignolo, decoloniality aims to move beyond binary oppositions and differences between one and another without erasing and/or denying these them. As Ivan Muñiz-Reed strikingly observes, Mignolo and his fellow decolonial scholars argue that concepts and theories such as postmodernity, altermodernity, rewriting and globalisation, operate within the academic field, constructing a “Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism.”38 These concepts and theories can give a proper framework to describe the complexity at hand, but they lack the commitment to move forward from that complexity. Before expanding on the contents of decolonial thought, considering a ‘decolonial critique’ of terms such as inclusion and postcoloniality can prove insightful. Postcolonial theorists worked on deconstructing the Western narrative, in order to lay bare underlying mechanisms and to give voice to ‘the Other’ by turning mechanisms around. Western narrative was ‘replaced’ by a narrative voiced by the Other. Thus, one could say that postcolonialists were limited in expanding the horizon, because they merely replaced one hierarchical system with another, while the underlying principles of the system remained at work and, as a consequence, the system perpetuated and was even reinforced. This critique can also be applied to the concept of inclusion. As Mignolo states, “inclusion is a one-way street and not a reciprocal right.”39 Inclusion could even be seen as a colonial act: to incorporate, to govern. Focussing on the inclusion of a certain individual, group or groups cannot be done without
38 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. “Thoughts on Curatorial Practices in the Decolonial Turn.” OnCurating, Dec. 2017,.p. 101. 39 Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Duke University Press, 2011, p. xv. 21
excluding others. Again, the underlying principles of the hierarchical system remain at work and are even reinforced. The museums of modern and contemporary art to be discussed in chapter two operate within a Eurocentric framework. Bouwhuis has recognised this, claiming that traditional art history would be an instant victim of decolonial thinking, as the Eurocentric idea of aesthetics would collapse.40 The decolonial project would lead to a tremendous attenuation and fragmentation of the art historical canon. Each attempt to broaden the art historical canon through telling ‘the Other story,’ or by substituting the canon with multiple canons emphasises the exclusivity of the traditional canon, which in turn remains the universal doctrine in art history. It can change components within the hierarchy, but it cannot change the underlying principles of the hierarchal structure. This provides European museums with a difficult paradox. What does this paradox mean for museums in general, but more specifically for the three museums that will be analysed in the next chapter? If museums would be as radical as Mignolo proposes, it would mean they would stop presenting their Eurocentric collections altogether and, as a consequence, cease to exist. That cannot be the solution for dealing with coloniality. But one can try to find a less radical decolonial position within an institution with European roots and a European future. Decoloniality is pragmatic and therefore can offer a workable framework. In order to find a decolonial position that can work as an analytical framework with which to analyse the three cases in the next chapter, the following section will dive deeper into decolonial theory as proposed by Mignolo.
Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality Even though one could argue that the period of colonisation has ended decades ago, it is very clear that the colonial structures that have defined the Western world (and in extension this can be said of the entire world), are still present in today’s world. The formal colonial rule of European countries over other countries has ended, but nonetheless coloniality “has persisted through structural forms of privilege and bias.”41 These structural forms of privilege and bias are governed by the colonial matrix of power. In the words of Anibal Quijano, the ‘founding father’ of the concept of (de)coloniality, coloniality is “a matrix of power that produces racial and gender hierarchies on the global and local level, functioning alongside capital to maintain
40 Bouwhuis, Jelle. 2019 (note 13), p. 5-6. 41 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (note 37), p. 99. 22
a modern regime of exploitation and domination.”42 Having control over other cultures in the form of coloniality has remained the Western mindset and perpetuates in racial, gender, economic, political and educational relations in the world we know today. It frames our actions, thoughts, knowledge and choices. Knowledge-producing institutions such as museums are an integral part of this colonial matrix. According to Mignolo, coloniality is inseparably tied to modernity. In his most recent book, On Decoloniality, the conceptual triad of modernity/coloniality/decoloniality is outlined. These three concepts are intrinsically linked with each other. ‘Modernity’ is considered to be the ensemble of socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in Europe in the 16th century (Renaissance), which developed throughout the 17th and 18th (Enlightenment) centuries. Racism, colonialism, exploitation, expropriation, and slave trade are modernity’s ‘shadows.’ These shadows, the (un)intended consequences of the narratives of modernity, form what is described as coloniality. Coloniality is thus the darker, hidden side of modernity, as promoted by institutions and corporations, industrialised nation-states, museums and research institutions. Coloniality can only be viewed from outside the West, but this does not mean that Western people cannot and/or will not understand, it means that these shadows, these darker narratives only exist outside the borders of the West. As a consequence, it is the task of decoloniality to unveil these narratives, processes and this logic.43
“They are a signpost of conflicting enunciations: the rhetoric of ‘modernity,’ and its continuing promises of salvation; and the logic of ‘coloniality,’ the continuing hidden process of expropriation, exploitation, pollution, and corruption that underlies the narrative of modernity, as promoted by institutions and actors belonging to corporations, industrialized nation-states, museums, and research institutions. ‘Decoloniality’ appears in-between modernity/coloniality as an opening, as a possibility of overcoming their completeness. Decoloniality refers to the variegated enunciations springing from global-local histories entangled with the local imperial history of Euro- American modernity, postmodernity, and altermodernity.” (Mignolo & Vazquez Decolonial AestheSis 2013)
42 English translation found in Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (note 37), p. 99. He refers to the following two articles: Quijano, Anibal. “Colonialidad del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina.”Anuario Mariateguiano, Vol. 9, No. 9, 1997; Quijano, Anibal. “Colonialidad y modernidad-racionalidad,” En Perú Indígena, Vol. 13, No. 29,1992. 43 Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018 (see note 2).pp. 139-140. 23
The Project of Delinking To end coloniality, it is thus necessary to end the fictional narratives of modernity. Decoloniality should not be understood as a new conceptual system. Rather, to use Mignolo’s words, it “presupposes border thinking or border epistemology in the precise sense that the Western foundation of modernity and of knowledge is on the one hand unavoidable and on the other highly limited and dangerous.”44 The border that Mignolo refers to lies where Western culture has been contacting other cultures. The universalisation of the Western regional culture is a consequence of its colonial expansion. This does not mean that modernity needs to be rewritten or overturned or that the world needs to be de- or re-Westernised. Decoloniality rather functions as a means to understand the constructs of the Western hegemony and its darker narratives, but it does not aim to end the Western hegemony per se. To move into the direction of liberation, to open the path towards it, it is necessary to delink our knowledge and living associated with modernity. The starting point is the confrontation with and delinking from Eurocentrism. Or, as Muñiz-Reed describes it, “delinking is an ongoing ethico-political and epistemic project, which seeks to de-link from colonial structures that have persisted throughout modernity and which underpin Eurocentrism and systems of discrimination.”45 The project of delinking should enact a change of terminology and a change of the hegemonic, Eurocentric ideas of what knowledge is and what society should be, a change of the assumptions, regulations and principles of the conversations that construct our knowledge and belief systems.46 Each local history of the planet has to deal in one way or another with the modern/colonial world. Moreover, the project of delinking requires analysis of the establishment of the colonial differences and it requires visions and strategies to create these decolonial paths.47 The project of delinking thus functions between the regional and global and could be translated as a means to understand the regional traditions and practices within the global framework. Mignolo further claims that this project of delinking can only be initiated by people within society. Decoloniality is thus a project to be carried out by society for society.48 This emphasises the fact that independent museums can put their potential role as a means for the development of society into practice, as museums can function as spaces where people can acquire knowledge and have their perceptions challenged. Museums are thus the places where
44 Mignolo, Walter D. “Delinking.” Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2-3, 2007, p. 455. 45 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (see note 37), p. 99. 46 Mignolo Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018 (see note 2), p. 223. 47 Mignolo, Walter D. 2007 (see note 43), p. 498. 48 Mignolo Mignolo Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018 (see note 2), p. 253. 24
these decolonial paths can be established. The paradox is, however, that art historical museums are institutions that promote and depend on modernity.49 For museum directors and curators it is thus a difficult task to dismantle, or in other words, to delink their curatorial and/or art historical practice. In cases where artists have been involved as curators of collections, they have created some of the most convincing exhibitions when it comes to decoloniality.50
AestheSis/AestheTics Mignolo’s contribution to a decolonial art theory and museum practice focusses on ‘decolonial aestheSis/aestheTics.’51 Aesthesis and aesthetics are both ancient Greek concepts, the former broadly describing the senses, “an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation, a sensation of touch” and the latter broadly describing the concept of beauty, of the sublime. He further argues that German philosopher Immanuel Kant has absorbed aesthesis into his aesthetic theory. Hence, during the 18th century, aesthetics became a new concept incorporated in the colonial matrix of power and eventually a fundamental aspect of Western (modern) art history, playing a key role in configuring the canon that enabled the rejection of other forms aesthetic practices and other forms of aesthesis, of sensing and perceiving. Muñiz-Reed extends this theory to art institutions and museums, as their curators function as gatekeepers of the beautiful and sublime: “Curators, who have become central figures in cultural production within the art historical canon, have the power to decide which (and how) histories are told. Perhaps Mignolo’s biggest criticism of Western art institutions (and the work of curators/critics such as Nicolas Bourriaud) is that in their articulation of a postmodern or altermodern aesthetic they often omit the violence perpetrated throughout modernity in the name of ‘progress’, ‘freedom’ and ‘peace’, and thereby propagate the silencing of suppressed histories.”52 As follows, decolonial aestheSis/aestheTics can be considered a “confrontation with modern aesthetics, and its aftermath (postmodern and altermodern aesthetics) to decolonise the regulation of sensing all the sensations to which our bodies respond, from culture as well as from nature.” In short, “‘decolonial aestheSis’ asks why Western aesthetic categories like ‘beauty’ or ‘representation’ have come to dominate all discussion of art and its value, and how those categories organise the way we think of ourselves and others: as white or black, high or
49 Mignolo, Walter, and Vazquez, Rolando. “Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healing.” Social Text, 15 July 2013. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/decolonial- aesthesis-colonial-woundsdecolonial-healings/. 50 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (see note 37), p. 100. 51 Mignolo, Walter, and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48). 52 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (see note 37), p. 100. 25
low, strong or weak, good or evil.”53 Each society in the world has its own understanding of learning, of beauty, of justice, of gender, of nature, of culture, of democracy, of economy, etcetera. Yet, it is the Western idea of these concepts that became the norm.
Delinking in Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art Decolonial thinking should not deconstruct these concepts in the European genealogy of thoughts, as that would be a postmodernist approach, still working within the same Western, modernist framework. Instead, one task of decolonial thinking would be to decolonize these concepts, to show their historical and regional scope.54 It would unveil the colonial wounds, making them visible and tangible. At the same time, it would offer the possibility of healing that wound through recognition. Museums of modern and contemporary art can play an important part in the project of decoloniality. Muñiz-Reed imagines “a decolonial practice that would advocate for an epistemic disobedience, replacing or complementing Eurocentric discourses and categories with alternative perspectives.”55 With regard to art historical museums, patterns of thought are established in museums through the choices its curators make: the choice of words that affirm the hegemony of central Europe over other countries; the choice of artists that affirm the superiority of men over women; the choice of artists that affirm the superiority of white over black, Hispanic or Asian; the choice of artists and objects that affirm the normative idea of progress in the history of art; the choice of objects that affirm the normative concept of the beautiful and the sublime; et cetera. As can be seen, curators can thus open up decolonial paths by changing their perspectives and by choosing other options. To decolonise these normative, Western concepts, Mexican artist Pedro Lasch established a decolonial method consisting of three steps:
“1) To show their genealogy in Western modernity that allows us to transform the universal validity claims of Western concepts and turn them into concepts historically situated;
2) To show their coloniality, that is how they have functioned to erase, silence, denigrate other ways of understanding and relating to the world; and finally
53 Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48). 54 Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48), part V. 55 Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. 2017 (see note 37), p. 101. 26
3) To build on this grounds the decolonial option, as a non-normative space, as a space open to the plurality of alternatives.”56
Through the works of modern art in their collections, museums have the ability to show its genealogy (the first step); how modern aesthetics have resulted in the formation of the Western art historical canon and how this has resulted in a continuity of coloniality (the second step). In addition, the exhibition space offers room to experiment and create non-normative, alternative narratives. These three steps, together with the set of choices curators have in curating their exhibitions, form a practical toolset that can be applied to the three cases of museums and their permanent collection presentations in the next chapter. It has to be pointed out, however, that this is not a definitive or normative project in itself: it is not a manifesto for museums in the sense that ‘this is how it should be done.’ Creating a manifesto would, in Mignolo’s words, ‘have killed the questions instead of leaving them as signposts for thought.’57 This means that this set of options can only be viewed as a starting point, as a possible framework to begin with, to open up the paths towards decoloniality.
Conclusion This chapter has shown that since 1989 the attitude towards the Western hegemonical art historical narrative has changed. Despite several inventions trying to change perspective, however, the traditional art historical canon has remained the same. By first establishing that museums are in fact institutions that have had a profound influence on the formation of this traditional narrative, three theories have been introduced that aim to change the Western perspective with regard to art historical and museum practice. The first theory that has been elaborated upon is the theory of rewriting, which presupposes that art historical museums can continue their work within the Western framework. By adding new art historical narratives and/or by rearranging already existing knowledge, it is claimed that the art historical canon can be changed eventually. Art historian Jelle Bouwhuis has pointed out that every attempt to expand the canon or to implement the idea of multiple canons continues to emphasise the exceptionality of the traditional Western art historical canon, which therefore still remains the fundamental base in art history.58 Moreover, within museums this canonical expansion remains hardly reflected. The theory of rewriting thus proves a tool
56 Pedro Lasch in Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48), part IV. 57 Mignolo, Walter D. 2007 (see note 43), p. 450. 58 Bouwhuis, Jelle. 2019 (note 13), p. 6. 27
for expanding our knowledge on the current contemporary art scene, but does not provide tools that can be useful when discussing non-Western practices. The second theory that has been introduced is that of altermodernity, a concept created in 2009 by art historian and curator Nicholas Bourriaud to define the contemporary twenty- first-century art practice. Bourriaud claims that the contemporary artist translates his intercultural encounters across the world into works of art. In contrast with the linear perspective of modernity, altermodernity is illustrated using the metaphor of an archipelago in which the different islands are themes, connected through the travels of these artists. Although altermodernity primarily focusses on contemporary artists and art practice, it can be translated into a curatorial model in which the curator translates intercultural connections between artists and themes. The third and final theory that has been introduced is that of decoloniality, a theory established by Latin-American sociologists claiming that although the colonial times are over, coloniality as a constructed mindset is still prevalent today. The underlying reason for this is that modernity is still a fundamental Western way of thought that has been able to develop since the fifteenth century. To be able to move away from coloniality, sociologist Walter Mignolo has formulated the term decoloniality. To find answers to the research question of how museums of modern and contemporary art can use their permanent collection displays to play a role in the current decolonial discourse, these three theories will be used while analysing the three case studies in the next chapter. It will become clear that each of these theories provide insightful elements to make decolonial choices.
28
2. Three Case Studies Traditionally, and up until recently, museums in the Netherlands exhibited their permanent collection along the ideas of the museum’s director, for however long their directorship may have lasted. The attitudes towards the presentation of permanent collections have shifted in the past few decades from a longstanding visualisation of the museum’s director’s ideas, towards an exhibition providing a more fundamental base of art history and room for elaboration, study and discovery. In addition, the lifespan of permanent collection presentations has decreased to around three to five years. Nevertheless, these exhibitions still have a longer duration than the temporary exhibitions, which have a duration of a maximum of 6 months. The permanent collection displays thus offer an opportunity for the museum to provide the visitor an in-depth analysis of the subject matter of their choice. When it comes to the discourse of decolonisation in the field of museum studies, permanent collections displays are often left out of the discourse. Yet, as has been established in the previous chapters, it is precisely these collection displays that offer a great opportunity to decolonise our knowledge and museum practice. This chapter will therefore analyse three permanent collection displays along the theory of rewriting, the concept of altermodernity and the project of delinking, as established in the previous chapter. It will initiate with the analysis of the permanent collection display of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which was renewed in 2017. Subsequently, the permanent collection display of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, will gain attention. And lastly, the 2018 collection exhibition of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Germany will be considered.
29
2.1 STEDELIJK BASE
Introduction Comprising of 95.000 works, the museum has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in the Netherlands and has a profound history of experimentation with radical exhibition displays. Claiming to be a leading museum, it aims to generate attention to the limitation of the Western art historical canon by adding new perspectives through their exhibitions.59 Their permanent collection display, which is open since 16 Dec. 2017, is the first case study to be analysed in order to provide insights on how museums of modern and contemporary art can use their permanent collection display to generate new perspectives on the limited Western art historical canon and to open up new pathways towards decoloniality. To be able to do so, a brief history of the museum will be given after which the current permanent collection display will be analysed. During the nineteenth century, a need for national and local museums in the Netherlands grew exponentially. After the opening of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 1808, the need for a museum for contemporary art arose simultaneously. In 1874, an association was formed and financed by the wealthy Van Eeghen family to establish a public collection of contemporary art. At that time, the association did not have a house to exhibit their recent acquisitions.60 Supported with the bequest of Sophia Augusta Lopez Suasso in 1891, The Stedelijk Museum opened its doors in 1895, close to the Rijksmuseum and Concertgebouw. However, instead of exhibiting contemporary art, as was aspired by the association, during its first decades the Stedelijk Museum rather resembled a typical Wunderkammer, “a hodgepodge of items, from militia flags to dolls, and from an eighteenth-century kitchen to an old pharmacy”.61 The museum only started with the acquisition of works of art made by contemporary living artists in 1923, 30 years after its opening. In 1936 graphic designer Willem Sandberg joined the museum as curator and deputy director and would transform the interior of the classical historical museum into a neutral modern art museum by painting the red and yellow brick walls of the museum white, “in order to display modern art to its best advantage”.62 In the first three decades of the twentieth century,
59 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Annual Report 2017. Accessed 6 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/nl/museum/organisatie/jaarverslag. 60 Steens, A., and Cheda, C., Archief van het Stedelijk Museum, versie 105.1, 9 april 2019. Accessed 8 Jun. 2019, via: https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/overzicht/30041.nl.html 61 Tates, Sophie (eds.). Let Me Be Your Guide: Collection Guide. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2017, p. 275. 62 Tates, Sophie (eds.). 2017 (see note 60), p. 277; Petersen, Ad. Sandberg, vormgever van het Stedelijk. nai010 uitgevers, 2004, p.19. 30
attitudes towards exhibition design were changing in Western Europe and North America. The cleanliness of the exhibition, providing a neutral and bright background and enough space between the displayed artworks so that they can be experienced individually, gained much more attention. This approach would later become the standard exhibition model in museums for modern and contemporary art and would receive the name of the white cube by art historian Brian O’Doherty in 1976.63 Sandberg became known for his experimentalism and radicalism, carrying out his ideas without hesitation and without listening to the dubiety of his peers. Aiming to make the modern art museum accessible for everyone, he organised 30 to 40 thematical exhibitions per year, making it one of the most important modern art museums in Europe.64 In 1954 Sandberg opened a glass-structured annex building, realising his vision of the museum as an open, public space, inviting the people passing by to come in and experience the art on show (fig. 3).65 Since his directorate, the museum has been considered to be the most well-known museum for modern and contemporary art in the Netherlands, both nationally and internationally. In 2004, the museum closed its doors for an extensive renovation project. During this project the original Sandberg-wing made place for a new annex building, designed by architects Benthem & Crouwel, which is publicly known as ‘The Bathtub’ (fig. 4). Inspired by Sandberg’s white walls, the bathtub was designed to exhibit the museum’s temporary exhibitions.66 The first five years after the reopening in 2012, the museum’s permanent collection was exhibited in the original 19th-century building, whilst The Bathtub was used to exhibit all temporary exhibitions. Since its reopening the museum has been actively giving attention to societal topics such as giving voice to female and/or non-Western artists, the migration crisis and the decolonial discourse in the Netherlands, by organising temporary exhibitions and projects. One good example is the three-year project Global Collaborations, launched in 2013, focusing on the global art practice, especially in those upcoming regions such as Africa, the Middle-East and South-East Asia.67 For this project, the museum organised several temporary exhibitions and a diverse programme of activities, such as roundtable discussions and lectures.
63 O’Doherty, Brian. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. 1976. Expanded ed., University of California Press, 2000, pp. 14-15. 64 Elshout, Dos J. De Moderne Museumwereld in Nederland: Sociale Dynamiek in Beleid, Erfgoed, Markt, Wetenschap en Media. 2016. University of Amsterdam, PhD Dissertation. p. 31. 65 Eshout, Dos J. 2016 (see note 63), p. 26. 66 “Project Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam .” Benthem Crouwel Architects. Accessed 11 Jul. 2019, via: http://benthemcrouwel.com/projects/#culture-new-stedelijk-museum-amsterdam-993. 67 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. 2013 (see note 15). 31
Part of this three-year project was the temporary exhibition HOW FAR HOW NEAR – the world in the Stedelijk (19 Sept. 2014 – 31 Jan. 2015), which centred around the question of how museum collections and exhibition policies, historically and presently, are limited and challenged in relation to geographical emphasis, arguing for a greater focus on art from regions outside Europe and North America, using its own collection as its starting point.68 This project and exhibition illustrate the museum’s recent aims to pay more attention to art from other regions of the world. The first five years after the reopening in 2012, the museum’s permanent collection was exhibited in the original 19th-century building, whilst The Bathtub was used to exhibit all temporary exhibitions. Beatrix Ruf was appointed as the new director of the museum in 2014 and plans for a renewed permanent collection display began to develop shortly after. She changed the floorplan of the entire museum completely and divided the museum into three zones: STEDELIJK BASE, located in the newest annex building, showcasing the permanent collection exhibition; STEDELIJK TURNS, located on the ground floor of the original building, showcasing works from the collection in temporary, topical and/or thematic exhibitions to go deeper into the subject matter offered in STEDELIJK BASE; and STEDELIJK NOW, located on the top floor of the original building, showcasing temporary exhibitions (fig. 5).69 The renewed museum structure and collection display was opened on December 16th, 2017. By moving the permanent collection display from the original museum building to The Bathtub, Ruf breaks away from the traditional binary separation of old and new. This presentation of the collection will stand for five years, until 2022. To realise the exhibition, Ruf collaborated with architect Rem Koolhaas and architectural bureau OMA, of which he is an associate, to design the permanent collection display. STEDELIJK BASE is divided into two parts, of which the first part presents works of art from the late 19th century until 1980 and the second part works of art from 1980 until now. The exhibition presents approximately 700 works from the collection, grouped around historic movements, social themes and influential artists and explores developments in the arts from the end of the 19th century to the present day.70
‘High Art’ merges with Design The exhibition starts with a short introductory film, illustrating ‘the making of’. This short film mainly focuses on the architectural process of OMA, but also gives some attention to the
68 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. 2013 (see note 16). 69 Raven, Marie-José, and Feitsma, Udo. STEDELIJK BASE OPENS 16 DECEMBER 2017. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 13 Sept. 2017. Accessed 12 Jun. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/news/stedelijk-base-the- new-collection-presentation-of-the-stedelijk-museum-amsterdam-will-open-on-16-december-2017-2. 70. Raven, Marie-José and Feitsma, Udo. 2017 (see note 68). 32
selection process of the works of art from the museum’s depots. For this exhibition, OMA developed “an innovative steel display system, using the latest technology, to allow visitors an open-ended route through the museum's rich collection of works of art and design pieces from 1880 to the present.”71 Because of technical reasons, this innovative design only covers the first part of the exhibition in the basement, as these thin steel walls are too heavy for the upper floor to carry them. This results in significant differences in exhibition design and storytelling between the two parts of the permanent collection display. Entering the exhibition, the visitor is confronted with a large open space, divided with dark-grey/white walls that separate the space into a maze-like structure. The steel walls are placed in a criss-cross layout, resulting in an art-fair-like set up, providing a dynamic trail between open spaces. The steel walls are partly covered with a white canvas, resulting in the dark-grey colour of the steel separating the white canvases from the white walls and ceiling enclosing the large open space. On these detached steel walls, works of art and design from different periods in time and/or different stylistic movements are grouped together either thematically or stylistically, creating a “hodgepodge-like” assemblage of works of art (fig. 6- 8). In the far-right corner of the exhibition, a room designed by De Stijl-architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld is reproduced. The visitor can climb on top of the room and gain a clear exhibition overview of the collection presentation (fig. 9). This spot is the only place in the exhibition where the visitor can take a step back from the overwhelming amount of stimuli. Moving further, somewhat in the middle of the exhibition on the outer walls, Barnett Newman’s large blue painting Cathedra (1951, fig. 10) is placed next to three chairs designed by designer duo Charles and Ray Eames (1951, fig. 11). Here, Cathedra and the Eames’ chairs function to illustrate a cultural characteristic of the art practice during the 1950s in North America. A small bench in front of the large blue painting invites the visitor to sit down and let the blue colour sink in. Yet, as the chairs are placed with only approximately 50 centimetres between them and Cathedra, the visitor becomes easily distracted as the shelves on which the chairs are placed have a limiting and distracting effect. The dialogue between Cathedra and the Eames chairs seems disturbed, rather than inviting to engage. Moreover, the overload of art pieces in this exhibition layout create a chaotic effect as the abundance of stimuli makes it impossible to focus on neither the narrative nor the works of art on show. It leaves the visitor with a feeling of being lost in a maze, without any clue where to go next and with what to engage.
71 “Stedelijk Base.” OMA. Accessed 17 Jul. 2019, via https://oma.eu/projects/stedelijk-base. 33
Up until recently, design and ‘high art’ were considered two different disciplines, divided by a hierarchical ranking. Design was never expected to gain the same amount of appraisal as ‘high art’ would. These collections in museums were therefore always tucked away in the least prominent exhibition spaces of the museum. In STEDELIJK BASE, this division between the so-called ‘high’, modernist art and ‘functional’ design is removed. Moreover, following Weibel’s theory of rewriting, the curators have successfully tried to expand the classical art historical canon by adding the historical narrative of design.72 In addition, placing these works of art next to design objects illustrates the changing mindset towards the traditional art historical canon and could therefore be considered as a step towards decolonising collections, as it functions as an aim to equalise different forms of art, removing the hierarchical traditional structure.73
The Labyrinthine Exhibition In the 7th issue of its own magazine Stedelijk Studies, the maze-like structure is referred to as labyrinthine. Here, it is explained that the labyrinthine exhibition is a curatorial model, like an alter ego for the traditional white cube.74 “Multiple layers instead of optical clarity, immersion instead of spectatorship, proximity as opposed to distance, chance versus rationality,” are what curator Margriet Schavemaker and museum educator Dorine de Bruijne claim to be elements of the labyrinthine curatorial model. Moreover, in this edition art historian Noit Banai illustrates the labyrinthine curatorial model as a format for participation and interactivity, and argues that “although the labyrinth has clearly permutated and has been curatorially choreographed in various ways since the 1960s, it is still primarily embedded within the logic of the reproduction as they are dictated by Western Europe.”75 The labyrinthine model, to conclude, can thus be considered a Western traditional exhibition model just like the white cube and connects well with Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernity. As was mentioned earlier, the visitor is invited to either move freely through the labyrinth or to follow the perimeter which represents highlights from the collection to illustrate the classical art historical canon. The addition of this traditional art historical narrative should function as a means to provide recognisable elements the visitor can turn to, when the
72 Weibel, Peter. 2013 (see note 27). 73 Mignolo Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018 (see note 2). 74 Schavemaker, Margriet & Bruijne, Dorine de. “Lose Yourself! On Labyrinthine Exhibitions as Curatorial Model.” Stedelijk Studies, no. 7, 2018. Accessed 18 Jul. 2019, via: https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/lose- yourself-editorial/. 75 Banai, Noit. “The Labyrinth as an Exhibitionary Model: Form, Event, and Mode of Life.” Stedelijk Studies, no. 7, 2018. Accessed 18 Jul. 2019, via: https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/the-labyrinth-as-an-exhibitionary- model-form-event-and-mode-of-life/. 34
presentation in the maze-like structure is too overwhelming or difficult and is thus aimed to function as a guiding thread, to prevent the visitor from getting lost. This idea of the visitor wandering through a big open space encountering different themes and works of art resembles Bourriaud’s idea that altermodern curating does not consider the world to be fixed in time and space and implies that art should not be considered in that context either.76 It is this addition of the classical art historical canon as a guiding thread where the Stedelijk Museum burns its fingers with regard to opening up decolonial paths and answering positively to the research question at hand. By presenting canonical items in a fixed order, as a frame of reference and literally as a frame in which the labyrinth finds its place, the curators contradict their aim for the visitor to make their own connections between the works of art. If the aim to choose a labyrinthine format actually entails providing a certain form of liberation, it is important to understand what is meant with ‘liberation.’ Liberty can only be of value and beneficial within a certain context, with a certain basic knowledge and insights to be able to make decisions. For instance, a recently freed slave without money and personal belongings has little choice than to submit oneself to the structure of the coloniser once again, because he has no power or means to build a life of his own within the given structure. This is exactly why the structure of ‘coloniality’ still exists today. Moreover, the labyrinthine exhibition model enables the visitor to make new connections based on his already existing knowledge without gaining a different perspective on the traditional art historical elements. The coloniality of the visitor’s knowledge thus remains the same.
Vocabulary Another aspect of museological decolonisation that has not yet been discussed, is the choice of words. As was illustrated in the introduction of this thesis, language is not neutral and thus the use of vocabulary has to be taken into account when it comes to decolonising art museums. Wall texts offer a great opportunity for the museum to offer the visitor another perspective for establishing new connections between works of art within the labyrinthine exhibition. Art historian Jelle Bouwhuis provides a good argument on how the words used in STEDELIJK BASE confirms the colonial Western perspective on works of art, artists and the art historical canon.77 To illustrate this claim, he uses Henri Matisse’s Odalisque (1920-21, fig. 12) and the adjoining wall text. The text claims that this work of art is problematic. Not because of its oriental eroticism, but because the painting was added to the collection during the World War
76 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (see note 37). 77 Bouwhuis, Jelle. 2019 (see note 13), p. 8. 35
II under murky circumstances. The text continues by illustrating how Matisse encountered ‘a world of Odalisques’ during his travels to Morocco in the winters of 1912 and 1913. Bouwhuis explains how it must have been impossible to encounter a world of Odalisques, as the word ‘odalisque’ is a corruption of the Turkish word ‘odalik,’ which literally means ‘handmaiden.’ Yet, as he continues, the ‘odalisque’ in the traditional art history is used to illustrate the European male painters’ erotic projection of the wives in North African and Middle Eastern harems. Because these residences were inaccessible and sacred, these painters were often limited to the models in their ateliers to paint these exotic, erotic fantasies. The ‘odalisque’ is thus a Western invention to depict one aspect of the oriental white male gaze, embedded in colonial thought. With including this work of art in the canonical frame thread of the exhibition, the curators had a great opportunity to open up a path towards decoloniality. But instead, the curators have decided to only illustrate the problematic provenance of the artwork. This work of art and its adjoining wall text show how the curators preferred to focus on the problematic provenance of the artwork rooted in a dark period of Western history, rather than to actually educate its visitors on the problematic Eurocentric, racist and colonial gaze on non-Western daily life. With their choice of words, the curators have made the decision to keep the Western tradition intact.
Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking The act of diminishing the hierarchical structure follows Ruf’s vision on art and the museum’s collection:
“I see the collection as a whole – each work was created at a particular point in time. By placing different disciplines side by side, we learn more about a period and are able to see new cross-connections. The widespread use of the Internet has given us a new way to gather information: we browse, see masses of images in one go, connect them and make combinations. All of this is expressed in STEDELIJK BASE: in a fantastic concept designed by OMA, you can move freely through the space, see amazing combinations, and make your own connections.”78
Here it becomes clear that in Ruf’s ideological exhibition the visitor is able to make cross- connections between works of art, different media and different cultures. This is an ideology
78 Raven, Marie-José, and Feitsma, Udo. 2017 (see note 68). 36
that relates to Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernity, in which the curator functions as a translator of intercultural and -disciplinary art practice.79 As can be seen, the exhibition does diminish the hierarchical division between the works of ‘high art’ and design and therefore it is also a good example of putting the theory of rewriting into practice. Yet, the rewriting practice takes place within the Western traditional art historical canon and little attention has been given to works of art made by women and/or in other cultures outside the West. As the previous paragraphs have demonstrated, the museum has tried to show the limitation of the Western art historical canon in their permanent collection display by placing works of modern art on the same pedestal as design in a labyrinthine exhibition model. Using the labyrinthine exhibition model, the curators have tried to create an open space in which the visitor can make new connections between artworks, creating another understanding of the art historical canon. Here, the curators have successfully applied Weibel’s theory of rewriting as they have tried to expand the traditional narrative with the addition of design.80 However, by adding the traditional art historical canon as a guiding thread the museum has annulled their experimental aim in questioning the Western art historical canon. Instead, this addition to the labyrinthine exhibition model confirms this the traditional narrative. Going back to the three steps of delinking, as established by Pedro Lasch in chapter one this thesis, did the curators decide to show the museum’s genealogy in Western modernity, transforming the universal validity of Western concepts into concepts historically situated? Did the curators decide to show their coloniality? And lastly, did the curators create a non-normative space, open to the plurality of alternatives?81 The answer to these questions is no. Ruf and her team of curators have decided to focus on changing the traditional Western art historical narrative by removing the division between art and design within the frame of this traditional narrative. The curators had a very prominent option to open up paths towards a decoloniality within this frame by using a different vocabulary that provides information on artworks. This has been illustrated using Matisse’s Odalisque as an example. Here, the curators chose to focus on the problematic provenance of the work of art, instead of focusing on the problematic depiction of the ‘odalisque.’
Conclusion This case study aimed to provide insights in how museums of modern and contemporary art can use their permanent collection display to generate new perspectives on the limited Western
79 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (see note 34). 80 Weibel, Peter. 2013 ( see note 27). 81 Pedro Lasch in Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48), part IV. 37
art historical canon and to open up new pathways towards decoloniality. As this case study has shown, former director Ruf and her team of curators have tried to provide an experimental approach towards the traditional collection display, by placing design on the same pedestal as the modern works of art. Here, they have tried to dismantle the hierarchical tradition in which modern art is considered to be ‘high art’ and design something of less value. This is a typical act of rewriting, as it expands the traditional art historical canon by including design as art of similar value.82 It has been established that this exhibition proofs a good example to illustrate the theory of rewriting is restricted to only functions within the traditional Western framework. This is also illustrated through the implementation of a labyrinthine curatorial model in STEDELIJK BASE. Adding the traditional Western art historical canon as a literal frame, as a guiding thread for visitors to hold on to within this labyrinthine structure, proves the curators still think and work within traditional curatorial practice and that the act of rewriting happens within the Western tradition of art history. The museum’s aim to show the limitation of the traditional Western art historical canon by focussing on works of art made by female and/or non-Western artists, together with the recently finished Global Collaborations-project prove the museum’s capability of experimenting with more decolonial approaches. Yet, this attitude is completely left aside during the formation of the narrative of the collection display. Being the biggest museum of modern and contemporary art and claiming to have a prominent role in both local and international communities, the Stedelijk Museum missed out on opportunities to set in motion a radical change in the common understanding of the Western art historical canon.
82 Weibel, Peter. 2013 ( see note 27). 38
2.2 The Making of Modern Art
Introduction The previous section has illustrated that a museum of modern and contemporary art has multiple tools at hand to create an understanding of the coloniality persistent in Western society and to open paths towards decoloniality by being creative in dismantling traditional hierarchies and using different vocabulary. In order to provide an in-depth understanding of these options and the way these can be used, this section will analyse the permanent collection display of the Van Abbemuseum. Located in Eindhoven, an industrial city in the south of the Netherlands, the Van Abbemuseum is one of the Dutch modern and contemporary art museums that, to quote art historian Claire Bishop, “has done some of the most experimental work on contextualising its collections and inviting participation in the light of social change and activist agenda.”83 The museum was founded in 1936 by Henri van Abbe, a wealthy cigar manufacturer and owner of a tobacco factory who earned his money through the constructs of colonialism in the Dutch Indies. Van Abbe had a personal interest in art and collected an extensive amount of Dutch modern art. In 1930 he started building the Van Abbemuseum to exhibit his collection and to contribute to the city’s cultural development. The museum thus has a direct link to the colonial past of the Netherlands, which is one of the motivations for choosing this museum as a case study. Under the directorate of Charles Esche, who was appointed as director of the museum in 2004, the museum has actively tried to break free from the traditional Euro-American centred narrative by experimenting with alternative exhibition models and research projects.84 A renewed permanent collection exhibition opened in September 2017 and will be on show until early 2021. Together with curators Steven ten Thije and Christiane Berndes, Esche has divided the collection into two parts. The first is called The Making of Modern Art, which is situated at the ground floor of the original collection building and developed in collaboration with the Museum of American Art in Berlin. This exhibition aims to address how museums and curators in the West have contributed to the formation of the Western art historical canon throughout
83 Bishop, Claire. Radical Museology. Or, What’s ‘Contemporary’ in Museums of Contemporary Art? Koenig Books, 2013, p. 6-29. 84 Bishop, Claire. 2013 (see note 82). 39
the twentieth century and is in line with its mission as stated in its collection plan in which they have included several paragraphs dedicated to decolonisation and demodernisation.85 The second part is called The Way Beyond Art, which is situated on the second floor of the collection building and shows works of art produced after World War II on the basis of three fundamental topics: Land, Home and Work. Whereas the first chapter functions as an understanding of the foundation of the Western art historical canon, this exhibition aims to provide a way of understanding the changing contemporary world and to reflect upon our current society. The curators were inspired by Alexander Dorner’s eponymous book, written in 1947 (1893, Königsberg – 1957, Napoli), in which he expresses his idea that art is not a mirror that reflects, but an engine that encourages change.86 This chapter will primarily focus on The Making of Modern Art, as it demonstrates several options of delinking put into practice. Walking through an ornamental, oriental-like gate, the visitor enters the first room of The Making of Modern Art. Along the white walls, several semi-antique cabinets present a hodgepodge of photographs, books, copies of paintings and texts. The walls behind these cabinets are painted in a bright-green colour. In front of these cabinets cushions and Middle- Eastern tapestries provide the room with a cosy, Middle-Eastern atmosphere where you can sit down and take your time and absorb all the curiosities that are hidden inside the cabinets. When one is seated down and looks back towards the entrance, an Arabic text above the ornamental entrance catches the eye (fig. 13-14). The wall text in this room introduces the exhibition as though the visitor had never heard of the West and its art practice before:
“Once upon a time, the people living in a region known as the West, decided to name beautiful, man-made objects art. From that moment not what was depicted was the most important, but how it was made and by whom. The gifted individuals who had made these objects were called artists. The Westerners started to collect an often steal works of art from all over the world to be preserved and shown in galleries and museums. They understood works of art as giving shape to the noblest ideas and the highest emotions.
The Westerners colonized many regions and so the custom to name beautiful objects art spread across the entire world. Suddenly, ancient sculptures or
85 Van Abbemuseum, Collectieplan 2018-2019. Accessed 9 Aug. 2019, via: https://mediabank.vanabbemuseum.nl/vam/files/alexandria/publiciteit/collectieplannen/Collectieplan2018- 2019.pdf. 86 Van Abbemuseum. The Way Beyond Art. Exhibition Information. Accessed 23 Jun. 2019, via: https://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/programme/programme/the-way-beyond-art/. 40
masks made for ritualistic purposes by anonymous craftsmen to honour gods and spirits were works of art, venerated for their artistic quality and their makers’ genius – even if, for a long time, Westerners considered the artists from the colonized territories inferior to the artists from the West. Together the works of art told the story of art, a long tale of endless artistic discovery, with modern art as its latest chapter. Modern art, later named the ‘avant- garde,’ operated as a steadily advancing front, plunging itself relentlessly into the unknown.”87
The other texts inside the cabinets introduce the history of collecting in the West, as well as some key museums and curators that have shaped the story of modern art, as we know it today. It is this introductory wall text, however, that clearly shows the curators’ point of view from which they have approached their collection and designed the exhibition. Already from the start, the visitor is made aware that this exhibition will present an unusual narrative on the art historical objects in the museum.
Walter Benjamin has Resurrected Moving further into the exhibition, the visitor enters a colourful room with walls painted in bright yellow, green and purple. On the green wall to the left, an original composition by Piet Mondriaan is accompanied by an almost-identical reproduction of the work (fig. 15). The guiding text stimulates the viewer to think critically about what is commonly accepted as art and what not:
“Is a copy of an abstract painting, an abstract painting? In the copy we still see the original, thus it should be an abstract painting; on the other hand, being a faithful reproduction of another painting (object), it should be also a realistic painting. This ambiguity shows how a simple copy of an abstract painting could transform something ‘known’ into something ‘unknown,’ turning the entire modernistic worldview upside-down, and revealing that our idyllic backyard could be a minefield too.”88
Here, the visitor is introduced to the ideas of German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, who argued that the development of photography, amongst other industrial
87 Wall text “And We Call It Art.” The Making of Modern Art, 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 88Wall text “Original and Copy.” The Making of Modern Art, , 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 41
and mechanical developments, makes it possible to reproduce works of art, but that even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art will never possess the aura (the unique aesthetic authority) of its original.89 This text, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction from 1936, has had a major influence in the development of the Western art historical canon, posing that a work of art possesses a certain sacral quality. As was pointed out by Mignolo and Vazquez in chapter two, aesthetics is a Western concept to describe the concept of beauty, of the sublime.90 Contesting this idea seems to be an important narrative throughout the exhibition, as in almost every room reproductions of works of art from the collection are placed next to and/or between their originals. In order to obtain these reproductions, the museum teamed up with the Museum of American Art in Berlin. Although Benjamin is most famous for his contribution to the art historical canon by introducing the irreproducible aura of a work of art, art historian Claire Bishop has elaborated upon another, lesser-known concept by Benjamin with regard to art historical and curatorial practice.91 She considers the concept of the constellation as a politicised rewriting of history that is a highly suggestive approach for museums. Instead of opting for a global inclusivity that tries to embed every other artist and artwork made outside the West into the same narrative, the constellation is, in Benjamin’s terms, “a project that disrupts taxonomies, disciplines, mediums, and proprieties.” Bishop further illustrates that by approaching the collection as a constellation, the contemporary museum can open up a dynamic rereading of history focusing on what has been repressed and discarded in the eyes of the dominant classes. This remapping in the form of a constellation relates to Bourriaud’s altermodernity, as it tries to make cross-connections between artists through different themes and places.92 Elsewhere in this room, another text claims that Walter Benjamin has resurrected many years after his unfortunate death in 1940, with his first reappearance in 1986 giving a lecture called Mondriaan ’63-’96 in Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana.93 Since then, Benjamin has published several essays and interviews on museums and art history, gave a lecture in China in 2011, and has been involved with the MoAA in Berlin the past few years. Here, the visitor is left confused, as Walter Benjamin committed suicide in 1940, not wanting to surrender to the Nazis. So what purpose does this narrative of a Benjamin-impersonation entail? It is Yugoslavian artist Goran
89 Zohn, Harry, translator. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” By Walter Benjamin, 1936. Illuminations. Arendt, Hannah (eds.). Schocken Books, 1969. 90 Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48). 91 Bishop, Claire. 2013 (see note 82), p. 56. 92 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 ( see note 34). 93 Wall text for Lenin Coca Cola by Alexander Kosolapov. The Making of Modern Art, 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 42
Djordjevic who stepped into the shoes of Benjamin, trying to imagine how Benjamin would reflect upon his own writings and the contemporary twenty-first art world, had he still been alive.94 In his work, Djordjevic actively researches how modern art is perceived and tries to contest the standard validation of fundamental aspects within art history. For this reason, Djordjevic has been working as a technical assistant for the MoAA since 2004. Already in the second room of the exhibition it becomes very clear that the curators have taken a critical stance towards the traditional art historical approach often represented in permanent collection displays.
Desacralisation and Dearticisation Moving further into this room, a sculpture of a mask is placed behind a glass wall (fig. 16). Photographs and excerpts from old newspapers are placed around the sculpture, depicting the museum’s founder Henri van Abbe, an Indonesian man at work and two photographs of exhibition rooms in which the artwork can be seen. Underneath the sculpture, like a booklet, a text is presented that introduces de visitor to the concepts of desacralisation and dearticisation:
“This sculpture that comes from Sumatra, Indonesia, was used in ‘death dance’ before it was desacralized in becoming part of an ethnographic collection. After being kept as a cultural artefact, it was later exhibited as an artwork in art museums – and so it was articized. In this exhibition the mask is presented once more as an artefact – it is dearticized – to remind us of the various roles it has played in different yet related stories, such as the two below.”95
Desacralisation is an example of Western modernisation, describing the process of placing an object of cultural reference out of its original context into a glass display case in a museum. During this process, the object loses its original function and is elevated into an aesthetic work of art. In this room, the mask illustrates this desacralisation process and at the same time it symbolises the museum’s ties with colonialism:
“The other story connects the mask with the Van Abbemuseum’s founder Henri van Abbe, an industrialist who bought tobacco grown under Dutch colonial rule in Sumatra Utara to make his cigars. It was through these trade
94 Rijnders, Mieke. “Kunst ont-kunst. De nieuwe collectiepresentatie van het Van Abbemuseum.” De Witte Raaf. no. 191, Jan.-Feb. 2018. Accessed 7 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/detail/nl/4441. 95 Wall tekst “Ritual-Ethnology Art.” The Making of Modern Art. 29 Apr. 2017 – 03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 43
relations that artefacts like these entered the West. The history of masks like these therefore testifies to the complex relation between the West, its modern art, and its colonies. The innovation of modern art was inspired by ‘primitive’ cultures that were actively kept ‘primitive’ as a result of hard colonial rule.”96
The mask was lent from the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures (NMWC). The choice to include this object into the exhibition narrative proves that museums of modern and contemporary art are capable of generating awareness on the colonial matrix of power it finds itself in, without having to change the main narrative of the exhibition Furthermore, this small addition offers the opportunity for the visitor to critically reflect upon how the traditional Western approach of art history is often the assumed default.
Cubism and Abstract Art The next room has a completely different layout. Instead of bright-coloured painted walls, it is a traditional white cube room and a painting of an almost naked man is placed on a small wall perpendicular to the entrance (fig. 17). The visitor can choose to turn left or right in order to get behind the wall. Behind the wall a scale model of an exhibition is placed on top of a table which appears to be the 1936 MoMA exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art (fig. 18). The back of the perpendicular wall shows a poster of the famous exhibition. On the wall opposite of the Cubism and Abstract Art poster, space has been created to display the adaptations of this linear visualisation made by the museum’s directors of the twentieth century (fig. 19). On the other walls, original, early twentieth-century paintings from artists that were represented in Cubism and Abstract Art and that are now part of the museum’s collection are displayed (fig. 20-21). As was mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, the 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art was the realisation of Alfred Barr Jr.’s history of modern art and has since been considered to be the story of modern art. Both Alfred Barr Jr. and Walter Benjamin have had a profound influence on the perception and understanding of the traditional Western art historical canon. Adding the sculptural mask to the exhibition of their collection and introducing the visitor to the ‘founding fathers’ of the art historical narrative that is still accepted as the dominant story of art, clearly resonates with the first two steps of the project of delinking, as described in chapter two.97 The curators evidently opened up paths towards a decolonial narrative.
96 Wall tekst “Ritual-Ethnology Art.” (see note 94). 97 Pedro Lasch in Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48), part IV. 44
A Utopian Perspective The final room to be discussed is the penultimate room of the exhibition. It is a dark grey room with terracotta coloured glass display cases and decorative elements that resemble Southern European geometric patterns (fig. 22). A violin can be heard in the background, playing cheerful music that resembles a mixture of classical Western and classical Chinese. The first thing that catches the eye, however, is a white canvas with a black line in the middle, placed in one of these display cases. A terracotta-coloured banner with golden symbols hangs above the display case. Behind the glass display cases the visitor can see a hint of two terracotta-coloured iron doors, on them a geometrical pattern. The colour and geometrical patterns evoke an ancient, southern European style, but the symbols are undefinable. The nametags adjoining the works of art in the glass display cases are written in that same symbolic language, with the only recognisable elements being Roman numerals. Entering this room, the visitor is forced to turn left, hardly noticing the introductory wall-text on the right. This text is written using the same symbols as on the terracotta-coloured banner, accompanied by a translation in an unknown language that uses Latin script (fig. 23). Underneath the wall text there is a box from which the visitor can pick up a leaflet with on the front the translation of the text into Dutch and English, and on the back information on the objects presented in the room (fig. 24-25), with which the visitor is able to trace back the information about the works of art. Only after reading the translation on the leaflet, it becomes clear that this room is a presentation of post-WWII works of art from a Utopian perspective. The text explains how the citizens of the island Utopia struggled designing the presentation, as their aim was to show how these works of art would have been curated by a Western curator. The text claims that Utopian citizens do not understand or know much about Western culture, but nonetheless tried to focus on the Western tendency to present objects made with, for example a religious purpose, in a secular museum, stripping it from its original purpose to give it a new one, namely being a piece of art. This concept of presenting Western works of art through the eyes of a non-Western civilization and thus trying to imagine what that civilization would consider to be typically Western is a creative way to criticize our society, placing the museum in the role of a mirror. Director Charles Esche said the following about this specific room:
“The Utopian exhibition at the end is an option of a narrative which makes no sense, but still is a narrative from somebody somewhere, from outside,
45
that is telling this Utopian narrative. And of course, no-one can make sense of it, because why should you?”98
The curators thus have created a space in which modern art and the Western idea of exhibiting these works of art are critically mirrored. It has to be mentioned, however, that Utopia is a Western concept of a fictive, ideal society, first introduced by British humanist Thomas Moore in 1516, during the early stages of the European expansion. By choosing a point of view from a fictive, Western civilisation to generate a non-Western perspective on modern art seems highly intellectual and difficult. Here, one can wonder whether it would not have been more effective and more relatable to invite non-Western scholars to create an exhibition from their perspective on the museum’s collection. This would have created a more fluid and topical approach, providing a set of different approaches towards the traditional Western canon, opening up a plurality of alternatives. The exhibition The Making of Modern Art ends with another reflection by Walter Benjamin made in 2013: “The pictures before us represent scenes of times gone by. They were all icons in stories of religion and of art. Some depicted events from the past, while others anticipated the future. Today, they are nothing more than artefacts displayed here neither as art nor as religion.” Benjamin’s critical stance towards the way Western art and museum practice has been appreciated or considered encourages the visitor to think about the past. Moreover, by adding the narrative of the resurrected Walter Benjamin to the main thread of the exhibition, the curators have created a complex and dense exhibition narrative that might not be easy to comprehend for the visitor. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Esche believes the collection display invites visitors to come back from time to time to dive deeper into the subject matter and understand things that could not be seen the visit before.99
Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking The previous paragraphs have demonstrated that the curators of the exhibition approached the collection of the museum from a decolonial perspective and have visualised its mission to work with decoloniality in relation to their presentation and collection policy. When reflecting upon the theory of rewriting as a means to enhance and/or expand the traditional Western art historical canon, as proposed by Weibel in chapter one, it appears that this exhibition reflects none of the elements of this theory.100 Instead, the curators have focused on challenging this
98 Esche, Charles. Personal interview. 26 Nov. 2018 99 Esche, Charles. 2018 (see note 97). 100 Weibel, Peter. 2013 ( see note 27). 46
Western hegemony by focussing on the making of the traditional narrative, rather than enhancing and/or expanding it. If the theory of rewriting is not reflected in this exhibition, can we say the same of altermodernity? As has been established in chapter one, altermodernity focusses on dialogues between art and artists regardless of their nationality and cultural roots.101 In The Making of Modern Art curators have not so much focussed on these dialogues. Rather, the focus has been put on different curators, museums and artists that have shaped the art historical canon. In this sense, altermodernity is not applicable as well. Going back to the three steps of delinking, as established by Pedro Lasch in chapter one this thesis, did the curators decide to show the museum’s genealogy in Western modernity, transforming the universal validity of Western concepts into concepts historically situated? Did the curators decide to show their coloniality?
Conclusion Whereas the case study of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has demonstrated that the museum has ample tools to open up paths towards a decolonial museum practice but chose not to put these into practice, this case study of the Van Abbemuseum has demonstrated the contrary. The way the curators have designed the very first room of the exhibition already provides a different approach to the traditional Western narrative. This approach might be considered slightly problematic, as the Middle-Eastern cushions and tapestries as well as the Arabic text on the wall might suggest an Orientalist approach. Yet, starting the narrative of the exhibition with such a radical approach proves museums of modern and contemporary art are capable of changing attitudes towards the Western hegemony in art history. Instead of emphasising the aesthetic values of the works of art of the collection and how they enhance the narrative of the Western art historical canon, the works of art illustrate how certain scholars, curators and exhibitions have shaped the traditional art historical narrative and how art has been valued aesthetically. By including an object that originally comes from Indonesia, explicitly making a link with the museum’s colonial past, the curators have exposed their genealogy in Western modernity and their ties to coloniality. This demonstrates that museums of modern and contemporary art can establish in-depth narratives that contest the traditional Western art historical canon, opening up paths towards a decolonial narrative. The utopian section of the exhibition seems to be the most troublesome, especially in terms of delinking. The curators have provided space within the exhibition for visitors to reflective on the Western traditional approach to modern art and critique it. By opting for a
101 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (see note 34). 47
fictive Western perspective, however, they have remained within the borders of Western thinking.
48
2.3 Hello World!
Introduction As the previous two case studies have already demonstrated, museums of modern and contemporary art have the potential to present their permanent collection in relation to the decolonial discourse. The third and final case study, which provides yet another point of view on the subject matter, is the exhibition Hello World. Revising a Collection. It was on show from the the 28th of April until the 26th of August 2018 at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin. As mentioned in the introduction, this exhibition differs a lot from STEDELIJK BASE and The Making of Modern Art, as the museum is located in a different European country with its own national and colonial history and because its policy is to solely create temporary exhibitions. Yet, this exhibition might provide a valuable additional insight into how to approach a collection in relation to colonial histories, as the exhibition revolved around the question of how a collection predominantly committed to the art of Western Europe and North America can broaden its scope by including non-Western artistic tendencies and a transcultural approach.102 Museums in Berlin are organised in a different way compared to museums in the Netherlands, where almost every museum functions independently (the National Museum for World Cultures being the only exception). Museums in Berlin are all part of the same umbrella organisation, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (SMB), which is in turn part of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK). The SMB represents what they call a ‘universal museum’, as it comprises of several sites across the city of Berlin, its collections covering areas of “European and non-European art, archaeology, and ethnology of almost all nations, cultures, and periods.”103 The Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart is part of the Nationalgalerie, which encompasses a total of five museums. The other four museums are the Alte Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen, Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. As we will come to understand, this somewhat complex umbrella organisation offers substantial possibilities when it comes to storytelling and making exhibitions, as research done in these different museums is more easily shared and the artworks from these collections are much easier to access and exhibit. Dutch museum directors Meta Knol and Lejo Schenk signalled the urge
102 Stoff, Julia and Ströbel, Iris (eds.). 2018 (see note 17). 103 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. History of the Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin. Accessed 19 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.smb.museum/en/about-us/history.html. 49
for art and ethnographic museums to work collaboratively in a newspaper article they published early 2010.104 Unfortunately nothing has changed in that regard during the past ten years. The first foundations for the Nationalgalerie were laid in 1861 through the donation of a private collection.105 At this time, the Germany nation did not yet exist and up until today different chapters from German history are palpable in the museum and its collection. The Nazis, for example, classified a large section of the collection of modern art as ‘degenerate’, art that in their eyes did not reflect their ideal society, and removed or destroyed these works of art. After World War II, Germany was divided into two parts: West and East. This division influenced the museum’s practice, as the museums located in the Western part of Berlin shifted its attention to Western European and North American art, whereas the museums in the eastern part of the city focused primarily on art created in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The Hamburger Bahnhof was originally a train station connecting Berlin with the city of Hamburg. However, after the building suffered severe damage during World War II it was abandoned and neglected, located in the no-man’s land between East and West Berlin for 40 years.106 In 1984, the building was placed under the the administration of West Berlin’s Senate and underwent partial renovation. In 1987, the exhibition Journey to Berlin premiered at the Hamburger Bahnhof, introducing the building in its new function as museum. Because the collection of modern and contemporary art of the Nationagalerie continued to expand, it was decided that the Hamburger Bahnhof should function as the ‘Museum für Gegenwart’ (museum for contemporary art) and in 1996 the museum officially opened its doors. In December 2016, the concept for an exhibition revising the Nationalgalerie’s collection emerged after the two-day conference ‘The Idea of the Global Museum.’107 This conference was dedicated to the belief that the primary task of museums is to offer alternative narratives to the mainstream art historical canon. As a result, a suggestion was made to critically review their holdings and previous proclivity towards the art of Western Europe and North America.108 Two years later, Hello World. Revising a Collection opened its doors on the 28th of April, 2018. The exhibition comprises of thirteen different narratives (or chapters), each curated
104 Knol, Meta and Schenk, Lejo. “Het Onderscheid Tussen Westerse en Niet-Westerse Kunst is Achterhaald.” NRC Handelsblad, 2 Jan. 2010. Accessed 8 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2010/01/02/het- onderscheid-tussen-westerse-en-niet-westerse-kunst-11832313-a176574 and https://framerframed.nl/dossier/het- onderscheid-tussen-westerse-en-niet-westerse-kunst-is-achterhaald/. 105 Kittelman, Udo and Knapstein, Gabriele (eds.). “Introduction.” Hello World: Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, p. 12. 106 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Hamburger Bahnhof: About Us. Accessed 19 Jul. 2019, via https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/about-us/profile.html. 107 Kittelman, Udo and Knapstein, Gabriele. 2018 (see note 104), p. 12. 108 Kittelman, Udo and Knapstein, Gabriele. 2018 (see note 104), p. 11. 50
by a different curator. Kittelman and the manager of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Gabriele Knapstein, invited four external curators to contribute to an expansion of their perspectives and systems of reference in order to achieve genuine diversity. Kittelman claims that by placing their institution under such scrutiny, they were forced to leave their comfort zone: “the exchange made us question and redefine our own viewpoints, expertise, ways of thinking and ways of acting.”109 With the exhibition, the Nationalgalerie critically questions the foundations of its collection, wondering what the collection could look like today, had the understanding of the art historical canon been more open to the world. The museum aims to explore how a collection predominantly committed to the art of Western Europe and North America might broaden its scope by including non-Western artistic tendencies and a transcultural approach. As the introductory text of the exhibition states:
“The exhibition aims to reflect the character of the collection, marked by these complexities and multiple ruptures. Instead of constructing a linear development of the history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art, works of the collection provide points of departure for thirteen narratives, which range from the retracing of vestiges of history to the intertwinement of thought lines and pictorial worlds. The exhibition focuses on moments of transcultural exchange, artistic collaboration and border-crossings. It offers insight into the processes of appropriation and transformation which inform ideas, attitudes and objects. It alludes to both historical museum concepts and current, future-oriented museum models. It presents alternative and hybrid forms of artistic production, scrutinises the blind spots in traditional historiography as well as the consequences of colonialism and underscores the relationships which are capable of accelerating the deconstruction of the Western canon. And it asks the question: How can the Nationalgalerie further develop the pluri-vocal curatorial concepts introduced in the exhibition in order to do justice to worldwide artistic exchange?”110
Elements of the theories of altermodernity, rewriting and decoloniality are visible, providing alternative curatorial options. The exhibition thus proves to be a good addition to the
109 Kittelman, Udo and Knapstein, Gabriele. 2018 (see note 104), p. 13. 110 Wall text “Introduction.” Hello World. Revising a Collection, 28 Apr.-26 Aug. 2018, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwardt, Berlin. 51
case studies at hand. For the analysis in this thesis the focus has been placed on two of the thirteen narratives. The reason for this decision is simultaneously one of the critiques on this exhibition: the thirteen chapters are all worthy exhibitions on their own based on in-depth analyses and research, and absorbing all of these narratives and material would have required more than a one-day visit. Unfortunately, this was impossible to organise. Yet, as will become clear, the two narratives chosen for analysis of this exhibition provide very good examples of delinking. The chapters that have been chosen are the introduction of the exhibition, the Agora, curated by Udo Kittelman and Making Paradise. Places of Longing, from Paul Gauguin to Tita Salina, curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers, illustrating how image-building has functioned from the age of imperialism to the present.
Agora The first chapter is located in a large, open space, which functioned as the former central hall of the station. The visitor enters this open space experiencing their first interaction with the works of art on display whilst buying their entrance tickets. The first artwork to attract attention is a pink flag, hanging from the ceiling, reading the words “AN ARTIST WHO CANNOT SPEAK ENGLISH IS NO ARTIST” (fig. 26-28), an artwork by late Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović made in 1992. The flag hangs above a large, concrete display case exhibiting several sculptures made by Goshka Macuga. Behind this glass display case two tribunes are placed opposite of each other. This is a work by the renown postmodernist artist Bruce Nauman, called Indoor Outdoor Seating Arrangement from 1999. Between the works of art on the walls of this big and open space small texts are added, covering themes of space, speech and the connections and interaction between people (of different classes) living in a house or city. At the far end of the exhibition space a large construction made out of different materials fills a big part of the large hall. It is the Caracas: Growing Houses installation by Marjetica Potrč (2012, fig. 29). Wandering around the house-like construction, one encounters a police officer hitting a black male with a baseball bat. The life-size statue Policeman and Rioter by Duane Hanson (1967, fig. 30) is placed in the far end corner of the exhibition space and serves as a critical component for the visitor to reflect upon our understanding of society and the relations we have to one another. Agora is the name given to this large, open space, with white walls and white lighting, referring to the main square or assembly space of a city in ancient Greece. The ancient Greek agora hosted markets, festivals and court hearings and enabled the citizens to develop a common understanding of what was right and wrong. It thus functioned as a common ground
52
for education and establishing relationships/connections. The introduction to Hello World. Revising a Collection is very clear: visitors of the exhibition are invited to reflect upon the connections between collective, individual and sociocultural identities and, in addition, upon the conditions of society and its relationship with the world.111 Furthermore, it could be argued that this first chapter of an exhibition that claims to reflect upon the globalising world and the common art historical narrative, by referencing the Greek concept of the agora, also references the art historical canon, as for ancient Greek civilisation is generally regarded as the start of Western civilisation. During the visitors’ first encounter with Hello World. Revising a Collection, multiple opportunities are offered for them to reflect upon their understanding of society and individuality, on what he has understood as socially approved and what not. This room clearly resembles elements of both the theory of rewriting and altermodernity. Curator Udo Kittelman carefully chose works by renowned Western artists who are included into the art historical canon, as well as by non-Western and female artists whose work is not (yet) included. In doing so, the exhibition opens up a critical dialogue both between these artworks themselves, as well as between the artworks and the visitor. This in turn can be linked to Bourriaud’s altermodernity, who claims that contemporary artists and curators try to translate encounters across the world, opening up dialogues.112
Making Paradise The following chapter to be analysed is that of Making Paradise. Places of Longing, from Paul Gauguin to Tita Salina, curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers. It is located on the first floor of the museum. As there are multiple entrances, the visitor chooses where to start the exhibition. It is a bright, white space with paintings and photographs on the walls. Several white tables with glass display cases on top exhibit books and are surrounded by photographs and paintings that are displayed on the walls. At first, this exhibition design gives the impression of a traditional, Western art historical display conform the white cube. Yet, despite this first appearance, the narrative presented in this chapter actually moves away from this traditional approach. Tucked away in the corner of the exhibition is a room of which the lighting is slightly dimmed. On the wall opposite to the entrance are two paintings: The Interior of the Palm House by Carl Blechen (1832-33, fig. 31) and Turkish Street Scene by Osman Hamdi Bey (1888, fig.
111 Kittelman, Udo. “Agora.” Hello World: Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, p. 370. 112 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (see note 34). 53
32). Moving to the right, the video L’air du temps by GCC (2015) is shown. Moving further clockwise, Raden Saleh’s Arab Horseman Attacked by a Lion (1877, fig. 33) and Horace Vernet’s Slave Market (1836, fig. 34) are displayed. The wall text introduces the theme of this room: “Imperialism and ‘The Other’: Orientalism,” and brings us back to the year 1861, during which the Nationalgalerie was founded. “From a European viewpoint,” the text starts, “it was the imperial age, in which trade routes, colonial occupation and exploitation were firmly established, on which also artists and missionaries travelled.” The selection of these works of art all present certain corresponding stereotyping and clichés, illustrating the common ground of Western thought during colonial times, reflecting a history of appropriation and orientalism. Take, for example, Raden Saleh (Java, 1811 – 1880), who was the first Indonesian artist to be able to travel to Europe in 1829 to study painting and who is considered to be the founding father of ‘Indonesian Modernism.’113 In order to sell more work, he changed his appearance from a dandy in Western clothes to the stereotypical image of an Oriental man. Saleh’s painting chosen in this exhibition (fig. 33) has been valued as a critique of colonialism and as an accusation “of being a reverential homage to colonial rulers – as the lion adorns the Dutch coat of arms, the inclusion of this motif may be interpreted as representing the colonial power as a wild beast, or alternatively, as a superior force.”114 With these works, provided as an introduction to the Imperialism and Orientalism in art of the 19th century, this section opens up another art historical narrative: the history of Indonesian modern art. The following room, still defined by white walls and thus a classical presentation of the white cube, presents works form Saleh’s twentieth-century counterpart, a German painter who went to Indonesia. The works of art exhibited present an interesting dialogue on the topic of storytelling. Here, works by Walter Spies (Moscow, 1895 – Indian Ocean, 1942) are exhibited, illustrating the growing networks and cultural exchange between Europe and Indonesia at the beginning of the 20th century. The caption adjoining the works of art introduces the controversy:
“From 1800, the colony of Dutch India was established in the Indonesian archipelago. The occupation of Bali by the Dutch was accompanied by the mass ritual suicide (puputan in Balinese) of the royal dynasties of Badung (1906) and Klungkung (1908), which brought international criticism to the Dutch. To counteract their negative image, they began to present themselves as protectors of traditional Balinese culture. The multitalented artist Walter
113 Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. “Making Paradise. Image-Building from the Age of Imperialism to Indonesia’s Present” Hello World. Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, p. 117. 114 Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. 2018 (see note 112). 54
Spies, who moved from Dresden to Indonesia in 1923, would become a central figure in the emergence of the prevailing image of Bali in the 1930s as a ‘primordial,’ still pristine, island paradise.”
See for example Spies’s painting Deer Hunt (1932, fig. 35). In this painting we can see a muscular male figure wearing nothing but a brief, pulling his bow and arrow. His hunting dog refreshes himself in the pool, while the man is carefully trying to shoot one of the three deer. The vivid colours in the painting and the exotic vegetation suggest a calm, unaffected wilderness. In 1936, the Prince of Ubud, Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati, invited Spies to establish the first artists’ organisation Pita Maha together with Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet and Balinese artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad.115 Together with the Bali Museum, this organisation functioned to promote Balinese culture, in line with the Dutch image-forming initiatives. These initiatives were also beneficial to Balinese painters, as some of them were very interested in the ‘exotic’ Western painting styles.116 The interest of Balinese painters in Western painting styles resulted in the formation of Indonesian Modernism. The work of Gede Mahendra Yasa (Bali, 1967) demonstrates this influence of Western modernist painting on traditional Balinese painting. In Between You, Me & the Bedpost #1 and #2 (2014, fig. 36-37), Mahendra combines the traditional artistic styles found on the island with the ‘drip technique,’ or action painting as introduced by Jackson Pollock. From a distance, the paintings look like action paintings. When zooming into the painting, however, detailed traditional Balinese painting elements become visible (fig. 38). This painting cannot be considered as ‘Abstract Expressionism,’ as is referred to Pollock’s paintings, but instead deserves its own vocabulary. This is exactly what Surinam-Dutch artist and curator Charl Landvreugd aims to establish, as he advocates for local vocabularies derived from its regional and continental concepts, that has the potential to discuss the sensibilities specific to the area.117 The lack of these regional languages is what makes the theory of rewriting and altermodernity so problematic, as up until today these art practices are discussed through the eyes and vocabulary of the West.
115 Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. 2018 (see note 112), p. 119. 116 Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. 2018 (see note 112), p. 119. 117 Landvreugd, Charl. ‘Notes on Black Dutch Aesthetics.’ Conversations on Paramaribo Perspectives. An adaptation of the Introduction to the debate evening Am I Black Enough for You, TENT Rotterdam, 26 Oct. 2010. Accessed 9 Aug. 2019, via: https://landvreugd.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/2010_essay_nl- eng_notes_on_black_dutch_aesthetics.pdf. A more recent research by Landvreugd on the same topic: Landvreugd, Charl. ‘Notes on a Dictionary: a Polemic Approach.’ Deviant Practice. Research Programme 2016- 17. Van Abbemuseum 2018, pp. 210-223. 55
Elsewhere in the room, two films made by Spies are shown in which ‘exotic’, bare- breasted indigenous women are documented. To provide contrast to this glorification and ‘exoticisation’ of colonialism, a video by contemporary Indonesian artist Tita Salina is shown. In 1001st Island – The Most Sustainable Island in Archipelago (2015), Salina documents herself wearing a black suit, attempting to turn seaside plastic debris into rafts together with fishermen on the outskirts of Jakarta (fig. 39). The plastic island is a sign of protest both against artificial paradises and issues threatening marine ecology, such as water pollution.
Rewriting, Altermodernity and Delinking As the previous paragraphs have demonstrated, the curators did not make the decision to ‘decolonise’ their collection in such a direct way as the curators of the Van Abbemuseum did. They have, however, implemented several points of view to subtly trigger critical thought. In the introduction text of the exhibition, for example, the curators clearly introduced the visitor to the current question of how museums can provide alternative narratives that scrutinise the blind spots in traditional historiography as well as demonstrate the consequences of colonialism and how it can accelerate the deconstruction of the Western canon. It encourages the visitor to think critically on what he is about to see. In the Agora, the museum’s director Udo Kittelman has created a non-normative space that establishes dialogues between the works of art and the audience. The agora does not only function as an open space for reflection , it also functions as reference to the fundamental ancient Greek civilisation which is considered to be the basis for Western culture. Taken a step further, this approach could be interpret as an indirectly referral to the genealogy of Western art history and thus the museum’s origins, hinting to the first step of delinking. Here, dialogues have been created between Eastern-European and Western artists, which are enhanced through neglecting the superiority of the Western artists in the wall-texts. This is in line with Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernity.118 The second chapter, Making Paradise. Places of Longing, from Paul Gauguin to Tita Salina, has demonstrated a completely different approach towards the Western art historical canon by introducing the visitor to Indonesian Modernism and how it has originated during Dutch colonialism. Adding this other art historical narrative of ‘the history of Indonesian Modernism’ can be considered to be an act of rewriting the Western art historical canon, as it broadens the original Western narrative with another, non-Western approach.119 Yet, it also
118 Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009 (see note 34). 119 Weibel, Peter. 2013 ( see note 27). 56
clearly demonstrates the effects of Dutch colonialism on the local artistic practice, illustrating that the Western art historical approach does not suffice to describe these elements. Moreover, by placing the contemporary Indonesian artworks next to early modern Western art, the curators have created dialogues reflecting upon a problematic past, its consequences and current tendencies. Without focussing on the museum’s direct links to colonialism, the curators have created a non-normative space, open to the plurality of alternatives. The curators have thus demonstrated that museums do not need to focus so directly on decoloniality as curators at the Van Abbemuseum have done, but that they can also approach their collection with more subtlety. Going back to the three steps of delinking, as established by Pedro Lasch in chapter one this thesis, did the curators decide to show the museum’s genealogy in Western modernity, transforming the universal validity of Western concepts into concepts historically situated? Did the curators decide to show their coloniality? And lastly, did the curators create a non-normative space, open to the plurality of alternatives?120
Conclusion Anne-Catharina Grebbers has provided an in-depth storyline of the development of an Indonesian Modernism, a storyline that proves that the normative idea of progress in the history of art (the traditional Western approach) is merely one amongst many. The exhibition demonstrated through its works of art and wall texts that, paradoxically, from Dutch colonialism and coloniality new artistic forms germinated never fit within the traditional Western art historical canon. This means that a different, regional vocabulary should be developed to describe and approach Indonesian Modernism. All things considered, it can be concluded that the attempts made in Hello World. Revising a Collection to develop pluri-vocal curatorial concepts provide successful decolonial options. Kittelman and Grebbers have used the collection of the Nationalgalerie to create alternative narratives and open up dialogues that do not confirm Western coloniality, but rather changes its visitors their perspectives. It must be mentioned that this was partly made possible because of the umbrella organisation of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, as this has conveniently facilitated the exchange between the collections of different museums. This is a completely different situation compared to the museum structure in the Netherlands, where almost every museum functions independently. What the Netherlands should learn from this, is that by working collaboratively across institutions and disciplines, it is easier for museums to
120 Pedro Lasch in Mignolo, Walter and Vazquez, Rolando. 2013 (see note 48), part IV. 57
establish in-depth approaches to art history, their collections, their knowledge and research, which in turn creates a more cohesive collection policy. This vision is shared by Dutch museum directors Meta Knol and Lejo Schenk, who already acknowledged this in a newspaper article they published in 2010, stating that art museums and ethnographic museums almost never work collaboratively.121 Unfortunately nothing has changed in that regard during the past ten years.
121 Knol, Meta and Schenk, Lejo. 2010 (see note 103). 58
3. Conclusion This thesis has focussed on the question how museums of modern and contemporary art can use their permanent collection displays to play a role in the current decolonial discourse. Three different museums have been analysed in order to find answers to this question by using contemporary socio-cultural, art historical and cultural analytical concepts and theories, such as the theory of rewriting, the concept of altermodernity and the theory of decoloniality with its pragmatic project of delinking. At the beginning of the research progress, it seemed logical to assume the theory of decoloniality would be the most suitable in establishing a decolonial museological approach, as Mignolo criticises the ‘Eurocentric critiques’ and the steps formulated in the project of delinking would offer possibilities to move beyond this Eurocentrism. It was pointed out at the end of chapter one, however, that the project of delinking is not a definitive or normative project in itself. It is not a manifesto for museums in the sense that ‘this is how it should be done.’Throughout the research progress and especially through analysing the Hello World. Revising a Collection exhibition, it has become clear that all three of these concepts are indeed applicable in establishing a dynamic decolonial approach. The first case study that has been discussed in this thesis is STEDELIJK BASE, the permanent collection display at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the exhibition, former director Beatrix Ruf has tried to remove the hierarchical division between modern art and design by placing these different works of art together. Ruf’s ideology of the museum visitor who wanders through space, wanting to make their own connections and dialogues is very much in line with Nicholas Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernity that claims that the twenty-first century artist and curator has moved passed the traditional, border-thinking of modernity by focussing on translating encounters between artists and artworks across the world into works of art and exhibitions. To establish a space in which the visitor can wander and make their own connections and dialogues, the curators have chosen to create a labyrinthine layout for the exhibition. Several steel walls, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and his architecture agency OMA, are placed in the open space, the basement of the new annex building, to create small corners on which the diverse collection is shown. The exterior of the exhibition space presents the traditional Western art historical canon, following the curators’ aim to provide certain points of recognition for the visitor within the labyrinthine exhibition. It is exactly the addition of this canon as a guiding thread that confirms the traditional Western art historical approach, denying the decolonial opportunities for the museum through establishing new dialogues within the labyrinthine structure. With adding this
59
thread, the curators have remained working with and within the traditional, Western art historical framework. By placing design on the same pedestal as ‘high art,’ the traditional art historical canon is opened up. Here, the act of rewriting as formulated by Peter Weibel is visible. The permanent collection display does not reflect the museum’s aim to be a representation of the current society, offering platforms for non-Western and/or female artists, whilst the museum has substantial works of art in their collection to include in their permanent collection display. In contrast, the curators of the exhibition Making of Modern Art at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven have made a very conscious effort in opening up the dialogue on a decolonial museum practice. Each room of the permanent collection display introduces a different aspect of the formation of the traditional Western art historical canon, criticising the traditional Western art historical approach to works of art. Questioning their genealogy in Western modernity, they have created multiple encounters with their links to coloniality. Each room offers a different alternative story to that of modern art, thus can be concluded that this exhibition offers a great example on how to use the permanent collection of modern and contemporary art to open up the path to a decolonial practice. Finally, two ‘chapters’ of the temporary exhibition Hello World. Revising a Collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin were discussed. Although the exhibition design is a traditional White Cube, the narratives offered in these exhibitions have offered new dialogues to reflect upon the traditional Western art historical narrative. First, the exhibition starts with the Agora, referring to the ancient Greek assembly place and introduces the visitor to the foundation of Western civilisation and its traditional history of art. At the same time it offers a critical reflection upon our ideas of society and individuality, instead of focussing on the aesthetic qualities of the works of art in the exhibition. Especially Making Paradise. Places of Longing, from Paul Gauguin to Tita Salina has offered an alternative to this narrative. Starting with introducing the visitor to imperialism and colonialism in Indonesia and the Orientalist view towards the indigenous people of Bali, it has shown that through an interaction between European and Indonesian artists, Dutch colonialism and coloniality has germinated new artistic forms that can be called Indonesian Modernism. This art historical narrative deserves its own vocabulary to approach the works of art. At the same time, this exhibition also has shown its limitations. This exhibition differs on several levels from the exhibitions previously discussed, as the exhibition was on show for only four months, instead of three to five years. The longer an exhibition is on show, the deeper the visitor can dive into the subject matter at hand. Telling thirteen different narratives, it is
60
almost a shame the exhibition was not on show for a longer period of time, giving little room to actually open up paths towards writing a decolonial history. These three case studies have demonstrated that museums of modern and contemporary art have ample tools and material to create in-depth narratives that deal with the triad of modernity/coloniality/decolonial as illustrated by sociologist Walter Mignolo. The Making of Modern Art shows how museums can create a decolonial narrative with their permanent collection, whilst Hello World. Revising a Collection provides a more subtle approach towards the decolonial option, by working with the theory of rewriting, altermodernity and decoloniality. STEDELIJK BASE, on the other hand, has demonstrated that some museums of modern art choose to stick to working with the traditional Western art historical approach. This thesis has shown that museums of modern and contemporary art play an important role for the purpose of societal development and the forming of knowledge. As a societal institution they can also take up the role to provoke or accelerate societal change. This is reflected in the latest museum definition, established by the International Council of Museums in 2007:
“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”122
Museums therefore need to take a stance and guide society in the process of coming to terms with coloniality. In other words, museums should not just be introvert and inward-searching, giving form to their awareness of guilt, but should instead use their material as a mirror for society, as a means to facilitate societal discussion moderated by teams from different cultural backgrounds, thus helping society to heal this darker side of modernity. History has proven that museums have the ability to write history. Alfred Barr Jr.’s 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the MoMA, New York, is a very good example of the impact curators and museums can have. If they dare to be radical, like Barr, museums can guide society towards a new understanding of the world, decolonising the current Western hegemony. If they keep on telling the traditional history of Western art, museums perpetuate the two-sided coin of modernity/coloniality. Museums thus have a responsibility to take a stance,
122 ICOM Statutes. Museum Definition. Adopted by the 22nd General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, on 24 August, 2007. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://icom.museum/en/activities/standards-guidelines/museum- definition/. 61
to use their societal function, to decolonize the Western hegemony. As has been concluded, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam has a lot of room for improvement. Focusing on the acquisition of non-Western and/or female artists is not enough. The exhibitions educate society. The Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven has proven that museums of modern and contemporary art can create platforms and dialogues in order to decolonise the Western hegemony. Although the exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof was on show for only four months, museums in the Netherlands can actually learn from them that when they work together, exchanging works, research and ideas, much more possibilities towards a decolonised society can be created. The collections of museums of modern and contemporary art have been used insufficiently for the purpose of societal issues. Decoloniality is a complex societal issue: Western countries have ruled over regions and people for at least 300 years. Conversely, many populations have been suppressed. The aftermath on contemporary society and between these different populations have up until today, in 2019, hardly been assimilated. The relationships between the West and its former colonies haven’t hardly changed in the past hundred years. The project of delinking that aims to open paths towards decoloniality, aims to move beyond binary oppositions and differences between one and another without erasing and/or denying these. 123 Permanent collections of museums of modern and contemporary art can be considered as the historical narrative of the museum’s existence. The development of societal issues, of which decolonisation is one of them, should be present in the narrative of these collection displays. Moreover, museums should be asking more often how they can use their own collections as a mirror of society. With or without concrete decolonial material, museums create their exhibition based upon choices. To add more depth to their collection narrative, museums should establish a common ground from which they can work together, exchanging material, research and knowledge. To conclude, museums of modern and contemporary art should move towards an attitude that considers their collection as a narrative of modern art. As Making Paradise. Places of Longing, from Paul Gauguin to Tita Salina has taught us, the exchange between Western artists and Indonesian artists has resulted in an Indonesian Modernism that cannot be translated or interpreted through the conventional Western aesthetics. If we are to regard Western Modernity as an umbrella art movement that includes all Western -isms and treating it the same way as we are now treating Expressionism or Fauvism for example, we create a network of
123 Mignolo, Walter. 2011 (see note 38).
62
multiple possible art historical narratives that are treated equally. Indonesian Modernism would exist next to Western Modernism on the same pedestal. Art historian Vincent van Velsen envisions this approach as well, stating that we need to overturn the idea that the Netherlands only exists in the North Sea, as the biggest part of Dutch history took place overseas.124 Dutch identity cannot be regarded without including South-Africa, Suriname, the Antillean Islands and Indonesia into its historical narrative. Curator Azu Nwagbogu agrees with this approach, stating that “the burden of colonialism will accompany us globally into the future; it will be an ongoing story, as you say, but the narrative can definitely be changed. Debts must be paid and the way we engage across continents must be reconsidered. Aid and pity have to give way to partnerships and restitution.”125 When it comes to permanent collection displays, changing the narrative and giving way to partnerships with other museological institutions are lessons to be learned and implemented further.
124 Bodegem, Fiep van. “Conserveren om te veranderen. Vincent van Velsen, Imara Limon en Bambi Ceuppens over de dekolonisatie van het museum.” De Witte Raaf 195, Sept.-Okt. 2018. Accessed 22 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/detail/nl/4535. 125 Nwagbogu, Azu. 2018 (see note 29), p. 357. 63
Bibliography Araeen, Rasheed. “Our Bauhaus Others’ Mudhouse.” Third Text, vol. 3, no. 6, 1989, pp. 3-14.
Banai, Noit. “The Labyrinth as an Exhibitionary Model: Form, Event, and Mode of Life.” Stedelijk Studies, no. 7, 2018. Accessed 18 Jul. 2019, via: https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/the-labyrinth-as-an-exhibitionary-model-form-event-and- mode-of-life/.
Bavelaar, Hestia. Re-Imagining the Western Art History Discipline in an Age of Globalization. GlobeEdit, 2015.
Beckstette, Sven and Nwagbogu, Azu. “Colomental. The Violence of Intimate Histories.” Hello World: Revising a Collection, edited by Udo Kittelman and Gabriele Knapstein, Hirmer Verlag, 2018, pp. 353–367.
Belting, Hans. “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate.” The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Hatje Cantz, 2009.
Bergvelt, Ellinoor, and Mieke Rijnders, editors. Kabinetten, Galerijen En Musea. Het Verzamelen En Presenteren Van Naturalia En Kunst Van 1500 Tot Heden. Rev. Ed. WBOOKS, 2013.
Bishop, Claire. Radical Museology. Or, What’s ‘Contemporary’ in Museums of Contemporary Art? Koenig Books, 2013.
“Black Panther: Museum Scene HD Complete.” YouTube, uploaded by Music Wizard, 5 May 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwr6Q1Hl_4.
Bodegem, Fiep van. “Conserveren om te veranderen. Vincent van Velsen, Imara Limon en Bambi Ceuppens over de dekolonisatie van het museum.” De Witte Raaf. no. 195, Sept.-Okt. 2018. Accessed 22 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/detail/nl/4535.
65
Bourriaud, Nicolas. Altermodern Manifesto. Tate Britain, 2009. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/altermodern/altermodern-explain- altermodern/altermodern-explained.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Radicant. Sternberg Press, 2009.
Bouwhuis, Jelle. “De kunsthistorische Ander: Kunstgeschiedenis in Dekoloniaal Perspectief.” Article, 22 Apr. 2019, pp. 4-10.
Bouwhuis, Jelle, and Nancy Jouwe. “Ontleren in Het Museum. Nancy Jouwe En Jelle Bouwhuis – Reflections #3 ( MOED & Joyce Vlaming in Centraal Museum).” MetropolisM, 17 Apr. 2019. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.metropolism.com/nl/features/37964_reflections_3_nancy_jouwe_jelle_bouwhuis
Brody, Richard. “The Oscar Whiteness Machine.” The New Yorker, Jan. 21, 2016. Accessed 17 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-oscar-whiteness- machine.
Elshout, Dos J. De Moderne Museumwereld in Nederland: Sociale Dynamiek in Beleid, Erfgoed, Markt, Wetenschap en Media. 2016. University of Amsterdam, PhD Dissertation.
Esche, Charles. Personal interview. 26 Nov. 2018.
Fisher, Jean. ‘The Other Story and the Past Imperfect’ in Tate Papers. 12 (autumn) 2009. Accessed 16 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/no- 12/the-other-story-and-the-past-imperfect. Holloway, Timothy. Altermodernism, 2011. Accessed 3 Aug. 2019, via: https://issuu.com/timoholloway/docs/altermodern_final_web1.
Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. “Making Paradise. Image-Building from the Age of Imperialism to Indonesia’s Present” Hello World. Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, pp. 101-134.
66
ICOM Statutes. Museum Definition. Adopted by the 22nd General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, on 24 August, 2007. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://icom.museum/en/activities/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/.
Kammer, Claudia. “In Het Museum Heet Een Negerbediende Voortaan Een Jonge Zwarte Bediende.” NRC Handelsblad, 12 Dec. 2015, www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/12/12/in-het-museum- heet-een-negerbediende-voortaan-een-1566431-a749694.
Kittelman, Udo. “Agora.” Hello World: Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, pp. 369- 384.
Kittelman, Udo and Knapstein, Gabriele (eds.). “Introduction.” Hello World: Revising a Collection. Hirmer Verlag, 2018, pp. 11-16.
Knol, Meta and Schenk, Lejo. “Het Onderscheid Tussen Westerse en Niet-Westerse Kunst is Achterhaald.” NRC Handelsblad, 2 Jan. 2010. Accessed 8 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2010/01/02/het-onderscheid-tussen-westerse-en-niet-westerse- kunst-11832313-a176574 and https://framerframed.nl/dossier/het-onderscheid-tussen- westerse-en-niet-westerse-kunst-is-achterhaald/.
Kuti, Fela. “Colonial Mentality.” Sorrow Tears and Blood. Kalakuta, 1977. Lyrics: Genius, 2019, https://genius.com/Fela-kuti-colonial-mentality-lyrics.
Landvreugd, Charl. ‘Notes on Black Dutch Aesthetics.’ Conversations on Paramaribo Perspectives. An adaptation of the Introduction to the debate evening Am I Black Enough for You, TENT Rotterdam, 26 Oct. 2010. Accessed 9 Aug. 2019, via: https://landvreugd.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/2010_essay_nl- eng_notes_on_black_dutch_aesthetics.pdf.
Landvreugd, Charl. ‘Notes on a Dictionary: a Polemic Approach.’ Deviant Practice. Research Programme 2016-17. Van Abbemuseum, 2018, pp. 210-223.
Lange, Henny de. “Neger, Wijf En Moor Taboe in Rijksmuseum.” Trouw, 10 Dec. 2015, www.trouw.nl/home/neger-wijf-en-moor-taboe-in-rijksmuseum~af9fd0f9/.
67
Langfeld, Gregor. “The Canon in Art History: Concepts and Approaches.” Journal of Art Historiography, no. 19, Dec. 2018, pp. 1–18. Lelijveld, Robin. “Heden Van Het Slavernijverleden: Een Poging Tot Museale Dekolnisering.” Article, 22 Apr. 2019, pp. 12–15.
Mignolo, Walter. “Delinking.” Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2-3, 2007, pp. 449–514.
Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Duke University Press, 2011.
Mignolo, Walter D., and Walsh, Catherine E. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, Duke University Press, 2018.
Mugge, Robert, director. Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, 1980. Accessed 20. Jun. 2019, via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Esmjx8eVcE&t=660s.
Muñiz-Reed, Ivan. “Thoughts on Curatorial Practices in the Decolonial Turn.” OnCurating, Dec. 2017, pp. 99–105.
O’Doherty, Brian. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. 1976. Expanded ed., University of California Press, 2000.
Paz, Octavio. “In Search of the Present.” Nobel Prize Lecture. 8 Dec. 1990 Accessed 21 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1990/paz-lecture.html.
Petersen, Ad. Sandberg, vormgever van het Stedelijk. nai010 uitgevers, 2004.
“Project Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam .” Benthem Crouwel Architects. Accessed 11 Jul. 2019, via: http://benthemcrouwel.com/projects/#culture-new-stedelijk-museum-amsterdam- 993.
Quijano, Anibal. “Colonialidad del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina.”Anuario Mariateguiano, Vol. 9, No. 9, 1997.
68
Quijano, Anibal. “Colonialidad y modernidad-racionalidad,” En Perú Indígena, Vol. 13, No. 29,1992.
Raven, Marie-José, and Feitsma, Udo. STEDELIJK BASE OPENS 16 DECEMBER 2017. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 13 Sept. 2017. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/news/stedelijk-base-the-new-collection-presentation-of-the- stedelijk-museum-amsterdam-will-open-on-16-december-2017-2.
Reilly, Maura. Curatorial Activism. Towards an Ethics of Curating, Thames & Hudson, 2018.
Rijnders, Mieke. “Kunst ont-kunst. De nieuwe collectiepresentatie van het Van Abbemuseum.” De Witte Raaf. no. 191, Jan.-Feb. 2018. Accessed 7 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/detail/nl/4441.
Schans, Marleen. “Van Abbemuseum & Fundação de Serralves: Permanent Collection Presentations in times of Globalisation and Decolonisation.” 3. Aug. 2018. Current Issues: Excursion Abroad, University of Amsterdam, student paper.
Schavemaker, Margriet & Bruijne, Dorine de. “Lose Yourself! On Labyrinthine Exhibitions as Curatorial Model.” Stedelijk Studies, no. 7, 2018. Accessed 18 Jul. 2019, via: https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/lose-yourself-editorial/.
Schoonderwoerd, Stijn. “Foreword.” Words Matter: An Unfinished Guide to Word Choices in the Cultural Sector, edited by Wayne Modest and Robin Lelijveld, National Museum of World Cultures, 2018.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Hamburger Bahnhof: About Us. Accessed 19 Jul. 2019, via https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/about-us/profile.html.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. History of the Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin. Accessed 19 Jul. 2019, via: https://www.smb.museum/en/about-us/history.html.
69
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Annual Report 2017. Accessed 6 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/nl/museum/organisatie/jaarverslag.
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Organisation. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/museum/organisation. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Global Collaboratrions. 5 Nov. 2013. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/digdeeper/global-collaborations.
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. HOW FAR HOW NEAR – the World in the Stedelijk. Exhibition. 19 Sept. 2014-31 Jan. 2015. Accessed 11 Aug. 2019, via: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/how-far-how-near.
Steens, A., and Cheda, C., Archief van het Stedelijk Museum, versie 105.1, 9 april 2019. Accessed 8 Jun. 2019, via: https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/overzicht/30041.nl.html
Stoff, Julia and Ströbel, Iris (eds.). Hello World. Revising a Collection. Exhibition booklet. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2018.
Tates, Sophie (eds.). Let Me Be Your Guide: Collection Guide. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2017.
Thije, Steven ten. The Emancipated Museum. Mondriaan Fonds, 2016.
Van Abbemuseum, Collectieplan 2018-2019. Accessed 9 Aug. 2019, via: https://mediabank.vanabbemuseum.nl/vam/files/alexandria/publiciteit/collectieplannen/Collec tieplan2018-2019.pdf.
Van Abbemuseum. The Way Beyond Art. Exhibition Information. Accessed 23 Jun. 2019, via: https://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/programme/programme/the-way-beyond-art/.
Wall text “And We Call It Art.” The Making of Modern Art, 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
70
Wall text “Introduction. ” Hello World. Revising a Collection, 28 Apr.-26 Aug. 2018, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwardt, Berlin.
Wall text for Lenin Coca Cola by Alexander Kosolapov. The Making of Modern Art, 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
Wall text “Original and Copy.” The Making of Modern Art, , 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
Wall tekst “Ritual-Ethnology Art.” The Making of Modern Art, 29 Apr. 2017-03 Jan. 2021, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
Weibel, Peter. “Globalization and Contemporary Art.” The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds. ZKM, 2013.
Zohn, Harry, translator. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” By Walter Benjamin, 1936. Illuminations. Arendt, Hannah (eds.). Schocken Books, 1969.
71
List of Images
Fig. 1 Cubism and Abstract Art (catalogue). 1936. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image courtesy: Museum of Modern Art New York. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via:, https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2748_300086869.pdf.
Fig. 2 Explore Altermodern (screenshot). 2009. Image courtesy: Tate Britain, London. Accessed 20 Jul. 2019, via: http://www2.tate.org.uk/altermodern/explore.shtm.
73
Fig. 3 Meerendonk, Ben van. Sandbergvleugel. 30 Aug. 1954. Image Courtesy: Algemeen Hollands Fotopersbureau.
Fig. 4 Benthem Crouwel Architects. The Bathtub. 2012. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Image Courtesy: Benthem Crouwel Architects.
74
Fig. 5 Floorplan of the renewed Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2017. Image Courtesy: Stedelijk Museum Amterdam.
Fig. 6 Entrance of STEDELIJK BASE, 14 Dec. 2017. Image Courtesy: Domeniek Ruyters/MetropolisM.
Fig. 7 Gallery view, STEDELIJK BASE, 14 Dec. 2017. Image Courtesy: Domeniek Ruyters/MetropolisM.
75
Fig. 8 Gallery view, STEDELIJK BASE, 14 Dec. 2017. Image Courtesy: Domeniek Ruyters/MetropolisM
Fig. 9 Gallery view, STEDELIJK BASE, 14 Dec. 2017. Image Courtesy: Domeniek Ruyters/MetropolisM.
Fig. 10 Newman, Barnett. Cathedra. 1951. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam. Image Courtesy: Pictoright Amsterdam/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
76
Fig. 11 Newman, Barnett and Eames, Charles & Ray. Gallery view STEDELIJK BASE. 2017. Image Courtesy: Gert Jan van Rooij.
Fig. 12 Matisse, Henri. Odalisque. 1920-21. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam. Image Courtesy: Pictoright Amsterdam/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
77
Fig. 13 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 14 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 15 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
78
Fig. 16 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: Peter Cox.
Fig. 17 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
79
Fig. 18 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 19 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
80
Fig. 20 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: Peter Cox.
Fig. 21 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: Peter Cox.
81
Fig. 22 Gallery view The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 23 Museum Label. The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
82
Fig. 24 Museum Label. The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 25 Museum Label. The Making of Modern Art. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. 2018. Image Courtesy: author.
83
Fig. 26 Gallery view. "Agora." Hello World. Revising a Collection. 2018. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum Für Gegenwardt, Berlin. Image Courtesy: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Fig. 27 Gallery view. "Agora." Hello World. Revising a Collection. 2018. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum Für Gegenwardt, Berlin. Image Courtesy: Lattitudes, Barcelona.
Fig. 28 Stilinovic, Mladen. An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist. 1992. Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna. Image Courtesy: Mladen Stilinovic‘s Estate, Zagreb / Boris Cvjetanović.
84
Fig. 29 Potrč, Marjetica. Caracas: Growing Houses. 2012. Gallery view. "Agora." Hello World. Revising a Collection. 2018. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum Für Gegenwardt, Berlin. Image Courtesy: author.
Fig. 30 Hanson, Duane. Policeman and Rioter. 1967, Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. Gallery view. "Agora." Hello World. Revising a Collection. 2018. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum Für Gegenwardt, Berlin. Image Courtesy: author.
85
Fig. 31 Blechen, Carl. Das Innere des Palmenhauses. 1832-33. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Image Courtesy: Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Jörg P. Anders.
Fig. 32 Hamdi Bey, Osman. Turkish Street Scene. 1888. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Image Courtesy: Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Andres Kilger.
86
Fig. 33 Saleh, Raden. Arab Horseman Attacked by a Lion. 1877. Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, Gotha. Image Courtesy: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, via: https://www.smb.museum/veranstaltungen/detail.html?tx_smb_pi1%5Bevent%5D=103619
Fig. 34 Vernet, Horace. Slave Market. 1836. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Image Courtesy: Altes Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Andres Kilger.
87
Fig. 35 Spies, Walter. Deer Hunt. 1932. Private collection. Image Courtesy: Adrian Vickers. Nachdruck aus „Balinese Art“ von Adrian Vickers. Herausgegeben von Tuttle Publishing, Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd, via https://www.smb.museum/en/events/detail.html?tx_smb_pi1%5Bevent%5D=103622&cHash=3e88bc39e054d8c16ef76b09a 44c8184.
Fig. 36 Mahendra Yasa, Gede. Between you, me & the bedpost #1. 2014. Private collection, Germany. Image Courtesy: Indo Art Now, via: https://indoartnow.com/exhibitions/on-abstraction-by-gede-mahendra-yasa-ay-tjoe-christine.
88
Fig. 37 Mahendra Yasa, Gede. Between you, me & the bedpost #2. 2014. Private collection, Germany. Image Courtesy: Indo Art Now, via: https://indoartnow.com/exhibitions/on-abstraction-by-gede-mahendra-yasa-ay-tjoe-christine.
Fig. 38 Mahendra Yasa, Gede. Detail of Between you, me & the bedpost #2. 2014. Private collection, Germany. Image Courtesy: author.
89
Fig. 39 Salina, Tita. 1001st Island—The Most Sustainable Island in Archipelago (still). 2015. Video, 14:11 minutes. Image Courtesy: Yopie Nugraha.
90