SIZE MATTERS! (DE)GROWTH OF THE 21ST CENTURY ART MUSEUM 2017 VERBIER ART SUMMIT EDITED BY BEATRIX RUF AND JOHN SLYCE KOENIG VERBIER BOOKS ART LONDON SUMMIT DAVE BEECH DANIEL BIRNBAUM BENJAMIN BRATTON MARK FISHER CISSIE FU REM KOOLHAAS CHRISTOPHER KULENDRAN THOMAS TOBIAS MADISON HRH PRINCE CONSTANTIJN OF THE NETHERLANDS TINO SEHGAL NICHOLAS SEROTA EDITED BY BEATRIX RUF JOHN SLYCE 06 82 160 208 Introduction The Museum Capitalist Realism More Than Real ANNELIEK SIJBRANDIJ as Startup and Neoliberal DANIEL BIRNBAUM TALK BY Hegemony: 16 HRH PRINCE CONSTANTIJN 212 OF THE NETHERLANDS A Dialogue Prologue MARK FISHER Biographies BEATRIX RUF AND JEREMY GILBERT 96 24 60 Million 170 Inserting a Non- Americans Gentrified transactional Can’t Be Wrong Psychedelia Space in Verbier CHRISTOPHER TALK BY KULENDRAN THOMAS and Beyond TOBIAS MADISON JOHN SLYCE 116 190 Size and Scale The Scale of 42 in Architecture The 21st-Century Contemporary Art: TALK BY Tate Is a Common- REM KOOLHAAS From Artwork wealth of Ideas to Exhibition NICHOLAS SEROTA 132 to Institution Unfix, Unform, and Beyond 56 Unlearn DAVE BEECH For You/ TALK BY For You Not: CISSIE FU 206 Bring People The Hole of 150 Representation Together What If You Held TINO SEHGAL in Machine Vision a Protest And BENJAMIN H. BRATTON Everyone Came? MARK FISHER Much of the focus of my own criti- INSERTING cism, art WRITING and RESEARCH approaches positions within contem- A NON-TRANS- porary art in a parallax view, which ACTIO NAL SPACE attempts to take into account the broader legacies and impact of what IN VERBIER constitutes the historical moment AND BEYOND of conceptualism in EXPANDED JOHN SLYCE FIELDS, post-studio practices and post-object production. The size, scale and capital intensity of much contemporary PRODUCTION offer rich material for analysis and cri- tique of OUR MOMENT OF CUL­ TURE and economy and the condi- tions of possibility for making and presenting art inscribed therein. These relations are often character- ised by an antagonistic collision of two spheres: that of production con- trasted with the sphere of exchange and consumption, the latter given to lapsing into a COMMODITY FETI­ SHISM all too prone to intervene and obscure meaning in a work of art. Breaking free of such mercantile forces – just the type of ECONOMIC OVER­DETERMINISM at once un- spoken and yet a palpable leitmotif of any art world gathering – is, in my estimation, one of the very admir able aims of a comprehensive project in SIZE MATTERS! 24 – 25 INSERTING A NON-TRANSACTIONAL SPACE IN VERBIER AND BEYOND first the2017 VERBIER ART SUMMIT from individual positions that were, and then this publication. at all times, Perhaps the most significant EN GAGED, DIVERGENT, RES PEC­ result of the 2017 VERBIER ART TED and valued. The two-and-a half- SUMMIT was to open up a NON­ day Summit was ostensibly structu red TRANSACTIONAL SPACE – free around a group of questions set by of the standard commercial and Stedelijk Museum director BEATRIX social forces in operation when the RUF PROLOGUE, PAGE 16: What does ‘Size art world tends to gather – where Mat ters!’ mean in your field at this thinking, often quite SPECULATIVE, moment? What helps you think about and emergent ideas were openly expansion? What is the future of growth EX CHAN GED across a community in your field? WHAT IS THE FUNC­ gathered in Verbier, Switzerland. TION OF ART INSTITUTIONS IN The product of this exchange was THE FUTURE? How can we define much more than the form of sophi- their presence? What experiences sticated networking so often implied will they generate? How will they re- by the contemporary and its art world late to audiences? Rather than aim- events. This BOOK seeks to pro- ing for definitive conclusions, speak- vide a similar constructive and ers and participants explored these CRITICAL PLATFORM conducive ques tions from their own experiences, to the possibility of thought for a research, professional practices and larger community of readers. institutional contexts. For example, A generosity and equality PAUL SPIES, director of Berlin’s amongst participants characterised Stiftung Staadt museum since 2015, the 2017 VERBIER ART SUMMIT and delivered a lively talk titled ‘One this was the case whether it was an Size Fits Not All’. Size here takes on intimate morning discussion session very specific dimensions and chal- in a chalet, or a public talk during lenges when, for example, the the afternoon. Speakers, participants Berlin City Museum possesses and audience each appro ac h ed the some 4.5 million objects. Spies theme of Size Matters! (De)Growth asked, ‘WHAT IS ONE MEANT TO of the 21st Century Art Museum DO WITH ALL THOSE OBJECTS?’ Size Matters! 26 – 27 INSERTING A NON-TRANSACTIONAL SPACE IN VERBIER AND BEYOND Each day was organised around a scale through the rubric of Artificial morning discussion session held in Intelligence (AI) and VIRTUAL a private chalet, led by moderators REALITY (VR). His challenge to and including keynote speakers along- audience and reader is to confront side the international participants of the ‘indifference’ of AI and to consi- the Summit. Following lunch, there der how such ‘INTELLIGENCE’ is were afternoon breakout sessions an emerging property of matter where and workshops where attendees the machines of AI are perhaps tea- explored, for example, THE ROLE ching humans a fuller approach to ART HAS PLAYED IN LIFE, in the thinking itself. Such a prospect may world, and in museums. Later ses- indeed lead to a moment where hu- sions examined the future of the art mans are confronted by ‘an image fair and its growing institutional import of the way humans think humans and scale. After a short break, the think.’ Professor Bratton posits this public talks were held during each as a ‘MACHINIC IMAGE’ generated afternoon. What follows below is, in through new modes of representa- part, a selection of what I found to tion in an age of AI and VR. Here be some of the most interesting representations can exist at a level, ideas and issues raised during the or state of code and offer a form of summit through the public lectures ‘vision without images.’ As we see and private sessions, while also ourselves through the ‘eyes’ of the serving as an introduction to the ‘Machinic Other’ we experience a content provided by participants and potential disenchantment: we look contributors here in this volume. ‘UN­HUMAN’ in the machi nic oth- BENJAMIN BRATTON FOR YOU/FOR YOU er’s eyes. Bratton offers such a sce- NOT, PAGE 55 wri tes about entanglements nario up as a form of ‘COPER NI CAN of TECHNOLOGY and CULTURE. He TRAUMA’, where the scale of a shift explores how technologies enable the in consciousness an self-know­­ledge making of certain worlds and, at the alters our conceptions of cultural same time, how culture structures the and planetary time and, indeed, our manner in which those will EVOLVE. notions of what may constitute a no- Bratton approaches size and indeed tion of ‘now’. In his essay he argues SIZE MATTERS! 28 – 29 INSERTING A NON-TRANSACTIONAL SPACE IN VERBIER AND BEYOND that for AI to be most generally ben- EXCLU SIVE CLUB.’ This they may eficial, instead of mirroring human do by creating spaces with more biases and arbitrary conceits, we may autonomy and experimentation. instead wish to ensure that the new Now is a time of great opportunity TECHNOLOGY IS LESS HUMAN­ given the technological innovations LIKE rather than more. Bratton of- possible to open access to collections. fers that an ethical inhumanism may The task is to exploit these technol- need to drive the policy discussion. ogies to show the ‘REAL THING’ and In a text that closely follows his stay true to an authentic experience Summit talk, HRH PRINCE of art. CONS TANTIJN OF THE NETHERLANDS SIZE is the profession of the THE MUSEUM AS STARTUP, PAGE 81 explores how the architect and REM KOOLHAAS SIZE AND DISRUPTIVE MODEL of the start-up SCALE IN ARCHITECTURE, PAGE 115 offers us to consider might challenge the thinking and a dimension of BIGNESS that could practices of the art museum to provide be ambitious and reinvent the just that promised by such small museum. This might be approached and flexible businesses: ‘supe rior by not only embedding the museum CUSTOMER VALUE.’ Here the in a city, but indeed to relate to a Prince positions the museum as an ‘MUSEUM AS CITY’ made up of incumbent and therefore, as with assembled institutions. In order to the experience of politicians in get there, Koolhaas warns, we must recent months, perhaps equally overcome the intimidation of size, PRONE TO A BLINDNESS that but so too resist ‘doing what the does not allow the institution to see economy asks one to do’. In a morning what is coming before them. He ques- discussion session at the Summit, tions the seemingly limited options Koolhaas lamented the fact that as for the museum: must the museum museums have grown in size, the become ‘fun and entertaining’, or will SCALE OF THE INTELLECTUAL it merely remain ‘dry and cerebral’? CAPACITIES and ambitions of Prince Constantijn challenges the those inside them have not kept museum to ‘LET THE OUTSIDE pace. He traces a shift from CHAL­ IN AND TO NO MORE BE AN LENGE (exemplified by the work of SIZE MATTERS! 30 – 31 INSERTING A NON-TRANSACTIONAL SPACE IN VERBIER AND BEYOND Richard Serra) to COMFORT (epito- surement; what might happen if we mized by that of Anish Kapoor). The expose ourselves to a radical prop- size of museum extensions is not al- osition of ‘NOT­KNOWING’? She ways kind, or fair to the practices of closes with the truisms that, ‘Bigger certain artists.