Message: Teenagers Into Art!

Symposium: Museum Education 21 Message: Teenagers into art! Lars Nittve (Director, Moderna Museet, Stockholm) The Moderna Museet in Stockholm has been with art. This idea of the close links between tried to convey. Could it be that we still slip working with art education since the early the small child and art has been present at into old romantic ideas – ideas that were 1960’s. Yet have I never heard the education least since the Enlightenment and escalated inherited by modernism – of the close af- curators being so encouraged in their work, during Romanticism to go into full bloom finity between “the artist, the fool and the as when they heard about the great interest during Modernism. It is therefore hardly sur- child”? This mindset is in direct conflict with for their new, innovative, programme for prising that educational activities for small a contemporary definition of art that, besides teenagers called Zon Moderna, from the just children were given prominence in the mod- pointing to the fundamental importance of opened and much talked about 21st Century el for European museums of modern art that the institution and the context in even be- Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, evolved in the 1950’s: The Stedelijk Museum ginning to define something as art, also em- Japan. in Amsterdam, The Louisiana Museum of phasises the extreme complexity of the work I think the happiness had two sources: Modern Art outside Copenhagen and last but of art. One particularly intriguing and rarely First and foremost the fact that colleagues not least the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. discussed side of the romantic-modernist in a different part of the world, and further- Guided tours and workshops for kids, where perspective on the child’s privileged relation- more working in one of the most interest- they could draw, paint and model, were soon ship to art is that it is in direct opposition to ing new museums for contemporary art de rigeur for any ambitious museum of mod- one of the fundamental assumptions of art in recent years, showed interest. The fact ern art. education, namely that, “the more you know, that Japan in the West in recent years have Behind this trend lies the idea that “art” the more you see”. been so strongly associated with its globally has a generally beneficial effect on the child’s I am not arguing that art education for influential youth culture – but also with the development. This is probably true, but I be- children is a mistake – I am just indicating “youth issue” that have become a concern lieve that it is primarily a focus on the visual that the extreme focus on small children has in Japanese society – made the honour even that is good. All research underlines that the helped to keep other groups – groups that greater. visual dimension plays a vital part in the de- perhaps would benefit much more from the The second source of happiness had to velopment of the small child, but that it even- encounter with art – out of the museum. One do with the fact that Zon Moderna with its tually gives way to our society’s focus on the group in particular I am thinking of is the focus on teenagers and adolescents actually textual. A major hitch in this context is the teenagers. They are not always as endear- radically challenged both a long-standing tra- confusion between art and visuality – a mis- ing as five- or seven-year-olds. At the same dition European art education and a Western take indicating that even though nearly 100 time lazy slackers and boisterous, pimply infatuation with the idea of the small child’s years have passed, we have not quite taken and loud, we often think. But, they are also (but absolutely not the teenager’s) close links in the significance of what Marcel Duchamp the most likely group among the museum’s 122 Teenagers into art! / Lars Nittve EN audience for whom art – and the artist as an from different parts of Stockholm meet – we ent in art and the artist role. In an era when alternative role-model – may be most impor- interact across the boundaries that divide a young people could reasonably feel pessi- tant! They are in that very phase of life, when major city: class, ethnic and cultural divides. mistic about the future, in light of world pov- they are breaking away from the past, from The result to date – after twelve terms erty, climate change, war and repression and their parent’s values and perspectives, in an and hundreds of pupils – exceeds our wild- while the media and entertainment industry attempt to formulate, or rather, reformulate, est expectations. Thousands of their student have a firm hold, art points towards unknown their identity. Is it not so, that a teenager’s friends have come to the museum to see the escape routes. When it feels like there is no- position is very like that of art? Like art the result – and the idea of going to the Moderna where to run to, art represents another feel- teenager challenges boundaries and con- Museet is now quite natural for a teenager in ing – there is always a way forward, always ventions, reformulate the given and formu- Stockholm. Personally, I would like to relate another way of opening up the closed struc- lates the new. And we can rest assured that what joy I feel when a pupil suddenly takes tures. Art can simply give hope to younger teenagers perceive much more in art than a the leap from producing nice things – a nice generations! Zon Moderna proves that – and five-year-old –simply because they know so picture for example – to making art. How I know that the programmes at The 21st much more! the picture is suddenly imbued with unique Century Museum of Contemporary Art suc- This was basically the foundation for the meaning, how it suddenly formulates some- cessfully prove the same. Thank you for a creation of Zon Moderna in 2004: The rea- thing unique with the incomparable preci- wonderful and very stimulating exchange lization of the potential of art for teenagers sion and openness of art. over the years – and warm congratulations – coupled with an awareness that they, pa- on you 5-year anniversary! radoxically, are the audience to whom the All this was created in a sense in com- museum has given the least priority. Zon petition with and challenging the idea that Moderna is an art education programme – art education is for small children – and for or perhaps it should merely be called an art adults – and the only thing museums should project – for teenagers. Each term it invol- be preoccupied with. Therefore it was so im- ves some twenty upper secondary school portant for the educational staff at the Mod- pupils, one of the museum’s art educators erna Museet to be seen and understood by and a leading artist – but it reaches many their Japanese colleagues from Kanazawa. other by spreading rings on the water – ac- They also saw the great potential in investing tually thousands of pupils and teachers each in art education for teenagers. Perhaps they year. At Zon Moderna pupils and schools also perceived the hope that is always inher- アール issue 05 CD-ROM / 2013 123.

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