CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

How Global
Can Museums Be?

CIMAM 2015 Annual

Conference Proceedings

Tokyo
November 7–9
2015

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

and Graduate University for Advanced Studies

Program (Sokendai), Hayama, Japan.

Saturday November 7, 2015 Q&A with Shigemi Inaga

The National Art Center, Tokyo
Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate? Perspective 05:
Hammad Nasar, Head of Research and Programs,
Welcoming remarks Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.
— Mami Kataoka – Chief Curator, Mori Art
Museum. Perspective 06:
— Bartomeu Marí – President of CIMAM. Slavs and Tatars, Artists, Eurasia.
— Hans-Martin Hinz – President of ICOM.
— Arimasu Ikiku – Deputy Commissioner, Agency Perspective 07:
for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. Eugene Tan, Director of Singapore National Gallery,
— Tamotsu Aoki – General Director, The National Singapore.
Center, Tokyo; Chair of Japanese National
Committee for ICOM and Chair of CIMAM Perspective 08:
Tokyo 2015 Executive Committee. Mariana Botey, Associate Professor Modern/
Contemporary Latin American Art History, Visual
Keynote 1: Patricia Falguières, Professor, School for Arts Department, University of California San Diego
Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), Chair (UCSD), San Diego, California.
of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP),
Paris. Panel discussion with perspective speakers

Q & A with Patricia Falguières Q & A with Perspective speakers

Perspective 01: Mika Kuraya, Chief Curator,

Department of Fine Arts, The National Museum of
Modern Art, Tokyo. Monday November 9, 2015
Roppongi Academyhills, Tokyo
Perspective 02: Jack Persekian, Director and Head Day 3. Is there a global audience?
Curator of The Palestinian Museum, Palestine.
Perspective 9:
Perspective 03: Brook Andrew, Artist and Lecturer: Bose Krishnamachari, President and co-founder,
MADA (Monash Art, Design and Architecture), Kochi Biennale Foundation, Cochin, Kerala, India.
Monash University, Melbourne.
Perspective 10:
Perspective 04: Georg Schöllhammer, Editor, Wong Hoy Cheong, artist, George Town, Malaysia.
Curator and writer, Head of tranzitat.at and
Founding Editor of springerin, Vienna. Hedwig Perspective 11:
Saxenhuber, Curator, writer and General Editor Peggy Levitt, Professor and Chair of Sociology,
springerin, Vienna. Wellesley College and Harvard University, Boston,
Massachusetts.
Panel discussion with perspective speakers
Perspective 12:
Q & A with Perspective speakers Anton Vidokle, artist and founder of e-flux, New York
& Berlin.

Panel discussion with perspective speakers

Sunday November 8, 2015
Roppongi Academyhills, Tokyo Q & A with Perspective speakers
Day 2. How has modernism been perceived
globally?

Keynote 2:
Shigemi Inaga, Professor, International Research
Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto

2 (in the document click on any page number to return to the table of contents)
CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Saturday
November 7, 2015

Day 1
Is the museum still
a place for debate?

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Welcome speeches
— Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator, Mori Art debate about the present and the futures of the
Museum. museum as an institution dedicated to the public
Good morning once again. We’d like to start interest, the common good.
the CIMAM 2015 Annual Conference. Welcome to Working for the past years with Anne-
Tokyo, we have such a nice weather today! My name Catherine Robert-Hauglustaine, Director General of
is Mami Kataoka, I’m the one of members of the ICOM, has been very productive and pleasurable
board of CIMAM and Chief Curator of the Mori Art and I should thank her and her team for their support
Museum and I’d really like to welcome you all here. and involvement in this transition process. This new
So, we’d like to have Bartomeu Marí, President of status will allow our organization to receive the
CIMAM begin the conference. funds, which are essential to the sustainability of our
— Bartomeu Marí, President of CIMAM. association, of our activities, and will allow us also
Good morning everyone. to hire professionals that carry out the day-to-day
It is a great pleasure in the name of the work in our office. Until now these professionals
members of CIMAM board to welcome you to this worked on a freelance basis that was costly and not
2015 CIMAM conference in Tokyo. In the coming very convenient.
days we will gather around presentations, debates, I also wish to communicate that Jenny Gil, our
discussions about a wide range of things that are of Executive Director for the past years, left our organ-
major concern and interest to the community of ization and is working now in an art institution in the
professionals in the museum sector. United States: I take this opportunity to wish her the
As in the past years, the contents of this best for her new career. Also those of you who
program have been elaborated by the board of come regularly to the conference will be missing
CIMAM with a strong, intense participation of our Inés Jover, our right hand at the CIMAM office, but
local hosts, the people at the Mori Museum, and this is because of the happy event that she is about
Mami Kataoka in particular. Under the title How to give birth to her first baby.
Global Can Museums Be?, the members of the Today, for this conference, Victoria Macarte is
board have tried to synthesize a program that representing the CIMAM office here in Tokyo and I
highlights some of the questions, the issues, the would like very, very, very, very specially to thank
challenges or the new fields of action that the and celebrate the involvement of Natsu, Sumika,
museum world is living in today; the forces and Ayako, and Julia from the Mori team, who made this
interests that shape our world are happening faster conference possible and certainly will be the key to
and faster, with changes in our economic, techno- most of its success.
logical, political, social, and cultural environments. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all
This conference will discuss, among other of the members of the Japan Executive Committee
things, if and how a single, unique code of ethics— for the CIMAM 2015 Annual Conference and espe-
morality and deontology—can apply for the different cially the Agency for Cultural Affairs under the
regions of our globe. For example, if a single Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and
narrative or construction of discourses about Technology in Japan as co-organizers for their
modern and contemporary art can be constructed. valuable support, without which this project could
The tensions between universal values and local not have been possible. Also, the Japanese National
realities we are living in are at the core of the Committee for ICOM, the Japanese Association of
motivations for this year’s CIMAM conference. Museums, the Japanese Council of Art Museums and
2015 has witnessed events where tensions the Japan Association of Art Museums for
gave way to cases of crisis and deep conflict among welcoming the international community of contem-
the actors of the system. One of these cases, by the porary art museum professionals represented by
way, affected myself and the institution that I CIMAM. I wish also to give our heartfelt thanks to
directed for the past seven years. The debate will Ishibashi Foundation, to Benesse Holdings, the
address the nature of these critical situations in Fukutake Foundation, the Shiseido Company, for
order to make this discussion of interest to all. being key partners and sponsors of this important
Also, this year we inaugurate a new chapter in meeting, allowing the highest quality in organization
our relationship between ICOM and CIMAM, with the and programming. My acknowledgement goes also
status of Affiliated Organization to ICOM. The to the companies: Dai-Nippon Printing, Nihon Kotsu,
presence among us of Dr. Hans-Martin Hinz, and Yu-un for their generous support. A very special
President of ICOM, signifies the normal develop- mention goes to Ms. Yoshiko Mori, the Chair Person
ment of this process that confirms CIMAM’s role as of the Mori Art Museum, who is hosting this event; to
a dynamic contributor to the development of the Mr. Fumio Nanjo, the Director of the Museum; Mami

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Kataoka of course, the Chief Curator of the Mori Art contemporary art professionals from many countries
Museum for their dedication and commitment to this to attend this CIMAM 2015 conference, so thank you
project. Also, as I mentioned, her team has been for that.
really crucial. The quest for greater inclusion and diversity is
Our gratitude also should go to modern and and always has been at the heart of ICOM’s work.
contemporary art museums (the institutions that we Facilitating the exchange between professionals
are going to visit during these days here in Tokyo). from diverse regions of the world and various social
Finally, I would like to give special thanks to very and cultural backgrounds is a wonderful achieve-
important partners of CIMAM and those are, first of ment. Contemporary art museums in my view have a
all, the Getty Foundation in collaboration with ICOM, particular mission to create dialogue between the
the Fundación Cisneros: Colección Patricia Phelps past and the present, between the established and
de Cisneros, and the Gwangju Biennial Foundation the experimental, all the while ensuring the accessi-
for their generous grants that allow members from bility of the institution to an increasingly diverse
different contexts to join this important conference: public. As such, CIMAM has worked hard to facili-
28 professionals residing in countries with emerging tate the exchange of information and cooperation, to
economies or from Central America and the ensure that the role of contemporary art museums in
Caribbean and South Korea are coming with the the social and cultural development is understood.
grants provided by these entities. The theme debated here today: “How global can
I could not end these words without reminding museums be today?” in our globalized societies,
you that more than twenty years ago in 1994, the contemporary and art museums face new challenges
first CIMAM conference took place in Tokyo and at in the twenty-first century.
the time Rudi Fuchs was the President of CIMAM, Today the production of art is an ever-expand-
Mr. Toshio Hara was the Vice-President and Fumio ing contemporary practice; new art museums are
Nanjo was the Secretary General. We have Fumio created in many parts of the world, yet what makes
Nanjo and Toshio Hara these days with us. Thank the very “stuff” of art is constantly being redefined.
you for hosting a CIMAM meeting again. I only hope How then, can common ground be found in eliciting
that these days give place to a very productive the very essence of art? The conference will be the
debate within the CIMAM conference. Thank you occasion to discuss the identity of art museums and
very much. the role they are bound to play in this emerging
— MK: Thank you, Bartomeu, and we have pattern whereby the transformation of the art-pro-
special welcome remarks from Mr. Hans-Martin duction process entails new museum practices.
Hinz, the President of ICOM. Beyond preserving the sense of history for the
— Hans-Martin Hinz, President of ICOM future, our preoccupation as museum professionals
Good morning, dear museum colleagues, revolves in many ways around the following issues:
ladies, and gentlemen. It is a great honor and What is the relevance of contemporary modern art
pleasure to be addressing you here in Tokyo on the museums and how can they make best use of the
occasion of the annual conference of CIMAM. I influence in society to broaden perspectives on
thank you warmly for your kind invitation and take fundamental and socially pertinent matters? What is
this opportunity to thank the co-organizers and the part they play in the discourse on social,
supporters of this conference—most of all the political, and global concerns? Are and should art
Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Government of museums be more participatory in their own commu-
Japan, the Japanese Association of Museums, the nities by bringing art into the public?
Japanese Council of Art Museums, and ICOM Japan ICOM members will come together again in
as well as our host today: the National Arts Center Japan some years from now for ICOM’s focal event:
which provides a wonderful backdrop for this the triennial general conference in 2019. Kyoto was
meeting. My heartfelt thanks go to Mrs. Arimasu voted as the host city and we are proud to be able to
Ikiku, Deputy Commissioner of the Agency for welcome participants in a city and country so
Cultural Affairs, Mr. Tamotsu Aoki, Chair of ICOM steeped in history and tradition. I hope that this taste
Japan and head of the Organizing Committee, and of Japan’s thriving cultural scene will encourage
Mr. Marí, President of CIMAM. I also wish to extent many of you to return for this event in 2019; but in
my greetings to you who have made the effort to be the more immediate future, ICOM is busy organizing
here today and over the course of the coming days. the upcoming triennial conference in Milan in 2016. I
Perhaps some of you are coming to Japan for the would also like to take this opportunity to say that
very first time for what promises to be an enriching we would be delighted to welcome you in Milan next
event. year in July for this forthcoming event in which the
I am particularly grateful for the support of the worldwide museum community—and we expect
Getty Foundation, a partner of ICOM for many, many 4,000 participants—will share knowledge and
years. And Getty has provided the enabling of 28 experience, networks, and discuss the theme:

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Museums and Cultural Landscapes, which has so Based on these changes, the overall theme for
much relevance for museums today. This theme will this conference has been decided: Is the museum
explore the concept of the context-oriented museum still a place for debate?—and over the next three
at the core of Italian museology, as well as the days, important issues of critical importance will be
relationship between museums and a landscape presented and discussed and I expect that these
undergoing constant change. I look forward to the manifold and active discussions will help further
pleasure of meeting many of you present here today develop the art world, as well as the museums in the
next summer in Milan. future.
This CIMAM event highlights both the growing Now, at our agency we try to actively commu-
energy for cultural endeavors in this part of the nicate what is happening in contemporary art in
world and the energy that characterizes ICOM’s Japan so we have systems to support the introduc-
international and national committees, regional tion and exhibitions of work of contemporary artists
alliances and affiliated organizations alike, wherever of Japan and also we conduct a research and
they may chose to meet. The contents of the confer- studies to further promote this message from Japan
ences and stimulating relevant themes selected are by helping host international conferences. In order
inspiring, as is the great diversity of horizons char- to further promote modern and contemporary art we
acterizing participants. I’m sure that the coming few will need to discuss and resolve common issues, and
days of presentations and debates alongside what we need to do this more than ever.
promise to be fascinating visits and demonstrations In 2020 we will host the Olympic and
will offer plenty of opportunities to learn, share Paralympic games in Tokyo and this is not just a
ideas, and make useful contacts. I would like to celebration of sport but also a celebration of culture.
thank you once again for extending this invitation for So, as soon as the Rio de Janeiro games are
me to be part of this great occasion for the CIMAM completed next year, we will start to deploy many
community, in the meantime I wish us productive and cultural programs including: fine arts, music, per-
enjoyable exchanges over the course of this meeting forming arts, dance, and traditional performing arts,
and I thank you very much for your attention. and these programs will be extended throughout
— MK: Thank you very much. We have two more Japan.
remarks, so we’d would like to welcome Mrs. It is extremely timely for us to be able to hold
Arimasu Ikiku the Deputy Commissioner of the this CIMAM annual conference where international
Agency for Culture Affairs of the Government of challenges are shared and debated and will be the
Japan. core of the promotion of art in the modern and
— Arimasu Ikiku, Deputy Commissioner, Agency contemporary and art museums.
for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan: Good So, along with the conference program, I
morning, a very good morning ladies and gentlemen. understand that we have a post conference tour
I’d like to extend my gratitude for you to attend this where you have the opportunity to visit our repre-
annual conference of CIMAM in Tokyo 2015. I under- sentative museums of modern and contemporary art
stand that approximately 260 people are attending in Japan and that you’ll be seeing some exhibitions,
from approximately 50 countries and on behalf of which are now in Tokyo as well and we have also
the Agency for Culture Affairs, I would like to invited curators from throughout Japan for this
welcome you all very warmly and I take this opportu- conference. So we truly hope that will serve an
nity to thank everybody who made this opportunity opportunity for you to exchange information and
possible. As was mentioned earlier, this is the develop relationships with these participants so that
second time that the CIMAM Annual Conference is you will further understand the current status of
held in Japan since 1994 and the last time it was the modern and contemporary art in Japan.
first time that the CIMAM annual conference was Last but not least, I would like to close my
held in the Asian region, so it was an opportunity to remarks by thanking everybody who has made this
renew participants awareness about Asia including event possible, including the members of the
an introduction about the situation of modern and Executive Committee for the CIMAM annual confer-
contemporary arts in the Asian region and how ence in Tokyo. Thank you very much for your kind
active they are and how individual artists are in the attention.
Asian region. — MK: Thank you very much. We’d like to then
Now, it’s been 21 years since the last time we welcome Mr. Tamotsu Aoki.
met in Tokyo and this time, as you may know, the Tamotsu Aoki, General Director, The National
global environment has become very complicated, al Center, Tokyo; Chair of Japanese National
surrounding arts and also museums, because of the Committee for ICOM and Chair of CIMAM Tokyo
diversification of international expositions and 2015 Executive Committee: Good morning, distin-
international art fairs and also global changes in guished guests, respected members of CIMAM,
politics as well as in the economy. ladies, and gentlemen. It is such a great pleasure

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and honor for us that the CIMAM annual 2015 and Contemporary Art, Korea as of next Monday,
meeting is being held at this National Center in November 9th.
Tokyo. It has been 21 years since CIMAM took place As you might know, the political relationship
in Japan last time. As for the Japanese art museums, between Japan and Korea has not been good;
it is very important that we are receiving the CIMAM however there have not been any obstacles in our
meeting in Japan. collaboration and cooperation with the National
About this Center: it opened in January 2007. Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.
The National Art Center, Tokyo is still a very young We have a very good relationship, respecting each
museum, we don’t have any collections, instead we other and working hard to organize the same exhibi-
are organizing 2,000 square meters of galleries and tion together.
we are having more than 2.6 million visitors every This is very small example—maybe you might
year—this is really the most visited museum in know many examples—however in this world full of
Japan. disputes and confrontations, I strongly believe that it
Today, I’d like to talk about one of the activities is crucially important that art and art museums
of our Museum in this globalizing world. Next Doors: should cross over the boundaries and differences in
Contemporary Art in Japan and Korea is the exhibi- nations, culture, region, etc. through collaboration
tion, which was co-organized and co-curated by the and cooperation. Art appeals to people’s sense and
National Art Center, Tokyo and the National Museum heart directly.
of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea. They With CIMAM 2015 Tokyo, let’s enhance the
cooperated to choose 6 artists each from Japan and relationship and cooperation of art museums in the
Korea and showed their works in the exhibition. The world and let’s make people over the world know the
exhibition was very well received in Tokyo and it will importance of art museums is in this global era.
soon be opened at the National Museum of Modern Thank you very much.

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Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Keynote 1. Patricia Falguières, Professor, School for Advanced

Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), Chair of the Centre National
des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), Paris, France.
Short Bio: Patricia Falguières is a professor at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences
(EHESS), Paris. She has published work on Renaissance philosophy and art, classifications, encyclopae-
dias, and the birth of the museum, including Les Chambres des merveilles (Bayard, 2002). She was the
editor for the French publication of Julius von Schlosser’s classic book Die Kunst—und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance (Paris, Macula, 2012) and published a critical edition of Inside the White Cube by
Brian O’Doherty (Paris, Zurich, 2008), as well as numerous studies on the history of museums and collec-
tions. In 2014, she published Carlo Scarpa, l’art d’exposer, a book by Philippe Duboy, within the collection
she created for the Maison Rouge Foundation in Paris, France. She is currently working on Renaissance
Technè, an approach to art as a mode of production, through Aristotelian ontology. Alongside Caroline Van
Eck (Leyden University), she led the Arts, invention, industrie seminar at the Institut National d’Histoire de
l’Art, Paris, France and the Gottfried Semper conference. She has published extensively on contemporary
art (monographs on Thomas Hirschhorn, Cristina Iglesias, Anri Sala, Mona Hatoum, Bernard Frize, Allora &
Calzadilla, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Philippe Thomas, Julie Ault, Danh Vo, etc., and essays on Conceptual art
and the relationship between art and theatre, among others). Together with Elisabeth Lebovici and Natasa
Petresin, she runs the international seminar Something you should know at the EHESS. She is currently
Chair of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, France (CNAP).

Presentation: Debating on museums: What is the the museum: the audience became the main topic of
question? these investigations on the museum’s history, which
started in the eighties. From this perspective we can
The program statement issued by CIMAM’s bureau say that the major part of the museum’s historiogra-
raised my perplexity: Is the museum still a place for phy is guided by the thematic built by Habermas on
debate? Here, what puzzles me is “still.” one hand, by the Anglo-Saxon constitutionalist
Instead of “Is Museum still a place for tradition on the other. Such is the frame through
Debate?” I would rather reformulate the question: which free speech was recognized the supreme
Was the museum ever a place for debate? Will one political and philosophical value: a crucial value
day the museum be a place for debate? To ask if indeed, on which democracy is supposed to be built
Museum is still a place for debate depends on a (this was demonstrated again during the recent
truncated historical perspective. It’s reviving the debates on so-called “blasphemy”1). Such is the
Golden Mythology surrounding the museum’s birth: ground for our question: “Is the museum still a place
the claim that it is one and the same with the demo- for debate?”
cratic values. Was the museum ever a place for debate?
This is a commonplace of so many books Nothing is less certain. Were museums places for
about museums: the museum being supposed to be free speech? Was debate intended to be the
a facility, an amenity of democracy, the emerging museum’s purpose? Was the museum bound to
place where the very idea of the public came first: debate? I must admit that this idea reminds me the
the audience of the museum being a prefiguration of charming and so comforting eighteenth-century
the public. canvas by Zoffany showing well educated English
We identify this topic: it’s a slightly different gentlemen and Italian virtuosi debating on the good
version of Jurgen Habermas’ classic work on the and the beautiful in the middle of the Tribuna of the
birth of the public sphere, the public sphere being Uffizi Museum in Florence. I’m afraid we’ll have first
“the society engaged in critical public debate”: the to deconstruct this idyllic scenery. Let’s remember
topic is build up in The Structural Transformation of two or three things that are relevant here.
the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Hardly created by the International Museums
Bourgeois Society, published in 1962.
It was not difficult to transfer this thematic, 1 The discussion Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Saba
built on the ground of the theater’s audience, onto Mahmood, Is Critique Secular ? Blasphemy, Injury and Free
Speech, Fordham University Press, 2013.

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Association (1902), the Museums Journal launched say that precisely this issue was a main driving
an international investigation on the pedagogical force behind the solicitude of the State for museums
tools created by museums all over the world (mobile as such: the issue being for the State to substitute
museums for instance), pedagogy being the main the enduring power of the Church over time as
topic scrutinized by the directors of this new associ- keeper of families’ properties. The everlasting
ation of museum. Strangely enough, and quite debate found an end with desamortizations all over
untimely, kind of an answer came from the most Europe: the confiscation or forced sale of the goods
prominent director of the Kunsthistorischen Museum of the Church, among which pictures and sculptures
in Vienna, Julius von Schlosser, who published, in that enriched the museums, let they be private or
Leipzig, in 1908, Die Kunst und Wunderkammern public, the “vente des biens nationaux” in revolution-
des Spätrenaissance [The Art and Wonder Rooms ary France being only the most spectacular version
of Late Renaissance]. At the time, the book looked of that general European drive. The State became
desperately disappointing. It provided an uncanny the one and unique guarantee and protector of
genealogy for the European museum, the Kunst und foundations, museums being among them (as far as
Wunderkammer of late-Renaissance princes in I know, this legal aspect of museum history has
Central Europe: museums seen within this frame had never been touched by historians or theoreticians of
nothing to do with any kind of pedagogy or useful- the museum idea).
ness. They were socially futile, the strange fruits of What does it mean for us? It means that
the fancy and vagaries of German princes, full of the museums in Europe, since Renaissance, always had
remnants of the childhood of humanity. Schlosser’s a privileged relationship to thesaurization, to
essay implicitly linked the museum to the rise and heritage, to patrimony: the modern birth of the
theoretical production of the very concept of sover- museum did have a strong and direct relationship to
eignty, at the end of sixteenth century, even worse: the creation of legal mechanisms, which allowed the
to this nightmarish figure emerging then in the creation of previously unseen institutions. More: we
darkness of political theory, the despot.2The whole can say that the modern museum was a test bench
book published by Schlosser was a particularly for institutional creativity.4 This is why we should not
notorious and regressive version of the modern confuse a museum and the collections included in it.
mythology surrounding the birth of the museum: the At that point we can ask: was the museum
idea that the museum had been in Renaissance intended to be a place for debate? The answer is no.
Europe, a factor of the (religious) secularization of The distribution of parts in the bourgeois society of
European society. The Art and Wonder Rooms of the nineteenth century was clear: the museum was
Late Renaissance was a strange book, “uncanny” in not intended to be a public arena. Being a public
the real meaning of the term: it was impossible to arena was the part of the press, of the parliament,
reintegrate it in a calm, appeased, and linear history of the national assembly: the museum was not at
of museums. This is precisely why it faded from stake. Even the university needed the whole nine-
memory for more than sixty years. Still, we have to teenth century to become a public arena. We should
take into account its awkward premise. not forget, for instance, that in American universi-
Let me add a word about the institutionality of ties, free speech was not officially guaranteed for
the museum: what distinguishes a museum from a professors untill around the first third of the
collection or a set of collections. twentieth century, even if it had such champions as
One of the great issues at stake in eight- chief justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and philosopher
eenth-century Europe was the perpetuity of John Dewey, who was the creator and the first
foundations. Who else than the Church could be president of the Association of American University
responsible for the perpetual upkeep of donations, Professors (Dewey had to draw up the argument
family chapels, education, funding, and fellowships, that a professor was working for the community not
perpetual celebrations of a mass in memory of some
dead ancestor? Or the upkeep of museums, since a
museum was, strictly speaking, a foundation (the
very name of museum coming from the perpetual
college of fellows created in the Library of
Alexandria by King Ptolemaeus)? Only the Church
was seen as able to take care of these foundations
in perpetuity. I won’t go on on this topic.3 But let me
2 See Patricia Falguieres, “La société des objets ,” intriduction to
Julius von Schlosser Les Cabinets d’art et de merveilles de la
renaissance tardive, Paris, Macula, 2012, pp. 7–54. 4 See “Fondation du Theâtre ou Méthode de l’Exposition univer-
3 I have exposed it in “Museum in the Making,” in Keys to a selle. Les Inscriptions de Samuel Quicchelberg” (1565), in Les
Passion, Suzanne Pagé & Béatrice Parent éd., Paris, 2015, pp. Cahiers du Musée national d’Art moderne 40 (autumn 1992), pp.
34–43, 91–115.

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for the trustees of the university).5 Did the agents in the medias the authority of their hierarchy.8 This is
working in museums get the same immunity? No. At still not the case with museum’s conservateurs, as
a time when such luminaries of German universities we can observe each time a polemic shakes the
as Theodor Mommsen were not only “public intellec- French art world—for them, to transgress the devoir
tuals” but active participants to the parliamentary de reserve without being exposed to an official
life,6 the fate of curator Hugo von Tschudi illustrates warning requires a pseudonym or a pen name.9
the discrepancy between university and museum in Let’s get back to the question at stake: “Is the
Wilhelmine Germany, a country otherwise supplied, museum still a place for debate?” The question
then, with all the amenities of a modern European seems to consider that free speech is already
democracy: Tschudi, the director of the National assumed by museums in abstracto while forgetting
Gallery in Berlin was fired by the kaiser himself in that, as far as they are concerned, museum’s
1908 for having acquired and exposed too many people, museum’s curators, are scarcely granted the
French Impressionnists and Post-Impressionists, immunity of free speech. And this institutional issue
Wilhelm II having been petitioned by a bunch of has scarcely (if ever) been sufficiently documented.
German artists, outraged by the untimely francofilia However, it would be urgent to get a survey of the
showed by a civil servant.7 diversity of museum curators’ legal situations and an
Let me take another example from present-day overview of the specific kinds of institutional
democratic Europe. In France today, university tutelage and administrative supervision (supervision
professors are exempted from what is called “duty by the board of trustees, the public administration,
of reserve” or “obligation of discretion,” which or the political tutelage) that tie their hands all over
forbids all civil servants to “use their function as a the world. We can’t go on to count only with an
tool to make explicit propaganda” or openly discuss exclusively north-American paradigm (the privilege
given to the relationship of museums directors with
trustees & sponsors) that shaped the whole of
5 See Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club. A Story of Ideas in
America, New York, Farar, Straus & Giroux 2001, pp. 411–33;
institutional critique and much of the museum’s
David Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870–1920, historiography.10
Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 217 et suiv. The So when we take for granted the museum as a
argument hardly resisted to the MacCarthyist era, as exempli- place for debate, do we include the people in charge
fied by the 1949–1950 “Loyalty Oath Case” in Berkeley
University, an the subsequent resignation of the German of it? Is free speech granted not only for artists and
refugee, Ernst Kantorowicz, who formulated the argument of the audience but for the museum’s curators too? Are
tenure being a magistrature in The Fundamental Issue these one and the same? (Here there is an unques-
Documents and Marginal Notes on the University of California
Loyalty Oath (San Francisco, 1950), c.f. David Gardner, The
tioned glissando.) We should not forget that a
California Oath Controversy, Berkeley University Press, 1967. museum is never homogeneous; it’s not one lot,
(http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_col- although so many studies published in the eighties
lections/subtopic6b.html); sur l’essor du Free Speech Movement
contre la guerre du Viet Nam sur les campus américains à partir
de 1964, c.f. David Lance Goines, The Free Speech Movement : 8 This restraint does not figure explicitly in the law and statute of
Coming of Age in the 1960s,Berkeley,TenSpeed- civil servants (which would interfere with political and civil
Press,1993 (http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/ rights) but is drafted from jurisprudential activity (mostly by the
themed_collections/subtopic6b.html; http://vm136.lib.berkeley. Conseil d’État).
edu/BANC/FSM/;http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/uchistory/ 9 As we can see for instance with the “Storage War” that sets fire
archives_exhibits/loyaltyoath/symposium/index.html to the Louvre nowadays in the anonymous opinions published by
6 cf Stefan Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen: Eine Biographie, Beck, the Tribune de l’art, http://www.latribunedelart.com/
Munich, 2002; Theodor Mommsen: Gelehrter, Politiker und reserves-du-louvre-a-lievin
Literat unter Mitarbeit von Henning Börm. Josef Wiesehöfer 10 Of which one of the best models was delivered in 1975 by John
(ed.), Stuttgart, 2005. The political committment of university Coplans in “Pasadena’s Collapse and the Simon Takeover: Diary
professors in Germany before the First World War aroused of a Disaster,” Artforum 13, no. 6 (February 1975, now reprinted
seminal essays by Max Weber “Wissenschaft als Beruf” and in Provocations. Writings by John Coplans, Stuart Morgan, ed.,
“Politik als Beruf” drafted in 1917, c.f. the clarification by Isabelle London, 1996, pp. 157–205 and http://www.eastofborneo.org/
Kalinowski in Max Weber, La science, profession & vocation, articles/pasadenas-collapse-and-the-simon-takeover-dia-
suivie de Leçons weberiennes sur la science & la Propagande, ry-of-a-disaster-1975. About the exclusion of Curator Edward
by Isabelle Kalinowski, Marseille, Agone, 2005. The sociological Fry by the Guggenheim Board of Trustees preventing him to
approach of German university professors has been ignited by exhibit Hans Haacke’s Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate
the now classic The Decline of the German Mandarins: The Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (an
German Academic Community, 1890–1933, published by Fritz investigation on the Real Estate strategy of the Guggenheim
Ringer in 1969 (2nd edition Wesleyan, 1990); see Konrad family), see Rosalyn Deutsche, “Property Values Hans Haacke,
Jarausch, Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany: Real estate and the Museum,” in Evictions: Art and Spatial
The Rise of Academic Illiberalism, Princeton University Press, Politics, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, pp. 159–84; Frederic
1982. About the French model, see François Azouvi, La Gloire de Jameson, “Hans Haacke and the Cultural Logic of
Bergson: essai sur le magistère philosophique, Paris, Gallimard, Postmodernism,” in Hans Haacke: Unfinished Business, Brian
2007. Wallis, ed., The New Museum, New York, 1986, pp. 38–51,
7 Cf Peter Paret, German Encounters with Modernism 1840– reprinted in Neo-Avant Garde and Culture Industry, Brian Wallis,
1945, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 92–118; Johan ed., Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2000, pp. 204–41 ; Julia
Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Bryan-Wilson, ARTWORKERS. Radical Practice in the Viet Nam
Germany: The Art World in Nazi Germany, Oxford University Era, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2009, pp.
Press, 2000, chap. 1, “Art Museum Directors.” 173–213.

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do essentialize “the museum.” The ontology of the of the Canon14). Every museum could not lay claim to
museum delivered by so many critical studies these Olympian heights, and most of them had to be
published in the nineties prevents us from seeing at ease with their local integration, in a pragmatic
that each museum is torn between interests and way, by favoring minor works of art, civic traditions,
positions, which are diverging, at least heterogene- and local petits-maîtres.15 Triangular pediments and
ous and in many ways antagonistic. It’s a battlefield, Greek colonnades did mean something else,
if a silent and bureaucratic one. But it’s rather something more general: the building of the
difficult to gather information about it because the museum, being the building of an institution, was an
kind of knowledge assumed by those in charge of an invisible process, whose steps whatever turbulent,
institution like the museum falls within that area even stormy they had been, had to be erased and
anthropologists call tacit knowledge. And because it forgotten. The anthropologist Mary Douglas helps
requires historians to dive into the repulsive mass of us to understand this very period in an institution’s
“grey writings,” the bureaucratic archive. life: “the high triumph of institutional thinking is to
Let’s get back to history and to the kind of make institutions completely invisible.”16 As Daniel J.
“debate” we can associate with the museum. In the Sherman brings it to life in his masterly study of
nineteenth century, debate—even artistic debate— nineteenth-century French provincial museums, it
took place mainly outside the museum: in the salons, was impossible for those who were in charge of the
in the academies, in shows and exhibitions, in stores triumph of the museum—the public figures who were
and galleries, in the press.11 The museum as an in charge of the museum’s administration, of its
institution had to be considered independently from purchasing and exhibiting arrangements—to take on
the exhibitionary function (this is why modernism a public debate on artworks in a political context. A
had parti lié with the art market12). On the contrary, city councilor of Bordeaux reports: “it’s very disa-
the museum was supposed to be a shrine, a greeable to have to discuss the merits of a work of
sanctuary—an assumption made evident by the art in a public meeting.” They had to rely on advisory
Greek temple architecture universally in use for boards: the regular mechanisms of notability and
nineteenth century museums as by the decorative expertise cleared them of that burden, the political
apparatus devised by painters for its interior debate: “the comforted bromide of ‘expertise’ always
spaces.13 Not only because it should have received provided an antidote to any suggestion of politics,”
only l’indiscutable, the unquestionable, l’intemporel, as Sherman aptly concludes.17
what is assumed to escape from any debate: As far as political space is equated with demo-
masters and masterpieces (such indeed is the power cratic debate, the museum was not then allowed to
be a political space: to paraphrase a famous slogan
by Gertrude Stein, I would say that “you could then
be a museum or you could be political, but you
couldn’t be both.” So we should not conclude that, a
museum because it is accessible to the largest
11 On the wealth of exhibitions proposed in Victorian London by audience and/or is legally State-run, is a public or
what is named then Show Business or Museum Industry see political space. In the nineteenth century, when
Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London. A panoramic history of
exhibitions, 1600–1862. Cambridge, Mass.-London, The Belknap democratic debate pervaded national assemblies,
Press of Harvard University Press, 1978; David Solkin, Painting newspapers, streets, no part was granted to the
for Money. The visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth museum.
Century England. New Haven-London, The Paul Mellon Centre
for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press. 1992; Art on the
Line. The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 14 While in the 80s historians like Francis Haskell were radically
1780–1836, David Solkin, ed., New Haven-London, The Paul historicizing it, cultural critiques were dismantling the authority
Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Courtauld of the canon and putting at stake its institutionnal setting, the
Institute Gallery, Yale university Press, New Haven and London, museum, see Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art: some
2001; Patricia Falguières, “Catlin, painting and the museum aspects of taste, fashion, and collecting in England and France,
industry,” in Gradhiva. Revue d'anthropologie et d'histoire des Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1976; Francis Haskell &
arts 3 (2006), pp. 39–53 & 111–14. Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical
12 Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon. Art and the State in the Sculpture, 1500–1900, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981;
Early Third Republic, Cambridge University Press, 1993; Mixhael Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been no Great Women
C. Fitzgerald, Making Modernism. Picasso and the Creation of Artists?” Art News 69 (January 1971), pp. 22–39 re-edit. In
the Market for Twentieth-Century Art, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, WOMEN ARTISTS. The Linda Nochlin Reader, Maura Reilly
New York, 1995; Robert Jensen, Marketing Modernism in (ed.), London, Thames & Hudson, 2015; Griselda Pollock &
Fin-de-Siècle Europe, Princeton University Press, 1996. Rozsika Parker, Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology. New
13 C.f. Daniel J. Sherman, Worthy Monuments. Art Museums and York: Pantheon Books, 1981; Griselda Pollock “About canons and
the Politics of Culture in Nineteenth-Century France, Harvard culture wars,” in G. Pollock, Differencing the canon. Feminist
University Press, 1989; James J. Sheehan, Museums in the desire and the writing of Art History, London, Routledge, 1999.
German Art World from the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of 15 See Daniel J. Sherman, Worthy Monuments. Art Museums and
Modernism, Oxford University Press, 2000; Tempel der Kunst. the Politics of Culture in Nineteenth-Century France, Harvard
Die Entstehung des öffentlichen Museums in Deutschland University Pres, Cambridge Mass., London, 1989, passim.
1701–1815, Bénédicte Savoy (ed.), Philipp von Zabern Verlag, 16 Mary Douglas, How institutions think, Syracuse, 1986.
Mayence, 2006. 17 Daniel J. Sherman, Worthy Monuments, chapter 6, p. 193.

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For the museum, to win a part in the ongoing in a singular space, in a particular sphere of sensible
democratic debate supposed a breach: a breach in experience cut out from the social continuum (the
the organization of each place’s purpose, a breach sphere of art, the sphere of what Jacques Rancière
in the layout and the allocation of positions. This calls the “esthetic regime”20), this appeared to some
rupture in the institutional routine, bursting improp- as the key of the worker’s emancipation. It means
erly thresholds and dividing lines, could find a that esthetic autonomy did not appear, then, as
spectacular expression. Sergei Eisenstein gave its adverse to political emancipation—it was just the
most heroic imagery in October: the revolutionary contrary. For all great reformers who planned the
mob storming the art collections of the Winter new draft for the modern museum, esthetic
Palace in Petrograd in 1917. Revolution is the autonomy was seen as the instrument of emancipa-
reshaping of what is understood to be a political tion. It was essential for what I would call the
space, that is to say moving and transforming the modern Museum Idea. We have to underline it since
received boarders between public and private, many argumentations by sociologists and art theore-
political, and individual. Such could be the condition ticians do acknowledge as “political” only what is
to let the museum into the perimeter of political explicitly representing a “political issue.” What is
debate: the history of revolutionary Louvre exempli- important there is exceeding representation: it is the
fies this dramatic (and ephemeral) accession of the reshaping of what Rancière called the partage du
museum to public debate.18 Still some other images sensible.
come to mind when we try to figure out such a Let’s make clear that this is not about
breach in the normal allocation of parts and roles— “pedagogy.” The modern experience of the museum
politics is always an event: politics happen, breaking (as its promoters thought it) was not a question of
in from the outside, obstructing the routine of “workers’ education.” This was the program of the
everyday men’s and goods management, adjourning School of Design as Henry Cole conceived it, or the
it’s time and space. It happens by revealing division program of the Newark Museum dreamed up by
and dispute.19 Some more images from nineteenth Cotton Dana: their utility pedagogy is somewhat
century heralded the admission of museum in the diagonal to the modernist ambition.21 Which doesn’t
political debate that is the distinguishing fixture of mean that design or typography have been
the twentieth century. Some headlines, some neglected by the modernist program, as the collec-
captions: “Workers Visiting the Museum,” “The tions and exhibitions of so many museums, MoMA
Sunday Public Visiting the Fine Arts Gallery.” This is first, do give evidence: it’s a peculiarity of the
the inaugural scene of the modern museum. But it’s modernist program to never dissociate the purifica-
not properly “a debate”: it’s an “intrusion.” The tion of forms from the ambition to fix and give shape
workers’ bodies intruding in the museum’s space to the spaces of everyday life.22 But the way the
became an issue; it indicated equality being visitors are summoned in those different kinds of
reclaimed by those unexpected visitors, as much as institutions are quite divergent. The modern museum
class division splitting, from now on, the museum contains a specific area where the indeterminacy of
space. Equality and division: such are the two condi- objects and works is the rule.23 Where objects are
tions required for politics to happen. It means that no more “addressed”: they have lost their place, the
this intrusion of improper bodies in the museum
reshaped and re-cut the material and symbolic 20 See Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du sensible, Paris, La
space in which the museum as experience takes Fabrique, 2000 ; idem, Le Spectateur émancipé, Paris, La
Fabrique, 2008.
place. This was the democratic experience: the fact 21 See Elizabeth Bonython & Anthony Burton, The Great Exhibitor:
that anybody, without any kind of skill, privilege of The Life and Work of Henry Cole, London, V&A Museum, 2003;
birth, or richness, any kind of qualification, could get Carol G. Duncan, A Matter of Class: John Cotton Dana,
Progressive Reform, and the Newark Museum, New York,
in. Here it’s the “any” that is important: the any that periscope, 2010.
is the singular mark of democracy. Unexpected 22 See Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display. A History of
subjects are entering in a very particular sphere of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, The MIT
experience, where one has to be able to participate Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1999; Jacques Rancière, “La surface
du design,” in Le destin des images, Paris, Hazan, 2003, pp.
105–22.
18 See Yveline Cantarel-Besson, La Naissance du musée du 23 Samuel Cauman, The Living Museum: Experiences of an Art
Louvre, 2 vol., Paris, RMN, 1981; Edouard Pommier, L'Art de la Historian and Museum Director, Alexander Dorner, New York
liberté. Doctrines et débats de la Révolution française, Paris, University, New York, 1958; Monica Flacke-Knoch, Museum-
Gallimard, 1991; Andrew McClellan, Inventiong the Louvre. Art, konzeptionen in der Weimarer Republik: Die Tätigkeit Alexander
Politics and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth- Dorners im provinzialiuseum Hannover, Marburg, Jonas Verlag,
Century Paris, University of California Press, 1994; 1985; Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display. A History
Dominique-Vivant Denon. L'oeil de Napoléon, catalogue de of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, MIT
l’exposition du Musée du Louvre, Marie- Anne Dupuy, ed., Paris, Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1999; Maria Gough, “Constructivisl
RMN, 1999 ; Les Vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon, Daniela Gallo Disoriented: El Lissitzky’s Drsden and Hannover
dir., Musée du Louvre, Documentation Française, Paris, 2001. Demonstrationsrâume” in Situating El Lissitzky. Vitebsk, Berlin,
19 Jacques Rancière, La Mésentente, Paris, Galilée, 1995; idem, Moscow, Nancy perloff & Brian Reed, ed., The Getty Research
Aux bords du politique, Paris, Gallimard, 2003. Institute, Los Angeles, 2003, pp. 77–128.

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site or the ritual that gave them meaning, the hierar- We are still far away from Zoffany’s peaceful
chies they ornamented, and even their name. This and exquisite British gentlemen debating in the
aesthetic “secularization” started, in the sixteenth museum. The museum is not the container of the
and seventeenth centuries in Europe, with antique “debate”: it is the limits of the containment, the
marbles of vague identification, and decommis- topography of the new kind of public space it deter-
sioned altarpieces. This is why the modern project mines, which are at stake. And, as a consequence,
widely exceeds modern art: it launches a previously the kind of objects it includes. The debate is neces-
unseen kind of relation to what is identified as “art.” sarily as endless as is endless the process of
While we have forgotten it aroused, in Europe, much emancipation itself.
more reluctance than we think,24 the process of One of the main limits of the habermassian
secularization and esthetization (which is quite paradigm is its fixity: the coordinates of public
singular and problematical) still stir up strong oppo- space are given once and for all, they constitute the
sitions, as substantiated by the conflicts taking place ideal frame or arena of so-called democratic delib-
in Indian Museums25—these “conservatories of eration because its objects and its ends are already
religious pluralism.”26 What we call the White Cube stabilized.
is the process of delimitation and containment itself, On the contrary, Jacques Rancière, Wendy
which gives rise to an indeterminate public: this was, Brown, Michael Warner, Judith Butler, and a few
for most of the political thinkers of art, from William others (regardless to their differences), showed us
Morris to Giulio Carlo Argan, the touchstone of the that it is the determination of the topics and the ends
political implication of the modernist program. of the democratic debate that are at stake, the
In Italy after 1944, after the Second World (somewhat difficult and violent) demarcation of what
War and twenty years of Fascism, the possibility of is political or not. It’s a frontline, a moving frontline,
figuring out the museum as an heterotopy was always submitted to new outlines produced by a
pivotal for the emancipation program. Bringing multiplicity of conflicts: the public space is continu-
together art historians, architects, museums ously to be produced.
directors, what we could be tempted to call a The “Culture War” in the USA in the nineties
“modernist” or a “formalist” approach to art, but showed it once more. The museum was then less a
actually taking root in a political analysis of architec- place for debate than a disputed place: the “debate”
ture, urbanism, and design, inspired a revolution in took place outside the museum, before its doors as
museology all over Italy. As art historian Giulio Carlo much as inside. As feminist, Afro-American,
Argan wrote, all museums, let them be medieval or Portorican, Chicanos, anti-Vietnam activists in the
modern art museums, “were called to be a Bauhaus seventies, gay and lesbian, anti-AIDS militants in the
School”: the life of forms is a political one. It was the ninties claimed against State censorship that “the
condition of reconfiguring the political space as a private is political.” What, for the museum, was at
democratic one after twenty years of Fascism. A stake during these two crucial periods? The reas-
quite specific kind of White Cube designed then by sessment, in a polemical way, of the universal:
architects like Franco Albini, BPPR or Carlo Scarpa, minorities introducing previously unseen issues in
reconfiguring Italian museums, offered an alterna- the public space—the public space being redefined
tive, a resolutely alternative one, to the American by this very process as new political subjects appear
version of the White Cube and its purified formalism: through it. The museum is one of the test fields
it was the heart of an explicitly political agenda where one can check the broadening of the public
fiercely fought at the time by right wing and clerical sphere. The recurrent recasting of the border
parties.27 between private and public is the consequence of
the action of a multiplicity of new agents (women /
24 See Quatremère de Quincy, Lettres à Miranda sur le deplace-
black women / homosexuals /…). It is a process with
ment des monuments de l'art de l'Italie, Paris, Macula, 1989. only provisional stabilization. A series of memorable
25 Voir Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: exhibitions, mainly in New York, in the eighties and
Institutions of Art in Colonial and Post-Colonial India, Columbia nineties, both illustrated and provided that process—
University Press, New York, 2004; Saloni Mathur, Kavita Singh
(eds.), No Touching, No Spitting, No praying: The Museum in Americana, at the Whitney Biennial in 1985, If you
South Asia, Routledge, New Delhi, 2015. lived here, at the DIA (1987–1989) Democracy, at
26 Pour reprendre l’expression et les analyses de Naman P. Ahuja, the DIA (1988), AIDS Timeline, at Berkeley
“The Body Redux. A Curator’s Post-Script on Exhibiting India,” in
Museums of the World. Towards a New Understanding of a
(1989) then at the Whitney (1991)—taking the
Historical Institution, K. Alqvist & L. Belfrage (eds), Stockholm, renewal of the emancipatory program linked to the
Axel and Margaret Axson, Johnson Foundation, 2015, pp. museum as their topic.
81–107.
27 C.f. Patricia Falguières, “L’arte della mostra. Pour une autre
If we are not conscious of the underlying
généalogie du White Cube,” in Carlo Scarpa, l’art d’exposer, contentiousness that produces the public space, if
édition et commentaire Philippe Duboy, Paris, Lectures Maison we think it can spare the museum, the museum being
Rouge / J.R.P. Ringier, pp. 6–45; idem “Politics for the White a place for consensus (such is the ideal vision of the
Cube : The Italian Way,” Grey Room 63, Spring 2016.

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museum released by liberalism), we cannot under- But the erasing of politics is demanded too by
stand what happens to “us,” what happens to the the boundlessness, the unrestriction of capital and
museum. wealth we name “globalization.” Of course the art
Allow me an historical parenthesis. We tend to market is its exemplary vector. In this planetary
forget that the first appearance of museums in trend, the museum, today, has an equivocal part and
Europe, at the end of the fifteenth century, was the plays double-dealing. On one side, the museum is a
by-product of the rediscovery of the very concept of relic, a vestige of the public space in a time of
Public Space as the Roman Law shaped it. The de-politicization of ruling: this is why it retains
“signs” (signa) that was the way antic statues and authority and attraction. On the other side, it is more
marble inscriptions were named. Their gathering, and more a local step in the international track
from the Quattrocento on attempted to establish a through which values are ratified and produced. It is
specific kind of space: the public space, the Res the most prestigious expression of the boundless-
Publica (literally the “public thing”), which is neither ness of wealth (I don’t need to insist on it, it’s
religious nor linked to the aristocratic genealogies. obvious). On the global map of speculative activity,
This was a long-distance run, starting in thir- the museum is both a signal and an accelerator of
teenth-century Italy, with the rediscovery of Roman the speculative process. Its oligarchic dimension
Law, and the major clashes between the Roman asserts itself in the showiest way: the importance
Church and those who pretended to revive Roman awarded to “the collector,” promoted to the rank of
citizenship, The museum as such is both the relic main protagonist of the art scene is its most signifi-
and the substitute of that ambition. This is why, in cant symptom.
spite of all, it holds on today. Here the distribution of parts is quite blurred.
Yet we are witnessing nowadays an incompa- Being “private” or “public” is not enough to tell the
rable shrinkage of the public sphere, at a global difference between the different options offered to
level. the museum. The speculative process takes hold of
We should not delude ourselves: all kind of public museums, although state or city supervision
power, even the most democratic ones, tends to rule gets heavier and heavier in the museum, its staff, its
getting rid of politics: appealing to the privilege of management, the exhibitions produced. Testing the
birth, God’s authority, science, wealth. The trend of new ways of public management, the museum
all power is oligarchic. By nature it tends to infringe becomes a key facility for the process of “moderni-
upon public space, to grab again to its exclusive zation” undertaken by more and more States: from
account the signs and authority of the “public thing.” now on the international accreditation of
That trend is subjected to a spectacular and unprec- “newcomer” States requires the museum. In most
edented acceleration. New forms of governance cases, this accreditation coincides with the certifica-
impose themselves in the name of expertise and tion by and through the international speculative
efficiency. In “mature democracies,” the ideal of track. On the contrary we have seen the trustees of
ruling without politics, without taking in account all the Detroit Institute of Art supporting the director to
those divisions that constitute a people, this ideal resist the liquidation of a prestigious art collection in
seems at hand. Every day we observe an impressive the name of economic rationality (the bailout of a
de-politicization of public affairs in the name of municipal bankruptcy). And the spectacular prolifer-
consensus. Economy, statistics, sociology… every ation of art foundations says nothing about the
kind of “science” is in use to objectify as an abstract diversity of their ends: we cannot forget the part
whole the multiple disassembled facets which make played by the DIA Foundation, in the New York of the
a people. With the technocratic craft of political eighties and nineties, when it came to devise a
decision, all the old places of public debate (news- culture of resistance to the consensus. Today, so
papers, university among others) become obsolete. diverse and specific are the local situations that an
As for the museum, you know very well and better analysis of these new institutions requires a case-
than me how simple it is to weaken its purpose only by-case approach.
by ordering new managerial criteria: for instance, Assenting or resisting the enlistment of the
under pretext of “democratization,” demanding museum under the flag and the pressure of neo-lib-
attendance levels (an abstraction, “the public,” is eral “economic rationality,” this is the crucial
then produced by the whole range of statistical and alternative today. A tactical wavering between the
economic tools). Or by assigning the museum an two options is the daily bread of those in charge of
unprecedented task: to become a label, a new kind museums all over the world.28 This ambivalence is
of global economic player. This is what is at stake structural, as is evident from the hopes aroused by
with branding. Note that this dismantling of the the creation of museums in countries blank of any
emancipatory mission of the museum is organized,
in Europe at least, through the most ordinary ways 28 See Matti Bunzl, In search of a Lost Avant-garde. An
of public accounting. Anthropologist investigates the Contemporary Art Museum,
University of Chicago Press, 2014.

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mark of democracy: quite paradoxically the all over the world, Europe included. And it is not a
planetary proliferation of museums can perfectly consequence of the sudden entrance of the museum
match with the progressive erasure of public space. in “different cultures” as is decorously said (we have
This is why the situation of museums, on a to insist on it). In Europe for instance, the want of
global scale, today, is unprecedented. I would not censorship has changed radically. It means that
ask “Is the museum still a place for debate?” but, on those who manipulate it have a complete command
the contrary, “The museum is about to be a place for of the media and the media operations the “scientific
debate.” production of scandals” requires.29 From this point
This means that we have to think over the now of view, the State may appear as the protector of
classic analyses produced by the “institutional both consensus and free speech. In France we saw
critique,” by proposing new concepts and new it when, on the place Vendôme and the gardens of
issues. It will be done not outside but in the museum Versailles, two major works, two emblems of market
itself. I’ll suggest an alternative (let me try an values, were vandalized by extreme-right militants:
anticipation). the solicitude from the highest level of the State to
Whether the museum assumes by project to the victims—Paul McCarthy and Anish Kapoor—was
work on the past dissents of art: to revisit the history in inverse proportion to the consensual silence that
of modern art from a non-consensual point of view, has buried the Abu Dhabi stakes (the critical project
updating the potentialities of forgotten positions, of of Gulf Labor Coalition is, in France, quite
postponed or declined options, etc. Which means inaudible). Censorship and the manufacture of
that museums staff have absorbed and implemented consent are two faces of the same coin, as the
in the long run the critical contributions of the politics of terror led by the “enemies of democracy”
pensée critique, of institutional critique, of genre is about to be the best tool of a neo-liberal
critique, of subaltern studies, etc., which will feed the consensus of planetary magnitude.
long-term project of the museum. It is already the What is the alternative today? Whether the
case in more than one museum as testified by many museum assumes the dissents by which public space
exhibitions (like Wack! Art and the Feminist is produced and recurrently reworked. And it
Revolution in 2007; ACT UP NY: Activism, Art, and becomes a political space (whatsoever objects and
the AIDS Crisis 1987–1993; Manhattan Mixed Use; works exhibited in it, we have to insist on it).
Principio Potosi; Un saber realmente útil; etc.). In Whether it is destined to consensus, willingly or not.
which cases the museum reinvents itself as a strong Willingly: museums will be more and more
political spot by examining history from the point of demanded to be regional itemizations of the unre-
view of its divisions and dissents, taking the chance striction of capital, agents of the privatization of
of doing without consensus. public space. Not willingly: the museum will be the
Whether the museum will be more and more target of the censorship operations the most regres-
confronted with the violence of regressive reactions sive you can imagine—avoiding division and dissent
aroused by the new ways of ruling without politics never fails to bring out the most terrifying versions
and the unrestriction of capital: the regressive of the Great Oneness.
anti-oligarchic reactions that, in the name of the This alternative needs to be treated most
ancestor’s religion, blood, soil, birth, race, prohibit urgently.
any kind of politics. 29 See Jeanne Favret-Saada dans Comment créer une crise
Here, censorship is a most signifying symptom. mondiale avec douze petits dessins, Paris, Fayard, 2015; it is
What is new about it is that the “want of censorship” what the staff of the Mouseion in Bolzano in 2008 understood
perfectly: summoned by the municipal tutelage to conceal the
now comes from groups or segments of the public “Crucified Frog” by Kippenberger, which attracted the rage of
as much as from State powers. We can observe it Catholic militants, they decided to cover it with an editing of
newspapers’ front pages about “the scandal.”

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Perspective 01. Mika Kuraya, Chief Curator of Dept. of Fine Arts,

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Short Bio:

Chief Curator of the Department of Fine Art, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Mika Kuraya
earned her MA at Chiba University. Her recent curatorial projects include: Waiting for Video: Works from
the 1960s to Today (2009, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; co-curated with Kenjin Miwa),
Lying, Standing and Leaning (2009, MOMAT), Meaningful Stain (2010, MOMAT), On the Road (2011,
MOMAT), Undressing Paintings: Japanese Nudes 1880–1945 (2011–2012, MOMAT), Mud and Jelly
(2013–14, MOMAT) and Takamatsu Jiro Mysteries (2014–2015, MOMAT; co-curated with Kenjiro Hosaka
and Tomohiro Masuda). In 2013, she curated Koki Tanaka’s solo exhibition at the Japanese Pavilion of
the 55th Venice Biennale, and was awarded the special mention. Recent critical studies include: Where is
Reiko? Kishida Ryusei’s 1914–1918 Portraits (Bulletin of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, no.
14, 2010).

Presentation: A 45-year discussion: MOMAT’s work.

collection exhibition and Pacific War paintings Then in 1977, after six years of effort to
restore them, MOMAT planned to show approxi-
The title of this section is “Is the museum still a place mately 50 works in the Collection Exhibition—its
for debate?” However, I would like to change it a display of the museum’s permanent collection of
little, to “Can the museum collection now be a place art—but the exhibition was canceled the night before
for debate?” I am discussing the issue in terms of its opening. This was supposedly at the suggestion
“war paintings,” specifically the paintings made in of the Japanese government, but no official
Japan during the Pacific War. document exists.
Firstly, what are “war paintings”? In general, Soon after the cancelation of the exhibition,
the term applies to a wide range of paintings with MOMAT started to display two to three of the
the subject of war in world art history. But in Japan paintings in each Collection Exhibition, with four to
the word “war paintings” specifically means five changing exhibits a year, which means eight to
paintings created between 1937 and 1945, from the 15 works a year. In the 2000s, MOMAT planned to
start of the Second Sino-Japanese War to Japan’s display all of the 153 works one by one in the
defeat at the end of the Second World War, Collection Exhibition, and this finished in 2008.
produced under the control of the Japanese Imperial Even so, partially because of the impact of the
Army and Navy to extol the country’s military effort. event in 1977, there has been criticism for some
The paintings were displayed in exhibitions years that the public has not been given a chance to
conducted by the military authorities and at the time see all of 153 works together as a special exhibition.
attracted large audiences. When the war ended in The criticism includes diverse reasoning, such as
1945, the paintings were collected by the U.S. “the people have the right to see national property”
Occupation Army and taken back to the U.S. In 1970, or “to study an important group of works in
the long lost paintings were found again in the U.S. Japanese modern art history,” “to know and regret
After diplomatic negotiation between the two gov- Japan’s past,” and even “to glorify Japan’s past.”
ernments, 153 paintings came back to Japan. The On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced a great
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) sociological change with the Great Tohoku
became the institution that keeps them and since Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear
that day MOMAT has remained the administrator of Power Plant accident. Taking this opportunity, many
the paintings. Forty-five years after their return, Japanese artists started to deal with the issues of
displaying the war paintings remains contentious. the earthquake and the Fukushima accident in their
After the return of the paintings, MOMAT work.
surveyed the 44 painters who were still alive. Some Following 2011, 2015 also became a year of
of them expressed hesitation about displaying their sociological change. Seventy years had passed

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since the end of the war and there had emerged a painting, such as from The Shipwreck of Don Juan
sense of fear of losing all the witnesses from the by Eugene Delacroix (1840, Musee de Louvre) for
war, which means society as a whole will lose its his The Enemy’s Fate in the Battle of the Solomon
memories of the war. At the same time, the govern- Sea (1943), although France was one of the Allies,
ment changed its interpretation of Constitution No. and thus the enemy of Japan at that time.
9, which prohibits military action abroad, to allow From the 1860s on, Japan had started to
for “collective self-defense” between Japan and her modernize following the European model. The
allies overseas. This ignited a furious debate. Once Japanese art world also tried to adopt European
again the issue of war has become one of the techniques, styles, and subjects. The Second World
biggest concerns for our society. War was a challenge to Japan’s model in that sense.
Reflecting on the Japanese artists’ change of Similarly to Foujita, his fellow painters took this
attitude toward representing social issues, MOMAT opportunity to study European traditional painting in
Collection, the permanent collection exhibition at further depth, execute better works, and surpass
MOMAT, has held a number of large-scale exhibits them.
over the past three years, such as After the Quake: The other aspect worthy of attention is the
Thinking about Tohoku (2014), There’s Something context in which audiences received the work at the
Happening Here 1 & 2 (2013 and 2014), and What time. Up until the Attu incident, it was strictly prohib-
are you fighting for? (2015). ited to report battles in which Japan was defeated.
After the Quake was a special display of But in the case of Attu, even though the army
artists’ videos concerning Fukushima. There’s suffered a defeat, the battle was widely reported in
Something Happening Here 1 & 2 traced from the press with messages such as “Do not be dis-
1923—the year Tokyo was hit by the Great Kanto couraged. We must work even harder.” The
Earthquake—to 1945, through paintings, films, completion of the painting was also reported in the
posters, and magazines. Later I will discuss this in press and the work received a great deal of
detail, but these exhibits were all driven by the attention.
question: “Can the museum collection be a place for In this way, one of the characteristics of war
debate today?” paintings is their ambiguity as a visual message,
Now, let me talk about another special exhibi- compared to a verbal one. In the case of Final
tion, “Foujita Tsuguharu: Complete Works from the Fighting on Attu, it is unclear whether Foujita is
Museum Collection.” It is currently ongoing and you praising or disparaging the war, whether he was
may visit the exhibition on your Monday evening visit forced to make the war painting by the military
to MOMAT. authority or was happy to pursue the project as a
Foujita enjoyed great success in Paris in the way to transcend European painting.
1920s, with works focused on female nudes and This ambiguity is an ideal place to begin a
cats. He returned to Japan in 1933 and became a discussion with people with diverse opinions.
central figure in the production of war paintings. In The exhibit attracted some interesting
1949, he went back to Paris and died as a French opinions. An artist, Mokuma Kikuhata, says that
citizen, changing his name to Léonard Foujita in when he actually looked at the artworks with his own
1968. eyes he realized that even in the most grotesque
Let’s look closer at his most famous war scenes, Foujita depicts them with remarkably calm
painting, Final Fighting on Attu (1943). This work touches. In this, Kikuhata sensed Foujita’s pride at
depicts an incident in which a Japanese garrison being a professional (Mainichi Simbun, October 7,
was annihilated by an American military attack on 2015). An art critic, Yasushi Kurabayashi, also
Attu, one of the Aleutian Islands. As the depiction of mentioned the current situation whereby people are
the soldiers is so gruesome, visitors often ask me, starting to think that war is now inevitable, and that,
“Was this really a painting intended to uplift the taking this into consideration, showing these works
wartime population? ” and encouraging people to share the feelings
In fact, to understand the work, you need to prevalent in the 1940s could be very risky for society
consider several of the aspects it contains. One is (Gekkan Gallery, November, 2015, p. 83). In ques-
how Japanese painters were learning from tionnaires we have collected from audiences, a
European art at the time. Of course, Foujita didn’t woman in her forties complained that by exhibiting
witness this mortal combat. He created the scene the war paintings, other works lose their chance to
only with his imagination. For the poses of the be shown in the gallery. There was also an opinion
soldiers, there is some evidence that Foujita refer- from a visitor from New Zealand saying that he was
enced them from European masterpieces such as disappointed to see that Japan is still glorifying its
The Battle at Pons Milvius by Julio Romano (1520– past.
1524), displayed in the Vatican. Foujita also We are coming to the end of today’s presenta-
borrowed compositional elements from French tion. I would like to talk further about the significance

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of museum collections and exhibiting permanent budgets, and present issues that are stimulating for
collections. our society. Here is another possibility. Within the
It was in 1872 when Japan’s first museum in past 45 years, the debate about war paintings has
the European style opened its doors to the public. happened only in Japanese society. But now the
Since that day, there has been a strong belief in numbers of tourists from abroad are increasing and
Japan that the museum is the place to enjoy special in 2014 reached 13,410,000, the highest yet. The
exhibitions, where you can witness treasures from MOMAT Collection has also been affected by this:
somewhere for a certain period of time. These are We often have hours when more than 50 percent of
some examples: our visitors are tourists from abroad. I can assume
many of them are from Asian regions, such as China,
— Special Exhibits: Venus de Milo, 1964, The Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
National Museum of Western Art 831,200 So how did these people receive a work like
visitors this? This is Foujita’s The Fall of Singapore (Bukit
— La Giaconda, 1974, Tokyo National Museum Timah), from 1942. Its subject is the fall of
1,505,000 visitors Singapore in 1941, the beginning of an occupation
— Masterpieces of Kosan-ji Temple: the that lasted some three and half years. In the fore-
complete scrolls of Choju Giga, Frolicking ground, Foujita depicts the dead body of a British
Animals, 2015, Tokyo National Museum soldier and Japanese soldiers in combat. But what
203,753 visitors. happened to the local people who presumably
survived, depicted in the countryside in the back-
As the belief has survived some 140 years, Japanese ground of the painting?
audiences tend to focus only on special exhibitions. This question had not been raised in debate in
They overlook the collection exhibitions because it is Japan until today. But now we can start discussing
“always there” and there’s “no need to visit now.” In with people from various regions.
MOMAT’s case, the percentage of visitors who visit For a long time, Japanese art history had been
the permanent collection exhibition after visiting the considered in the framework of Japan and Europe-
special exhibition had been approximately 40 over America. This includes Foujita himself, as well as
the last ten years. Following changes to the way we historians and critics of Foujita’s works. Needless to
organized the collection exhibition, the percentages say, Japan is not the only country that has the
increased to 50–52 percent in 2013. experience of opposing European countries or
Still, with three floors of the collection exhibi- America from a peripheral position. Regions like
tion gallery featuring more than 200 objects, it is Asia, East and North Europe, the Middle East, South
questionable if 50 percent should be accepted as America, and Africa all share similar experiences.
adequate. Now not only the debate about war paintings but
Japan has long been suffering from an eco- Japanese art history has to redefine itself in the
nomical downturn over these past 20 years. In many broader context of world art history.
museums, the budgets from local governments have A work of art gains a variety of attention as
been reduced and at the same time, museums are time passes and society changes. It fits itself into
requested to attract more visitors to increase different kinds of contexts. Compared to the
revenue by themselves. As a result, a number of temporal nature of special exhibitions, collections
museums pay to bring in fixed shows of “stars”— can be a place for works to wait, sometimes for
from comics, TV programs, and films—created by years, for a new interpretation to come their way.
commercial companies, dedicating most of their In my presentation, I only discussed the subject
budgets to holding these as special exhibitions. of war, but there are many issues that museums
I don’t repudiate these “star” exhibitions, and I from other countries or regions can share, such as
have to admit that I usually enjoy special exhibitions morality, religion, sex, and freedom of expression.
very much. But in terms of sustainability, it will be For example, we can start by exchanging two or
difficult for Japanese museums to rely only on this three works from each other’s collections as
model. In addition, special exhibitions require large long-term loans and studying the issues together,
budgets, often provided by outside sources like instead of working on touring special exhibitions.
newspapers and TV companies, which makes it Collections can offer new possibilities for
difficult to deal with controversial issues such as war collaboration.
and nuclear power. For collection exhibitions, we Thank you very much.
can distance ourselves from the necessity for

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Perspective 02. Jack Persekian, Director and Head Curator of The

Palestinian Museum, Palestine.
Short Bio:

Born in Jerusalem in 1962, Jack Persekian has a career in art and music spanning more than 30 years. He
started his professional life as a musician and band manager in the 1980s, before shifting paths slightly in
the early nineties to open Palestine’s first and only art gallery, Anadiel. Following the establishment of the
Palestinian Authority in the mid-1990s, Persekian was put in charge of setting up the Ministry of Culture’s
Visual Arts department; alongside a group of artists and supporters, he then went on to establish the Al
Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem, of which he remains the Founding Director. In the
year 1999, he directed and produced the millennium celebrations in Bethlehem, before leaving Palestine in
the mid-2000s to serve as Head Curator of the Sharjah Biennial. Persekian continued in this role for two
editions of the biennial, after which, in 2007, he was appointed its Artistic Director; he then became the
Founding Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2009. Upon his return to Jerusalem in 2011, Persekian
helped establish a biennial in Palestine, Qalandiya International, acting as Artistic Director for its first edition
in 2012. He was appointed Director and Head Curator of the Palestinian Museum that same year, and still
holds that position in addition to his involvement with several other projects.

Presentation: Exploring the museum form were monumental institutions, pillars and symbols of
the power of the state. They contained artifacts from
My immediate response to the question posed here all over the world, carefully ordered and displayed
is actually another question. “When was the museum for consumption. Such museums seemed to know
a place for debate?” Indeed, has it ever been one? and contain the world in its entirety, and the stories
At the Palestinian Museum, we wrestle constantly they told were of imperial might and grandeur—nar-
with the problem of creating an institution that is not ratives of the power knowledge provides. Their
simply about presenting a single narrative or dis- concern, of course, was always the public good, but
seminating one editorial line. We are determined probably—hopefully—not the public good as we
that our museum, which after all by its very existence think of it today: their idealism was rooted in the
represents a challenge to certain established dis- paternalism and violence of the class system and the
courses, should act not as a gatekeeper to culture colonial encounter.
but an open door. In other words, it should be a In the aftermath of the colonial period, many
space in which it is truly possible for multiple voices former colonies took charge of the museums left
to be heard, and in which a commitment to dialogue behind, and built new ones. In many cases, they
means a commitment to contestation, provocation, followed the pattern of those that had come before
and criticism. But we do not think of this as an them, but in some, an effort was made to take these
attempt to return to some golden era of the past in structures that had represented or upheld oppres-
which all museums were like this: quite the opposite. sion, and to remake them. Examples that spring to
For a museum to embrace real debate, which mind are the museums created by First Nation
questions even those things we have learned to communities in Canada and Native American com-
consider common sense, it must challenge the form munities in the United States, or the alterations made
of the museum itself. And so far from this being to some museums in South Africa following the end
impossible in the current era, we are finding that in of apartheid. These museums were providing space
some ways it is more possible than it has ever been. for the expression of cultures and voices that had
For instance, let’s look back briefly at the never before been welcome in such institutions: the
history of museums. It is clear at once that they were museum was now used to represent and legitimize
not initially intended as spaces in which debate and not the power of the state or the elite, but the
dialogue could flourish. Most early public museums existence of the powerless and poor. The Palestinian
were established in Europe in the nineteenth Museum, as a national museum for a stateless
century, and their purpose was explicitly to educate, people, is somewhat in this model. And perhaps
inform, and discipline their publics. These museums most importantly, there has been a corresponding

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shift in the way that more traditional and established of global travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth
museums operate. The sense that all museums must century, which so benefited early museums in
be self-critical, must provide space for all kinds of Europe, had precisely the opposite effect on cultural
voices, is now an important part of museum infrastructure in those countries like our own that
practice—this conference, after all, is a perfect were annexed and occupied. Today, we are seeking
example. So the commitment to debate in museums not so much to expand our audience as to draw
actually springs from challenges to the way together the exiled and dispersed people who would
museums tend to function. And if we are to ensure have naturally constituted our public had the course
that museums can actually sustain a commitment to of our recent history been different. We are
debate, we have to keep challenging. Even if the cementing relationships with partner institutions
logic museums have a duty to uphold a certain abroad because Israeli travel and entrance restric-
hierarchy is crumbling, there is another force to deal tions make it difficult for Arabs and Palestinians in
with: money. Museums that succeed—that survive— particular to reach our Museum hub in Palestine, and
cannot, apparently, worry only about serving their we need to find other ways to connect with these
publics. They also serve their funding bodies, and individuals. Our focus on online platforms and
have to constantly brand and rebrand themselves in digitalization initiatives is in no small measure the
order to be financially viable. Many museums are result of the fact that even within Palestine, the
thus in a precarious position, constantly navigating limitations imposed on ordinary people’s mobility
different claims in order just to stay afloat. For this throughout their own country make getting even
reason, to commit to taking risks‑to make one’s from town to town, let alone outside the country,
institution into a place that seeks to question and difficult and even impossible, meaning that we also
challenge rather than to please—can seem daunting, need to be accessible from everywhere within
even impossible. But I would argue that it is also the Palestine.
only way in which museums can stay relevant now, Ultimately, our history of colonialism and
existing as we do in a period which, despite how far settler-colonialism has meant that the Palestinian
we have come, has its own problems: the impor- Museum must now serve a population that is
tance of art and culture are constantly being dispersed and fragmented, existing either in the
doubted, and political upheaval and conflict have left Diaspora, in refugee camps, or in the restricted and
many communities broken and in desperate need of occupied spaces of its own land. The movement we
spaces in which they can re enforce their senses of are seeing on the museum scene at the moment,
identity. where institutions seek to globalize to suit a glo-
At the Palestinian Museum, therefore, we walk balized world, opening branches in the Gulf and the
a delicate line. We are vulnerable on two counts: Far East, creating brands with worldwide rather than
first, like anyone else, to the requirements of our national appeal, is thus something of which the
funders; second, and crucially, to the whims of the Palestinian Museum—in some twisted and weird
Israeli government, which is of course capable of way—is also a part. We are a global museum, in the
restricting our activities and even shutting us down sense that we operate in more than one place in the
should it so wish. So on the one hand, we must often world, and our key audience is one that is globally
be diplomatic. We think carefully about how we scattered. But the reasons for that scattering and
discuss Palestine, the types of language we use, for our need to operate globally are different.
when and where and even whether we make certain Globalizing, and seeking a global audience, is thus
points. But on the other hand, we know that if we certainly a way we all expand and challenge the
are too diplomatic, or always diplomatic, we might traditional idea of a museum, and widen the parame-
as well not exist: there are things on which we ters of the museum as a forum for debate—but it
cannot compromise, because to do so would be to manifests differently in different contexts. I actually
compromise our entire mission, which is to empower think a major step towards debate in the museum
the unheard voices of Palestinians everywhere. We world would be to acknowledge and discuss these
cannot claim to stand with the diverse Palestinian differences.
population if we are not prepared to say and do the In this sense, our determination to foster
difficult things many of them would want and expect debate within the Palestinian Museum comes not in
from us. spite but because of our embattled position, as an
So we are working to find ways to do this. institution trying to maintain its primary commitment
Perhaps most importantly, we are focusing on to its public whilst also dealing with pressure to be
extending and expanding our international reach; competitive and legible on a globalised cultural
and this attempt to become more global is not scene, and with political and societal instability. In
simply the result of a philosophical commitment to order to remain true to our principles, we have had
widening the purview of the institution, it is actually to go above and beyond the typical work of a
a response to a real and urgent need. The expansion museum, whilst maintaining the parts of the museum

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form—the construction of safe and protected space, So far, it is working. We’ll see what happens in the
the connotations of stability, the commitment to future.
education and outreach—that are still useful to us.

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Perspective 03. Brook Andrew, artist and lecturer: MADA (Monash

Art, Design and Architecture), Monash University, Melbourne.
Short Bio:

Brook Andrew examines dominant Western narratives, specifically relating to colonialism, placing Australia
at the center of a global inquisition. Apart from drawing inspiration from vernacular objects and archive he
travels internationally to work with communities and private and public collections. Creating interdiscipli-
nary works and immersive installations, he presents viewers with alternative choices for interpreting the
world, both individually and collectively, by intervening, expanding, and re-framing history and our inher-
itance. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at major institutions including Tate Britain (forth-
coming); Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Künstlerhaus, Vienna; Smithsonian Institution, Washington
D.C; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; and the Jewish Museum, Berlin. He has worked with collec-
tions from significant museums including: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia / Museo de América,
Museo Nacional de Antropología, Madrid; Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux; Royal Anthropological Institute,
London; Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge; and the Anthropology Department of the
University of Vienna. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, and his work is held in collections
throughout Australia and internationally. Brook Andrew is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels. He is a lecturer at MADA (Monash Art, Design and
Architecture), Monash University, Australia.

Presentation: Beware the ventriloquist: the Photographer unknown

everyday as political art and cultural nerves  Grandma Scott, Nan and aunties, c 1930.
Erambie Mission, N.S.W., Australia.

Don’t forget you’re also white!

This is something my maternal Aboriginal grand-

mother said to me when I was 16 years old. She
looked me straight in the eye, right into my mind and
burnt it. Left an indelible mark to the day I die.
In many ways, my own grandmothers
Aboriginal Wiradjuri and Scottish identity, and a
fringe dweller of the Aboriginal Catholic Erambie
mission, who then married (deleted own identity) her
husband of Aboriginal Ngnunawall and Irish,
Scottish identity, had my mother who in turn married
my father, who is of the Church of England religion
coming from Scottish, Irish and Jewish ancestry.
As the artist Dor Guez expresses,
"What does it mean to be Italian, what does it
mean to be Israeli, what does it mean to be
Palestinian? Is there one definition or do we have
different colours? I’m trying to question this formali-
sation of what identity is supposed to be, since none
of us fit into the formal definition of a national
identity."

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movement that any one remotely identifying as

Indigenous or “other” was often relegated the
“romantic” or “troubled” who fulfilled a particular
visual, political and conceptual agenda, something
not that different to recent colonial and imperialist
projects. I was more interested in a level playing
field.
I got to play, to experiment, and I thank the
MCA for allowing me to do this. Walls were painted
fluorescent flag-like style as an attempt to distract
and create a happier mood amongst the often-con-
fronting topics. My aim was not to fill a room full of
“names” and confronting objects teleported from a
post-colonial discourse or harmonize some sort of
trendy “taboo” element of Western art tradition—the
aim was purely an exercise in breaking a Western
notion of taboo itself, simultaneously imbuing and
massaging it with the relationship of how some one
like myself who comes from a mixed culture—looks
back at the world—sees how my own experiences
have defined me and also the artists in TABOO.
In my mind, TABOO also represents the sheer
cultural amnesia about alternative, hidden, and
forgotten events, so much that when people see
these images they do not always understand what
they see or mean. I hoped TABOO was a place to
shock this into existence—I was only interested in
engaging people with new juxtapositions that often
seem didactic. The accumulative effect of how
certain objects and images resurface and come
Brook Andrew together with nuanced juxtapositions is inspirational
Sexy & Dangerous c. 1996 to slowly chip away at dominant narratives. And for
Duraclear of Perspex
some these alternate juxtapositions are the realities
of their lives. Today I will also touch on other exhibi-
People change their minds, even after forming tions, research, community and personal
alliances. I remember the photographic work I made experiences that chase each other and connect
in 1996 called Sexy & Dangerous. It was a harmful through diverse projects.
and exciting investigation into hidden ethnographic My first breakthrough is when I came across
images from Australia. This image caused great an English Victorian era watercolor by an unknown
excitement because of the initial circulation and artist depicting a smiling golliwog and his crying
recontextualisation of an orphaned ethnographic blonde bride. Ecstatic with disbelief at this complex
photo. Within ten years the same people who and beautiful composition, I wrote a note to myself:
supported the work dammed me for making it—this With electric eyes, golliwog glances sideways
unleashed complex grounds on protocols and the to his love, unsure why she is crying.
right to make, see and consume the past—built on In the far distance his siblings are in shock.
trauma and fed by power to own history and silence Maybe they can’t believe his luck, or betrayal.
the dead. Who has the power to distort and to The bride is overwhelmed with emotion,
risk—teasing alternative and hidden contexts? probably grief and upset at being married to a
In 2012, when the MCA Australia invited me to golliwog.
organize an exhibition on ATSI artists, I was excited Maybe she thinks he’s going to eat her all up?
as it continued from a series of debates I organized When I shared this watercolor with others,
at the MCA called Blakatak, but also perplexed. they were simultaneously shocked and pleased to
Curating in this context was not exciting for me— experience its power—power derived from the
there were real curators doing this already—so I taboo status of the golliwog and the historical
guessed this was an open invitation to experiment. xenophobia of the image. Possibly intended origi-
My response was an international exhibition that nally to educate English children about the dangers
dealt with issues I had also been struggling with, of interracial marriage and miscegenation, the
trapped within an often Eurocentric Western art watercolor has a different message today. For my

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family, it was probably my own fathers’ mother

who’s fear of the unknown demanded my parents
have a separate engagement party, one that did not
include my mothers very large “brown” and raucous
gambling family.
A Ken Reinhard painting was selected for
inclusion in the TABOO exhibition. I thought it was
quite an interesting artwork, considering the barrage
of exploitative images of women in magazines in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
For due diligence, the MCA set up informative
protocol measures and collaborations with the local
police department, the Aboriginal advisory
committee and the MCA Board itself. This serious
measure to assess possible public complaints or
reaction, and to adhere to Aboriginal and Torres Naughty Room of TABOO, 2012–2013
Strait Islander cultural protocols was helpful for MCA

their profession, albeit sometimes curious for me—I

felt at times that I was renting an apartment and the Inside lay my own personal archive, exhibiting dead,
owners were doing their yearly inspection. The MCA racist, sexist, erotic, curious and other taboo and
director, Lizz Ann, along with fellow curators and sometimes distressing but also funny themes.
board members had a healthy and lengthy debate on
the painting of Ken Reinhard.

Naughty Room of TABOO, 2012–2013

MCA

Naughty Room of TABOO, 2012–2013

MCA Titles of some archives include;

Eventually they firmly requested that this “ugly” — Aboriginal men in chains, Alice Springs (date
painting was removed from the main gallery space and artist unknown), silver gelatin photograph,
into a newly created gallery space I affectionately collection of Jonathan Dickson
called “the naughty room”—a room that was created — Papuan woman suckling puppies (date and
to separate possible offensive artworks. This artist unknown), silver gelatin photograph,
naughty room had a warning sign and the support of collection of Jonathan Dickson
a full-time invigilator actively warning the public. — Betting on Aboriginal girls fighting, Darwin
This was one of the busiest rooms in the exhibition. (date and artist unknown), silver gelatin photo-
graph, collection of Jonathan Dickson
— Exhumed mass graves, World War II, Former
Soviet Union, 1945
— Christian Boltanski, Scratch (1st edn artist
book), Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther
Konig, Cologne, Germany, 2002
— 47 bodies in Sarajevo mass grave, Yugoslavia
Civil War, press photograph, 1996

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— Anne-Marie Lunga, the first Native African

Feminine radio announcer (Radio Congo
Belge Afrique), United Press Photograph,
1956
— San Francisco Indian tells about removal from
Island, APWire Press Photograph, 1971
— Bobby Rush of the Black Panthers, press
photograph, photograph by Joe Kordick, 1970
— Groups protesting the granting of gay rights,
Chicago Sun-Times press photograph, photo-
graph by R.B. Leffingwell, 1979

Splinters of Monuments: A Solid

Memory of the Forgotten Plains of our
Trash and Obsessions, 2014
Installation view Really Useful
Knowledge, curated by What, How and
for Whom (WHW), Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
Spain. Courtesy of the artist, Tolarno
Galleries, Melbourne, and Galerie
Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels

This archive installation was later included in the

exhibition Really Useful Knowledge at the Reina
Sofia curated by What, How and for Whom (WHW).
Naughty Room of TABOO, 2012–2013 This archive became a collaborative installation
MCA called Splinters of Monuments: A Solid Memory of
the Forgotten Plains of our Trash and Obsessions,
and juxtaposed through collaboration with the
archives and artworks from the Museo Reina Sofia,
Museo de América, and Museo Nacional de
Antropología.

Naughty Room of TABOO, 2012–2013

MCA

…also included was the personal archive of

Sydney artist and rapper Khaled Sabsabi. This
archive included a poster called Palestine is my Splinters of Monuments: A Solid
homeland, a printed T-shirt with a portrait of Osama Memory of the Forgotten Plains of our
Trash and Obsessions, 2014
Bin-Laden, a balancing sculptural peace bird, Installation view Really Useful
assorted badges, a cassette tape of music, a gun Knowledge, Curated by What, How and
bullet magazine, postcards, photographs, and rap for Whom (WHW), Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
notes. Spain. Courtesy of the artist, Tolarno
Galleries, Melbourne, and Galerie
Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

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The aim of these juxtapositions was to tease out

parallels between the Spanish, British, and
Australian colonial and consequential projects. My
greatest personal doubt was whether or not the
local Spanish crowd understood this seemingly
diabolical didactic and smashing together of themes.
I was relieved when the director of the Reina Sofia
approached me and said, “Well, Guernica is
upstairs, and this is here” …then a local artist
approached me to enquire on my placement of
Diego Rivera’s 1949 painting Flower Vendor. I
explained my intent of the installation and with some
personal doubt of possible crossing some local
taboo, I waited for a long 30 seconds before he and
his friends responded with a long silent smile.
Another point on the exhibition Really Useful
Knowledge is of course the well known protest when
the International museum associations came to the
defense of Reina Sofía after a provocative artwork
drew fire from church groups… the matchboxes
depicting, on one side, a burning church building,
and on the other, the slogan: “The only church that
illuminates is one which burns. Contribute!” As you
all may know, this presentation of the piece by
Mujeres Públicas, an Argentine feminist collective,
was equated by one religious organization to a use
of public funds by the state museum to “insult
Christians.”
When I was recently asked to create an instal-
lation called Evidence at the Museum of Applied Arts
and Sciences, Sydney, I thought of Mujeres Públicas.
The main aim was to cement connections between African girl from Framing the Native, c.
terrible conditions for illegal abortions in South 1900

America through their work and a surgical table—

shown here part of the MAAS collection. Though I Returning to TABOO, my own concerns about what
decided to only include objects from the MAAS should go into the naughty room were different—
collection. I still wonder how the Spanish church or though I appreciate that dedicated gallery made the
indeed the Australian church will deal with a exhibition more interesting.
surgeon’s chair active c.1970s at The Bessie Smyth
Foundation, Sydney, for under-aged abortions? This
is a silent taboo, and as exhibition Evidence has just
opened to the public, I wonder who will comment or
protest… I do know of a Sydney designer’s great
aunt worked as a nurse with the doctor who assisted
under age girls, but the designer did not want to
share this story publically.

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concerned that in a time of scarce government

resources, money is being diverted from community
services to fund very questionable “art.”

Rugae of the walls of a virgin vagina,

glass scientific slide, c. 1870
Avoid Rape. Micky Allan, 1975, screen-
print

A Black Woman. Anton Kannemeyer, TABOO, 2012–2013

2011, lithograph Installation view, the Museum of
African girl from Framing the Native, c. Contemporary Art, Sydney.
1900

This portrait of a young naked African girl, from a One way of dealing with any visitor trauma
suite of ethnographic nineteenth-century photo- was to cover the TABOO catalog.
graphs strangely named Framing the Native, from
the collection of Anthony d’Offay, was placed in the
main gallery space of TABOO. It was shown within
a 1970s slide viewer. It sat in a line of juxtaposed
artworks and objects: a fashioned Perspex box with
a scientific glass specimen slide titled Rugae of the
walls of a virgin vagina, c. 1870; Micky Allan’s 1975
screenprint Avoid Rape; and Anton Kannemeyer’s
2011 lithograph A Black Woman.
I was curious why the Ken Reinhard painting
was removed from this suite of works and hidden
away.
The remaining collection of Framing the
Native photos were projected on a wall in the
naughty room. These slides are juxtaposed with a
selection of found 1970s tourist slides of Malaysian
farming families alongside Ken Reinhard’s painting TABOO, 2012–2013
and a host of other more humorous works. Installation view, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney.
A complaint to the MCA on TABOO:
Due to my very emotive reaction to this exhibi-
tion, I feel that government bodies need to be made Jimmie Durham recreated an image he recollects as
aware of the context and potentially litigious reper- a young man in this work The Meat of Jesus (2012),
cussions of displaying deliberately controversial commissioned for TABOO. This is probably a
works. On a general note, I am concerned that long-standing and entertaining interest for Durham,
children have access to material, which contains for it is his past interest in ideas of primitivism as a
nudity, sexually explicit, and racially discriminatory Cherokee man that ignited his keen engagement in
material… It is inappropriate for a govern- the world that created such binaries, such as the
ment-funded museum to display politically civilized versus the uncivilized. This provocative
motivated material, which is clearly of an offensive association with male genitals could easily reflect
nature. Even if access to the offensive material was current issues in contemporary Australia of 2012–
regulated, this would arguably constitute discrimi- 2013, such as the Royal Commission into
nation as a large number of visitors would feel organizations including the Catholic Church in
unable to frequent the museum… I am also regards to institutional abuse and pedophilia.

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In addition Jimmie, along with others from Java: Do You Remember?:

community to artistic and curatorial people like Whether or not it was intentional, the MCA
Jenny Munro, Alia Swastika, Joy Gregory, Gerald has caused me serious offence and humiliation. As
McMaster, and David Elliot were invited to contrib- a young British immigrant, I was subjected to
ute a piece of writing to the catalogue. Jimmie’s was painful bullying in school because I was a “pom.” I
called Lost my Job: still suffer from these scars. This exhibition has
My penis is bigger around than is normal. It is caused these feelings to resurface. As you
not especially long, mentioned, “context is important to the way in which
I think, even though I do not really know, but I people see images.” 
know that it is unusually thick because I’ve not been In my eyes, the placement of the army drums
able to fuck many women that I tried to fuck. It was and red flags next to Anton Kannemeyer’s work
too painful for them. implies the MCA is claiming that the British are
In about 1963 or 64 I had to be circumcised. I responsible for the sexual abuse of native Africans.
was living with a woman who had a kind of small The exhibition is endorsing racism against the
vagina and my foreskin would tear painfully when British.
we fucked.
During those days I was really poor, doing
whatever job I could find, usually hard labor. After a
long time with no job I found work in a bookstore—
what heaven, what joy!
The bookstore was owned by a good guy. He
was Jewish, and his son, who was about 19 or 20,
not much younger than me, was learning the trade.
The three of us worked together.
The stitches around my penis had finally
healed. The healing process took longer than should
have because I would get too many erections and
tear the stitches (I was 23 or 24).
I thought that this was interesting. Probably
especially interesting to Jewish guys, father and
son. They did not ask any questions, as one might,
in polite conversation, so I understood that perhaps TABOO, 2012–2013
I had spoken too much. Installation view, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney.
At the end of the week I was fired. No reason
was given.
In 2002 the director of the London based think-tank
Demos, regarded as the avant-garde of the New
Labour, suggested that the Queen should “embark
on a world tour to apologize for the past sins of the
Empire as a first step to making Commonwealth
more effective and relevant.”
During TABOO, a curator approached me and
explained that the most shocking thing about the
exhibition was that the only reason I could get away
with painting the gallery and placing artists’ works
on fluorescent colors with hard edge black and white
was because I was an artist.
Installation view of Juan Davilla’s 2001
painting The Ruins of Woomera Concentration
Camp, South Australia, and works by Anton
TABOO, 2012–2013 Kannemeyer and Judy Watson work on the blood-
Installation view, the Museum of type percentage in Aboriginal people.
Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Whilst chaperoned through the extensive
offsite collections of the MCA, we stumbled across a
A complaint to the MCA from a concerned member solemn room. It was a ghost room. White sheets
of the public who visited TABOO, clearly upset by covered a group of little figures, like children. Under
the flag raising of Javanese artist Jompet’s these sheets were dendroglyphs—carved trees—
(Agustinus Kuswidananto) 2009 sculpture War of from New South Wales, Australia. These traditional

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ceremonial and grave tree sections are infamous

and part of the Australian Museum’s collection since
a party of men in collaboration with various
museums and the Australian Army cut them down
and horded them in 1949. I asked to make contact
with the Australian Museum to have these important
cloaked and forgotten cultural objects in TABOO but
it was denied as too complicated, taboo, and unre-
solved—they still lay invisible. As Ronald Briggs
from the Mitchel Library of Sydney explains:
“During the early 1900s a few white men
became passionate about documenting and collect-
ing the relics of what they believed to be a dying
race… Some expeditions led to trees being cut down
for preservation purposes. Brook Andrew
Europeans also removed trees for less altruis- EVIDENCE, 2015
Installation view the Museum of Applied
tic reasons. Because many settler landowners Arts and Sciences, Sydney.
feared losing their land, they cut down and Photo: Christian Capurro
destroyed carved trees on their properties, thereby Courtesy of the artist, Tolarno Galleries,
Melbourne, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia,
removing the evidence of previous Aboriginal occu- Paris and Brussels
pation. Of course, some landowners cleared their
land of carved trees in ignorance of their sacred-
ness or significance to the local Aboriginal To the museums credit, they “allowed” me to show
community.” this important object—albeit in a cabinet with a
Through negotiating and research with shroud, but one that is gold. This glistening tomb-like
community and institutional perspectives, the cabinet has an image from Sydney printed on the
broader taboo subject about the visibility of dendro- shroud… it is an image of women protesting the
glyphs in exhibitions or indeed museums today is Vietnam war.
that there are conflicting opinions of their use and Now we wait to see how the communities
hence re-display for the public. Were the dendro- react.
glyphs now found in museums used for secret men’s
business or as grave trees? All in all, it is this unre-
solved and disputed silencing of their visibility which
I see as the real taboo today—it is these objects that
are absent from TABOO which is the real taboo. All
in all, TABOO could have been an exhibition with
wall labels, catalogs, fluorescent walls, but no
objects and no artworks. But then most would not
allow it.
To somehow persevere with this story of the
dendroglyph carved tree has been a long and
arduous journey. Last week, when my artist interven-
tion Evidence opened at the Museum of Applied Arts
and Sciences to accompany the traveling Victoria
and Albert exhibition Disobedient Objects, I came
across a logbook that included a registered dendro-
glyph—carved tree—in its collection. Brook Andrew
The collection managers were in disbelief as EVIDENCE, 2015
Installation view the Museum of Applied
they did not know of its existence and were sure it Arts and Sciences, Sydney.
did not exist. I insisted they look for it, find it, and Photo: Christian Capurro
transport it to a place I could view it. The dendro- Courtesy of the artist, Tolarno Galleries,
Melbourne, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia,
glyph finally came months later, shrouded as if a Paris and Brussels
dead sacred and possible powerful and dangerous
article.

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Photographer unknown
Atomic explosion. First official photo-
graph of the detonation of the British
atomic bomb on the Monte Bello Islands
Montabello, northwest coast of
Australia. Press photo. Oct 3, 1952.

To end on TABOO… this press photo sat along side

others in the entrance to the exhibition… also
included were other press and postcard images like
the previous seen image of the Queen curtsying.
What fascinates me so much about this
image—is occurs when images of things are already
taken up by other devastating events like the Second
World War? How do nations with similar evidence
negotiate an image such as this British atomic bomb
Brook Andrew on the Monte Bello Islands and Maralinga where
EVIDENCE, 2015 Aboriginal people were still on the land when the
Installation view the Museum of Applied
Arts and Sciences, Sydney. British tested?
Photo: Christian Capurro How can we distinguish or share who owns the
Courtesy of the artist, Tolarno Galleries, image of a powerful event? What kind of taboos are
Melbourne, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia,
Paris and Brussels
activated when images are often associated with
other traumatic events or new juxtapositions are
created?
The problem I believe with the TABOO exhibi-
tion is that some events are not part of collective
memory or information to create great controversy,
if anything they create confusion. Possibly these are
just faded moments that have a moment in the light.

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Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Perspective 04. Georg Schöllhammer, editor, curator, and writer,

Head of tranzitat.at and founding editor of springerin, Vienna.
Hedwig Saxenhuber, curator, writer,
and general editor springerin, Vienna.

Short Bio:

Georg Schöllhammer is an editor, writer, and curator based in Vienna. He is founding editor of spring-
erin Hefte für Gegenwartskunst and Head of tranzit.at. He has worked internationally on cultural projects
including documenta, Manifesta, the Biennials of Venice, Gumry, and Kiev, Sweet Sixties, L’internationale,
Former West, the Vienna Festival, and the Vienna Fair. He is Chairman of The Július Koller Society. From
2004–07 he was Editor-in-Chief of documenta 12 and conceived and directed documenta 12 magazines.
He is an international advisor to the Garage Museum, Moscow. Forthcoming exhibitions and projects he
is (co-)curating include: Július Koller, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, MuMoK Vienna, 2016. Recent
exhibitions include: The Capital Of Desires, The Armenian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture
2014; A Parallel Modernity in the framework of São Paulo Biennale 2014; Report on the Construction
of a Spaceship Model (New Museum, NY, 2014, Gdansk, 2014); Unrest of Form (Vienna Festival, 2013);
Trespassing Modernities (SALTGalata, Istanbul 2013); Soviet Modernism (AZW, Vienna, 2012); Moments
(ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2012). Recent publications: Ion Grigorescu, Diaries 1970–1974 (Sternberg Press, 2014),
KwieKulik (JRP Ringier, 2013), Moments—A history of performance in 10 acts (Hatje Cantz, ZKM, 2013:
co-edited with Sigrid Gareis and Peter Weibel); Sweet Sixties (Sternberg Press, 2014). Hedwig Saxenhuber
is an editor, writer, and curator based in Vienna. She is co-editor of the arts periodical springerin Hefte
für Gegenwartskunst. She was founding Artistic Director with Christian Kravagna at Kunstraum Lakeside
in Klagenfurt from 2005–2015 and was also Co-artistic Director of VIENNAFAIR 2011. Her recent large-
scale exhibitions are Unrest of Form—Imagining the Political Subject, with Georg Schöllhammer and
Stefanie Carp (Vienna Festival, 2013); Bad Script for a Retrospective, Josef Dabernig, P74 (Ljubljana, 2011);
Grenzenlos, an exhibition for the 20th anniversary of Kulturkontakt, (Vienna, 2010); Art + Politics, from the
Collection of the City of Vienna (MUSA, 2008); Parallel Histories, 6, with Georg Schöllhammer (Gyumri
Biennial, Armenia, 2008); Valie Export (Moscow Biennial, NCCA, 2007); and Postorange, Contemporary
Art from Ukraine, (Kunsthalle Vienna, 2006). She has received several prizes for the Kunstraum Lakeside
program. She is an associated member of the Vienna Secession.

Presentation: The School of Kiev is one of the deepest crises in Europe. It is a country
that had a history of being attacked, that has one of
— Georg Schöllhammer: Actually, I don’t know the bloodiest histories in the European realm in the
why we are here. We are not running a museum, we last 200 years and it is not just that the holocaust
are not working in a museum, we never have. Most was fiercest there. It is not just that the Holodomor
of the time we have worked independently. We are that Stalin’s killings have been the fiercest there. It is
curators and editors. not just that it had Chernobyl in this country. It is not
— Hedwig Saxenhuber: But we are grateful that just that it had suffered a lot of divisions, a lot of
we are over here, that we are invited. Thank you national conflicts at its borders, and it is a country
very much for inviting us. that has managed on the other hand to stay a nation
— Georg Schöllhammer: But I think when we that is not a nation, but a state that is multinational,
read the questionnaire that you sent out, it’s a quite that is now in danger.
good reason for being here. The project that we are Anyway, we are here, I think, as well not
presenting today has been a very, very taking because of this complicity that is a global complic-
project. It is a biennale in a country that is at war or ity, that is a complicity that has very much to do with
what the other side calls a civil war. It is a biennial in that which the museum world is somehow engaged,
a country that runs through an economic crisis that how to negotiate, how to narrate, how to act and

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counteract these different and conflicted histories, about it, it would be easy to do get these funds—it
but we might be here as well because the project would be easy to get these funds because
itself is linked to museum stories. It started some everybody in Europe had the rhetoric state, the
three years ago as the first biennale in a house that Ukraine actually was a European case and could
is the Arsenal in Kiev that’s bigger than the Arsenale show up as a European case. We ended up with
in Venice; an armory of the eighteenth century that getting not a single penny from the European Union
aims at being the biggest museums complex of and not a single penny from European bodies. We
Eastern Europe, which started as a biennale. We just got our money from very small foundations and
have been asked to do the second biennale there. nothing from the State. We didn’t want to get
Then we have been fired an untimely four months oligarch money in Kiev, so we have been reliant
before the opening of that biennale. The biennale on—material sponsoring debts, so to say—the base
had troubles because the press conference was at is the material base is that we did it, but the fourth—
the first days of Maidan and we had to postpone it the fourth thing, actually, I think that has to do with
because we didn’t want to get into an ugly—so to the museums is that we thought about this biennale
say—legitimatory struggle with the regime that as having a different format, not just an art biennale.
was—so to say punished—and empowered and It would have to be slightly kind of cynical—cynical…
dispowered by the people, and then Crimea went to and but to be something like that could grow into an
Russia, was occupied by Russia, and the war in the institution. We did not call it a museum; we called it
Donbass started, so there was always a trouble. a school. I think this is a transformation that some at
Nevertheless then we got something like a mail of least post-colonial museums are trying to get into as
cancellation four months before the biennale well.Why a school? Not just because we thought of
actually would have had to open and we had this case as a school for Europe, but because of the
prepared it. Why did we prepare in that house? format of the biennale should be a format where the
— Hedwig Saxenhuber: Let me only quote some civil society or the society of Ukraine would be able
sentences what we thought. Why hold a biennale at to not just to look at art and see, so to say, the other
this specific moment that seemingly has other that is proposed for the future by art, but engage
priorities? There was war. It was very dark moment itself in participatory actions, in learning classes, in
to finance such an enterprise and we had no money teachings, in workshops that would be on stages in
and we had no institution. Why should the concept of the middle of the biennale, so that would be staged
an enlightened arena for art, public encounter, and in the middle of the biennale together with quite
learning together fit with this situation? We had prominent intellectuals from all over the country and
other questions. In the given context, how could a from all over Europe and wider European horizon
short art [exhibit] propose something completely and with artists from all around the world. They
different, its own strategy deriving from its own should produce in that biennale that happened as
logic. Shouldn’t art be, in this case, subjugated to the well and it happened through a third—a fifth thing
political struggle? How could art force the resist- that museums sometimes might not get, but projects
ance against hegemonic structures in which it itself like this get solidarity. We got the solidarity of most
participates? It was questions like these we found of the artists. They did not want to give us money.
ourselves confronted with in this situation. We got the solidarity of museum that supported us
— Georg Schöllhammer: And we found ourselves with material means and we got the solidarity of the
confronted with cancelation, an untimely cancelation institutional field in Kiev.
that had another reason that was partly coming from As the governing institution, the Arsenal had
the museum’s world. It was just the day after canceled all the smaller art institutions from the very
Bartomeu Marí resigned from MACBA for being conservative art academy, which is still a residue of
accused of censorship and it’s a very complicated socialist realist painting that’s getting exported to
case that we won’t go deeper into here, but the the gulf and to Kiev—China from there to the most
director of this museums complex herself has been alternative spaces, including the National Art Mu—
accused of censoring young artists. And she did not including state institutions like the National Art
want to go maybe into the same trouble again as we Museum, the National Museum of History, the
as well had invited in [unclear] this artist and after Dovzhenko Film Archive, the National Library of
this cancelation we had called our Kiev friends what Architecture, the City Gallery of Kiev, and so on,
to do. We didn’t want to quit, we said it has to go on. joined and then said we could have those places for
We had the solidarity of a lot of our artist friends, free to substituted for the loss of that space. So we
but we stood with a budget of €15,000 on March accepted that it was not just that we tried to find
20. spaces for this biennale, the spaces came to us and
So what to do? The third thing came up that they came to us through the whole institutional, so to
museums are having to do more and more, namely say, non-institutional field that we did not even have
to get the funds from different sources. We thought address—addressed the meaning but to say okay

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this is a an act of civil self-organization, so we are moment of postwar revolutionary loneliness where
going to join into that. you cannot act when, so to say, reality is coming
So we called this biennale, a biennale of back and the collective subject that you have
schools, but the school should not be just learning created is gone. So we asked these artists and other
classes and working classes but the schools should artists to make melodramatic and psychodramatic
touch themes of thematic fields that would be—not [works] and worked around this idea of the subjec-
just touching the crisis but wider instead would be tive in the revolution and in crisis. What you saw
embedded, so to say, an artistic narrative as well. before—can we go bak?—are sculptures by the76-
The school of adapt. Adapted Europe was one of the year-old Austrian sculptor, Hans Frank, who has
main schools where we had political theory been an influence on us well.
matching with art history and European history. Frank never made it to the international field,
What you see here, for instance, is a thing that we but his reflections on the status of the subject are
could manage to do it, it is an installation by Nikita very deep. The next school that we had been imple-
Kadan. The Museum of History allowed us to enter menting… and there is another School of the
their spaces. We convinced them, but it’s true, they Lonesome that comes from the Spanish war, the
allowed us to enter their spaces and really let Kadan civil war—the Dzekovs that Pedro G. Romero helped
display, so to say, the section for recent history and us to reconstruct where one form of punishment in
what he did was not just to display missiles that the Spanish civil war was that the anarchists would
come from the war on the staircase, but memory as punish the Francoists or the Falangists in the
some memorials, museum memorials and private cloisters and in the sub-cells. They would build
memorials of the workers, steel workers museum in cages that they would decorate with abstract art.
the Donbass coming from Russian, coming from Abstract art would be a punishment and a torture, so
Ukrainians, coming from Caucasians, and coming this was another.
from Kazaks… The School of Landscape tried to touch the
— Hedwig Saxenhuber: …and Crimea. broader issue and nationalism and landscapes are
— Georg Schöllhammer: …and from Crimea as tied together, not just in European actually.
well. Then we entered new spaces, like an old Soviet Collective narratives and memories, but as well… it’s
warehouse that is in decay and that is getting trans- some type of worldwide issue how a nation and a
formed into a fitness [center] and restaurant, but landscape worked and on the other hand the land is
carries a lot of memory. It’s a beautiful modern the most endangered thing at the moment because
Soviet building and there we told two stories. One of it is a… a field of lot of project, which is a repeat
was the story of the conflicting modernisms that had from… a harvesting of genetic foods to geopolitics.
origin in Kiev. All of you know that Malay was born So we confronting here for instance famous images
in Kiev, that Oleksandra Exter was born in Kiev, that that have been constructing the Ukrainian national
Alexandra Dovzhenko lived and worked in Kiev, and landscape. The left one has been hanging in the
that for instance Exter not just worked as a office of the long-term secretary general of the
Constructivist painter and stage designer but she as Ukrainian communist party, so this was his Ukraine.
well had classrooms in the countryside where she Then there has been a painter from [unclear] and so
did sewing classes with young people. And in that and so on, so all of them have the museums and the
we implemented something like this permanent school has constructed the gates on the Ukrainian
workshop. In the Lavra Gallery, Swiss artist land, which is still very formative in the new naïve
[unclear] really made a theme, an analysis of the nationalism that is coming up. At the moment, but
virtual body in war and that parted, so to say, from we counter read with other more critical readings of
the narratives of early Soviet cinema. landscape: for instance by Russian photographer
We started and we ended the section with Mikhail Tolmachev, who made beautiful landscape
Napoleon. That is the famous Napoleon Gate of the photography in photo-etching that is an evidence—
Louvre where the Enlightenment started and that is secret security evidence technology—of the First
intentional… can shadow on the on the current… and World War. A footage that he found on Google from
it… and it has been confronted with this. army stands, missiles, and cannon stands from both
At the end of the section there was an installa- sides of the Donbass frontline, where he just
tion by the German artist Ulrich Gleiter where he is selected a piece of landscape that is seen there and
quoting famous speeches of European solidarity etched it. Taus Makhacheva, we produced it
about German politicians. The School of Lonesome together with the Moscow biennales, so there are
was a different theme. We had talked to a lot of possibilities to coproduce. We had a lot of Russian
people in our travels that have worked on Geyser artists that coproduce Taus Makhacheva. It is a
Park that had worked… that have acted on [unclear] beautiful piece together on breeching, so to say, a
of artists that have taken part in the uprisings in canon in Dagestan with the leftovers of the Soviet
Brazil or in Greece, and they said there is a dramatic Museum of Dagestan. Then she built something like

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a cage and filled it with these museums and we Jewish milieu of Kiev and we made a portrait exhibi-
made this being shown by the performance of the tion of this. Then one would enter Kentridge and all
Kiev Acrobat School. of the… most of these people would not have
The School of Imaging the evidence was an survived 36–37 and after Kentridge we would see
idea that Harun Farocki, a good friend of ours had Petrusevski after the war or during the war as a
brought to us. He said he would like to do something documentary realist in the service of the Soviet
more—once more like what he did with Ujica after Army. There he did something that was really almost
the Romanian revolution of film and the turmoil in impossible, namely not to make in the [unclear]
Romania and the school that deciphers and re-reads Great Patriotic War, not to make heroic images but
the propaganda on both sides. Harun died, so we really to depict things in the [unclear] realism.
had to invite other people: [unclear] was here, Ruti We ended with the School of the Displaced
Sela was here, [unclear] was here, Alexander Ujica because there is a lot of displacement around in
was here, so they taught and they created footage Europe that I think we have to think about as well.
with film students and journalism students in the When we think about especially European museums,
Alexandra Dovzhenko Center in this school. This is they tend to ignore the knowledges that migrants
for instance a thing that we found there in the bring to their countries. We have worked in the
archives. They are just transforming from a film School of the Displaced with artists that themselves
factory to a film museum, very nice late Soviet films have been migrants and they worked hidden without
on psychological experiments and so—and this is the presence of the audiences in the refugee camps
the work in the studios that we have mentioned in Kiev.
already. That’s all we could do. We had maybe 5% of
So this is a [unclear], a Russian artist as well, the biennial—of the budget of a biennial. We had all
and it narrates the story of his Jewish grandfather volunteers. None of us has been properly bathed,
who has been driven out of Russia, driven out of but we have made quite some experience in Kiev
Ukraine, driven back home. That’s all in the that we have been happy to share with you here,
Alexander Dovzhenko Center. though it may not have been something that you
The School of Realism was another school that have been looking for in a conference that is really
was very important. Realism is the governing, so to talking again and again about the crises of the
say, methodology, and the governing [unclear] in museums.
Ukraine, a beautiful work out of… done by [unclear] Let me end maybe with a with a sentence I
in the School of Realism. think the museum might be in: a crisis as you stated
It seems our time is limited. We have two other in your questionnaire, but if we think about letting
schools to tell you about and I think one is important the project reign instead of the institution—and the
because our colleague, Yulia Vaganova, is one of museum tends to do that—that might be dangerous
your travel grant fellows and she has helped us to do for all of us. There are still some museums that think
something beautiful in the National Museum of Art. I about themselves as institutions and we have to
asked [unclear] if he would allow us to show Gogol’s reconsider institutionality. I mean [unclear] is writing
nose because Gogol is as well from Kiev and he did about the state, yeah. The next book by Negri and
so and we thought of something that is very Hardt will be about leadership and institutionality, so
appealing to the masses. This has never been there even the left understands that institutions are
produced there. And then we found Yulia—together something to really reconsider as schools, as
with Yulia one person, Petrusevski who was a museums and as archives. Thank you for being able
Jewish, so to say, post-Constructivist painter in the to talk to you.
1920s and early thirties who portrayed the whole

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Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Panel discussion with speakers.

Patricia Falguières, Mika Kuraya, Jack Persekian, Brook Andrew,
Georg Schöllhammer, and Hedwig Saxenhuber, moderated by
Elizabeth Ann MacGregor.
mean, Jack, you’ve experienced this in the public
Panel discussion: domain in Sharjah as well and I just wondered if
you’d like to relate that to what you were saying
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Okay, welcome to about what you were trying to do in Palestine and
the panel discussion and we want to make sure that how you think you might negotiate this question of
this is your opportunity to ask questions and, indeed the difficulties of opening up and at the same time
make contributions from the floor so when we come having communities who might wish to shut you
to that—in about 20 minutes’ time—just stick your down?
hand up and they’ll bring you a microphone. If you — Jack Persekian: Well, the situation is definitely
could say who you are and then address your different as everybody knows and, actually, the
question to any member of the panel or indeed if you question was always what’s the purpose of opening
would just like to make a contribution, that’s fine too. a museum in the West Bank, in the city of Birzeit
I’d like to start, though, by referring back to when you have three quarters of the Palestinian
something that Patricia Falguières said about the people who cannot actually access it even if they
way in which censorship nowadays is as much likely wanted. Many of you know that inside Palestine
to come from the community as it is through power there are many communities surrounded, gated in,
or government or somebody higher up. If we could and they cannot cross over from one area to another
kick off with that, and the diaspora which constitutes more than 60%
I’d like then to pick up what Jack said, to see if of the population live in countries that have abso-
we can tease out of it a debate around this, because lutely no access in Jordan, in Syria, in Lebanon. This
Jack, in his discussion about the Palestine Museum, is where the large concentration is…the question
has been doing what many of us talk about which is: was always: “how do you deal with such an impossi-
how do we get new voices, new communities bility—and it was and so it is an impossibility—so, in
engaging with our museums. I’m just wondering, one of the slides I was referring to this network and
Patricia, whether you see that as a contradiction, so we started imagining the museum as a hub, as a
that, as we open up museums, we are actually place where, we can produce some other work but a
potentially opening up ourselves to voices who lot of it will have to do with the network of satellites
might also wish to censor some aspects of what where we are engaging and accessing these com-
we’re doing? munities outside our territory and through that
— Patricia Falguières: Well, I think there is not network—bridging this gap that has been there for
much choice in the sense that the museum is actually more than 20 years, especially, you know, after the
producing the public space. So, it means that, since set up of the Palestinian authority after the Oslo
the border of public space is always moving, the Agreements and when the fragmentation started
museum has to let in new actors, new agents. It’s surfacing. So, this is one way to do it in each and
obvious and it’s an unending process. So, on the every place the work differs and it’s basically an
other side, it’s quite different to say that it’s commu- engagement with that particular place so, it’s a
nities who are producing most […] of the demand for research place in Beirut, it’s a community center in
censorship because, precisely, these communities Amman, it’s an exhibition space in London, it’s a
are demanding for censorship and not interested in football club in Santiago de Chile and in every place
getting in the public space and are trying to forbid there’s this community—through this community we
the of the birth of the political space, for instance, or are eventually trying to access the world at large.
to forbid even the idea of politics, because it’s — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: So you’ve essen-
always in the name of blood, of family ties, of tially reimagined the museum completely to become
ancestors, of religion. So, I don’t see it as a real exactly this public space for debate and discussion
alternative. around these issues?
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: It is what it is. I — Jack Persekian: Yes, starting without a

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collection, I mean, this is primarily where we… you— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Indeed. And Brook,
know this is our starting point where we don’t have turning to you now, you rather mischievously pointed
anything to say. This is who we are, what we are the finger at me about the naughty room and the
saying is that we will try to engage as much as way they got censored…
possible from that community in order to generate I think what I particularly enjoyed about
or produce this knowledge and eventually rep- working with you on that show was actually that the
resentation. So, I think it’s a blessing in disguise that whole process of making the exhibition was the
we don’t have a collection and we don’t need to deal debate and that we didn’t see the show as the
with a collection or a heritage. It’s kind of an open beginning of the debate, the debate actually
platform that will enable us to eventually produce happened internally and you refer to the kind of
these narratives and produce different forms of processes. Would you like to just say a little bit more
representation of who are the Palestinians today about that?
and how we want to project ourselves into the — Brook Andrew: Yeah, sure. I mean, I don’t think
future. it was a... It was very much a collective debate
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: So with regard to around that image and I think it’s complex. I mean,
the War Paintings, we are talking about collections. I when you’re in a society like Australia it’s complex.
think it’s very interesting we’ve got Jack saying, “I’m It’s not America, it’s not the same as America, it’s not
building a new museum without a collection” and the same as Canada, it’s not the same as other
your take very much outwards: “Let’s return to the colonized nations and I think that people often think
collections and see how collections can be a site for it is the same—and that’s just lazy. But, you know, it
debate, perhaps going beyond with what a was such an interesting invitation anyway because
temporary exhibition, for example, can do.” Do you of the previous work that I’ve done with the MCA
want to expand a little on that? and that is whole a series of debates which are
— Mika Kuraya: First of all, through three pres- previously mentioned in the talk and there were four
entations in this morning, I really realize how different days and I was not… it was a very mixed
MOMAT is a conservative institution with a building, bag of people with different ethnic backgrounds and
the collections and a certain kind of visitors from we debated issues that—I think—very much influ-
Japan and abroad and… what should I say? enced what was to be. And so I’m saying that, yes,
The possibility of a collection exhibition. But, absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, the […] are
today many of the Asian countries try to make the fantastic and when you know […], which I’m sure you
new form of art museums. As Japan has 140 years all know it’s coming, you say: “let’s move that there,
of history of having the European system of let’s move that there, let’s move that there.” And
museums, we’re now trying to fit ourselves into the these are significant artworks and works that need
new context—especially in Asia, such as Singapore to be set up again so they’re kind of the physical and
and Hong Kong. So, I’m just thinking of one of my kind of the… You know, the museum turns, I kind of
ideas—or dreams—is making a long-term loan to the suppose, “into a studio,” and I think that’s a really
Asian museums like Singapore and Hong Kong and good thing because that’s where it happens. It
exchanging views in the long term, not in the format happens it the studio, things have to look unfinished
of large-scaled special exhibitions, but just making a and experimental to look right but it’s about how we
loan of long term with two or three works at the can massage that to create, maybe, different ways
same time and exchanging views little by little and of viewing and in many ways we’re all complicit in
creating a new understanding and common experi- that, I think.
ences between art, you know, between the museums — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: I have to remember
in Asian regions. the thrill and the shock when you showed me that
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: And do you see image of the golliwog and then the crying white
yourself doing this through exchanges or work or a bride on an iPad and then you said, “I’d like this on a
public platform. How can you see this working going poster,” and I was like “I don’t think we can do that,
beyond the conventional exhibition mode, which is Brook,” but it does raise that interesting question
what I thought you were suggesting? about context. That images that are shown in one
— Mika Kuraya: Maybe we can do research context—as you said in the naughty room—or within
together. For example: only specifying and only the museum context can be mediated in a very
focusing on one specific work and go deeper into different way from when they’re put out there in the
the dialogs about the work or something… You know, wider world without any context around them.
I don’t have, you know, a much greater idea at the Certainly, one of the issues that we faced in
moment but we can start a new format of exchang- Australia with the [...] of the police of the word by
ing views with the collections I think. And we can’t of Bill Henson, which was deemed to be, you know,
course make a loan to the institution without images of underage girls in so called… well, could
collections. have been interpreted as pornography, was in fact…

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the work itself in the gallery was not an issue but as Miami Beach or whatsoever. We’ve started to do
soon as it was put on an invitation card and up the something like that in the field, yeah? So the
website, it immediately ignited this incredible audiences are even separated... The attractions, so
political row that actually led to the issuing of guide- to say, the press or media could be directed to us
lines to all museums about the showing of children because, first of all the media; either state media or,
in any form, which takes us back to Patricia’s point on the other hand, of oligarchs. For them it was not
about everything has frameworks that are just not so interesting actually to talk about European
always made absolutely visible. politics, to talk about economics, to talk about, so to
Just to touch on Kiev, I’m very interested… I say, a not nationalist development of the state; to
said to Georg & Hedwig, I’m just amazed that you talk openly with Russians. I mean, what really was
can pull off a Biennale that was apparently canceled something like a miracle for me was that we had
with very little funds and I’m interested in the kind of very good terms with certain ministeries, and certain
debate that it stimulated within the city. What impact administrative, and so on and so on. And then we
did the cancelation have on the idea of the debate published the participants’ list of the program one
around contemporary art? week before the biennale and we published, so to
— Hedwig Saxenhuber: Should I start? I think that say, the speakers list and with a lot of Russians, with
first it was very welcome into the city and… these a lot of critical personalities we tried to keep, so to
people from there—because it was legal, it is a say, this dialog open, but across, not just this
group of very engaged people who created a dichotomy, but to widen the dichotomy to other
cultural research center and we invited them to work escapes with similar experiences from Yugoslavia to
with us as analysts so it was from the beginning with the Arab and South American space and suddenly
people we trust and we could do it with them, so it there was a closure in this liberal field because
was really going forward. It was…and from the politics could not stand that. We have done it as well
outside, it was… the people liked it very much but in in a time of elections. Nobody really could react to
the country it was a shame too? Because somebody that. But, the miracle was, on the other hand that…
continues and don’t have money and a state institu- I’m always very sceptical of social media organiza-
tion won’t do it. It was not so easy for the director, I tion, yeah? But it was totally social-media-organized.
think, yeah? And I think now, the press didn’t really We had 100–200 people in the lectures almost
announce it in such way we hoped, yeah? It was a every day and, if we had few, in the bookshop. So
little bit oppressed, but nevertheless a lot of people that’s an experience that I have sometimes actually
came and a lot of things are going on so, it was in such complicated situations; that social media—
really… The young people… so many young people that we have to be critical about—have an effect in
came everyday, we had three or four different organising people. So, it has an effect, it has a lot of
events and lectures and something. It was really… effect. It has less of an effect on the usual art field. I
yeah. think it has an effect on the academy, on the
— Georg Schöllhammer: Well I think it worked. It museum of history, and it highlighted the beautiful
worked like… as a separator, you know? You have to work of the museum, of the visual arts that they are
see that it’s a very complicated space, a post-soviet doing. But the old constellations trembled for a
space that is transforming. It’s a very complicated moment, and then they decide just to ignore it.
space. The complexity is as well that it’s not just — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Is that better than
transforming but it finds itself in a cagy political being censored though? To be ignored… you get
situation with all the European expectations and so more press if you’re censured. You get more press if
on. Then you have a growing kind of romantic you’re censored? Yes, that’s certainly true. There’s
nationalism—I would say even romantic nationalism. nothing wrong with a bit of controversy. Don’t they
You have a far right that is there and the governance say all publicity is good publicity? Maybe—maybe
of the country is divided. The governance of the not.
country is institutional governance with a lot of One of the things—I think Patricia said—it was
post-Soviet institutions; even Soviet law is still to do with money and actually that now is kind of
there—it’s still in power—and that is very slow. And, possibly one of the driving forces that will—
so to say, bureaucratic and… most of the public possibly—you know, be when we have particular
institutions are really suffering. They don’t have kinds of philanthropists or sponsors or different
budget, as well, They’re fighting, so to say, for the kinds of governments. And as all of our institutions—
economy of attention. On the other hand, you are at these different stages in their developments—are
having this one cent talk out and that as a direct opening up to different models of funding, I guess.
[result], sent as responsible to the presidency. And Jack, you’re entirely privately funded, coming pre-
then you have the oligarchs; you have three or four sumably from the kinds of private money that is very
oligarchs. I mean, everybody, you know [S…?], who much endorsing the vision that you’ve articulated.
are doing something like an internationalist art Basel Do you see difficulties ahead with that?

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— Jack Persekian: Absolutely. I mean, we come we still need this final push towards the opening,
from a region where we don’t have this kind of which as you saw is on the May 15. Everybody is
tradition and we don’t have the infrastructure to pull invited—please do come! And that will give it more
that kind of money needed for such a project (on push and more meaning. With that, passing through
that scale). Usually we have in Palestine some 50 this bottleneck and once we have an infrastructure
museums but they’re all very small personal-initia- on board where we have a small team that will
tives, one room-two room maximum and normally follow up on the smaller donations rather than just
very, very poorly funded. So, what we’re trying to on the bigger donations. I think we will have
propose is something at a much higher level, something interesting for everybody to engage with
something that can operate internationally and and enjoy.
hence, we’re not only building partnerships, we’re — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: It strikes me that
also building a whole network of people who would what you’re really describing is a kind of a mixed
eventually come on board as patrons, as people who model of funding where you’re not relying on one
would be helping us in subsidising us because there source and I guess that’s the old European model
was some pressure to push us towards the govern- where 98% was funded by the state, which is now
ment saying that, “Oh, if you go more towards the pretty much gone, it’s gone. And we’re now shifting
government maybe you’ll find money there through to these other models and we’re adjusting to the
international donors,” and of course, to me that’s a kind of checks and balances that you have to put in
no-no because then you’ll be tied to not only the place around that.
policies of the government but also to all the whims — Jack Persekian: By the way, also the Israel
and agendas of donor countries and we would like to Museum is also funded primarily privately from
maintain this museum as an independent entity, not outside Israel and the money it gets from the Israeli
tied to any party, not tied to any, affiliation. And government is comparatively very little. I think they
hence, yes, it is really kind of building everything not get something like between 15 and 17% of the
only a building and a team but also building that budget, while the rest of it is coming from all sorts
whole philanthropy and tradition towards art and of patrons from all over the word and that’s why
culture, because, in Palestine, what had sustained they have these kinds of chapters of friends of the
the Palestinian population through now Israel Museum in different places in the world. I think
40-something years under occupation and more that’s a very good model to also kind of look at and
than 68 years from 1948 was the social institutions try to emulate.
and grassroots organizations that worked in — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: I think we should
education, in health, and different kinds of more probably open it up. If anybody’s got any… I’m sure
basic needs. Now we are asking this kind of money, you have burning questions. If you put your hand up,
money at this level for a museum and that’s a new we’ll bring a microphone to you. Somebody want to
thing, but so far I think we’ve been doing good and kick it off?

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Saturday November 7, 2015

Day 1. Is the museum still a place for debate?

Q & A with speakers.

Patricia Falguières, Mika Kuraya, Jack Persekian, Brook Andrew,
Georg Schöllhammer and Hedwig Saxenhuber, moderated by
Elizabeth Ann MacGregor.
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Yes? From the front
here. do we kick off today? And that’s why this model of
— Hammad Nasar: I’m from Asian Art Archive in Palestinians who live in the Diaspora, who actually
Hong Kong and it’s actually just a follow up question were there at the very beginning asking for this
to what Jack was mentioning and this model of the memorial, eventually changed their mind and put
Diaspora funding the museum. And of course, I’m their money towards this project which kind of
sure I’m not the only one who sees these striking broadens the subject and opens it horizontally; with
historic parallels to the role of the Diaspora in a structure that I presented to you it tries to reach
what’s happened within Palestine itself and I wonder out to as many as possible, wherever they are and
how you’re reflecting on that particular history and creates this platform for discussion. And hence, this
the way you think about the form of the museum model of fundraising or this crowd funding—which
itself. we don’t have—and we need to create that system,
— Jack Persekian: The original idea of the nobody knows how to do that, we’ve never done
museum—which started back in ’98, which was the this. We’ve always depended on either, direct money
50th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of coming from, as I said, wealthy Palestinians or
1948, was about creating a museum of memory. I through international donors and donor agencies
think they called it the Palestinian Museum of that have, kind of particular agendas and have
Memory at that time and that project stumbled a operated in Palestine in different times. So, it’s not
little bit during the second Intifada so it was shelved only building the building or staffing it or program-
and in the mid 2000s it was picked up again by the ming it but also building the whole infrastructure,
same group, which is the Welfare Association and which is the funding and the know-how to do this
it’s a group of business men and women who and how to create such an institution.
basically invest their money in helping Palestinians — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: So will the museum
in Palestine and Lebanon in all sorts of different be a white box?
needs. As I said, more humanitarian work, more — Jack Persekian: Well, it’s interesting. I don’t
education and health and job creation. So, when the want to take the whole time discussing it. As we
project was again tabled in the mid 2000s and looked into the whole history and as we researched
people were questioning themselves: why do we that history and we went through interviews—I think
need to always pitch our story against the Israeli we’ve interviewed like 280 people—to try and link
story? Why do we need to always play upon this their stories to objects that they’ve cherished and to
polarised position as it is presented in the media and take these objects and put them into the museum as
everywhere in the world? Whenever I’m invited to do kind of the starting point, the kick off point for the
something, they have to invite an Israeli because museum, which does not have a collection as I said.
there needs to be reciprocity as if our own existence When I eventually looked at the situation we live in,
depends on their existence or vice versa. the impossibility of having this museum as is, in the
So that discussion led to them thinking that we current situation meaning that most of these objects
don’t need to start with a catastrophe, we don’t need and the stories they have collected cannot come to
to create another Holocaust memorial for the the museum because of the impossibility of
Palestinians. We need to tell the story as it is, going importing them into that place. The impossibility of
beyond, before and after that moment. That is a very also, of people coming to that place for that opening
important moment, a turning point but nonetheless because they cannot come, because of the travel
the history is much richer than that and to under- restrictions, the visa restrictions that we have. It
stand why we got to that point you need to go back turned out that at the end, I would have an exhibition
and you need to learn about that. with only a few objects and the rest empty spaces
So, the whole discussion revolved around how standing in place of absent people, absent objects,
do we represent Palestine starting from today? How absent history. And so my thinking led me to think

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that the start of this museum would be an empty think that when we hold up a mirror and we see
museum. So on May 15th, for those who intend to coming back from Europe and the fact that all these
come, do not expect to see anything, it’s just going faux-pas are happening elsewhere. It’s complex and
to be an empty museum! I don’t think there are any answers but as far as
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Didn’t this happen freedom of speech, you know, I’ve felt sometimes I’m
also with one of the Holocaust memorials in silenced sometimes from the wider community. Just
Germany? They opened with no exhibit. But I want to about the trauma of the representation of the past,
ask Patricia to pick this up because you have written some people don’t want to be reminded about that,
about, you know, critiquing the idea of the white yet everyone has a right to know even within their
cube and the dominant way in…can institutions be own families. So, I don’t think it it’s as straightfor-
neutral? Should they be neutral? Should they ward as in freedom of speech. It’s a little more
pretend to be neutral? complex.
— Patricia Falguières: First we should re-read — Georg Schöllhammer: Well, there’s an
closely the text of Brian O’Doherty, of formal anecdote that I can tell from Kiev. There was one
context about what has been said about them, and I major debate with the Arsenal when Ion Grigorescu
remember Brian saying in a congress, “Finally, the the famous Romanian artist wrote an email where
white cube, we have it in our mind and we transport he’s deeply, really deeply democratic and on the
it,” and this is really important because I think that a other hand a deep orthodox thinker and he wrote an
certain history of the white cube is written, but if you e-mail that just had the sentence: “There must be a
look closely to the work of Alfred Barr for instance right to separation.” So, this was something that
as Richard Meier did two years or three years ago, could not be taken by the Arsenal who is directly
we discover that, precisely, the program of Barr dependent on the president. But this anecdote is a
was far more complex and the white cube is the wide anecdote because I think we tend to talk about
version of Clement Greenberg and so and so. I think censorship and the word is very, very often misused
there is an important new real association of the when we just tend to talk about political antago-
museum with the art historians working closely on nisms, instead we have to work somehow through
this topic. and we cannot expect that an institution like the
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Question here? You museum that has a history of being a hegemonical
got a microphone? institution, an institution narrating history and hence,
— Ann-Sophi Noring: [I’m] from Sweden from construction histories, even an institution of
Moderna Musseet in Stockholm. I think this issue exclusion is challenged once that cannot understand
about what one would presume to be the growing the history that wants to integrate and maybe then
censorship from the communities is quite interesting to give something back that we feel a censorship but
and I would like you to all develop a little bit about we have to break it through, I think. But I think it’s
this issue from your own experiences and also take more antagonism. Censorship is always liked to
into account self-censorship as Elizabeth mentioned, powers, and I don’t see for instance that the
how you deal with images like the one you talked community at the moment is powerful enough to be
about and what does it make for freedom of speech a censor. When power comes with something like
in society today? aggression, then it might be dangerous. Anyways,
— Brook Andrew: Freedom of speech: it’s such a there are methodologies to deal with that. There are
funny thing. I think that only certain people of certain artists, maybe not the best ones but there is trauma
places have a freedom of speech. You know, it’s therapy and whatever: crisis therapy and crisis
interesting how we were also talking about building intervention. So what can think about putting this… I
a museum. I mean, my mother’s family—if I just want would say the word “censorship” for me is a very
to focus on that, just for a little bit—I mean most strong word and we should leave it at home. The
aboriginal people, regardless if we look Japanese or museums create political antagonisms and if there is
Scottish or whatever we look like, which we look like a debate about the freedom of speech and maybe
very different things depending on where we are the different, so to say, viewpoints of what the
from. You know, most people are actually trying to speech act could be into a society and it could
get past the poverty line. Aboriginal people make up actually enact after the speech act, then we should
to 2.5% of the population, most people, do not have properly be thinking that through so we Western
access to land, cannot continue culture, we don’t Democrats [find it] quite easy to say “freedom of
have a museum, there’s an international repatriation speech and censorship” and so on. I would not take
of Aboriginal human remains, and there’s only the words so easily into my mouth. I think the
starting now a conversation about whether that museum must be a place of antagonisms and where
should go: let alone the freedom of speech as antagonisms can be worked out and the museum
opposed to culture. But, that’s not about guilt either; must remain as hegemonical history and not think
it’s not about fear. It’s just about the reality and I about “I’m being censored because of…” It has

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integrated as well in the canons (the canons that has free to do whatever we want to anyway but anyway,
been accused it in the sixties and seventies and the biggest pressure for us is from the public. So,
maybe that’s one of the great things that it did. But it many of them agree to display the War Paintings but
has to work with the antagonisms that even they half of them are denying to display the War
have brought into the museum. So, if you’re now Paintings and we have to conduct the conversation
going back to criticising the paradigms of autonomy between them. That’s what I said about ambiguity
and so on and so on. While we [were] like installing this morning. Ambiguity can be a meeting place for
the different then I think this conflict is somehow still people with different opinions and for the national
existing and you are right it has to be talked through. museums it’s much easier to do this but I think a
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: No? You’ve said more serious situation is for the prefectural or
everything to be said on that topic? Yes, yes. I mean, municipal museums, because many of them are
I think it is down to context and local context and you under the control of the local organization of school
know, there are very interesting debates about what education and social education. As the local govern-
is and isn’t appropriate to be shown in museums and ment is smaller than the Japanese government of
for me the important thing is the debate, the debate course, they easily attack the museums and several
that goes on in the process of deciding what you will events occurred within these two or three years.
show and that you take responsibility. Jack had a Last year in one prefectural museum of art about the
lovely phrase; you said we should operate with explicity of nudity, of male nudes. This year about
diplomacy. We don’t often hear museum directors the opinion on the school education system at the
say that, actually. I don’t think museum directors Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art,
really admit that very often, but I think that is exactly which you may visit… tomorrow or today. I’m just
what we all do. We operate with diplomacy and we thinking that ambiguity could be a good place for
balance, we chose the right language, we look for starting dialogs between people with different
the balance that doesn’t get us shut down but opinions but this is much harder for us to conduct
actually still allows us to put forward ideas and so these kind of dialogs in Japanese society. One of the
on. Is that fair? reasons, I think is our experience of 2011 earth-
— Jack Persekian: From the context where I quake. After the earthquake I realised that many of
come from that’s, I think, most of it is clear because, the artists were heading towards the social issues
what we do is more of an act of resistance rather but at the same time people in general, I mean the
than you know kind of operating as a museum in a audiences turned back into a more traditional notion
normal situation, so we need to duck whenever of the artwork. It could ease your mind, to watch
there’s a certain attack and we need to maneuver in beautiful flowers of something like that. And we are
order to do things where, otherwise if you would go in the situation on one hand, artists and the museum
through the normal ways, it would never happen. are in the direction of controversy. But maybe many
The impossibilities, the obstacles, the restraints on of the people want to get back to a more comforta-
freedom... It’s not only about freedom of expression ble notion of art. So that’s about the censorship in
and whatever we do with a lot of work, you Japan, I think. We are in a very different situation
negotiate, you maneuver, you try to survive because from your country, your country, and your country.
such an environment it’s fatal. It can be fatal. — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Any more? Here we
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: One of the are? Someone at the back there? Has the
wonderful things that we were hearing this morning microphone?
also was ambiguity and about how you cannot — Carina Plath: I’m curator at the Sprengel
exactly, you cannot tell what the response is going Museum in Hanover and I have a comment to Mika’s
to be. I think you thought about four different speech and a question to Patricia. So the comment
reactions to the War Paintings and how you actually, is just: I was wondering whether Foujita… I’m sure
you can’t tell which person is going to have which you know the Otto Dix painting: the war triptych.
reaction. How do you think from a museum’s per- There was actually a big discussion because it was
spective you can actually embrace that and make it depicting the war in the twenties already in a very
maybe even more explicit? Against the idea that the realistic manner and there were German art critics
painting should not be shown because they were really protesting against it and wanted it to be taken
subject to one reading. out of the public museum because they said, “It’s
— Mika Kuraya: Talking about the censorship, really bad for us,” and the politicians wanted it
many of the Japanese museums are funded by the because euphoria in Germany was so big already in
government or local governments so in terms of the twenties from the first war and then the Nazis in
censorship, we international museums do not have ’33 really took it away, but it’s a very interesting
censorship from collectors or the board of trustees background for Foujita and I’m sure he knows
and the Japanese government is too large to care because it was very close to the New Objectivity
about what the National Museum is doing, so we’re paintings in Germany, etc., etc. So I think it’s a very

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interesting story in terms of censorship and realist act in ways that they haven’t been able to do before
art in a way. (to sort of block things or trigger censorship). I think
And to Patricia… I have the question, I found it we are in a part of the world where there are very
very interesting what you said about institutional few places where you actually don’t have the old
critique, because of course you know that for the style, traditional, hard-core censorship happening on
Western-European institution it was a very easy way a regular basis. Things being removed from exhibi-
out. You would just invite Andrea Fraser or other tions, things not being allowed to be shown at all. I
artists and they would make a critical analysis of the mean, I think that in Asia it’s hard to count the
museum and so, it became kind of fashionable. So, countries that actually don’t have censorship or the
the question is, that I’d really like to comment on the places that don’t have censorship and we haven’t
need for a good critical analysis for museums… So, I really talked about that, because it’s a very… we are
guess my question is really like: who should best do in Asia right now so I don’t know… Of course, the
this analysis? Who would be the best person to do panel doesn’t really represent—besides, of course,
this analysis besides yourself? the Japanese colleague—that aspect. I mean, it
— Patricia Falguières: The fact is that of course, would be interesting to hear if someone from
the institution was a nightmare in the seventies, like Vietnam can talk about their situation for example.
all kinds of institutions like the university. We have China of course is the more obvious example. But I
exactly the same trouble with the university today. just wanted to remind you about that.
It’s the same thing as were fiercely critical of the — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Would anyone else
university as an institution today, of course, under- like to respond to that... from the Asian perspective?
standing that universities all over the world are Yes, Jo-Anne?
destroyed by neoliberality to say it a word which is — Jo-Anne Birnie-Danzker: Thank you. A question
ridiculous in a way but… that’s what it is. So, it’s the directed to Jack, actually. Jo-Anne from the Frye Art
same for the museum. We need to rethink—abso- Museum in Seattle. And, in the States our work has
lutely—a real institutional critique not only because been affected by the “Black Lives Matter” movement
museums are targets today of the new way of and the horrendous murders that have been taking
governing, of the boundlessness of riches and so on place. And, in working with African-American artists,
but because a lot of responsible museum institutions we’re finding that some artists are saying: we no
have absorbed institutional critique. I’ve seen a lot of longer want to be associated with one narrative.
very good exhibitions everywhere in the world, Which is the narrative of oppression or the narrative
which shows that precisely a new generation of of slavery but we want alternative narratives that
curators, directors of museums, are perfectly aware present us as spiritual communities, as communities
of the hegemonic past of museums you were of strength. And the projects that we’ve been having,
speaking about and they are absolutely credible in have been moderating, have been balancing
the intelligence of institutional critique. So, now we somewhere between the two but not always com-
have to go a little deeper and to change the fortably and within the community of artists of color
concepts and the way of analysis. And, this is the there’s sometimes very strong disagreement over
reason why I think a new art history is absolutely a which path to take. I’ve heard a comment that you
challenge for everybody, not only for academics but made about the issue of what narratives you want to
for museums too and something has to be done in present in your museum and I was wondering if you
that field. We have we have great building sites to could speak about it a little bit.
organize but I think this is what we have to do. If not — Jack Persekian: Well, precisely that. This didn’t
we are lost. start with the Palestinian Museum project. This
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: And I assume that already started right... I would say…Okay, what
when you say “we,” you mean all of us (curators, triggered it was the first Intifada when—just to put it
writers, artists or critics). in a historical context—what the first Intifada did
— Patricia Falguières: Of course.... everybody. (which started in 1988) was to take the power from
So, this is really a collective building site and, for the politicians (the PLO at the time) and by the
instance, when we see the emergence of the people in their own hands and when they went out
National Museum of Palestine. Of course it requires on the streets and people started organizing.
a new concept, new statement, new ways of Everything was closed for many years—
analysis. actually three years. I was living there. So, people
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: And I saw another started organizing home schools, planting their
hand, on the front here, somewhere. Oh, over here, backyards, boycotting Israel… and the artists who,
Lars? before that had depended somehow on the political
— Lars Nittve: I mean I note, of course, that in the structure of the PLO, and who were subsidised
West we have a situation where interest groups are somehow by the political entity but yet also directed
empowered in a way and, of course, therefore can by that, had liberated themselves and started doing

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things that represented themselves and represented really there ready for the future, to be a repository
their own issues and represented their own thinking for debates that are deeply needed and I think it’s
on, of course, the conflict and on their lives and less about censorship. To me it’s really important: do
other issues be it: women’s liberation or… And from museums still have the possibility of making acquisi-
that time on there was a sort of liberation of the art tions? Are acquisitions stopped by trustees? What is
movement and from then you started seeing art the possibility of really being what a museum can be
institutions popping up in Palestine in different (a repository and archive and creating art history)?
places, artists’ groups organizing and connections I’m curious a little bit how you see that because
with the West or the rest of the world—but it started you’re all engaged in a museum or from the outside.
with the West—became stronger so, then you’d see — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Mika, I think that
curators coming and people from the outside being sounds like one for you.
introduced to the art being produced in Palestine — Mika Kuraya: Yes—before—I was a very
and hence, there was actually quite a strong push to avant-garde kind of curator and I [...] collection at
the art scene. the beginning of my career but after I experienced a
So, what we’re trying to do with the museum is 11.3 earthquake and I watched many of the museums
something that is built on what happened in the past were devastated and lots of objects were gone,
20 years or so. So, what we’re trying to do with the washed away by the tsunami. I started to rethink
forms of representation, with the symbols of rep- about the collection’s possibility. You said that your
resentation, with the story that you hear in the media museum has no collection and you have the exhibi-
or elsewhere is to try to bring about alternative tion with very few objects in your exhibition, but
takes on it through different projects, through there needs to be a storage for your future collec-
different programs, by actually also connecting with tion to keep objects safely for years. And in terms of
places and people that otherwise didn’t have a voice censorship I totally agree with you. If you collect
because there was a concentration, as I was saying. some objects in your museum they can wait until
There was the Oslo Accords and the whole set up of they can be exposed to the audiences in a proper
the Palestinian Authority was to kind of zoom in on way or maybe a different way. So, that’s my opinion
that kind of small geographical area and say to the and, yeah, I just want you to get back the discussion
people in the world that, well the whole story about into the collection issue, back again. Thank you.
Palestine is that: two spots of land—West Bank and — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Brook, do you want
Gaza—and you should really focus on those. So, the to answer that one too... from an artist’s point of
whole world was kind of pouring onto this particular view?
place and trying to figure out their engagement with — Brook Andrew: The importance of collections?
it. Where actually more than 60% or actually or I think they’re very important. Trying to put them
even 70% of the Palestinian population lived outside together, isn’t it? I know, clearly I’m very interested
those boundaries and they have as much as say in in different kinds of ways on how those objects are
this as those living there and what the Palestinian put together. And there’s a huge debate in Australia
museum is trying to do is trying to kind of bring as about the many, not only artworks but cultural
many on board and is trying to open that discussion objects (historical) that are kind of spread all over
and is trying think how can we take this one Australia or over the world and people often talk
project—it’s one among many others of course—one about one keeping place. I kind of mentioned that
project as a platform or springboard towards the before. You know? It’s really complicated and I don’t
future. Yes, we will look at the past to learn from it think there’s an answer and I think it makes me think
and to understand the context of where we come of the connections between people and communities
from, but also how do we look at today? And how do and the real voice. It reminds me again of the
we move forward from today? freedom of speech question or about the, you know,
— Ute Meta Bauer: We have now a number of about Palestine having a museum. But it’s about the
people who really question also the narrative of the other… mess I suppose that some communities—
museum, but isn’t the opportunity of a museum to be which is a lot in the world and not part of that
a repository to really collect art from its time from dominant narrative or part of that dominant
many different aspects even if it is antagonistic to discourse, or those kind of dominant institutional
allow a debate in the future. But what I think it’s forces—and often they’re kind fall into the sadness.
amazing with museums if they work are once in the You know, kind of a category like… So, before I was
collection even if they’re not shown, they are in the talking about the way African-Americans don’t want
repository and we can’t ignore them and by this we to be kind of labeled anymore and so a lot of us
can really build the repository of things and the don’t want to be labeled. So I think that when it
future of things there are may be written out. We comes to collections and how they’re actually
have to fill gaps, like women, diversity, etc. but still collected, there’s a huge contention in Australia for
the museum has this amazing opportunity to be indigenous status. It’s like: okay you are an

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indigenous collection and therefore when we get so — Brook Andrew: Can I just add to that, though,
much money for that and it has to go in there and if that I was really disappointed because the painting I
they don’t have the money, well someone else will really wanted to secure to be in the show was
put money for that. So really, this is kind of a conten- Francis Picabia’s Revolution you see and they
tion of identity still, which is a constructive identity, wouldn’t me to show that because apparently it was
which is not really the way in which communities or a deposit from a private collector that I really knew.
artists or maybe yourself deals with that and it’s — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Oh, there we go, is
complicated. But, in saying that, it’s also a really that censorship or is that negotiation... because the
great place to be for an artist, because it means that collector would have objected?
you can play with that a bit and I know that, you — Brook Andrew: No, apparently. I’m not sure,
know, institutes are there for that today but redefin- but my personal view, the silent view, was that the
ing what is the white cube or what is the museum Picabia was complicated because he was French-
and I think that the more the artists are allowed to Spanish and we talked about the revolution and
take risks; I’m not just saying this because I was maybe in some ways it was easier to speak about
privileged enough to have those opportunities— you know…
because it is a privilege—so often curators or — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: A Mexican? That
directors of museums go, “Here you go, do whatever gives us a whole other dimension to think about. In
you want.” I mean, it doesn’t happen that often even the middle, there.
though it was happening in Vienna around the — Bo Ding: [I’m from] China. I just want to briefly
sixties. Those museum interventions were for a respond to the gentleman’s question about the
particular aesthetic kind of interventions. But the censorship in China, maybe by short stories. A
kind of interventions that I suppose can happen, I young elephant was chained to a wooden stick on
think they’re also quite scary and that involves the ground and the elephant is too young to get
collections. away from the chain and when they grow bigger and
— Guillermo Santamaria: I might be a little bit older, it’s very easy for it to get away from it but it
slow, sorry. There’s this history... I’m from Museo stopped trying. Despite the scientific accuracy of
Carrillo Gil [Mexico, City]. We had a big issue about the story, we could all see the meaning behind it. So
two years ago concerning one of the collection the issue here is not only about what we are not
pieces that was touched. It was displayed by Carlos allowed to say but also about what we are allowed
Amorales, a contemporary Mexican artist. It was one to say. For instance, the statement that China is a
of these key pieces of José Clemente Orozco and he censored country, is too safe to make that kind of
did something similar to what you did with Diego statement right? But what is the real situation here?
Rivera, which I’m not sure if it was a real Diego As the institution changes, it’s hard to actually keep
Rivera that we saw, an authentic or if it was a up with it and keep observing what’s really
reproduction. By the way something like that in happening. So, to get back to the question for the
Mexico, something like that is absolutely forbidden, museum being a place for debate, I think it’s actually
impossible! Such an experiment, such an ambiguous important to see whether it could be a place to be
very subtle experiment is absolutely forbidden in brave and to be confronting the reality constantly.
Mexico as we experienced with Carlos Amorales You know, that’s just a small comment I want to
with just a little painting in the wall. make.
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Guillermo, — Unidentified questioner: Hello. I don’t really
forbidden by whom? By the authorities? The have a question; I just would like to comment on the
funders? The public? subject of decision and the case of MACBA. The
— Guillermo Santamarina: Yeah well, by the question of being a place for debate lies in the heart
critics, by some academics, and of course by the of curatorial practice for me, especially in the
authorities. What is crossing my mind is that some… context of Turkey where democratic channels of
in the ambiguity of the global condition, sometimes self-expression are weak. As some of you may
you can abridge your experiments some worlds not already know, the government was elected again
in your own context in this opportunity. And it seems last week and this is the coming the 4th period in
like a very promising perspective for artists to do so, power and they’re getting more authoritarian—like
but it’s very sensitive as well. As I see it, I try to do a everyday—and suppressing any oppositional action.
Calder show in Mexico… in this small museum I was So it’s a fundamental question for me to think about
working in and to work a Calder show was a big possible ways to trigger a debate around exhibi-
issue. I mean, such a big thing to negotiate, not just tions. So, under these conditions, if you’re using like
with the Calder Foundation, but I did it without a critical discourse or, say, including some works in
asking of course. I had the opportunity. I’m a little bit the exhibition that transgress the social norms, you
punkish, yes, but I did it. I think you’re very punk and have to develop new strategies. You can delay the
we don’t want to know who was the responsible. exhibition, you can change the works in the

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exhibition or you can’t look for some other ways to he says, “Well Brook, you know? You know the thing
show the works. that is needed here is a museum of democracy. You
If you think this from the point of institutions, know, that kind of looks at the inner history of jour-
they are surrounded by different parameters and nalists who were murdered internationally as well
network of relations. For instance, art patrons can and, you know, these are great ideas and I think that
be one element for the financial resources, the state this is from a curator and a director and in some
can be another element, or say: where is public? ways he’s like an artist and I think that artists are like
There can be people with more conservative tenden- directors and curators and curators and directors
cies that you cannot ignore as an institution because are like are like an artist. And I think that it’s the
you have to be as inclusive as much possible and at same with communities and that the more collabo-
some point all of these parts have different expecta- rate together to form voices, that’s not about
tions and you have to meet them in order to keep the censorship, that is about, you know, shared respon-
institution alive. sibility. I think that’s something that’s worth doing.
So as an institution you have to keep the — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Someone down the
balance among these different parts and make the front here?
institution a space of negotiation for different values, — Calin Dan: I’m the director of the Museum of
different ideas. And in this process of negotiation, Contemporary Art of Bucharest. I wanted to connect
modification in the exhibition is understandable and two points here: one made by George and the other
justifiable but at the same time you shouldn’t forget made by our colleague from Mexico City. It was very
that you are responsible to the artists as well as interesting what he said, that by globalizing you can
anyone you include in the exhibition and during the shoot out interesting artists somewhere and give
preparations. So, however you do it, you have to do them a turf for some things that couldn’t be said at
this articulation like in the beginning and throughout home. I will flip this and get back to the person you
the preparation. Not during the exhibition or not a mentioned, Ion Grigorescu, the Romanian artist with
day before the exhibition. This decision should be a well established international reputation and I
made since the beginning, and as I said, you can’t would say that indeed he was much more active
change the work, you can’t do anything, because starting immediately in the 1990s outside of
there are different parameters around you. What Romania that in Romania. So much that he had very
happens if you don’t do this with time? It obviously important installations and exhibitions in big
becomes a serious problem as we’ve witnessed museums in Europe. He never had a relevant or
recently in the case of MACBA. You lose the trust of retrospective show in Romania and when we
the artists, you lose the trust of certain public, and discussed it recently he said, “Well, we could try
you also may lose the trust of young colleagues like something, but, you know, most of my work was
me. So I think this transparency and responsibility already sold outside Romania,” so there would be
and the trust are important parts of professional really a problem to do something that unless we to
ethics and these ethics of profession is most of the put together some complicated logistics. So, I think
time ignored because of the market forces and for that there is also that obviously we are going to turn
political reasons. I think we should just try to institu- back when we talk about censorship. We’re going to
tionalize these ethics as much as we can. talk about the economic dynamics, we are going to
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Thank you. Could talk about exoticism, we are going to talk about the
you just say who you are? export-import. So maybe those are things that could
— Unidentified questioner: My name is […] and I’m be addressed as well.
from SALT Istanbul. — Georg Schöllhammer: And could be addressed
— Brook Andrew: Thanks for that. I just wanted to in terms of the collections because if we have the
respond to you and I think that as an artist, coming same power complications working in the collec-
from a community that’s not always green and tions. You know, there are collections that have been
working within collections and having access to built up for a long time... modern museums that can
things that maybe you can always show. I think no longer compete because the market doesn’t let
perhaps it’s the power of collaboration and I’m not them compete and there is a kind of an international,
just saying that to kind of diffuse anything. If so to say, harvesting institutional field that is really
anything, collaboration is powerful. It doesn’t neces- trying to get hegemonic and there are small
sarily mean that you can always show what you want compounds that tried to work together, we
to show but it’s the way in which things are done. exchange but what we’re losing in most of the field
And I was, you know, it’s funny but I was speaking it’s something like locality. While using locality and
with the director of arts space in Auckland, and…. I we’re always thinking about translatability and
saw him the other day and I was like, “You know I’m translatability is an issue that is not always given
going to talk today,” and I was a bit nervous so, what and that’s something that has to do a lot with the
do you think? And of course he’s from Istanbul and other subject that we are talking here: about the

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globalizing art world. What we’re seeing around is other voices coming in. But the debate happens in
actually, we’re seeing spreading out and not just in our case—as Brook knows well—right through the
the museum world, it’s especially in the curatorial museum, right through the host staff and the
world, in the self-organized world, in the center education staff and so on and so forth, and maybe
world. Mainly a generation of young curators that that sounds bureaucratic but if you don’t take
have trained in one of these hegemonic museums or everybody with you—especially when you’re going
curatorial courses and they come back with a to show controversial material—then, you have no
certain methodology, with a certain frame of chance.
methodology. We had 80,000 people through this exhibition
Their first treasure is usually either something and had two complaints and it was pretty full on in
like a local—either local archive, or local artist or many ways as you saw. I think Patricia summed it up
local, so to say, constellation that they make their very well: strategies that are actually dealing with
case, a local case that then can be transported these kinds of debates, then you can actually cut
internationally. But, the local is not transparent, the through. It doesn’t happen all the time and of course
local is totally opaque and it’s full of internal power there are always going to be external complaints
relations that cannot be so easily translated. And we and then, someone mentioned the good side of
are getting into an internationalism that is almost social media. I think the down side of social media
like the universalist—modernist—internationalism can be that they amplify something that is actually
that the new avant-gardes fought against, talking not that significant and that museums—I’m thinking
about the specificity of the art work, because on one here of Sydney Biennale—take fright because they
hand we’re seeing sameness in exchange, which is see something building up and they see it as if it’s
good because if there is an internationality at hand going to be much more frightening and the reality of
that was always working in the art world, but we are it is that it isn’t. It’s just a lot of noise on social media
suppressing specificities—not local specificities but and I think that we really need to be careful not
untranslatabilities that we cannot handle and that’s taking what’s put on social media as something we
why I think it is important what you said Ute. need to immediately respond to.
These things are getting collected but not in — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Somebody at the
the globalized methodology that you have to. You back there?
have to localize it within a certain limit that your — Abbas Nokhasteh: Thank you. Hi, [I’m] from
museum is in and you have to risk that then you’re Openvizor. I just wanted to ask a question to Georg
out of business because if you don’t collect what about the work in Kiev and what propelled you to—I
others would like to lend, so you’re not the one that mean, there are some reasons that you already
can borrow and so on and so on so, there’s a mentioned—regarding propelling you to go from
“circulus vitiosus” that’s full of hidden relations. Biennale to school, or schools, and I think that’s very
When you think about the collections, you should much something in mind with all sorts of projects of
rethink collections and collectability. Not even developing institutions outside of the building. So,
collections. We should not always think about trans- what I wanted to ask was: what really made you do
misions but we should think about intranslatabilites that? What did you learn from what it’s like to
as well. propose, participate, and experience these kinds of
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Fantastic linking us elements of school outside of the Biennale?
into 3D, I think. — Georg Schöllhammer: Well, complicated
— Unidentified questioner: I didn’t say just only question, I’m still tired… And we will see, but what
for Turkey. It was like a more general statement like the real compelling thing is what one saw the needs
you insert through the case of Istanbul though I of a society that is traumatized, that is getting
departed in my comment from the undemocratic traumatized by the media for instance, that is
conditions in Turkey. It was a general comment self-traumatized by social media. And that is trauma-
including the case of MACBA. This is the first thing, tized by this international discourse about the
secondly, I 100% agree that it is a collaborative societies in Ukraine. They have a totally different
work and that the director, the curator, the artists all desire and the desire is not just consumerism but the
should collaborate together, but these parts should desire is to imagine different futures, not just for
be together since the beginning, not one of these them, not just for the state of the country and for
parts should intervene like the later state of the that what an institution could be. The institutional,
preparations. Thank you the academic field, for instance, in Ukraine is still
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: I think that’s the very, very conservative academia, most of the
important point is that we’re discussing this idea of academia, and there’s the intrusion of private
the process and the debate as we were discussing American and European universities where people
happening well in advance. So it’s not the moment are sending their children, so there is a gap in
where you open the show and then there’s these between and these people took the chance to have

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quite a serious set of lectures and practitioners in it is through working in museums, through working
short-term courses to use it like an open university. with artists the kind of inter-subjectivity that we
So I think this was another point that was really realise that actually determined the kind of values
compelling in the Biennale. But what Ute said is about openness that we have. So we can critique
really true and you should not think about just doing our own history, we can critique the specificity of
that without thinking about the capacities of the where some of these values may come from and
artwork that is opaque itself, that is sometimes not how they are tied through different political powers
touching an issue, that is sometimes autonomous in or different regions in the world. But there’s no
another way; maybe not in that way. The speculative getting away to say that we are very open in the
realist would like us to see every object but that was way we like to look at cultures. The museum has a
very important for us: not to cut it away, not to cut very fundamental role in facilitating exactly that kind
practices off but to let this tension, this ambiguity of understanding. Thank you.
between these two fields, act, I would say, enact. — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Thank you, we’ve
— Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Thank you, couple got time for one more.
more. KC. — Hyunjin Kim: Thank you for the speakers today
— Kian Chow Kwok: I believe that when we speak and I was hearing your presentation today but we’re
about community, we have to include a meeting like talking about censorship but I think that the big
this, which is an international meeting. There is a problem in Asia is also that there is a highly big
global community, a museum community, which is bureaucratic censorship that operates self-censor-
also an important and integral component of any ship instead of all of the institutions and agencies.
local community. As we discuss about specificities, And, I mean, it was quite surprising to see the War
we look at funding model, we look at local context Paintings yesterday and what Mika was mentioning
and so on. Let us not forget the fact of us being here but I was really perplexed and ambiguity is really the
at the CIMAM conference, that represents a certain ideal place for possible media explanation, actually.
voice, a certain platform that would operate at a And also, recently in Korea, there is this… they’ve
local level. Hence, museums, you know, as a been censored by listing artists names and it’s on
community is an important facilitator if you like, for the parliament issue and is now on the process of
local debate and we know that for censorship to the principal trial. So, I think I have to really
take place, because you know, there have been […] emphasize that the self-censorship is also the place
by some local communities, local groups, constituen- to judge, you know, in a democratic society and
cies and so on. The fact that they become something shouldn’t be just raising the law and by the way.
that is turning into a […] action of censorship is due — Elizabeth Ann MacGregor: Thank you. Yes,
to the kind of underlying political market forces or complex issues. I think about what Lars referred to
other power structures in play. Therefore, the in terms of local context is clearly very significant. I
museum as a group or community, is always in think KC just summed it up very well for us, and our
dialog, in negotiation with the general framing of the Turkish colleague also. The need for acknowledging
local community as we understand it in terms of both local contexts and strategies and also the need
specific locality. for collaboration and debate right through the
As we discussed here—I’m a board member of process of all our working museums, not just putting
CIMAM—and I’m reading an e-mail from our on exhibitions but public programs all the other
colleague, who could not make it here because he debates that goes around it and I’d like to echo what
could not get the visa to come to Japan in time to be KC said and Abdellah from Doha resoundingly said. I
present here, but nevertheless Abdellah from Doha do believe that museums are a place for debate,
is listening in and he’s sending an e-mail to say that, however we’d like to describe what a museum is. It
“I hope, given the topic that we are discussing certainly must be a place for debate and that debate
today, that museums should continue to be a place goes right through the institution and goes right
for debate. We should at least end with a note of through the entire workings from strategy right
confidence to say that the museum is a place for through to practice. On the board we’ve been dis-
debate.” We can discuss a lot about technical cussing whether we could come out of this session
aspects about how this takes place. You know, with some kind of guidelines or universal principles.
whether within the museum, or outside the museum My feeling is that is a resound “no.” But what we
or, whether in the exchanges with artists, or whether should come out is precisely what I think Patricia
within the museum’s programming, so on and so summed up so well for us, which is the need for
forth. But, as we deconstruct how some of these good strategic approach for strategies to deal with
values are based in specific cultures, be it American these situations as they occur and to think through,
or whatever. Some of these maybe because of the with knowledge and an awareness about our own
institutional history of museums that we’re not very local context. How we can deal with self-censorship?
reflexive about. Whatever it is, let us remember that How we can deal with power struggles? How we

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can deal with community responses to what it is that fantastic artists. So please join me in thanking all of
we do? At the end of the day I think we are all our panellists today. Thank you.
incredibly lucky to work in an amazing sector with

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Sunday
November 8, 2015

Day 2
How has modernism been
perceived globally?

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CI MA M 2015 Annual Conference Proceedings

Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Keynote 2. Shigemi Inaga, Professor, International Research

Center for Japanese Studies, Nichibunken, Kyoto; Post-Graduate
University for Advanced Studies, Sokendai, Hayama, Japan.
Short Bio:

Shigemi Inaga, Professor, International Research Center for Japanese

Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto, as well former Dean of the School of Cultural and Social Studies, Graduate
University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai). Born in 1957, Shigemi Inaga grew up in the city of Hiroshima.
Graduating from the Masters course of Comparative Literature and Culture in the University of Tokyo
(Komaba Campus), he obtained a Ph.D. at l’Université Paris VII in 1988. Assistant at the Department of
Liberal Arts (1988–90), he served as Associate Professor at Mie University (1990–1997), before being
appointed to his current position in 1997 and obtaining full professorship in 2004. His main publications
include La Crépuscule de la peinture; Lutte posthume d’Édouard Manet (1997); The Orient of the Painting,
from Orientalism to Japonisme (1999); and The Painting on the Edge, Studies in Trans-national Asian
Modernities (2013). Academic proceedings he has edited include Crossing Cultural Borders (1999);
Traditional Japanese Arts and Crafts in the 21st Century (2005); and Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and
Thinking (2010). Professor Inaga is also co-editor of Vocabulaire de la spatialité japonaise (2013) and
recipient of the Suntory Academic Award, Shibusawa-Claudel Prize and the Ringa Award for the Promotion
of Art Studies (all 1997), as well as the Watsuji Tetsuro Culture Prize (2001).

Presentation: Haptic sensations beyond the visual atmospheric disturbance in global cultural history?
culture: Redefining “modernity” in museology so as How to survey, then, the collisions of “the West and
to readjust the digitalized global scale model. the Rest” in a global weather forecast under the
current climatic change? If the metaphor of hydrody-
namics is relevant, can we really rely upon digital
Summary technology-based AI innovations? To which destina-
tion can modernity lead us, at the price of analogous
The talk is expected to focus on the ways modernity and haptic thinking, at the risk of forgetting its origin
has been perceived globally. Yet the task contains from “digitus”?
two basic preliminary questions: What does Here are some of the questions I want to
“modernity” mean and what is indicated by “global”? address within the 60-minute time limit.
Without entering into philosophical discussions, the
paper will examine firstly some concrete cases Visibility in question
where the dichotomy between “Western modernity”
and “non-Western tradition” causes conflict. Let us begin with a specific topic. The museum as an
Secondly, it will analyze “globalization” from a exhibition space puts special emphasis on visibility
critical point of view. “Critical” here implies the and visual perception. The pursuit of visuality has
questioning of the overwhelming schema of “the been made at the detriment of other senses. Among
West and the Rest”; an opposition that excludes, by other senses, the auditory is often integrated into
definition, third parties, i.e. the realities of non-West- audio-visual video projections. Fortunately, several
ern modernity. Is it, then, our purpose to search for museums’ restaurants are eminently more popular
“other histories” vis-à-vis the so-called mainstream than their special exhibitions. But is the museum a
history of modernity? How to integrate the formers place to satisfy our palate and olfactory appetites?
to the later? Or do they remain incompatible with And it is rare that we appreciate the perfume in art
the later? Does the alternative mean alternation or museums. Yet the most segregated among the five
alteration? Do any attempts at non-Western moder- senses must be the tactile one: in most museum
nities lead us to outreach or outrage? Is this all a exhibitions it is forbidden to touch the exhibits.
question of geography or geology? How about the Among Japanese public museums, Shizuoka
ecological conditions if “modernity” is a kind of Prefectural Museum, which is famous for its August

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Rodin collection, must be one of the rare exceptions: are taken into custody; the safety of the objects is
it provides visually disabled visitors with special secured at the price of the tactile experience. Losing
corners to directly touch several sculptures. But the chance of direct contact, they are doomed to lie
more often than not, touching exhibits is not allowed lifelessly in a cemetery, which we arrogantly and
for safety reasons: either to protect the exhibits proudly call the museum.This is, in brief, how
from possible damage or to avoid unexpected Okakura Kakuzo, also known as Tenshin (1863–
injuries among visitors.As a result, the gaze is 1913), the famous author of The Book of Tea (1906)
intensified so as to compensate for the lack of and the first curator of Asian Art in the Boston Art
tactile experiences. This is somewhat like the Museum, perceived Western modernity. Modernism
opposite of the lobster, whose lack of eyesight is means here the forced integration of non-Western
replaced by tactile antenna. Yet the visual cannot items into Western museology and the reclassifica-
perfectly replace the lack of tactile. We are no tion of non-Western cultures through the template of
longer allowed to make the synthetic experience of Western aesthetic categories. In the heyday of
synesthesia that previous art lovers could enjoy in imperialism, Okakura uttered a warning against the
their private spaces. Just take the case of tea hasty standardization of artistic values. The current
ceremony. Tea bowls should be appreciated not by era of globalization may also mean the unification of
visual observation from a distance alone; you first international measurements and enforcement of a
have to feel the warmth of the liquid within the bowl hegemonic global standard.2015 marks the seventi-
and smell the tea, before then tasting the bitter eth anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Second
green liquid by touching the fringe of the bowl with World War. In this commemorative year, should we
your own lips.In the case of the tea ceremony, the repeat Okakura’s warning, delivered at the
drinking of the tea is but a small part of the entire beginning of the twentieth century, already one
process of appreciating art that invites you into the hundred and ten years ago? “The average
inner space of a tea house: strolling in the garden, Westerner […] was wont to regard Japan as
admiring the flower arrangement, judging the choice barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of
of the pieces of artwork in the alcove (tokonoma) peace; he calls her civilized since she began to
for decoration… The sound of the boiling water and commit wholesale slaughter on the Manchurian
the smell of the tatami mat as well as the sound of battlefield11.”In this “dusk of humanity” (the last
the wind outside the tea-room, and even the rhythmi- phrase of Awakening of Japan, published in 1905,
cal hopping cadence of the birds on the roof… All under the Russo-Japan War), Okakura cherished in
help the visitor to deepen and attune his or her a tiny cup of tea the hope of seeing “a cup of human-
aesthetic sensibility, so as to prepare themselves for ity.”Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished curators
the approaching ceremony. You may be astonished gathering here from art museums all over the world,
to notice that in the calm of the tea house your let me ask this question: How can we treat this “cup
senses are intensified to such an extraordinary of humanity” properly? This is the question I wish to
degree of hyper sensitivity that even a tiny metal pin share with you.Tactility and blindnessTwo weeks
dropped in the corridor outside the tea room makes ago I was invited to Jeju Island in Korea. There I
you an astoundingly loud sound in your ear.Those could visit Jeju Provincial Art Museum. At the
tea bowls and other utensils must be feeling sorry entrance of the building there was a huge concrete
and sad for themselves once they are put behind the wall with strange silver bowls forming several
glass of the museum display cases. How unhappy groups of dots. I wondered for a while, trying to
they must be, deprived of the chances to be touched guess what they were. Finally I noticed that they
and cherished by the tea masters. We now under- were huge braille points, that is, letters prepared for
stand what kind of cruelty we are committing in blind people. With this recognition, then, another
museum management by segregating these items question came to my mind: Who on earth can read
from their beloved users and isolating them in the this Braille? Needless to say, they were too big for
treasury we call museums. Immanuel Kant was blind people to touch them and perceive the
entirely wrong when he declared that aesthetic value meaning. Most ordinary people, that is, people
resides in the lack of practical usage. Contrary to his without a visual impairment, would not be capable of
assumption, “disinterestedness” (Interesselosigkeit) deciphering the characters, either. For whom and
here means the death of aesthetic values. for what use were these letters inscribed on the
Deprivation from the everyday context of practical wall, then? I may be wrong but I came anyhow to a
usage does not necessarily guarantee treasured
objects a higher ranking in artistic appreciation. Far
from it, conservation in a museum and enshrinement
behind a glass showcase may well be synonymous
with the death sentence for the heretofore cherished
objects. For the sake of conservation, the objects 1 Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, 1906; Stone Bridge
Classics, 2006: p 6.

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provisionary triple observations.2 Firstly, the things merit of touching, the feeling of tie.3 This is also an
and objects used by humans have their proper size ordinary experience in the tea ceremony. We can
and measurement. Unless we respect them, they are use the bowls and utensils, which our ancestors
doomed to uselessness. Our perception is inevitably used even several hundred years ago. We can share
conditioned by this measurement and our sensations the same tactile experience that the tea masters and
are rigorously subordinate to these conditions. even founding fathers would have made several
Secondly, without respecting this proper measure- centuries before us. Five years ago, in 2010, there
ment, a tactile experience cannot be superimposed was a marvelous exhibition at the Kyoto National
on a visual experience. What we can perceive by Museum, The World of Buddhist Kasaya. Kasaya
touching cannot always be perceived visually, and means the garments worn by Buddhist priests. The
vice versa. The out-of-scale Braille eloquently Japanese subtitle for the exhibition was actually
conveys this message. By observing babies we used as the main title in English: Transmitting Robes,
recognize that the coupling between touching and Linking Minds. In Japanese there is a poetic rhyming
seeing is orchestrated progressively so as to adjust of “ko” and “tsu”: koromo o tsutae, kokoro o
kinesthesia. The failure to acquire this skill may tsunagu.4 However, linking the minds of generations
cause a serious disability (as in the case of cerebral by transmitting robes is not a custom limited only to
palsy).Thirdly, however, the message conveyed by Buddhist practice. Also in the West, hand-woven
the enlarged Braille letters is itself handicapped, due bridal lacework, for example, is transmitted from
to their hypertrophy, since most viewers who can grandmother to mother and from mother to daughter
visually perceive the work do not recognize the for their wedding, generation after generation. The
message. What they could recognize at best is their textiles for the special purpose used in the hand-wo-
own lack of literacy in Braille. They (including ven pieces are painstaking prepared and
myself) would understand that they could not under- “manu”-factured with care. The amount of earnest
stand the inscription. On the contrary, those who labor as well as the precious time spent for the
lack the ability to perceive visually are not able to confection are accumulated, concentrated, and
gain access to the message conveyed tactilely literally woven into the textile, making it a privileged
simply because they are out of proportion. Those outcome of devotion, one that is worthy of transmis-
Braille letters too large to touch are, by definition, sion from ancestors to posterity.To some extent this
untouchable. What would be the lesson these veneration of transmitted treasures resembles the
overgrown letters give us? This artwork, by its very treatment of sacred relics in Christianity, especially
uselessness due to its lack of proportion, had the in the Catholic Church. And yet one basic difference
merit of showing us the meaningfulness of proper remains. In the case of Christianity, if I am not
measurement. Am I now subscribing to the very mistaken, it is rare that believers directly touch the
opinion of Immanuel Kant I have just criticized? By relics; they are enshrined in a crystal case for
their uselessness, the over-sized Braille letters beholding and veneration. In the Buddhist practice
made visible what had remained otherwise invisible; of transmitting kesa garments from master to
they made perceptible what usually remained unper- disciples, touching and wearing the historical relics
ceivable or unperceived. The insensitivity of the constitute one of the essential factors for guarantee-
visually-able, “ordinary” observer is revealed by this ing the link between generations. Some fragments
unreadable Braille letter panel: viewers now recog- of the ancient garments of the priests are known to
nized how arrogant their “normal” visual experience have been recycled into the cloths (shifuku) used to
would have been. People without a visual impair- wrap the tea caddy or the tea bowl. Wrapping the
ment noticed their own hidden and blind arrogance precious objects by the ancient cloth transmitted
by noticing their own lack of literacy in raised dots. I from the ancestors also has meaning. The cloths are
personally have to confess my own disability, as I named shifuku, which also coincidentally is a
am not capable of “reading” raised dots as letters by homonym for “beatitude” (Dan Fumi, a famous
touching them. I always find it extraordinary that Japanese actress and initiator of the tea ceremony,
people with a so-called “visual impairment” or even developed the idea of ai no shifuku: “cloth dyed
“disability” can distinguish and recognize each of by indigo (ai),” which evokes “the beatitude of love
these cells of dots as letters.Transmission and (ai).” 5The careful preparation of the garment for the
linkage Let me develop one more observation on the tea set is no less important than the ceremony itself,
3 For the Japanese notion of “touching,” see Sakabe Megumi,
2 The author of the work is Ko Sangum, and the inscription is from “Quelques remarques sur le mot japonais ‘fureru’,” traduit en
a poem by Lee Senjin praising his beloved land and the français par Kazuo Masuda, in Aesthetica et Calonologia,
seashore. The work was installed at the inauguration of the Festschrift for Tomonobu Imamichi, Hokuseisha, 1988, pp.
museum in 2009. It turned out, however, that even the museum 227–38.
curators do not know how the original poem is abridged in the 4 Transmitting Robes, Linking Mind: The World of Buddhist
braille point version. My thanks to Lee Kyunghee, Lee Yunhee Kasaya, Kyoto National Museum, 2010.
and professor Lee Eung Soo for providing detailed information 5 . Dan Fumi, Dan Fumi no Cha no Yu Hajime (Initiation to the Tea
about the work. Ceremony), Fujin Gahô-sha, 2008, pp. 100–01.

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and much more time-consuming. The manual constitute in any sense a work of fine art, nor does it
stitching labor is painful at first but absorbing. To participate in the appreciation of art. It is superflu-
“take time” in Japanese (tema o kakeru) contains the ous and not worthy of preservation.6 And yet here
words for “hand” (te) and “interval” (ma), both again I have one intuitive question to this self-evi-
spatial and temporal, implying the importance of dent practice in modernist museology, which I may
repetitive manual operation conducted with meticu- call the ideology of exhibitionnisme, to borrow the
lous attention and care. Wrapped by hand in French connotation of the term. As Jacques Derrida
garments with historical value, the tea bowls surely has finely analyzed, ergon (an art work within) is not
feel “the beatitude of love." The same is true for the self-standing without its garment and support of the
wooden box that contained the bowl. Being the parergon.7 Is exhibiting the naked work to the
eyewitness of the destiny of the bowl it protects, the curious gaze the best and the brightest way of
box accounts for the occupant’s historical back- museum exhibition? Is uncensored nudism the best
ground (famous bowls have individual names and policy? Is the (voluntary) nudity or the (forced)
are almost personified) as well as the vicissitudes it nakedness (to reuse Kenneth Clark’s terminology) of
has experienced until now. The old half-broken the exhibits the only and the ultimate purpose of
boxes are often as precious as the things it contains. display in a museum?7. Jacques Derrida, La Vérité
The handwritten inscription on the box is the cal- en peinture, Flammarion, 1978, esp. pp. 63–135.
ligraphic record of the master’s hand, and it also Exhibition and veiling of ghostsSekine Hideo, the
serves as the diploma of authentication. (We should artist internationally renowned for Phase-Earth (or
remember en passant that calligraphy in East Asia is Topology-Earth, 1968), exhibited several years ago
often no less important than treasured painting or at the Kyoto University Museum a vase-like stone
sculptures, as it holds and carries the author’s object with the inscription: kore wa mata nanika to
individual spirituality in the title of a fully fledged mireba omou tsubo. The translation of the title is
artist belonging to the literati class. But this high close to impossible because of the multiple
appreciation of the calligraphy in the East Asia is not examples of wordplay, embedded in deep cultural
easily understood in the West, partly because of layers. My friend Timothy Kern managed to translate
indecipherability and partly because of the relatively it as follows: If you’re wondering what this is, it’s my
low social status of calligraphers in the West, who omou-tsubo (thinking vessel, or conniving) in which
were regarded either as scribes or as craftsmen of you are already trapped. Indeed this vase-like object
illumination.)In the Victoria & Albert Museum is not a vase; if you try to see what it contains, you
(excuse me for naming it), as well as in many old are already duped. The “container” is made of solid
Western museums, however, the boxes were often black andesite granite. Its outer appearance seems
thrown away and lost long ago, the garments were like a hallow vessel, but actually is solid block of a
stripped off from the tea sets and classified sepa- stone.8 If the viewer mistakenly thinks there is an
rately in the textile section (without specifying its empty cavity inside, then it truly is the omou-tsubo,
usage), and the caddies were put in the lac- the trick of the conniving artist. This fake container
quer-ware collection (together with other cannot contain anything except the deception of
lacquer-ware for different purposes), while the tea which the viewers are the predestined victims. This
bowls were forced to “undress” and reveal their is by itself an ironic message to the exhibition: What
naked skin to the curious observers (who peep into on earth can the exhibition contain in the space of
the glass showcase, without being able to touch an exhibition hall? And this ironic rejection of “con-
them). The original integrity of the objects is dis- taining” was by itself “contained” in a glass case in
mantled and lost once for all, a forced sacrifice for the museum. After the end of the exhibition, at the
the benefit of “rational classification” and for the moment of removal, a professional photographer
profit of dis-contextualized visual scrutiny. Though it purposelessly put sheets of shadow screen cloth
may sound like a caricature, this is the reality of nonchalantly on this glass case. It so happened that
modernism in museum display. (It is only in postmod- the trick pot was half concealed by this unintentional
ern practice that the original state of non-Western veil. I still remember the thrill I could not help feeling
cultures has been partly re-contextualized and when I absent-mindedly glanced at the object in the
restored, as it was once intended by the Japanese at
the Phoenix Pavilion in the Chicago World Fair in 6 One funny anecdote will suffice Robert Rauschenberg’s
artworks were once almost put in the waste box during
1893.)It is often said that wrapping is only a unpacking, when the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka,
practical matter so as to facilitate the transportation Japan, was preparing, ironically enough, a show named Ibunka
of objects. Once the transportation is completed, it e no manazashi (Les Regards portés aux cultures des Autres)
(The Gaze on Other Cultures), 1997.
is enough to remove the wrapping and throw it away 7 Jacques Derrida, La Vérité en peinture, Flammarion, 1978, esp.
so as to take the object out of it. The term “exhibi- pp. 63–135.
tion” in English or “Ausstellung” in German literally 8 Inage Shigemi, “Spirits emanating from Objecthood—Or the
reveals this fact: the wrapping itself cannot Destiny of Informed Materiality,” in Monokeiro, Bigaku Shuppan
(Japanese-English Bilingual edition), 2010, pp. 64–82.

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glass box by chance, half hidden under the shadow spirit, a specific museum of the nation’s dead (be it
of the sheets carelessly laid on the glass case. The illusory, political, or whatsoever). As is well known,
object was living! It is true that veiling tends to give the wooden container has been demolished and the
an illusion that a hidden object has some secret, structure moved back and forth between the neigh-
mysterious, or magical power not to be easily boring places at intervals of two decades ever since
revealed to people without initiation. Yet I wonder if the shrine’s inauguration in 690. Any material conti-
it is really and simply an illusion. One should also nuity is rejected by this periodical dismantling of the
admit that a similar—somewhat mystical—effect architecture; only the spiritual content is supposedly
could not be obtained were it not for the removable transmitted from generation to generation through
textile veil: a solid iron coffin cannot contain any the ritual of succession. The sanctuary is haunted by
mystery.The location of the show was also not the spirits, according to native belief. The empty
innocent. Kyoto University Museum is a kind of vacant place (named Kodenchi), located beside the
mausoleum of objects, both natural and human. In current wooden pillars and the thatched roofs,
the main entrance, we see in the natural history indicates the lost origins as well as the coming (not
section a fossilized head of an elephant from an yet realized) future. The periodical repetition and
extinct species (excavated by Heinrich Edmond reproduction evokes the image of the double spiral
Naumann, 1854–1927) and an ancient sarcophagus of DNA, reproducing itself as a token of the succes-
at the entrance of the human history section. The sion of life by way of metabolism.9 Here lies also one
pair reminds us of the fact that the museum is itself ultimate strategy of invisibility. The lack of visibility
a huge tomb, a coffin or a casket or rather a and the rejection of visuality in the spiritual
morgue, a container where the dead bodies of dimension engender an illusion of impenetrable
nature and human history are displayed, like mystery and intimate secrecy within the invisible
cadavers for inspection. It was in this universe of the empty space. According to one English guidebook
dead that we decided to organize an exhibition of edited by Basil Hall Chamberlain at the end of the
contemporary art. By law (de jure) the museum nineteenth century, a frustrated English tourist is
should not contain animate objects. And yet the said to have complained that at Ise Shrine “there is
resurrection of the dead was happening around the nothing to see, and they [i.e. the native Japanese]
fake container, the omou-tsubo or “thinking vessel.” would not let you see it.”10 It is in this tautological
Secretly, en cachette, and without our knowing it, black box of double negation that the mysteries
the inanimate turns into the animate, in the glass dwell and they are secretly whispering and watching
showcase, half concealed by the photographer’s us, without revealing their presence to visibility.
masking cover sheet. The fake container, which Instead of revelation or exhibition, why not make an
cannot contain anything, was the generator of this investigation into what is hidden or not exposed if
inside-out operation.I don’t care if the thrill that we take up the task of globally questioning Western
suddenly gripped me was real or illusory; yet, the modernism? What has Western modernism failed to
fact remains that an exhibition can offer some grasp? What is left out of the criteria of Western
unexpected effects by not revealing objects under a modernism when it imposes a measurement global-
spotlight, but rather hiding them from the observers’ ly?I remember visiting Marcel Duchamp’s
gaze. Many ethnological and art museums are said Posthumous Work in Philadelphia for the first time in
to be haunted, and stories are frequently told—at 1979. Many visitors then still did not notice that
least, behind the scenes—that ghosts have been behind the dirty wooden wall in front of them there
seen floating in the storage rooms. It is not my was something hidden. The shabby wall has a peep
intention not to deny or clarify such “irrational” hole, from which they were invited to have a look at
hearsay. And yet, it should not be forgotten that the Duchamp’s last work, Étant donnés. Duchamp’s
museum also contains, without noticing it, the hidden intentional tactic of hiding his secret is highly individ-
side of invisible mysteries that modernism—or the ual and mischievous. To what extent is Duchamp’s
naïve belief in the progress of science and visibil- final work comparable to the sanctuary of Ise
ity—has suppressed under the realm of the dead. Shrine? If the former hides the sex of a naked young
The use of lighting for the sake of visual displays has girl (obviously a hidden reference to Gustave
also intensified the dark side of the invisible world. Courbet’s Origine du Monde), the latter is equipped
What has been oppressed and repressed by the with a no less intentional but fully institutionalized
mains current of Western modernism is now secretly and awfully austere void, the realm of nothingness.
resurfacing, launching covert resurrections in Utsuwa or container-receptacleShirakawa Yoshio, a
museums without being obviously noticed. Is it a contemporary Japanese artist famous for his
form of revenge? Or the objects imprisoned in the 9 See more in detail, Inaga Shigemi, « La vie transitorie des
darkness of storage fighting back?Ise Shrine made formes», in Jean-Sébastien Cluzel (ed.), Le sanctuaire d'Ise
its sixty-second transfer in 2013. The shrine may be — Récit de la 62e reconstruction, Editions Mardaga, Oct. 2015.
regarded as a reservoir of the imaginary ancestral 10 Basil Hall Chamberlain, “Ise” in A Handbook for the Traveller in
Japan, 3rd ed, 1891.

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documentation of Dada in Japan, once made a he pejoratively identified himself. His generation was
tactful exhibition. He placed Marcel Duchamp’s strongly inspired by the American-Japanese sculptor
Fontaine side by side with the lavatory reserved for Isamu Noguchi in the 1950s. And yet, Yagi did not
the use of the imperial family during their visit to the stop asking the question whether or not the empty
Riverside Pavilion Rinkokaku in the city of Maebashi. cavity remains inside the ceramic piece (uchi wa
According to Shirakawa, the juxtaposition is justified utsuro ka?). Western sculptors do not care about
as both Marcel Duchamp and the pavilion were the void within their sculptures. In bronze casting,
“born” in the same year of 1887. This contempora- the empty cavity is devoid of any significance; in
neity in contingence leads us to a couple of marble curving, only the surface of the mass deter-
questions with regards to the globalization of mines the value of the piece. Moreover, any
modernism. Let us now briefly examine the notion of sculpture worthy of the name should emanate a
the artwork (putting the “autonomy of art” into self-standing message of its own so as to be
question) as well as that of the copy and the evaluated. So-called ceramic art in the West tried to
readymade (the myth of “originality vs. copy” follow the same way, liberating itself from the
de-mythicized).Apart from being a domestic tool for constraint of the manufacturing industry. To be
everyday life, the porcelain “urinal” is also a recep- socially recognized as a ceramic artist, one was
tacle or container, a functional object to catch liquid expected to rid oneself of the yoke of the craftsman-
excretion. Usually, it is not merely because of its ship of “arts and crafts.”12 However, for the
indecent role that the urinal cannot claim to be a Japanese ceramic artists of Yagi’s generation, the
piece of fine art; rather, porcelain wares are treated same emancipation from the material was identical
in a derogatory fashion as its functionality and utility with the self-negation of one’s previous career as a
deprive it of autonomous status as an aesthetic craftsman. Accordingly, his ceramic creation, deeply
objects. The same is true of ceramic wares for inspired by Joan Miró (1950s), or Lucio Fontana and
domestic use: So long as they serve practical Marcel Duchamp (1960s), and in acute concurrence
purposes, they are classified as applied arts, in an with Jasper Johns (1970s), forces him to constant
inferior and subordinate category in social hierarchy. self-mutilation. He confesses that creation means for
Pitchers, dishes, or vessels have not been qualified him inflicting new wounds on himself; his works
as highly as sculpture. So long as they are useful, an covered with cicatrices, one after another. This
object cannot be regarded as a piece of fine art. And passivity (to infliction) must be double: So as to
once it becomes useless, all of a sudden it can claim emancipate himself, he had to be passively exposed
the right to be treated as a work of art.11 This to the influences of Western modernism, coming
aesthetic hierarchy, which again Immanuel Kant from without; and the very emancipation causes
justified in Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), has been mental as well as physical injuries within. It was in
maintained from the era of high modernism up until this double bind—i.e., attachment to, and detach-
the advent of postmodernism, despite the advent of ment from, the ceramic ware craftsman—that Yagi
the design age since the mid-1920s. Western searched for the ultimate limit of the genre, which
modernity has not questioned the classical hierarchy has been called “sculpture” in the West.His historical
of fine arts. The supremacy of painting, sculpture work The Walk of Mr. Samsa (1954) marks his
and architecture was maintained even during the take-off from traditional ceramics. Faithful to the
height of modernism under the regime of colonial convention, Yagi first makes a spherical vessel,
empires. Furthermore, the bifurcation between the shaped by the potter’s wheel. But he brutally cuts
fine arts and applied arts has been replaced during the raw vessel horizontally into a wide cylinder. The
that period by the differentiation of design from the circular band without the bottom is simply useless,
decorative arts. (It is suffice to think about the as it can no longer contain any liquid. Then, contrary
ideology put forward by a Le Corbusier or an Adolf to the usual horizontal position of the wheel, Yagi
Loose, who both manifested vehement hatred raises the circle to a vertical position so that it can
toward anything “decorative,” while “tribal arts” roll around like a caterpillar track. To this
from Africa and Oceania still suffered from the monocycle, the ceramist adds, like a parasite,
hierarchical discrimination in the category of multiple open tubes that, again, no longer play any
“primitive art.”)However, this scheme cannot be practical role. They are neither vases for flowers,
automatically and unconditionally applicable to nor earthenware drainpipes. They reject any rational
non-Western cultural spheres. Let us take up the explanation of their being there, except for the fact
case of Yagi Kazuo (1918–1979). A representative that they eventually serve as legs to prevent the
avant-garde ceramist, Yagi could not get rid of his vertical wheel from falling down sideways. As if to
origin as “the maker of rice bowls” (chawanya) as
12 Inaga Shigemi, “Les Traces d’une blessure créatrice: Yagi Kazuo
11 Cf. Inaga Shigemi, “Either Useful or Useless: Reviving entre la tradition japonaise et l’avant-garde occidentale”Japan
Inventiveness.” 7th Kitakyushu Biennale, Kitakyushu Municipal Review, No.19, International Research Center for Japanese
Museum of Art, March 31, 2003, pp. 13–19. Studies, 2007, pp. 133–59.

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turn this absurd metamorphosis of ceramic ware avant-garde—according to Western criteria—is as a

into a disguised avant-garde sculpture (which Yagi matter of course automatically classified as its
calls obuje yaki or “object coming out from the kiln secondary imitation. And the products not to be
fire”), Yagi borrows the title from Franz Kafka’s classified (or classifiable) in the Western theoretical
famous short story about a man who finds himself drawer are lumped together under the label of
transformed into a cockroach, against his will.13 To “traditional” works. Thus the non-Western world is
become a Western style sculptor was synonymous logically deprived of the right to create an authentic
for Yagi to becoming a cockroach. Yagi has to avant-garde work of its own (and of its own right).14
destroy the notion of the container in ceramics so as This is not a caricatured sketch of what happened at
to absorb and contain the modernist notion of the Le Japon des avant-garde show at the Centre
artistic autonomy; this “receptacle” of the Western Pompidou in 1986–1987.15 The frustration at this
idea of modernism, named Mr. Samsa, is achieved Western-centrism (which was still dominant in the
when the very receptacle—utsuwa—has lost its second half of the 1980s, during the worldwide
practical function as a receptacle. Nevertheless, the bubble economy) seems to have erupted on the
emptiness within the ceramic piece remains intact, occasion of the Primitivism in 20th Century Art
working as the generator at the core of Yagi’s exhibition, held at the Museum of Modern Art in New
creativity. Vessels are receptive and made of a York in 1984. Yet it is not my intention to blame (in
passive disposition as container. And yet, the con- the manner of James Clifford) the West for the
taining capacity may manifest itself positively, economic usurpation, the symbolic monopolization,
activating and animating the autonomous plastic and the aesthetic self-appropriation of non-Western
form. Yagi’s struggle consisted in this inside-out “others” onto this unilateral balance sheet (which
code-switching: from the passive voice of receptiv- obviously lacks any bilateral balance at all).16 Nor
ity (by a ceramic craftsman) to the active voice of am I eager to disagree with Susan Vogel in her stern
aggressive affirmation (by a ceramic artist), the distinction between the ethnological museum and
ceramic ware had to undergo a drastic metamor- the art museum for the sake of promoting African
phosis, a transformation. At the historical contemporary art(s).17 Here let me introduce some
crossroads of modernism and tradition, and at the basic vocabulary in the Japanese language. In old
chiasma of Western and Eastern values, Yagi Japanese utsutsu or utsushi means “the real,” but
witnessed the major transubstantiation ceramics utsushi also designate “copy.” The term utsushi is
were experiencing in the 1950s up to the end of the also close to utsuro, “void” or “vacancy.” A recepta-
1970s. Up until his death in 1979, his career as well cle is called utsuwa, suggesting the vacancy (utsu)
as work is the incarnation of this overwhelming of the container (wa or ha). The vacant concavity is
transition, where the borderline of ergon and a necessary condition for transporting liquid, grain,
parergon was constantly in mutual erosion. How to or any other solid materials. The verb “transmit” or
evaluate his work? Here lies one of the tasks that “remove” is called utsusu, which would be impossi-
museums in the era of globalization have to carry ble without the vessel (utsuwa). It must be already
out.Utsushi beyond the dichotomy of original vs. evident that these three notions—“real” and
copyThis brings us to the dichotomy between the “vacancy” (utsushi), “vessel” (utsu-wa), and
original and the copy. More often than not, the “removal” or “transport” (utsusu)—share the same
avant-garde of non-Western nations has been etymological root. The semantic associations are no
accused of being the secondary and inferior copy of
the Western original. If the West is capable of
creating the prototype of an avant-garde, the 14 Inaga Shigemi, “L’impossible avant-garde au Japon,” (1987), in
non-Western Rest of the world is only allowed to Alain le Pichon et Moussa Sow (ed.), Le Renversement du Ciel,
Parcours d’anthropologie réciproque, CNRS diteions, 2011,
reproduce secondhand, ready-made copies. As in 369–380. An English translation is in doxa, Issue 09, May,
the cases of Japonisme and Primitivism, the Western 2010, pp. 82–89.
re-appropriation of non-Western sources has not 15 A similar tendency can clearly observed in the field of philoso-
been criticized, although the non-Western sources, phy. See Inaga Shigemi, “Philosophy, Ethics and Aesthetics in
the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere: Receptions of the Western
be they Japanese, African, or Oceanian, could not Ideas and Reactions to the Western Cultural Hegemony,” Inaga
claim to be the original or the originator of the Shigemi ed., The 38th International Research Symposium:
Western avant-garde. The mechanism is quite Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting
Visions of “Asia” under the Colonial Empires, International
simple. In the case of the Japanese avant-garde, Research Center for Japanese Studies, March 31, 2011, pp.
what can be recognizable (and recognized) as 31–45.
16 James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture, Twentieth-Century
13 Inaga Shigemi, “ Modern Japanese Arts and Crafts around Ethnography, Literature and Art, Harvard University Press,
Kyoto, from Asai Chu to Yagi Kazuo, with special Reference to 1988.
Their Contact with the West, 1900–1954,” Inaga Shigemi and 17 Cf. Inaga Shigemi, “Bricolage: Towards a Scrapture: A Proposal
Patricia Fister (eds.), Traditional Japanese Art and Crafts in the of a New Concept,” Critical Interventions (Journal of African
21st Century, International Research Center for Japanese Art History and Visual Culture), Number 9/10, Spring 2012, pp.
Studies, 2005, pp. 47–72. 49–62.

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less unconvincing.18 It must also be indicated that lost secret to the present time was what utsushi
during the medieval era in Japan, the idea of the meant for ceramic craftsmen.This high reputation of
“real” (utsushi) began to connote apparently the utsushi seems to have been destabilized by the
opposite term of “absence.” Under the influence of drastic paradigm shift during the period of rapid
Buddhism, utsushi-mi, or carnal existence in the Westernization, which took place in the second half
sense of incarnation, became interchangeable with of the nineteenth century in Japan. With the creation
ushishi-mi, or the body devoid of the soul. Utsusemi, of new patent regulations in 1885, technical secrets
literally a cicada’s empty and semi-transparent shell, have been progressively registered as legal patents.
happened to have a similar pronunciation, and it The patented pieces naturally gained authenticity.
strongly evoked the ephemerality and the transience This shift in the legal system inevitably induced a
of our existence. The “real body” (utsushimi) and the deterioration of the status of utsushi in the market as
“cast-off skin” or “slough” (utsusemi) are nothing but well as in society at large. The once-prestigious
two sides of the same coin. Indeed, the “real” and utsushi or copied pieces may now be persecuted as
the “phantom” may be the face and reverse sides of shameful fakes. An utsushi may face accusations of
the same substance in the process of the intermina- forgery or fined as counterfeit.19 The famous Einin
ble transmigration of the soul. Our body is an empty vase scandal, which happened immediately after the
vessel, like the cicada’s empty shell, in which the Second World War, may be understood as one of
soul dwells for a short moment of physical existence the major aftereffects of this change in value. The
before departing to the realm of the spirits. This is copies (utsushi) that a ceramist produced to show
neither “original” nor “unique” to Japan: Similar his excellence in skill were circulated in the antiquar-
ideas are also known to be developed among the ian market as genuine historical pieces. The
Pythagorean School in ancient Greece. (Soma sema question of their authenticity led to a scandal impli-
in Greek means “the body is the tomb.”)The brief cating an eminent potter and a high-ranking
etymological and semantic exercise above will allow connoisseur. Looking backward from now, however,
us to propose a new model. This model would serve, it is curious to note that they eventually gained
if not to entirely “invalidate,” then at least to “evis- greater world fame and authority thanks to this
cerate” to a certain degree, the Western binary infamous incident.ConclusionWe have briefly
opposition between the original and the copy. In examined some of the basic criteria behind
fact, the pair of utsuru (intransitive: remove, change, modernism in museology from the perspective of
shift, mount, catch, spread) and utsusu (transitive: globalization. Firstly, in opposition to the supremacy
copy, imitate, reflect, infect, depict) cover a huge of the visual, I have proposed the rehabilitation of
semantic field, embracing such notions as copy, the tactile and haptic experience. Secondly, we have
duplicate, replace, exchange, succeed, and even detected “aspect blindness” in visual literacy, to use
possess and haunt. In traditional Kabuki theater, an Wittgenstein’s term, in the case of an enlarged
actor is part of a family lineage of performers and is braille points sculpture. Thirdly, so as to become
highly praised when he accomplishes the art of his aware of our own mental “blindness” we have
predecessor. Gei ga utsuru, or “the art of the prede- searched for the possibility of linkage with ancestral
cessor is copied-transmitted-mounted,” implies an spirits through contact with transmitted material. In
almost magical sense of reincarnation or posses- this linkage, we remarked on the important role of
sion, as if the actor were haunted by his ancestors’ textiles with the tactile sensation. At the same time,
spirits.We can certainly detect here a possible fourthly, the relevance of concealing instead of
alternative (among others) to the Western exhibiting was put forward as a possible alternative
obsession with the original and the originality. Let us in display management. For this purpose, a fragile
return to the vessel or utsuwa, the container of the cloth is more efficient than a solid metallic lid. As a
spirit. Among ceramic craftsmen, there was a con- logical consequence of these investigations, we
viction for a long period of time that the technique of have picked up the notion of utsuwa, or recepta-
utsushi, or the art of making the perfect copy of cle-container, as well as that of the utsushi forms of
ancient masterpieces, was worthy of the highest transmission, which encompasses the gap between
praise. Many of the technical achievements that had the original and the copy. On the one hand, because
allowed the realization of marvelous pieces of of its passivity and lack of autonomous Gestaltung,
ceramics or porcelain were already lost; and the the vessel concave container has rarely been recog-
later generations remained incapable of (re-) nized as fine arts in modernist Western art
producing pieces of the same quality with incompa- museums. On the other hand, the binary hierarchical
rably distinguished aesthetic value. Transmitting this opposition between the original and the copy has
18 Inaga Shigemi, «Réceptacle du passage: ou la vie transitoire des
prevented many non-Western creations from
formes et ses empreintes: vers un nouveau paradigme de la obtaining status in Western mainstream museology
transmission spirituelle des formes physiques», Preface pour un
catalogue de l’exposition, du 20 au 24 janvier 2015, Maison de 19 Cf. Inaga Shigemi, “A Pirate’s View of Art History” in Review of
la culture du Japon à Paris. Japanese Culture and Society, Dec. 2014 (to be published).

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and art historical writings. However one should the world would mean the negation of the biological
remark that the “original” cannot be an isolated base of the human species. What would happen
phenomenon but can be ratified only retroactively. In when human intelligence loses the command of our
fact an “original” cannot be recognized as such hands and fingers? One of the most urgent crises
unless it serves as a “prototype” followed by a we have to face in terms of dehumanization is
“series” consisting of its reproductions and creeping into our own hands and fingers. Can
epigones. An “original” cannot claim itself as such museums in the globalized age assume the role of
without leaving a margin for its own ready-made checking and reorienting the one-sidedness of
duplications that are destined to prosper in the Western modernist endeavors in art and technology
posterity.20 Let me finish by manifesting my concern from the past century? Let us remember that we are
at digitalized visualization. With the progress of at the centennial of the First World War, which was
digital engineering, the tactile experience is rapidly the initiator of modernism in art.
shrinking. The marvelous ability of the hands
endowed the human species, was eloquently praised
by Henri Focillon in his Éloge de la main (1943).21
But in the last seventy years, we have already lost
much of the potential for shaping forms manually. I
am curious if the 3D printer can really replace the
ability of human hands. It is true that the keyboard
system has contributed to some extent to increased
finger dexterity, so as to compensate to some extent
for manual regression. But the currently dominant
fingertip input of keyboard letters will be replaced
before long by oral input. And oral input will sooner
or later be taken over, in turn, by direct brain
command (which is partially realized already).
Hands and fingers will be completely “liberated”
from the labor to which they have been preoccupied
since the emergence of the human species. Yet this
“progress” implies a fatal loss. Already half a Visitors touching the reproduced S-D
century ago, as early as 1964–1965, André Leroi- model of the Statue of Monk Kukai
(774–835), Kukai and the Beauty of
Gourhan warned of this tendency toward the atrophy Esoteric Buddhism, Special Exhibition.
of our hands at the dawn of the computer Shizuoka Prefectural Museum, 2015, The
technology.22 Shizuoka Daily News, Sep. 3, 2015
Let us recall one thing. “Digital” does not in
any way mean a binary numeral system. “Digital”
derives from digitus, namely the ten fingers of which
our hands are composed. The decimal numeral
system would perhaps have been inconceivable if
the human species were not equipped with ten
fingers. Ironically enough, current digitalization is
contributing to a separation of our thinking from our
body. The flooding of educational manuals contrib-
utes to the incapacitation of manual skills, while not
really compensating for the very loss. Whatever the
technical progress, our hands and fingers remain
the most privileged and irreplaceable haptic contact
point with the world. Losing our tactile perception of
20 For the problem of “la répétition et la différence” (Gille
Deleuze) in artistic creation in East Asia, see Inaga Shigemi,
“Kegon/Huayan View and Contemporary East Asian Art: A
Methodological Proposal,” Cross Sections Vol.5, The National
Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, March 20, 2013, pp. 2–25.
21 On Focillon’s essay, see Inaga Shigemi, 241–265, “Arts et
métiers traditionnels au Japon face à la Modernité occidentale
(1850–1900): A l’écoute d’Henri Focillon: quelques observations
préliminaires,” Miura Atsushi (ed.) Trajectoires d’allers-retours,
150 ans d’échanges artistiques franco-japonais, Sangensha,
2013, pp. 122–34.
22 André Leroi-Gourhan, Le Gest et la parole, en 2 vols., Albin
Michel, 1964–1965, vol.2, p. 62.

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Storage Room, Ethnologisches Museum

Dahlem, Berlin.
Photo: Shigemi Inaga, Dec. 2013

A work by Ko Sangum after the poem by

Lee Senjin, Entrance, Jeju Provincial
Museum, 2008.
Photo: Shigemi Inaga on Oct. 2015

Ise Shrine, internior, 61st transfer in

1993.
Local Guide magazine, Iseshima, special
Issue, 1993

Tea Caddy Natsume, fully “dressed” for

their “trip” for the tea ceremony.
From Initiation to the fragment of tea
caddy garment, Tanko sha, 1996, p. 3

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“Utsuwa” or “vessel” as a vehicle for the

transmigration of the souls
“Utsushi”—replacement-copy-transla-
tion-metaphore-succession-posses-
sion-haunting.
Yagi Kazuo, Le Promenade de M. And “utsusemi” —“real carnation”
Samsa, 1954 interchangeable with “utsusemi” or
cicada’s empty shell”

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Perspective 01. Hammad Nasar, Head of Research and Programs,

Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.
Short Bio:

Hammad Nasar is a curator, writer, and Head of Research and Programs at Asia Art Archive (AAA), Hong
Kong, where he oversees a broad array of initiatives, many in partnership with leading institutions, including
the Clark Institute, Hong Kong University, the Paul Mellon Centre and MoMA. Formerly based in London,
Nasar co-founded the non-profit arts organization Green Cardamom, and has curated more than 30 exhi-
bitions and programs internationally. These include: Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space,
Johnson Museum, Cornell University (2012) and Nasher Museum, Duke University (2013); Beyond the
Page: The Miniature as Attitude in Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Pacific Asia Museum (2010); Where
Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Whitechapel
Gallery, and Fotomuseum Winterthur (2010); Safavids Revisited, British Museum (2009); and Karkhana:
A Contemporary Collaboration, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2005) and Asian Art Museum, San
Francisco (2006). Nasar plays an advisory role for a number of arts organizations internationally. He also
serves on the Editorial Board of Tate’s journal, Tate etc; and is a jury member for the V&A Museum’s Jameel
Prize, and Art Basel’s crowdfunding partnership with Kickstarter.

Presentation: Pedagogy, bureaucracy and Art, Living Traditions, Saqqakhaneh.2 Miniature:

fashioning a rooted modernism these are practices incubated in the gentle warmth
of contemporaneous conversations from Seoul to
I. Lahore to Guangzhou to Khartoum to Baroda. These
conversations epitomise the work of what Antonio
“How has modernism been perceived globally?” Gramsci termed “organic” intellectuals: artists
feeding off each other’s energy to indulge in formal
The theme for today’s session, hints at an idea experiments, or students extending their teachers’
of the “modern” as something fully formed: intellectual projects.
developed in the avant-garde centers of Paris or Some of the more recent instances of artistic
New York and then paraded out to “provincial” Asia; interest in past practices are not singular occur-
to invite responses that are at best “belated” or at rences, but resonant echoes of earlier
worst “derivative.” twentieth-century efforts rooted in the nation
I will resist the urge to explore this cul-de-sac building agendas of independence or in the collec-
of definitions, accusations and polemics to make two tion building efforts of cosmopolitan centers.
points. First, that modernism has to be constructed This talk is a tentative outline of one such
or fashioned, before it can be perceived. Second, trajectory: that of miniature painting in postcolonial
that these constructions are not stable. India and Pakistan’s most influential art schools—the
Like the grand mud mosques of Timbuktu that Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao
need to be repaired after every rainy season, University, Baroda (Baroda); and the National
modernism too has to be constantly re-fabricated. College of the Arts (NCA) in Lahore.
This fashioning and refashioning often relies on This is a story that is transnational through its
annotating existing accounts of a diverse set of very conception, and forks to reflect the vagaries of
historically specific artistic practices to make new South Asian nation building, and institutional
propositions for “global” art and its histories. contexts. What is more, it is centered on the role of
Calligraphic Abstraction, Dansaekhwa,1 Ink the art school, and more specifically artist/teachers,

1 See Joan Kee, Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the 2 See Shiva Balaghi and Lynn Gumpert, Picturing Iran: Art,
Urgency of Method (Minnesota, 2013), on Korea’s Dansaekhwa Society and Revolution (London, 2002) for more on the
monochrome movement. Both spellings, with a ‘t’ and a ‘d’ are Saqqakhaneh movement, sometimes referred to as “spiritual
commonly used. pop” in Iran.

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in shaping a geographically rooted engagement with Art”—and was a significant influence in shaping the
the modern and the pre-modern, to fuel a wide-rang- practice of more than two generations of Indian
ing contemporary practice. artists associated with the school.4
While both institutions have important Alongside his role at Baroda, Subramanyan
museums—the Baroda Museum and Lahore also served as a consultant for the All India
Museum—associated with them, we will limit our Handloom Board (1961–1966), and joined the Board
present considerations to the art schools of the World Craft Council (1975). His involvement
themselves. with these institutions presented him many opportu-
nities to master that quintessentially modernist
II. form—the memo.
Essays, manuscripts, diaries, and sketchbooks,
India’s early twentieth-century Bengal School, with documentation of correspondence and proposals
its positive assertion of difference from European sent to government form part of the more
modernism in the use of that quintessential than40,000 documents digitised by AAA since 2011
“Oriental” form, the Indo-Persian miniature, is an from the personal archives of four influential art
exemplar of the nation-building modern pointed to practitioners—Subramanyan, Jyoti Bhatt, Ratan
earlier. In direct conversation with broader political Parimoo, and Gulammohammed Sheikh—who taught
currents, and part of the swadeshi (indigenous) at Baroda since its establishment.
movement in art in colonial India, it inspired a gener- The current digital archive includes artwork
ation of creative practitioners to reconnect with images, exhibition folders, art magazines, and
tropes and the “spiritual” grounds of Indic civiliza- photo-documentation of the “Living Traditions of
tions. These tendencies arguably reached their India.” Some of this material is already available on
zenith at the Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan, the Asia Art Archive’s website, and more of it will be
experimental art school associated with the Tagore made available over the course of next year.
family, in the first half of the twentieth century.3
Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making of a New III.
Indian Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in
Bengal 1850–1920 (Cambridge, 1994).This was India’s independence from British rule in 1947 was
also the site where the Japanese scholar Okakura also the moment of British India’s partition, and the
Kakuzo (1862–1913) engaged with Indian intellectu- creation of Pakistan as a home for South Asia’s
als, including members of the Tagore family at the Muslims. Pakistan too felt the Bengal School’s long
dawn of the twentieth century. His ideas, succinctly, shadow, for which the artist Abdur Rahman Chughtai
if rather glibly, captured in the opening statement, (1897–1975) served as a mediating force.
“Asia is One,” of his influential Ideals of the East The art historian Iftikhar Dadi has described
(1903), also left a legacy in terms of encouraging Chughtai as a self-fashioned “modern” artist.5
the Tagores and their milieu to look East as well as This conscious alignment with a nationalist
West. agenda was well served by his grasp of the minia-
K.G. Subramanyan (b. 1924) is a notable ture’s suitability as a carrier of narratives. And the
example of the Santiniketan brand of artist-thinker. narratives Chughtai wanted to attach to his art were
As a student at Santiniketan, he imbibed both an those of the Mughal courts: a paradoxically
attention to craft practices, and a framing of art as a nostalgic optimism through which to frame the art of
dialog with wider society. He developed this further a newly independent Muslim nation, but aligned to a
in his own artistic practice across a wide range of longstanding religious identity on which the claim for
media, exemplified by his privileging of the mural: nationhood was being made.
site-specific carrier of narrative in the public realm, Chughtai taught, from 1915 to 1924, at the
and the platform for a participatory pedagogic Mayo School of Art in Lahore. A colonial-era school
practice where Subramanyan collaborated with both established alongside the Lahore Museum in 1875,
students and artisans. as part of the efforts of Britain’s Department of
Arguably, Subramanyan’s most significant role Science and Art to “reinvigorate the existing
was in shaping both the curriculum and the ethos of
post-independence India’s first art school at Baroda 4 Geeta Kapur, When Was Modernism, pp. 87–144 (New Delhi,
2000) for a consideration of his practice; and Nilima Sheikh, ‘A
(established in 1950). Post-Independence Initiative in Art’, in Contemporary Art in
Baroda propagated a modernism anchored in Baroda, ed. G. Sheikh (New Delhi, 1997) pp. 53–144 for a look
an active engagement with craft and rural creative at his role in Baroda as artist and teacher. Subramanyan wrote
prolifically on tradition and modernity, and a selection of his
practices—labeled the “Living Traditions of Indian texts can be accessed from http://www.aaa.org.hk/Collection/
CollectionOnline/SpecialCollectionFolder/2144
3 Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making of a New Indian Art: Artists, 5 See Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia,
Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal 1850–1920 (Cambridge, pp. 46–92, (Chapel Hill, 2010) for a detailed account of
1994). Chughtai’s life and work.

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artisanal groups” of the Punjab and the North-West Living in India means living simultaneously in
Frontier Province, and then train them for industrial several times and cultures... The past exists as
design.6 Its first principal and the curator of the a living entity alongside the present, each
Lahore Museum was John Lockwood Kipling, made illuminating and sustaining the other. As times
immortal as the curator figure in his son Rudyard and cultures converge, the citadels of purism
Kipling’s classic novel, Kim. explode. Traditional and modern, private and
The Mayo School was restructured to more public, the inside and the outside are being
fully address modern art, and renamed the National continually splintered and reunited.
College of the Arts (NCA) in 1958, and moved from —Gulammohammed Sheikh.8
the Department of Industries to Education in 1963.
Miniature painting has been included in the Sheikh’s multi-faceted engagement with the history,
NCA’s syllabus since the 1920s.7 Baroda also had form, and possibilities of miniature practice is
some engagement with miniature painting since its evidenced in his work, his writings and his influence
inception. But in both instances miniature practice on his peers and students. Sheikh’s work reveals an
was not central to the pedagogic or artistic experi- obvious relish in miniature’s capacity for carrying
ence. This changed through the personal endeavour multiple narratives. He consistently nestles these
of two inspirational artist-teachers: NCA’s Zahoor- multifarious stories in fragments of the picture plane
ul-Akhlaq (1941–1999) and Baroda’s Gulammohammed of miniature’s unfolding perspective (as opposed to
Sheikh (b. 1937). the Western single point one): all made possible by
It has often been noted that London, blessed what the scholar Anna Sloan has called miniature’s
with the bounty of miniature albums the Empire “architectural space.”9
“collected” over two centuries, is a good place to As an accomplished poet and writer, his own
study miniature painting. investment in writing and the form of the book also
And it was in London in the late 1960s that provided him multiple trajectories through which to
both Sheikh (1965–1966) and Akhlaq (1968–1969) engage the miniature’s forms, tropes, and formal
made a study of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s devices.
(V&A) nonpareil collections of Indian miniature. They And he built up his analytic understanding of
were both students at the Royal College of Art, not the miniature through his study, his writing on the
far from the V&A, and through a mixture of observa- subject, and the central role miniature played in his
tion, practice, and cogitation, fashioned new artistic teaching. (As a quirk of fate—he came back to
trajectories for themselves with a deep and mul- Baroda to teach art history—as the painting chair
ti-faceted engagement with miniature painting. was already taken.)
On return to Pakistan and India, they were For many of his peers and students, Sheikh’s
highly influential in transmitting their personal engagement with miniature painting, often served as
engagements with miniature painting in different a “catalyst” for their own practice.10 Most obviously
ways. Nilima Sheikh (b.1945), Sheikh’s wife, who supple-
mented her formal academic study at Baroda, with
IV. learning miniature technique from painters in the
traditional ateliers of Jaipur and Nathadwara, and
Sheikh’s practice before and during London was in a has remained committed to this relationship between
recognisably international modernist vein, and as the text and image.11
art historian John Clark has pointed out, more De Bhupen Khakhar (1934–2003), the subject of
Stijl, or the School of London ala Kitaj and Hockney, a forthcoming exhibition at Tate Modern and
than of the Emperor Akbar’s court. commonly seen as India’s first Pop artist, was
But his work changed in London, as the luxury persuaded by his friend Sheikh to come to Baroda in
of distance opened up new windows of engagement pursuit of an artistic career. Khakhar shared Sheikh’s
with the miniature tradition, and he gave himself intense interest in both miniature and so-called
permission to tap different histories—Western “Company Painting”—the name given to paintings
modern and Indo-Persian miniature—to shape a produced under the patronage of the East India
singular practice that captured these multiple
trajectories. 8 Gulammohammed Sheikh in catalogue for the exhibition Place
for People (Bombay & New Delhi, 1981).
9 See Anna Sloan, “Miniature as Attitude”, in Beyond the Page:
Contemporary Art from Pakistan, eds. A. Dawood & H. Nasar,
6 Arindam Dutta, The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age pp. 26–45 (London & Manchester, 2006).
of its Global Reproducibility, p. 73, (London & New York: 10 Nilima Sheikh, “A Post-Independence Initiative in Art”, in
Routledge, 2007). Contemporary Art in Baroda, ed. G. Sheikh (New Delhi: Tulika,
7 Virgnia Whiles, “Revival or Re-invention” in Karkhana: A 1997) p. 60.
Contemporary Collaboration, ed. Hammad Nasar, p. 28 11 Ajay Sinha, “Envisioning the Seventies and the Eighties”, in
(London & Ridgefield, 2005). For a more detailed account, see Contemporary Art in Baroda, ed. G. Sheikh (New Delhi: Tulika
Virginia Whiles, Art and Polemic in Pakistan, (London, 2010). 1997) p. 192.

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Company in the late eighteenth and nineteenth Ahmed (b.1954)—who had trained with Sheikh
centuries, often by miniature painters formerly Shujaullah, who in turn had trained with Haji
employed in Mughal-era courts. They would hold Mohammed Sharif, and could trace his lineage of
long discussions on the currency of these historic practice back to the artisanal ateliers of the Mughal
practices to their own modes of working. Khakhar’s courts—to give the formerly artisanal practice, an
depiction of space, and his almost colonial interest academic overhaul. Under Akhlaq’s watch, miniature
in capturing everyday scenes, is infused with this practice was afforded the same academic standing
interest. as painting, sculpture, or printmaking.
A more recent example is the artist NS In the hands of a generation of artists trained
Harsha, who studied at Baroda in the 1990s, and at the NCA since the establishment of this depart-
who’s work ranges across painting, sculpture, ment in the 1980s, miniature painting has become a
installations and large-scale site-specific and com- bona fide “ism.”15 Miniature has moved beyond its
munity-based practices. tropes, to become an attitude.16 One characterised
He combines the different streams of practice by a rejection of “the tyranny of binary choices” to
found in the works of Khakhar, Sheikh, and embrace both: the “monumental and intimate;
Subramanyan—miniature, Company School, murals, exquisite craft skills and expressive gestures;
and popular vernacular art forms—to construct a reference and irreverence; history and
personal idiom very much in the spirit of Sheikh’s contemporaneity.”17
earlier articulation of living in India being living It has resulted in innovative explorations of
simultaneously in several times and cultures. process, reflexive use of the performativity of
But while this deployment of miniatures’ spatial artistic labor, riffs on the specificity of materials, a
and narrative-carrying capacities are much in promiscuity of visual references, and sophisticated
evidence in the individual practices of artists close modulations in the modes of address.
to Sheikh, it has not led to the study and practice of NCA alumni of the 1990s and 2000s have
miniature painting becoming central to pedagogy in continued to be fueled by it as a source of both
Baroda.12 In fact, Sheikh’s attempts to formally formal innovation and point of departure. Long after
introduce the “Living Traditions” into Baroda’s the death of the father figure Zahoor ul Akhlaq
pedagogy, for which he submitted a syllabus, failed. (1999) and the retirement of Bashir Ahmed.
In Baroda, the impetus from miniature painting Shahzia Sikander, the New York-based pioneer
was instead absorbed into one influential strand of a of NCA’s miniature department, has moved from
wider practice of narrative painting centred on the personal narratives of domestic space to theatrical
human figure, most cogently articulated by the critic installations recalling Mughal gardens to ambitious
Geeta Kapur.13 digitally animated meditations on the postcolonial
condition.
V. Imran Qureshi, widely recognised for his
dramatic site-specific installations, such as those at
Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq, like Sheikh, was deeply impressed the Sharjah Biennial (2011) or the roof of New York’s
by the V&A Museum’s collection of miniature Metropolitan Museum (2013), has continually, and
paintings. But unlike Sheikh, his interest was much with considerable wit, engaged with the miniature
more in the formal properties and tropes of portrait as a narrative form with which to address
miniature than it’s narrative possibilities: its use of the art world.
borders and framing devices, its application of paint, Nusra Latif Qureshi has pushed her work with
its brushstrokes, its capacity for subtle the tropes and language of miniature and Company
experimentation. painting, into large-scale photo-based works to
In parallel with developing his own interests in “distinguish between what was and what remains;
exploring the relevance of formal features of viewing history as a collection of fragments con-
miniature painting for his own painting practices, he
used his position as Head of Fine Arts at the NCA to
institute a full-fledged Miniature Department.14 He 15 Hammad Nasar, “The ‘Expanded’ Field of Contemporary
encouraged a young miniature painter, Bashir Miniature” in Nafas, May 2010, http://universes-in-universe.org/
eng/nafas/articles/2010/contemporary_miniature
12 G. Sheikh did submit a proposal for an MA course on the Living 16 The idea of miniature as an attitude was explored in the
Traditions of Indian Art (copy in G. Sheikh’s archives digitized by exhibition Beyond the Page: Miniature as Attitude in
Asia Art Archive — not yet available online), but that had no Contemporary Art from Pakistan (curated by Hammad Nasar
specific mention of miniature painting. with Anna Sloan and Bridget Bray) at the Pacific Asia Museum
13 Geeta Kapur, “Partisan Views About the Human Figure” in in 2010. An earlier version of the exhibition (curated by H.
catalogue for Place for People (Bombay & New Delhi, 1981). Nasar) was realised in two parts at Manchester Art Gallery and
14 For Akhlaq’s engagement with miniature practice see Simone Asia House, London in 2006, and accompanied by a catalogue
Wille, Modern Art in Pakistan: History, Tradition, Place, pp. (London & Manchester, 2006).
40–82 (New Delhi, 2015). For his pedagogic intervention, see 17 Hammad Nasar, “Imran Qureshi” in Vitamin D2: New
Whiles, ‘Revival or Re-Invention’ in Karkhana. Perspectives in Drawing, eds. Garrett and Price (London, 2013)

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stantly rearranged to construct new narratives.”18 “universals” can grow.19 By advancing propositions
Aisha Khalid’s early, more overtly feminist, that can escape their geographies of origin and
paintings have morphed into a wide ranging practice offer possibilities of framing practices elsewhere,
across painting and sculptural installations that they extend our ideas of what and where the global
range from geometric abstraction to explorations of can be: beyond the esthetic regimes that dominate
domesticity, pain, and ornament. Hamra Abbas’s most visible platforms of circulation in an increas-
sculptural interpretations of miniature echo Takashi ingly flattened art world today.
Murakami’s engagement with Manga—they have In the story of miniature practice at Baroda
both given a graphically rich book-related practice, and the NCA, all this started with one proposal being
three-dimensional form. Khadim Ali has mined the rejected. One accepted.
Persian epics directly to reveal the co-option of Sometimes the memo can be an artist’s longest
mythical heroes in the violent politics of West Asia. lasting legacy.
Noor Ali Chagani, whose graduation project Which takes us back to our topic for today—
(“Be a Part of It”) comprised, repairing the walls of how are we to write new art histories?
the NCA with his own miniaturised bricks is a I would argue for histories of excess:
wonderful metaphor for the engagement with 1. Art histories that exceed lives of the artists—
tradition. due attention to art ecologies; to
At their most efficacious, these artists and institutions—where pedagogy, circulation,
their many peers and students have developed exchange, patronage play a key role
practices in critical dialogue with their past without 2. Enmeshed art histories that exceed the nation.
being limited by its strictures. Their brand of con- Okakura in Santiniketan. Markand Bhatt and
temporary miniature, and analogous practices such the Barnes Foundation. Gulam and Zahoor in
as ink art, with their capacity to traverse time, London. Indus Valley & Baroda.
space, and hold multiple narratives, serve as 3. Art histories that are collaborative and can
nurseries from which the possibility of new exceed disciplinary bounds—that can work
across gaps in language, history, geography,
and discipline.

19 I am grateful to Pheng Cheah’s talk, and as yet unpublished

paper, Asia as Question: Asian Studies in Postcolonial
Globalization, for this formulation. All references to the
18 Hammad Nasar, “Reflexive looking: An expanded notion of self”, “universal” refer to the mostly European post-enlightenment
in Beyond the Self ed. Clark and Mahoney, pp. 60–61 concepts that have shaped modern and contemporary art
(Canberra, 2013). practice.

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Perspective 02. Slavs and Tatars (Payam Sharifi), Artists, Eurasia

Short Bio:

Founded in 2006, Slavs and Tatars is a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the
former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. They have exhibited in major insti-
tutions across the Middle East, Europe and North America, including Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou, as
well as the 10th Sharjah, 8th Berlin, 3rd Thessaloniki, and 9th Gwangju Biennials. Select solo engagements
include MoMA, NY (2012), Secession, Vienna (2012), Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2013), Dallas Museum of Art
(2014), Kunsthalle Zurich (2014), GfZK, Leipzig (2014), and NYU Abu Dhabi (2015). The artists’ publica-
tions and lecture-performances, on topics ranging from Slavic Orientalism to the metaphysics of protest,
are central to their research-driven practice and have been presented extensively at leading universities,
museums, and various institutions. Slavs and Tatars have published several books, including Kidnapping
Mountains (Book Works, 2009), Not Moscow Not Mecca (Revolver/Secession, 2012), Khhhhhhh (Mousse/
Moravia Gallery, 2012), Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz (Book Works, 2013), Mirrors for
Princes (NYU Abu Dhabi / JRP|Ringier, 2015), as well as their translation of the legendary Azeri satire Molla
Nasreddin: the magazine that would’ve, could’ve, should’ve (JRP|Ringier, 2011).  Slavs and Tatars were
nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015.

Presentation: Not Moscow not Mecca coreligionists. During the Soviet era, sacred shrines
from Ashgabat to Kashgar were desecrated:
We are particularly seduced when opposites attract. Mosques were destroyed or turned into gymnasi-
When it came to secularization, communism and ums, libraries, workers’ clubs, and the like.
capitalism put aside (however briefly) their thuggish Organizations with names halfway between a Russ
ideological spat and engaged in a storm of make-up Meyer B movie and a Richard Dawkins foundation—
sex called modernity, from whose last remnants we Союз воинствующих безбожников (translated
are still suffering. The founding trio of modern social alternatively as “The League of Militant Godless” or
sciences, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max “The Union of Belligerent Atheists”) to name just
Weber, all saw modernity as necessarily secular, the one—were founded to combat what the Bolsheviks
inevitable evolution from what they considered considered Islam’s backwardness. It sounds
pre-modern, traditional, religious society.1 The somewhat familiar: one dares not delight in
disenchantment or de-divinization of the world, imagining how today’s Islamophobes on the right
which Schiller lamented, has found its echo equally would feel about sharing their zeal with their former
in revolutionary (Bolshevik) communism and late enemies, the revolutionary communists.
capitalism. If grass-roots, syncretic Central Asian Yet, it was precisely this prohibition and sup-
Islam—out-financed, out-bureaucratized, and pression that has created a fluid, complex, syncretic
out-muscled by the USSR—could so effectively approach to Islam—as opposed to the often rigid,
resist seven decades of systematic repression, what Gulf-centric understanding of the faith. Today,
can it teach us today, in an early twenty-first century against the backdrop of a supposed Cold War
swimming against the rising tide of a faltering supposedly pulsating in the Muslim world, one that
economic liberalism? pits the Sunnis of the Arabian peninsula against a
It would be foolish to believe that the approxi- rising Shi’a crescent of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and
mately seventy years of revolutionary communism, Lebanon, it may be best to choose not to choose
with their strict prohibition of religion, have nothing between the Wahabbism of the one and the theo-
to do with contemporary Muslims in the Middle East cratic Imamism of the other. In this context, Central
holding their noses up at their Central Asian Asia’s syncretic indigenization of the faith offers a
rare alternative.
1 “This type of dichotomous formulation is expressed as feudalism
and capitalism in Marx, mechanical and organic division of labor
Big and small, government-sanctioned and
in Durkheim, and traditional and legal-rational (or modern) in grass-root—an ecosystem of shrines (avliyo in
Weber.” Mark Saroyan, Minorities, Mullahs and Modernity: Uzbek) dot the urban and rural landscape of the
Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union (Berkeley: steppes. Resting places of saints, a spring of holy
University of California Press, 1997), p 18.

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water nestled in the cliffs bordering Afghanistan, the past a foreign country—more sought after, more
even a petrified tree can serve as sites of pilgrim- delectable, more relevant than they could possibly
age, or ziyorat. Pilgrims offer alms, in the form of have imagined. To visit the tombs of one’s ancestors
food, water, or clothes. Some come to make a was the equivalent of breaking through the Iron
prayer and move on—either to the next shrine or Curtain and going abroad. Most importantly, the
back to their everyday life. Others return in the prohibition of Islam in Central Asia coincided with an
evening to pick up the produce and clothes that have increased access to printing presses around the
been basking in the blessed aura of the shrine.2 Muslim world. In Central Asia, instead of being
In the active and powerful role played by swept up in the tides of doctrinal, scriptural discus-
women, the shrines testify best to the progressive sions of theology, Islam was elaborated as a
muscle of Central Asia’s approach to Islam. They practice of community, retaining a significantly oral
inevitably welcome women more than mosques character. In effect, it was the de-modernization of
where, unless there is a separate, designated space the faith during communism that allowed for its
for prayer, become essentially off-limits to females. particular suppleness. Contrary to what one would
During the repressive prohibitions of the Soviet era, expect, Islam regressed where it was given free
the continuity of the faith largely fell on the reign. Where it was outlawed, it progressed.5
shoulders of women. Given their more prominent
role in the private sphere, women were deemed the Long live the syncretics
guardians of traditions and religious honor, espe-
cially when faced with a hostile state. One man According to lore, it is not heaven’s light that illumi-
explains away the tension between the public alle- nates Bukhara, Central Asia’s most storied city, but
giance to communism and private practice of Islam rather Bukhara’s light that reaches the heavens.
along gender lines: “I am a communist. I cannot fast From astronomers to religious scholars, from
or pray at work. But my wife and kelin [daughter-in- doctors to saints, there is clearly something in the
law], they are sitting at home, so they must fast and water of this Silk Road stalwart. Perhaps we would
pray! So we will not suffer from sins. We are a do well to redirect our thermal imaging resources
Muslim home!”3 At the shrines, elder women known away from military surveillance and criminal investi-
as otin or bibi-otin often perform the recitations gations to more metaphysical matters, namely, this
observed at life-cycle rituals. These otin are respon- city on the steppe where the number of holy souls
sible for the transmission of religious knowledge, act per square meter gives Moscow’s billionaires a run
as teachers to younger women in the community, for their money.6
and pass on their own religious expertise to their When the Muslim world is defined or imagined
daughters or daughters-in-law, in an exemplary today—by the West or by Muslims themselves—it
demonstration of the chains of transmission we often includes countries from North Africa to South
discuss later below East Asia, strangely skipping a heartbeat over the
In an attempt to shed light on the resilience of former Soviet sphere. Like a functionally planned
the Muslim Kazakhs of Turkestan, Bruce Privratsky highway, the newly minted acronym MENASA
talks about landscape’s power to trigger a collective (Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia) takes a
memory. During seventy years of Soviet rule, the detour around what, until relatively recently,
hagiography of one’s ancestors and elders was provided the pulse of the greater Muslim community.
stored in a kind of dreamscape, collectively Yet, Bokhara is arguably the fourth holiest city
practiced every time one passes a place of ziyorat.4 in Islam, after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Its
In Central Asia, by outlawing the shrines and places name—Bokhara yeh Sharif (Holy Bukhara)—is
of popular worship, the authorities unwittingly made renowned around the Muslim world. The founder of
the Mughal, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur
2 The relatively recent arrival of these nation-states to the world (1483–1530) claimed that Ma wâra al nahr was
stage has seen a scramble to create a compelling and distinct
national identity, one that goes beyond the twin totalizing 5 Pointing to the Safavids and the current Islamic Republic of Iran,
phenomena of the past (the USSR) and the present/future Dabashi argues quite convincingly that Shi’ism thrives as a
(Islam), see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: religion of protest but loses its raison d’être once it achieves
Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, rev. ed. power. Hamid Dabashi, Hamid., Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest
(London: Verso, 2006; orig. ed. 1983). After the fall of the (Cambridge: Belknap, 2011).
Soviet Union, various efforts were made, in vain, to import a 6 “Bukharans take pride in recounting the story of how, when the
more strict—whether Wahhabite or other—Islam to Central Afghan mujahidin took Soviet soldiers as prisoners during the
Asia, for example, through the donation of text books and Soviet invasions of Afghanistan in 1979, they would always ask
financing of mosques. them where they came from. If they came from the Christian
3 Gillian Tett, “‘Guardians of the Faith?’ Gender and Religion in an parts of the Soviet Union—from Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine, for
(ex) Soviet Tajik Village,” in Muslim Women’s Choices: Religious example—they were executed; if they were from Central Asia,
Belief and Social Reality, eds. Camilia Fawzi El-Solh nd Judy they were released. And if they were from Bukhara, the Afghan
Mabro (Oxford, 1994), p. 144. mujahidin would not only set the prisoners free, they would even
4 Bruce Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and show them reverence and respond with an omin! (amen!).”
Collective Memory (Richmond: Curzon, 2001). Luow, Everyday Islam, p. 63.

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home to more Islamic leaders than any other region. Twombly gallery. The excellent tome Art and
Among the most authentic Hadiths (brief accounts of Activism: Projects of John and Dominique de Menil
the Prophet’s sayings, which are second in impor- tells the compelling tale of how the couple originally
tance only to the Qu’ran) are those collected by came to collecting through their tripartite interest in
Muhammad al-Bukhari, a son of the eponymous city. modern art, activism, and spirituality, via the aid of a
The founder of the largest Sufi order (or tariqat), Marie Alain Couturier, a Dominican priest who
Baha-ud-Din Naqshbandi, also hails from Bukhara. believed in art’s sacred role.
The neighboring Khwarezm Province is home to the In 1979, in keeping with her parents’ spiritual
founder of algebra (Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Kh- soul-searching, Philippa de Menil, along with Heiner
wārizmī), the astrologer who discovered that the Friedrich, changed their names to Fariha and Heider,
earth revolves around the sun (Abū Rayhān respectively, and converted to Islam. Shortly after-
al-Bīrūnī), and the polymath whose Canon of wards, they turned an old firehouse on 55 Mercer
Medicine was the standard text in Europe and the into a Sufi mosque or khaneghah (a space for
Islamic world until the eighteenth century (Ibn Sīnā). meditation or prayer, literally, “a house of present
time”). In the main rooms, glowing seamlessly next
The mosque on Mercer to Persian rugs were installed a series of specially
commissioned Dan Flavin pieces.
A couple years ago, when we first caught wind of a Plus ça dérange, plus c’est la meme chose
DIA Sufi mosque with Dan Flavin commissions in When the Museum of Modern Art, that temple
downtown New York, the story, like all good ones, of high modernism, invited Slavs and Tatars to their
immediately cast a lingering spell. After all, wasn’t Projects series, we couldn’t think of a better Trojan
Flavin particularly averse to any spiritual reading of Horse than this episode to address the elephant in
his work, despite the undeniably hypnotic aura of his the room, its deafening silence matched only by its
light fixtures? And if anything New York in the early obscene heft: the role of the sacred, the wholly
twenty-first century has shown us, it is the alchemic other, as Rudolf Otto would put it, or the mystical in
paroxysm that results from putting the word the otherwise white-washed story of modernity.
“mosque” anywhere near the word “downtown.” Artists and intellectuals are equally gripped by a
Founded in 1974 by Heiner Friedrich, Philippa secular rage to know it all, quarantining if not dis-
de Menil, and Helen Winkler, the DIA Art Foundation missing that which we cannot understand, describe,
burst onto the scene with a deceptively simple or explain away. It comes as no surprise that discus-
model—one artist, one work, one space, forever—an sions on the Bauhaus somehow skip a sacred heart
approach whose radicalism has only increased with beat over the role of mysticism in the movement’s
time. Or as Heiner Friedrich himself put it best: "Art early days, from Itten to Kandinsky. Leaders of civil
goes up, comes down, goes out the door, gets in the disobedience such as Martin Luther King and Gandhi
truck, goes to Europe—like clothing! Like chattel! are seen as secular political heroes, forgetting the
Change the pattern. Bring the art to the place, significant role of faith in their respective struggles.
simply adorned, and let it speak over time. That’s In the early 1980s as today, the mere mention
the true commitment." Colliding the hopeful naiveté of Islam rubbed an entire nation, not to mention the
of a child with the more esoteric, metaphysical, if not New York art world, the wrong way. Coming on the
activist role of art, the DIA brought us such heels of the Iranian Revolution and the US hostage
legendary sites of art pilgrimage as Walter de crisis, the conversion of America’s modern Medicis
Maria’s The Lightning Field, Robert Smithson’s into Muslims must have seemed like a betrayal to the
Spiral Jetty, without mentioning its key role in the Materialists on the Hudson. As it goes with the best
Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas. of stories, the DIA mosque was in some sense too
The DIA is in some sense the natural if good to be true. After a mere three years, thanks to
eccentric progeny of the Menil. Emigrés from Vichy, a board-room putsch that saw Dominique de Menil
France, Dominique de Menil née Schlumberger and join DIA, Heiner Friedrich was removed from the
John de Menil moved to Houston, Texas, the US board, Philipa de Menil withdrew from daily involve-
headquarters of Schlumberger, an oil parts manu- ment in the organization that she had co-founded,
facturer, and founded the Menil Collection. and the Sufi khaneghah was shuttered.
Consistently cited as one of the best private The stories of the DIA’s largesse in its heyday
museums in the world, the Menil is home to some have become part of art world lore: entire buildings
17,000 pieces housed in a modest building designed in the city subsidized for studio use, teams of assis-
by Renzo Piano. tants and archivists paid for the likes of Judd, Flavin,
The Menil Collection also includes the Rothko John Chamberlain and LaMonte Young. One particu-
Chapel, an octagon-shaped non-denominational lar episode has stuck with us. Legend has it that the
prayer space designed by Philip Johnson, replete entire first class cabin of Lufthansa’s Frankfurt–NY
with 14 black but colored Rothkos; as well as the Cy flights were regularly booked for whirling dervishes

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to come Stateside to perform at the mosque in such an apparition would make even the most
Soho. What could be more enchanting and dream- die-hard Islamophobic New Yorker reconsider…
like than peeking through the curtains from the
cramped quarters of economy and catching a (Excerpts of the transcript have been previ-
glimpse of a group of white-robed men twirling over ously published in Slavs and Tatars’ Not Moscow
and over on the same spot, thousands of meters in Not Mecca, Secession/Revolver, 2012 and Pin-Up,
the air? Is there a better use for that strangely issue 12.)
coveted contemporary commodity, legroom? Surely,

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Perspective 03. Eugene Tan, Director of the Singapore National

Gallery, Singapore.
Short Bio:

Eugene Tan is Director of National Gallery Singapore. He was co-curator of the inaugural Singapore
Biennale in 2006 and curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Art Biennale. He has also
curated exhibitions including Of Human Scale and Beyond: Experience and Transcendence (2012),
The Burden of Representation: Abstraction in Asia Today (2010), Coffee, Cigarettes and Pad Thai:
Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia (2008), as well as exhibitions of Lee Mingwei (2010), Jompet (2010),
Charwei Tsai (2009), and Nipan Oranniwesna (2009). His previous appointments include Program
Director (Special Projects) of Singapore Economic Development Board, Director of Exhibitions at the
Osage Gallery (Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai), Director for Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s
Institute of Art, Singapore, and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.

do national galleries position themselves as con-

Presentation: Re-writing a national art history: necting points for regional histories? What does it
National Gallery Singapore mean to go beyond a “national” art history? Does it
mean the development of a regional, international,
Today, the situations that national galleries—from or global perspective? What does it mean to stake a
Southeast Asia to Western Europe—find themselves regional perspective in contrast with a global one?
in are not just complex: they may even seem contra- Taking the National Gallery Singapore—the
dictory and paradoxical. Whether founded recently, country’s newest museum that will open later this
or a century ago, the national gallery is under month—as a case in point, this paper will propose
pressure to confront not only globalization, but how a “national” art history can be rewritten and
contemporaneity. While many of today’s dynamic how the presentation of this rewriting of “national”
museums are not necessarily positioned as national art history is an important part of the global conver-
institutions, the problems faced by these national sation of art today.
institutions can be a good starting point for thinking I will outline how the National Galley
about the challenges facing all museums in the Singapore addresses some of the key challenges
twenty-first century. that face many museums of the twenty-first century
Today’s art museums function as anchor points through its exhibitions and programs. The National
in the fast changing cultural landscapes of our Gallery Singapore aims to re-examine Singapore’s
contemporary societies. In particular, the national art historical development, going beyond a
gallery highlights the inherent tensions in mediating “national” art history towards the creation a platform
between the presentation of the art historical devel- for regional perspectives and global conversations.
opment of a country and the nationalist imperative to The National Gallery Singapore has been
represent the nation through art. This is further converted from two National Monuments, the former
complicated in Southeast Asian countries such as Supreme Court and City Hall, which were con-
Singapore, where nationalism and nationhood have structed in the 1920s and 1930s. When we open in
served as important themes in artistic modernism, at two week’s time, on November 24, our highlight will
the same time as the modern art of Singapore has be our two permanent or long-term exhibitions: one
served as a space to potentiate individual that tells a history about Singapore art and the other
expression. about Southeast Asia art. Through these two
How can national galleries, which are tied to galleries, the National Gallery Singapore aims to
national histories, tell stories of art that are fully examine the shared historical impulses in the region,
responsive to the changing contemporary conditions highlighting the complexities and relationships
of art today? Do they transport audiences back in between national and regional art histories. This is
time or do they bring heritage forward to the further complemented by projects that contextualize
present? How are the public functions of these these developments within a wider global context.
institutions changing? If, the publics for today’s These permanent exhibitions at the National
museums are regional and international, how then Gallery Singapore are something new for a

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Singapore-based art museum. In addition to bringing continues till today.

a sense of history to the art scene, which has been It is interesting to note that Chua was a
lacking, what they also offer is an opportunity for a member of the Equator Art Society, of which Chua
dialectical approach towards curating art history. was also a member and whose contributions to
Over time, the propositions set forward by the Singapore’s art history has never been fully
earlier exhibition hangs will change, as we will acknowledged because of its affiliations to left-lean-
respond to the critical discussions within the institu- ing political groups.
tion and very importantly that the institution has with While the Singapore Gallery will present about
other art historians, critics, curators, and artists. The 400 works, I would like to speak about two works,
permanent exhibitions of the National Gallery the first work, as well as the very last work that
Singapore also set a new precedent for national visitors will see.
museums in Southeast Asia, given the scale and The first work that the public encounters in the
depth of these exhibitions. Each of these exhibitions Singapore Gallery is this print from 1865, which
will feature around 400 works, dating from the depicts the surveyor G.D. Coleman, whose work
nineteenth century to the present and will be the was supposedly interrupted by a tiger, which is said
most extensive surveys of the art of Singapore and to have leaped out of the jungle. It serves to
the region to date. introduce the exhibition and the first section, to
The inaugural exhibition in the Singapore represent the interactions between the colonial
Gallery begins with two questions: “What is your encounter, arrival of ideas with migrants, and local
name?” and “Where do you come from?” motifs and its impact upon how Singapore came to
These questions, posed in Malay, are found in be visualised.
a painting by Chua Mia Tee, entitled National The print is a dramatic recreation of an
Language Class, painted in the year 1959. Chua was incident involving George Coleman, the first
part of a generation of young artists who were Government Superintendent of Public Works. One
actively involved in the independence struggles of day reported in 1835, Coleman, along with his group
the 1950s. of Indian laborers, was conducting a road survey
In 1959, the year when the painting was when a tiger attacked. The incident is captured here
completed, Singapore had gained self-government. at its most climatic moment. The tiger is depicted
Malay would be declared as the national language to striking out in mid-air, flanked by the men recoiling
unite the different ethnic groups in Singapore in surprise, limbs flailing in all directions. It gives the
through a common Malayan identity. surveyors a downright scare, knocking them off their
Siapa Nama Kamu?—which is Malay for feet and toppling over the group’s survey equipment.
“What is your name?” and which is the title of the Besides being a dramatic and, possibly, exag-
inaugural exhibition in the Singapore Gallery, gerated account—we are unsure if this encounter
actively courts an analysis of how art and identity with a tiger ever happened—the print also reflects a
operate through inclusion and exclusions, rep- marked shift in visual narratives. While some earlier
resentation and de-representation, and the colonial depictions tended to portray panoramic,
accumulation of art historical memory in museums. picturesque landscapes, here we begin to see a
As it operates within this exhibition it is an intimation closer, intimate encounter with the native land, one
of what is shown, how it is shown, but also maybe that depicts Singapore as a dangerous place where
what is not shown. Siapa Nama Kamu? is then both tigers roam the land.
a question and an invitation. Likewise, Lim Tzay Chuen’s project Mike—
In the painting, a group of Chinese students presented as part of the Singapore Pavilion at the
are seated around a table, learning the national Venice Biennale in 2005—highlights the possibilities
language from a Malay teacher. Behind him hangs a of the impossible. His project involved bringing the
blackboard, on which the two basic questions about Merlion, the National symbol and monument of
identity and belonging were written. Singapore, over to Venice. He sought to challenge
Like the title, the exhibition is a query, one into the notion of national representation and national
the art history of Singapore. boundaries in art.
The exhibition therefore foregrounds the Like the first and last work presented in Siapa
consideration of the parameters of personal and Nama Kamu?, the aim of the exhibition is to create a
national identity in art—and reflexively—the writing discussion about art in Singapore. How it has
of a national art history in a country that is barely 50 changed, who are its artists, and where do we even
years old. While Singapore has been an independent begin. How we understand its art in a larger regional
nation for fifty years, she has been a site for the context?
production of art for much longer. And the history of My discussion of our Singapore permanent
modern art in Singapore that Siapa Nama Kamu? exhibition shows how we are trying to move beyond
represents begins in the nineteenth century and a national narrative for art history. But the answer is

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not simply to move toward a regional perspective. are interpenetrated systems.

For—what does a regional perspective mean? If The journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies was
trying to define Singapore as a nation is compli- founded in 2000 by the National University of
cated, then trying to define Singapore as part of a Singapore sociologist Chua Beng Huat and Taiwan
region called Southeast Asia is no less complex. National Chiao Tung University cultural studies
In January 2015, the National Gallery scholar Chen Kuan-Hsing. They deliberately used the
Singapore held its first public forum, “Is Singapore term “inter-Asia” rather than “intra-Asian” for the
the Place for Southeast Asia?” One of our speakers title of their project. The term “intra-Asian” would
was Nora Taylor, who teaches art history at the have arguably put the emphasis on articulating what
School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an Asian regional identity might be, whereas “inter-
researches Southeast Asia. Taylor is one of the first Asia” redirects our attentions to the interactions of
scholars in the United States to study the history of an interpenetrated system. Rajah, Chua and Chen
modern art from Southeast Asia. Like many in her are all in a sense arguing that we will not uncover
generation, she began in Area Studies—because art some underlying essential identity of Southeast Asia.
history departments at the time didn’t engage in What we are doing is constructing the region,
Southeast Asian modernity. If they engaged Asia, it constructing its complex and layered meanings, as
was ancient China, Japan, or India. Taylor has we look at the historical inter-connections. And this
written how art historians have previously focused is what we hope to do with our other permanent
their attentions on individual countries within the exhibition—of art from Southeast Asia.
region rather than Southeast Asia as a whole. Ten The aim of the Southeast Asia Gallery and its
years ago, scholars would argue for the recognition inaugural exhibition is to provide a regional narrative
of the “other modernities” that contrast hegemonic of modern art in Southeast Asia from the nineteenth
notions of Western modernity. Today, however, century to the present, highlighting the richness and
researchers and practitioners have begun to move diversity through shared historical experiences, as
beyond the opposition of East versus West and well as the key impulses to art making across the
engage in an inter-regional conversation. region. For the first time, there will be a long term
I mention professor Nora Taylor, because her and comprehensive exhibition devoted to the histori-
own career is an indication of how the field of cal development of art in Southeast Asia from a
Southeast Asian art history is a relatively new field regional perspective. While the current understand-
and has evolved considerably within a generation. ing of Southeast Asia is through the
Of course, Sociology and Cultural Studies are other economic-political configuration of the Association
fields that have also tackled the question of of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 10
Southeast Asia as a region, and it is important to countries that it comprises, it is also acknowledged
learn from those fields. Let me, for instance, cite two that this approach encompasses its complexities
examples from the beginning of the turn of the and limitations. Therefore, it is also the aim of
twenty-first century, that show a discursive move Between Declarations and Dreams to complicate
away from the binary opposition of East versus West this understanding of the region and of regionality,
to an emphasis on inter-regional conversations. to address how we understand “Southeast Asia” as
Sociologist Ananda Rajah, in 1999, wrote the a geopolitical entity, as well as, an imaginary and by
essay “Southeast Asia: Comparatist Errors and the consequence, the art produced within this context.
Construction of a Region,” where he argued that the The title of the exhibition, “between declara-
problem is “not whether we can or cannot identify tions and dreams” may be credited to one of
Southeast Asia as a region”; the problem is that “we Indonesia’s most cherished poets, Chairil Anwar. In
lack a conceptual framework, if not a theory, of his poem of 1948, Krawang Bekasi, Anwar laments
regions as human constructs.” The “errors” of the massacre of villagers in West Java by the Dutch
Rajah’s essay title have to do with how “comparative colonial forces, giving vent to the desire for national
methods imply systems of classification”—to think of independence at the time. This line may also be said
Southeast Asia as a region is necessarily to think of to encapsulate the experiences of many artists in the
other regions with which to compare it to—and yet, region, caught as they are between declarations and
in the case of Southeast Asia in particular but also dreams, the personal and the political.
more generally, the category of “region” is, in the The exhibition unfolds over four main sections
first place, not adequately developed. His point is that highlight the main impulses to art-making in four
that we should not focus on the question of a imbricating time periods:
Southeast Asian regional identity in comparison with
other identities; rather, we should be looking at 1. Nineteenth to early twentieth century
interactions of “inter-subjectivity over geographical (Authority and Anxiety)—The narrative begins
space and time”. As Rajah reminds us, such interac- by exploring the role of art production in
tions were not and are not self-contained—regions asserting cultural authority in a period of

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immense social instability brought about by How can national galleries, which are tied to national
widespread colonization of the region in the histories, tell stories of art that are fully responsive
nineteenth century. They include works by to the changing contemporary conditions of art
artists, such as Raden Saleh from Indonesia today? What does it mean to go beyond a “national”
and Juan Luan and Hidalgo from the art history? How should one re-evaluate the role of
Philippines. national galleries, and how might they re-invent
2. 1900s to 1940s (Imagining Country and themselves?
Self)—This section then highlights the period It is clear that I cannot provide the full
when art academies as well as formal and answers here in a twenty-minute presentation.
informal structures like exhibition societies and Rather, from the perspective of National Gallery
spaces were first established in the region, Singapore, the answers will come, not only in how
giving rise to the new modern identity of we make our exhibitions and conduct our programs,
“professional artists.” Interest in synthesising but in how we look back and reflect on what we have
the new mode of representation with local done, and how we evolve and innovate.
aesthetics can be found across the region at Singapore will now have a national gallery
this time, which also marked the beginnings of with two major permanent exhibitions—one telling a
a conscious reaction against academic story of Singapore art, and the other telling a story
training and practice. of art from the region, from Southeast Asia. The
3. 1950s to 1970s (Manifesting the Nation)—This term “permanent” is not quite right. And the terms
is organized along the different perspectives “nation” and “region” are also not straightforward.
on the art produced from the decades of What is exciting about these permanent exhibitions
decolonisation and nation-building to the Cold is not only that they tell fascinating stories that
War period. Artists were often pulled by the complicate our understanding of what it means for
two forces—one responding to the needs of Singapore to be a nation, and what it means for
the new nation, and the other to the increas- Southeast Asia to be a region—but that these stories
ingly shared global artistic trends. will unfold and evolve.
4. Post-1970s (Re: Defining Art) —Works from As these stories evolve, we hope that the
the last section mark a turn against conven- National Gallery Singapore will also create a shared
tional and academic definitions of “art,” as well sense of continuity. As humans, we don’t just tell
as new social commitments with interest in stories, we tell the stories in series, changing them
gender, class, identity, and institutional along the way. Storytelling is serial by nature. The
borders. stories we tell about art, about how art tells a story
of a nation, a place, region, or a corner of the
To bring this paper to a close, launching a national world—what these stories do, above all, is not
gallery in the twenty-first century means confronting answer our questions, but keep the questions open,
many challenges and opportunities. At the beginning and keep them interesting.
of my presentation, I asked a series of questions: Thank you.

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Perspective 04. Mariana Botey, Associate Professor Modern/

Contemporary Latin American Art History, Visual Arts Department,
University of California San Diego (UCSD), San Diego, California.
Short Bio:

Mariana Botey is an art historian, curator and artist born in Mexico City. She is an Associate Professor
in Latin American Modern/Contemporary Art History in the Visual Arts department of University of
California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Irvine,
in 2010. Her book Zonas de Disturbio: Espectros del México Indígena en la Modernidad is published by
Siglo XXI Editores. From August 2009 to August 2011 she was academic director for the graduate theory
seminar Zones of Disturbance at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) in UNAM (National
Autonomous University of Mexico) and a research fellow at the CENIDIAP-INBA (National Center for
Research, Information and Documentation of Fine Arts). Her experimental films and documentaries have
been shown at the Guggenheim Museum; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; San Diego
Museum of Art; Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Red Cat Theater at the Disney Hall, Los Angeles; and
Anthology Film Archives in New York, among many other museums, galleries and festivals. Since 2009
she is a founding member of the editorial and curatorial committee of The Red Specter and, since 2011, of
Zona Crítica, an editorial collaboration between Siglo XXI Editores, UNAM and UAM. Other publications
include Estética y Emancipación: Fantasma, Fetiche, Fantasmagoría (Siglo XXI Editores, 2014) and MEX/
LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930–1985 (Hatje Cantz, 2012). She lives and works in San
Diego, California and Mexico City.

some history here (my materials today are deeply

Presentation: Amerindian inscriptions in the avant- “imbricated” with history) modernism was a term
garde: A global perspective that in fact participated in the nineteenth and early
twentieth century projects of Internationalism, the
Introduction: A comparative perspective. avant-garde, and the making of a cosmopolitan
subjectivity. (Modernism was perhaps preparing us
First, I would like to express my gratitude to the for the Global?) The question today traps me in a
CIMAM Board Members for their kind invitation to double bind, but one that gives only a single, homog-
participate in this year conference. It is a wonderful enous, and unified narrative: to borrow Etienne
experience to be among such an exciting group of Balibar’s formulation, both modernism and the
colleagues and to visit Tokyo. I cannot think of a global “Speak the Universal.” The materials I am
better location for us to re-think, and renovate the presenting today are part of a project that wishes to
coordinates of art from a global perspective. occupy this double bind as a critical task. The theo-
I am given the task of contributing a brief retical fiction of the universal lurks with its Hegelian
perspective on the question of: How has modernism spectral (perhaps even ugly) face and calls for
been perceived globally? The question entails two resistance and opposition from a colonial or postco-
subjects: “modernism,” that is, a historical formation lonial perspective. However, the path of resistance
that narrates the development of art, while it seems futile if it does not follow a deconstructive
qualifies it as a singular phenomenon—not “modern- strategy of displacing the terms of the discussion
isms” in plural, but “modernism” as a universal and from within, rather than from without. I will be
totalizing historic destination—an entelechy. In engaging in a difficult exercise: presenting a history
philosophy this means a complete and final form: the of modernism from a dislocated angle or position,
actualization of an idea or concept that was only a pushing against the grain of the historical given,
potency and fulfilled its destiny as an historic testing the possibility of a global art history of the
concrete reality. The other subject: “the global,” modern era as precisely a place for contesting the
which again is a singular or totalizing conceptual “potentiality” in its assumed common sense destina-
description that subsumes us in a single system; a tion as a unified and transparent prescription for
fully integrated cartography. But let us remember modernism—claiming that in fact this narrow

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assumed definition of the copula modernism-global “problematized.” Challenging a traditional interpre-

is yet to find its complete form, description, or tation that confines the representation of the
destination. Amerindian past to a development of the ideological
What I will be presenting today is a very fast construction of the nation-state and, as such, a
and cursory overview of a large continental project minor and political genre (realist, official, functional
that looks for a long temporal arch connecting a as propaganda, and driven by its social content) and
significant set of canonical figures and idioms in because of this narrow definition, existing isolated
Latin American modernism. The specific grid of the from the crux of modernist and avant-garde
organization of materials that follows is the outcome transformations.
of years of research documentation and thinking the The core group of hypothesis guiding this
indigenous in the art history the Americas; that is, project—at this point shaping in the form of an
the Amerindian as inscription, visualization and exhibition and publication—presented a challenge to
allegory in the modern era art of the hemisphere: its established metropolitan narratives of the history of
representation, misrepresentation, and non-rep- modernism and the avant-garde by presenting a
resentation. The hypothesis was constructed as a comparative reading. After two years of intensive
mapping of a set of constitutive displacements in the and focused research the team of curators,
avant-garde and modernisms that inverted, re-ap- scholars, art historians, artists, and art critics has
propriated, and swallowed the “native” as a uncovered enough evidence to mark that the
strategy for critical forms of postcolonial political constant iteration of the problem within representa-
discourses and art practices; the findings of this tion of indigeneity and the indigenous is a persistent
investigation complicated the question as they zone of disturbance across the region following a
presented a constant movement of dislocation; a complex exchange of circulation and contact across
need to develop a practice of reading “under borders, political contexts, art movements, and
erasure” and the discovery of a large depository of schools. Indigenisms from a comparative perspec-
evidence supporting the main premises. What I am tive proposes a moving away from the interpretation
presenting today is the process of two years of of the separated and discrete “national and regional
intense collaborative research by a large group of schools,” to expand the definitions of Indigenismo
investigators and specialists in the United States, and Indianism towards the many avant-garde and
Peru, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil that includes modernist idioms that thematically or formally
Norman Bryson, Natalia Majluf, Renato González imagined the Amerindian Continent as the corner-
Mello, Andrea Giunta, Amy Galpin, Gustavo Buntinx, stone of their programs for a “new” esthetics. At the
Jesse Lerner, Roberto Amigo, and Laura Malosetti. same time, the project seeks to address a new
With a generous research grant from the Getty perspective on the history and current formation of
Institute we were given a unique opportunity for Latin American art, by a critical revision of one its
conducting field trips to visit the special collections most recurrent, rich, problematic, and singular
of national and regional museums, as well to visit manifestations. An expanded use of the notion of
private collections, document archives, compile Indigenisms as a catalyst for the art of the modern
bibliography, do studio visits with artists, and era in the Americas brings a new ground from which
conduct regular meetings as well as two large group to generate a fluid network of intersections and
seminars. displacements in our understanding of the develop-
Indigenisms: Amerindian Imaginaries in the ment of a unique and original form of aesthetics and
Avant-Garde and Modern Era, 1800–2015 is an art production of cultural meaning in the region. The
exhibition and publication that proposes a system- materials that I am presenting today are only a very
atic critical revision of the discourse of the art small selection from the documented and studied art
history of the modern era in the Americas by works in the archive of the Indigenismos that we are
bringing to the center—as an organizing principle— compiling and organizing. Focusing in Peru, Mexico,
an expanded understanding and critique of the the United States, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile,
notion of Indigenismos. This exhibition gives a Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil, thus far the research
trans-historical and trans-continental account project presents a collection of examples advancing
gathering an unprecedented collection of art works a localization of singular difference intercepting and
that document and indicate that the problem of the disrupting the unfolding of modern and contempo-
representation of the Amerindian—be it as a phan- rary esthetics in the Americas. The conceptual and
tasmagoria of the past, or as singular social, speculative experiment was originally to posit the
cultural, and political phenomenon of the present— indigenous, as a spectral or “phantasmatic”
articulates the possibility in which the image of the presence in the art of the Americas, after looking at
indigenous as the subject of art becomes a over 3,000 objects, somehow the stakes seem
reversing mirror whereby the entire process of higher and we would like to claim that, indeed, there
modernization and the modern are inverted and is a ghost haunting the history of the avant-garde.

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Historical perspective Emancipation, the paintings, rare documents and

The nineteenth century sculptures in this section weave together a vital set
of hypotheses for our show: Indigenism as a genre is
The temporal arch of this exhibit follows a historic a considerable departure from previous “exotic
scheme that situates an early transformation vanquished” representations of Amerindian people,
occurring at the beginning of the nineteenth century. it is an overcoming of Orientalism, which inaugu-
Early representations of Amerindians in the rated a charged space of visualization and image
European Art of Latin America and the United States making acting as a cipher and allegory for a political
circulated as a hyperbolic apparition conceived critique of colonialism and nineteenth-century impe-
through a European lens and commonly used as rialism and, in the case of Francisco Lazo and Paul
propaganda depicting the indigenous populations as Gauguin—Peruvian on the side of his maternal
“uncivilized,” “primitive,” “heathen,” and subject of grandmother, Flora Tristan, the feminist socialist
conquest and expropriation. As the nineteenth writer and activist was a Peruvian member of the
century progressed, artists in Latin America and the Creole intellectual class—the future of these forms
United States would move away from this perspec- of image making is announced igniting the spectrum
tive, although still offering a construction of of temporality that the avant-garde will nurture and
Otherness that often expressed a complex and disseminate, one that appropriates images of a
ambiguous relation that fluctuated in registers pre-capitalist past to its own critical perspective of
ranging from the idealized forms of neo-classicism, modernity.
romanticisms, and the sublime pastoral to ethno-
graphic and archeological representations that were
recorded with rational and scientific purposes. In the Twentieth century. Modernisms
Latin American context, the cultural work that would
be performed by the scenes and figures of indige- Drawing from the intricate set of cultural, social and
nous life was tied to the need to produce imagery political mediations at stake in the previous transna-
conducive to the sense of national identity. Yet for tional dissemination of indigenisms in the nineteenth
the idea of independence from Spain to succeed, century—as a shared field of visualization for the
there had to be a radical alteration in the existing singular and situational conditions of each historical
representation of indigenous peoples—a reworking and regional case—the “genre” of Indigenism turns,
of older visual forms and scenes that can be located by additive intersections and further international
approximately in the period from the 1840s to the exchanges, into a form of fluid cosmopolitan avant-
1860s. For as long as most of Latin America was garde that insisted on creating a “nativistic” or
ruled by Spain and Brazil by Portugal, indigenous “original” art of the Americas by reifying and
cultures and peoples remained subject to a position- departing from the set of repertories, forms and
ing as the “unassimilable” Other to ruling. The tropes of previous generations. At the outset of
assumption of a fully independent cultural identity modernism and the proliferation of avant-gardes,
could only take place when their respective societies Indianist and Indigenist idioms and forms are wide
undertook the step of embracing the pre-Columbian spread in revival architecture, decorative arts,
“Other” as us, as part of a new and composite ballet, music, sculpture, public monuments, painting,
national community. Indigenismo should not be and literature. The turn of the century is defined by a
thought of only as a certain repertoire of subjects, two-way system of appropriation and re-appropria-
genres, and iconographies. What counts far more is tion of Indigenist motifs and themes that produce a
the overall position of Indigenism in the surrounding set of Deco and modernists styles based in
culture, as an art able to supply the means for Amerindian-revivals. The case is wide spread with
individual viewers, in the diversity of their different repercussions in all countries and showing varia-
occupations to come together as a national public tions that moved across different art movements and
and to reflect on the shared histories, vicissitudes, schools. Our exhibition dedicates central and
and values that membership in their new society extensive parts of its presentation to the representa-
entailed. tion of this moment with a rare and emblematic
This part of the exhibition provides the historic collection of art works and documents across these
ground for understanding the fascinating and rich different schools and styles. Closing the first part of
development of the “genre” of Indigenism in the the century, the centrality of the thematic and formal
academic traditions of the nineteenth century. iteration of the Amerindian comes to a critical mass
Constructed following an argument that traces the in the many debates and manifestations that
notion of an intrinsic relation between the cultural Surrealism brought to the New World. Our exhibition
and political aspirations of the emerging modern closes the section of the first part of the twentieth
societies in the region and the dialectics of a histori- century documenting how the many, and occasion-
cal moment oscillating between Empire and ally conflicting groups, within Surrealism in Latin

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America and the United States, were engaged in an historiography and representation of that moment in
intense exchange and discussion on how to posit the the United States, we present a set of documents
Indian culture and civilization as a horizon of artistic making a case for Siqueiros’s América Tropical and
experimentation and a space for a dissident or early work by Gunther Gerzso in the U.S. as valuable
Other social imagination. interventions in the public sphere that revolve
At the outset of the twentieth century the around a reformulation of latent violent inscriptions
proliferation of avant-garde tendencies in the contained in the Amerindian as a system of allegori-
International arena mine a burgeoning of Indianist cal visual constructs. Finally, the centrality of the
and Indigenist idioms and forms in a wide spread Amerindian comes to a critical mass in the many
phenomena of revival architecture, decorative arts, debates and manifestations Surrealism brought to
ballet, music, sculpture, public monuments, painting, the New World; documenting how the many—and
and literature producing a set of Deco and occasionally conflicting—groups were engaged in
modernist styles based in Amerindian-revivals. an intense exchange and discussion on how to posit
Following Andrea Giunta’s cogent formulation of the the Indian culture and civilization as a horizon of
three strategies of the Latino American avant-garde: artistic experimentation. Our exhibition closes the
inversion, appropriation of the appropriation and section of the first part of the twentieth century with
swallowing this part of the exhibition is the largest, Diego Rivera’s proto-conceptual interventions in
making the case for a wide spread iteration of the relation to collecting and mining the past which will
Amerindian imaginaries as core source of inspira- be explored and exhibited with a special collection
tion and stylistic inscription and reinscription in the of documents from the archives of the Anahuacalli,
modernist turn. A particular emphasis is given to the his archaeological and ethnographic research in
display of a collection of paintings, prints, photo- preparation for the murals at the National Palace, as
graphs, and publications that exemplify the well as his involvement in the affair of Ixcateopan.
consolidations of the Indigenista early avant-garde As an epilogue—the evidence gathered to that
schools in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, and moment suggests a form of cultural travestism
Mexico. The objects in this section also expand to operating as an allegory for Indigenism, as an
incorporate the apparition of the Antropofagia artistic and cultural strategy. We have collected a
movement in Brazil, the Constructivist abstract small essay of historical photographs to make this
experiments of the School of the South with Joaquin point. We close these first two parts of our exhibi-
Torres-Garcia underlining the Inca and Quechua tion with a reflection on the problematic and quite
sources that were central to his unique form of extraordinary ways in which artist and social groups
Constructivism and abstract experimentation. often dressed as Indians—advancing a sartorial
Further, the Indigenista routes that connected Cuzco perspective on modernist aesthetics.
to Rosario, traveling down the Rio de la Plata,
redressed in Ricardo Rojas’s figure of the Eurindian
Civilization enacted as an alternative imaginary to Twentieth century. Neo-avant-garde. The Cold War
the formation of the modern in Argentina. Here a era
significant current of Americanist art explored and
conceptualized the roots of its aesthetic manifesta- The postwar years were defined by intensification of
tions in connection to imaginaries of telluric the political meaning and destination of art. The case
geography and landscape that were expressed as a of indigenisms is interesting as it was clearly under
social narrative in the political notion of the attack in its canonical early twentieth century forms
“popular” and populism. Again in these examples of (Mexico, Central America, Peru, and the Andean
the local art movements were linked in an extended region). However, rather than disappearing it moved
cartography by their attempt at reaching for the into experimental new forms, mediums, and
indigenous core as the essence of a localized and languages. Our exhibition follows a Constructivist
unique character of America the continent as a form of engagement with land and archeology as
political and cultural horizon. The powerful works of inverted (buried) cartographies that were core
Antonio Berni, Sesotris Vitullo, Alfredo Guido, and elements of the forms of abstraction developed after
Getrudis Chale exemplified the centrality of this the Indianist investigations of the School of the
artistic program in the Southern Cone region. South. The path from geometrism, to abstraction, to
Moving north again, this section gives a careful land art, Minimalist, Pop, and Conceptual redresses
survey of the formation and importance of the Taos the Amerindian imaginaries working through them
School, reframing it in the hemispheric context and as radical dislocations from the excessive formalist
advancing a dispute over the isolation of the “inter- and neutral prescriptions of high modernism. The
national” tendencies of modernism that became strong selection of works from this historic moment
dominant in the next decade in the United States. As are posited as working through the Amerindian in
a counter point, and expanding on the the shape of trace, body, erasure, telluric

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abstraction, land, Other, self, populism, counter-cul- performative ethnic irony of Luna, Valadez, and
ture, agrarian revolution, psychedelic experience, Gomez Peña. This third part of the exhibition
ethnography... presents a wide range of experimental practices in
The return of the avant-garde in the postwar film, art, and counterculture that perform a radical
years is presented in our exhibition as a return of the ethnography via the inscription of indigenous psy-
indigenous, represented by a selection of works chedelic experiences and the return of the native
from emblematic artists in Latin America and the turns into a concrete new art form with the emblem-
United States that return to the Amerindian inscrip- atic early pieces of Jimmy Durham.
tions as key localizations from which new languages
and art-systems emerge. The indigenous as a return
in the art of the Americas leaves traces of signs and CODA: Contemporary disseminations.
remnants that deeply question the positioning of art
within a social and political context marked by the We close our exhibition with a contemporary CODA
Cold War, military regimes, counter-culture, mass section that presents a group of artists from Brazil,
culture, revolutionary politics and identity, and Peru, the United States, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile,
gender politics. The abstract experiments of Gerzso, and Mexico who are currently creating work that
Szyszlo, and Paternosto exemplify the many engages and elaborates many of the forms, themes,
instances in which abstraction visualizes the ancient and subjects of Indigenisms. The contemporary
Amerindian structures and cities as mythical systems examples follow the dissemination of the historical
for an inverted architecture, and an inverted formation of Indigenisms in the avant-garde and
territory. Body trace and document figure as (re) modern era, bringing to the foreground a political
inscriptions of archaic systems that beget techno- and critical deconstruction of the indigenous as a
logical dislocations in the chosen works of Katz, subject, and the Amerindian as an imaginary inscrip-
Smithson, Downey, and Larrain. The conceptual tion and construct. With work from Sam Durant,
erasures, sedimentations and poetic short-circuits of Coco Fusco, Leonilson, Anna Bella Geiger, Dr.
Camnitzer, Vicuña, Meireles, and Bedoya return to a Lakra, Alfredo Marquez, David Zink Yi, Ruben Ortiz-
phantom of the indigenous as a critical zone of Torres, Jesse Lerner, Eduardo Abaroa, Mariana
disturbance and critique of capitalist modernity. The Castillo Deball, De la Torre brothers, Wendy Red
indigenous as an insurgent and political subject at Star, Vicente Razo, Olivier Debroise, and Giancarlo
the center of history is, in its maximum embodiment Scaglia, among others, the exhibition turns the
in the populist and revolutionary politics of agrarian question of the representation of the Amerindian and
reform and the Zapatista uprising, represented by its history as a key localization of contemporary art
the work of Jesus Ruiz Durand, NN, Turok, and practices and culture. The contemporary section
Salgado. The traces and sediments of this indige- emerges almost without transition, demonstrating
nous manifestation of radical politics turn into the that a formal, political and critical deconstruction of
documental and poetic forms of ethnography the indigenous as a subject and the Amerindian as
recording the self and the Other as a border where an imaginary construct persists as key localizations
desire and alterity merge and sway in the photogra- to the practices of contemporary artists and popular
phy of Iturbide and Andjuar, as well as in the culture.

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Panel discussion with speakers.

Shigemi Inaga, Hammad Nasar, Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars],
Eugene Tan, and Mariana Botey, moderated by Frances Morris.

sort of incorporation of the indigenous that is not

Panel discussion: properly understood in its structure, so it returns as
a return of the repressed. So it’s a technical notion
— Frances Morris: I’m afraid we’ve gone of “the ghost” in psychoanalytical-historical terms
seriously overtime, so we’ve got slightly less time for but it really works like that. First we thought it was a
discussion than we might otherwise have had, but ghost in the archive, and we were looking at
I’m sure it will be extremely intense. We have just “ghosts” in the archive, but eventually as we were
had a pre-discussion about what we might talk about doing the research we uncovered so many itera-
and we thought about clarifying some terms, but tions, so many objects, so many places where it was
after spending ten and a half minutes just on the first appearing, that by now I have to say that I don’t
particularization, we thought it might be better to know any more if he’s a “ghost” or I’m dealing
start in a different way, so… I thought we could actually with a particular concrete formation of
pick-up on this idea of “ghosts,” and very simply ask modernism that takes the figure of the indigenous as
our perspective contributors to elaborate on what a sort of cultural transvestism, for example.
kind of ghosts they have seen in their own countries. — Frances Morris: Can I just pick up on that?
So perhaps we could begin with… why don’t we How does that relate? You talked about “Deco”
begin with Mariana... on ghosts. cannibalism. How does that idea of indigeneity
— Mariana Botey: Yes. The original conceptual- relate to the kind of Brazilian notion of antropofagia,
ization of the project that I was presenting was in a kind of absorption of modernity?
constructed precisely as the notion that “the indige- — Mariana Botey: Yes, exactly, because the
nous” was in fact a phantasmatic apparition, a notion in ritual antropofagia across the indigenous
sighting within the canonical history of modernism, systems in the anthropology and the studies about
and there was the idea, in fact, that the indigenous… this, the precise organization of the sacred
And I think in this Latin America may be a little operation of antropofagia as part of a specific ritual,
particular, because the process of colonization in is a technology of dealing with ghosts and dealing
the sixteenth century does imply a radical holocaust with the dead, and basically you eat your enemy in
to the “civilizatory” processes of the Americas order to incorporate the power of the enemy, right?
before the arrival of… a real destruction, a massive These are cultures that are not based on the notion
genocide, a destruction of all the epistemic system, of rejecting the “Other,” but radically incorporating
so it’s what we would call in psychoanalytical terms the “Other” because the “Other” has to be, you
a “foreclosure” of the indigenous civilization. So, the know, incorporated. So, eating the enemy is a way
indigenous in this speculative critical mode that the to incorporate the enemy; so we conceptualized the
exhibition is interrogating is conceived as a whole indigenista-transvestite-modernism as a sort
phantom, as precisely that return of the real, or the of antropofagia of French pompier painting, of
return in the real, of that which has been foreclosed, neo-classical art forms of historical paintings in the
and this was important because it created a sort of nineteenth century, those paintings in which it looks
phantasmatic sovereignty, a phantasmatic sense of like a strange combination between French painting
a parallel or second civilization occupying that. I’m from the nineteenth century and the classical forms,
saying this because sometimes people think the but it’s Atahualpa and it’s Cuauhtémoc, so it’s a sort
exhibition is about indigenous art, right? But the of antropofagia of modernism, in which some sort of
exhibition is actually about mestizo, creole, phantasmatic formation is generating an identity that
European being kind of visited by the… It’s a phan- belongs to the Creole, to the mestizo, and eventually
tasmatic imaginary construction, it’s not the art of becomes a form of populist radical politics; so, it’s a
the indigenous people; it’s the imagination, this ghost but it operates in the political as a real
phantasmatic presence that has to do with issues of important catalyst for the possibility of imagining a
mourning, the destruction of this civilization, and a community, so it has that double formation.

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— Frances Morris: Okay, it’s getting complicated. identities as a way of resolving the question of
[Laughs]… Hammad. identity politics… because I find identity politics
— Hammad Nasar: Thanks. It’s complicated… I’m extremely tiresome and reductive. Are you a British-
going to complicate it further, because you asked “in Pakistani artist? Are you an Iranian-American artist?
your country,” and I’m going to say I have at least Are you a Palestinian-Canadian artist? I think that
two. I was born in Pakistan but I live, you know, each of those contain much more complexity than
mostly in Britain, and I’ll then sort of try to address we like to allow. Let’s take Russia, for example.
both through, and actually looking at the idea of What is interesting about Russia’s “ghosts,” of
exhibitions that haunt, and this particular exhibition course, is its question of empire and the large
also addresses some of the concerns we were questions of whether Russia is an empire, a tradi-
talking about today. It’s called The Other Story: tional colonial empire in the understanding of
Afro-Asian Art in Post-War Britain and was curated colonialism and Orientalism, as it was described by
by Rasheed Araeen in 1989 at the Hayward Gallery. Said. Well, yes and no. Unlike England and France,
A few months ago I presented a paper that argued Russia’s colonialism was not to far-off places, to
that this particular exhibition is haunting British art people that it didn’t know, so they didn’t go across
history, and the last sighting was actually at Tate oceans or across lands, but actually they went
Britain, the Migrations exhibition, and the subtitle of across a border and colonized people that had
that Migrations exhibition was Migrations into previously colonized it just three or four centuries
British Art, and then the idea is that if you can earlier. So that deflates the kind of civilizing mission
migrate into an art history, does that mean that it that you have, the messianic mission that you have
has migrated out of elsewhere; and there’s this idea accompanying the narrative, of this kind of deadly
that, you know, ghosts haunt a place because their combination of knowledge and power that Said so
spirit is not at rest, and for those who know and love potently described. Also Bolshevism, of course, even
Rasheed Araeen, this is definitely a spirit that is not though they did extent some of this colonial empire,
at rest, and it’s a question of trying to sort of the colonial policies of the Russian empire, it had to
inscribe within art history, and if that inscription is pay lip service to anti-imperialism, they couldn’t
not acknowledged, the ghost still haunts; and of just… They had at least fake it to a certain degree,
course the issue now, and I think this is where we so what they did was to immediately train local
get into the tricky questions of global and local also, scholars in Kyrgyzstan, in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan
is the kind of artists that were in the “other” story— to become scholars in their own right, so there was
people like Rasheed Araeen, Li Yuan-chia, Francis an empowerment that you didn’t find early on, and
Souza, David Medalla—what happens when Eugene also finally the Russian “Orientology” was inspired
and his team start writing the history of David by German Orientalism. German Orientalism, of
Medalla, the Southeast Asian artist. Or the Sharjah course, was divorced from colonialism for a very
Art Foundation or the VM Gallery in Karachi start long time, much more esoteric, much more theologi-
writing the story of Rasheed Araeen, the Pakistani cally driven, about finding out the original language
Muslim artist dealing with modernism, or Li Yuan- of the Old Testament. So, what’s interesting for me
chia’s story is written by the Taipei Fine Arts and for us about Russian Orientalism is that Russia
Museum as you know, “the father” of Conceptual art itself is both “self” and “other,” its history is a
in Taiwan—of course he’s a guy who left in ’56 and constant kind of schizophrenia of looking west,
never went back… What happens is you start looking east, looking inwards, but it can’t separate
over-writing the stories that for British art were not one from the other, that allows for a complexity, a
written in the first place, so does that mean that theoretical complexity that French Orientalism and
those hauntings will continue forever, or is the British Orientalism simply do not.
collection the way that you bust this ghost? — Eugene Tan: I think we have a few “ghosts,” as
— Frances Morris: Well, maybe somebody will well, in what we are trying to do, both in our telling
want to come on back on that when we open up the of Singapore’s art history as well as Southeast Asia.
discussion, but maybe we should then turn to Payam With regards to Singapore, I’d say some aspects of
and talk about ghosts. Where are the “ghosts” art history that till now we haven’t been able to tell,
coming on the edge of empire? such as… I was telling you about the Equator Art
— Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: Well, I can’t Society, for example, that Chua Mia Tee was a
say that Russia is my country, because it’s a country member of, and they were effectively ignored from
that I have spent many years in and studied in and art history because of their affiliations to the
like very much, but I have three countries that have a communist party at the time. As you know,
kind of war with each other: Iran, Russia, and the Singapore was undergoing the Malayan Emergency
United States, so, either the historical enemies, against the communists in the 1950s and sixties, and
current enemies, or this idea of anthropophagy is because of that, their contributions have been
quite… I think the idea of really adopting multiple largely ignored, and they were the first artists who

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saw the social role of art, that art was able as a added that the spirits were gone; in the museums
means to kind of affect social change. The other only the form remains and the “living speak” was
was taking out history going back to the nineteenth somewhere lost. And probably that was the starting
century, a time when art was largely made by point of my own reflections and in a museum, not
Europeans and British coming through Singapore, only the display but also in the museum’s stories as I
but they in themselves brought new ideas of visual said, and the things are there, but the spirits are
representation to Singapore, and hence also hidden, and still they’re sleeping or they are
changed how art was produced. And then, more watching us, probably. And there is the witnesses
recently, how artists in Singapore are looking and we have already heard that “ghosts” are every-
towards the international or the global; but, as where, and how to make the resurrection would be a
Hammad pointed out as well, we’re also considering good subject-matter I think, and especially in recent
the role that diaspora artists such as David Medalla years in Asia, especially in the film industry there are
and Kim Lim play in our whole art history and… yes, many ghost films, ghost movies. I’m wondering why
exactly what kind of role did it play in linking our art in the last ten years, and some of them get the
histories as well? highest prize in the Western film festivals, and even
— Frances Morris: Can you say just a little bit the Christian people from a Christian country really
more about how you would integrate David Medalla appreciate that resurrection of the ghost. So, I’m
back in your narrative? also talking about… Mariana talked about the fore-
— Eugene Tan: Well, he left the Philippines for closure and so on… This is a psychoanalytical idea,
London in the 1960s, but at the same time he still but something has been repressed for a long time in
continued to have strong links to Southeast Asia, to modernity, and… yes, Payam quoted the name of
the Philippines, to many countries, and I suppose it’s Norman Brown and it’s also quite suggestive, and
through those connections that he also played a role something is hidden, but something is waiting for us
influencing some of the practices that we see today. to listen, so this is the starting point and I think
Likewise for Kim Lim. She was involved with the everything is connected.
Alpha Gallery in Singapore in the 1970s, so through — Frances Morris: In the abstract in the booklet
these connections she brought this element of the you talked… You sort of ventured the notion that
international to Singapore as well. modernism itself… what we continue, or maybe we
— Frances Morris: But how would you frame that don’t, but until recently we have certainly from a
context of a kind of… through the individual artist perspective of Western Europe taken this sort of
having an influence or just the artist being a conduit hegemonic master narrative and everything springs
for a kind of connectivity to another regional from it and comes back to it, and of course that is
practice? something that we now broadly question today, and
— Eugene Tan: It’s really through individual we’re questioning it finding new terms and new
practices and connections. I think that is what is frames of reference, but you venture in your abstract
really lacking in the study and understanding of to suggest that maybe modernity itself is just kind of
Singapore and Southeast Asian art. As I mention, it’s an atmosphere disturbance in a kind of bigger
still relatively in the research field and there are global history, and I kind of like this idea that we may
these individual connections and links, and the be returning to something, not just moving on, and
impacts that subsequently must be researched and that has something to do with the talk about facing
explored. backwards to face forward, as some kind of
— Frances Morris: Back to the man who invented sympathy with that idea that modernism is
“ghosts.” Having heard the presentations from our something maybe not so deeply rooted.
colleagues, were there any points of particular sort — Shigemi Inaga: Yes, the metaphor of “distur-
of synergy you felt in relation to some of the provo- bance.” That metaphor anyway comes from the
cations that you have put out there? typhoon, the cyclone or… in the United States what
— Shigemi Inaga: I would say anyway it is my is it… the hurricane. And, as you know, if this kind of
proposal to try to find out once again the “lost air disturbance begins, at its center there is a huge
ghost,” and it’s already quite successful listening to eye, a blind eye, the hole, but still it is a kind of
our presenters, so I’m more than delighted already, originator of all the energies in a configuration of all
and because I talked too much this morning, so I’m the powers that are circulating around designating
not going to repeat it. But still, a friend of mine who that hole, which is vacant, and probably that’s where
is Japanese and who has been teaching for a long the spirit is haunting.
time—almost thirty years in Vancouver—, once said — Frances Morris: Well, I think, on that amazing
to me that in Canada the native people have so moment where there’s a black hole, we need to open
many, you know, interesting art works… Probably to the discussion to all of you. So, please, your
you know Claude Levi-Strauss, for example, made a questions.
book on that, The Masks… and other things… But he

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Sunday November 8, 2015

Day 2. How has modernism been perceived globally?

Q & A with speakers.

Shigemi Inaga, Hammad Nasar, Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars],
Eugene Tan, and Mariana Botey, moderated by Frances Morris.
— Michael Levin: Thank you. What I would like to or where it ends—but if it had not been for UNESCO,
share with you is my experience about modernism. I we used to save some of the most important
also happen to be born in Asia, just the other side of buildings because in a lot of them floors were added
Asia, in Jerusalem, and at a certain moment I was and therefore they could not be considered worthy
invited to do an exhibition of modernism in Israel. To of recognition. So, I think it’s a challenge. I mean, we
my great surprise I found out that Tel Aviv has the take it for granted that modernism is so important,
largest concentration of early modernism in the but without UNESCO it would not have happened.
world, and when I did an exhibition for the museum — Frances Morris: Would anybody like to
as a freelancer—that was before I became Chief comment? I mean, Hammad, as he was speaking I
Curator and Director of the Tel Aviv Museum of was thinking about your notion of sort of rooted
Art—I was very hesitant about it and it was a very modernism, a modernism on values, heritage, and
modest exhibition, but it traveled to New York, modernity.
Berkeley, the São Paulo Biennial, and Buenos Aires. — Hammad Nasar: Yes, I don’t have very much to
As a result of that, it took me another nineteen years say about UNESCO, I’m afraid. There are other
to get the recognition of UNESCO [to make] Tel Aviv people better qualified, but this idea of the root I find
a World Heritage City. This was very important interesting, and I think in particular to ideas of the
because the people of Tel Aviv couldn’t care less contemporary. Thankfully we are beginning to move
about it. The fact that I claimed that was a large away from what I call the “unhinged” contemporary,
concentration didn’t mean anything; only when the a contemporary that is free floating; even sort of art
New York Times quoted me, suddenly it became a fairs now have modernist sort of parts or divisions,
fact, and as my grandmother used to say: so there is this interest coming back, but quite often
“Everything that is written in a newspaper is true.” these hinges are invisible, so one of the things that
So, to my great surprise, it was much harder to for us and—let me speak for myself—, that I find
convince the people of Tel Aviv that the houses very interesting is to say, “Well, what are these
they’re living in were worthwhile preserving; they hinges and can we make them visible?” And quite
demolished a lot of them and it was a surprise for often this idea of “indigenism,” this was also very,
them to discover they are a laboratory of very prevalent and much discussed in multiple
modernism. Tel Aviv is the eighth monument in the languages in India, for instance, and when we start
twentieth century that was recognized by UNESCO using words like “modernism”—and let me sort of
and that’s a fantastic example where UNESCO was take it back to the example of India—there is one of
so influential in preserving the heritage of what was these sort of the most circulated art historical texts
left. Between the twenties and the thirties, six on India is one called When was Modernism in
thousand buildings were built in the international Indian Art?, and it’s written by another formidable
modernist style, and this has to do with the fact that critic-curator-writer, Geeta Kapur, and at the
there was no tradition, because the people who lived moment we’re doing a project that is looking at art
in Tel Aviv came from different countries, had no writing in India in thirteen languages across a
tradition, and therefore modernism appealed to hundred years, and in sort of flippant moments and
them because it was linked with the modern world. I never to her face because Geeta Kapur is a very
was myself born in a modern building and for me it formidable lady, so don’t tell her. It’s often
was vernacular architecture. I took it for granted described—the project that we’re doing—as trying
that this is how architecture, modern architecture, is, to put a parenthesis in the title of her book, to say,
how architecture looks like. So, to be honest, without “When was English-speaking Modernism in Indian
UNESCO recognition many of the buildings would Art?” Geeta trained at the RCA, actually at pretty
have been demolished, and luckily also when much the same time as Zahoor—who I was just
UNESCO recognized the White City of Tel Aviv— describing. She’s writing in English from a cosmo-
White City is a pure invention, because there is no politan center, New Delhi, but speaking for a vast,
white city and there is no definition of where it starts you know, continent of a country, and if you then

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think about these thirteen languages, and there Balibarsin speaks the universal and the universal is
could be many—Malayalam, Gujarati, Assamese, precisely what we are trying to dislocate as a
Urdu, Bangla…—modernism or those ideas of speech, in the notion of a globalization where
modernism would have entered these languages at precisely this subaltern formations stay. Now, we’re
different times and different spaces, and if they in the inside modernism, which is obviously a con-
could speak to the English language modernism, struction of the particular European, so how you sort
what would they say and how would they complicate of make a creole, a vernacular, a translation, which
that story? And of course they then begin to exceed should be a mistranslation and should be a key to
these boundaries of nation, region, so if you’re going showing that the mistranslation of both structures,
to look at Bangla writing, well, of course you’ll have so the nineteenth century paintings are also very
to go to Bangladesh, so one of the other ghosts that interesting because they were forever kitsch abject
we all live with—I think, you know, that the objects hidden in the national museums of all the
gentleman from Israel is an example—is the ghost Americas, right? Because they were neither the
we create through nation-making, through partitions, good proper French painting, nor a true representa-
so the ghosts with in fact the story that I share of tion of the indigenous, so it was from that kind of
India and Pakistan, those stories are largely notion of them as abject bad language, a precisely
unknown to each other, so the art histories of India subalternity that is trying to speak the universal and
are so really blind to the art histories of Pakistan, rather than speaking the universal, radical, eventu-
although they’re coming so much out of that same ally dislocates the whole system of representation
source, and I think that active creation of strangers and creates the zone of disturbance in this notion of
through partition is something that is… I mean, it a universal jurisdiction through language that it was
would be interesting to think about… Well, there isn’t Latin, but then eventually became Italian, which was
a National Gallery of Malaysia, but let’s say, if there the speaking of the people, a vernacular. So,
were a National Gallery of Malaysia with the same perhaps these dislocations of the modernist
ambition and resources that there is in the National language through these different localizations, in the
Gallery Singapore, what would be their imagination formation of two hundred years going back to big
of Southeast Asia? history, will actually become themselves a sort of,
— Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: I would like you know, new sovereign language in a full sense.
to add just also to that, when we speak of modern- So, this talking bad the master language, talking
isms of language there’s also a further complexity, back to the master in a different language is in a
which is the modernisms of alphabets of those sense where is also articulated forming these kinds
languages speaking, and we often think of alphabets of materials, because it’s the singularity that
as neutral agents that somehow have always been appears.
part of that language, but in our region, which has — Shigemi Inaga: Just adding to what has been
changed alphabets three times: the Muslims of the said. There is a very famous contemporary Chinese
former Russian Empire and Soviet Union changed artist by the name of Xu Bing, you know all, and he
from Arabic script to Latin in ’29, Cyrillic in ’39 and made a fake Chinese characters and he made his
back to Latin in ’91, so you have three generations debut in the international art market. Why was he
that are kind of immigrants in their own language, accepted? Simply because his calligraphy is not
and you could look at this idea of a script world also, readable. You understand? If it’s readable then it’s in
not just a language-driven regionalism but a script the Chinese character sphere and he could not have
driven one. It’s something we can see in the region gone out of that regional market, because his char-
as well, whether it’s between Urdu and Hindi, or acters are illegible, unreadable, that he could
whether it’s between—even in Slavic languages— emancipate to the global market, and of course now
between kind of the Catholic Western-facing Slavs, he’s saying that his own invention can be deciphered
the Cyrillic Catholic Latin-based Western Slavs, and and people can learn it, because it’s [faithful?] to the
the Cyrillic Orthodox Slavs historically. principles of the Chinese character, the combination
— Mariana Botey: I mean, this jurisdiction, this of elements you can write to have some literacy in a
universal jurisdiction of language, a sort of imperial sense. This is one of the strategies that he very
jurisdiction—and UNESCO is a form of, you know, carefully kind of created, so as to break the bounda-
global jurisdiction in a sense—, I think it’s interesting ries of the practical language.
thinking of Geeta Kapur and, you know, the project — Frances Morris: I think it would be interesting…
we’re doing is very much work through working with Oh, there’s a question here, and then one here.
Spivak, very close to Spivak, and it was never — Carina Plath: Yes, thank you. There’s also like
conceived only as Latin American, we know that this a nice story of the Welsh[-born] sculptor, Richard
indigenous is also in the geist of the subaltern, right? Deacon, who got an invitation from Beijing to show
And the problem of subalternity, and a problem of him, but he didn’t lend to the show and nor did his
precisely a universal speaking, right? I did quote galleries. So they just redid Richard Deacon’s

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sculptures and he was fun enough that he went. I it didn’t look like art, let’s say, it looked like a folk
don’t know if there was a conflict, but it could be an museum and I think that what—to come back to
interesting economic conflict. You know, the Chinese Professor Inaga’s talk—what’s interesting about
made a perfect imitation of Richard Deacon’s work craft and folklore is that it counters the narrative of
and Richard Deacon has the humor to go to it, but in art and social contemporary modern art, because it
case they would sell it for the price of a Richard decouples innovation from individualism, so innova-
Deacon it would be, like, interesting, so… I don’t tion is not about individuality, but about the
know if it happened. But my question is really collective or even anonymity, right? This idea of
towards conflicts and I would like to ask Slavs and repeating your masters for ten years before you
Tatars about which conflicts you are kind of experi- dare to make a single contribution, and that’s
encing when you do your work, because it’s very something that you find in practices, whether it’s,
provocative. What kind of conflicts you get doing again, sort of a dikra, the zikra or Buddhist
your shows in the different areas where you are practices, this is something that comes from a
showing? Thank you. resolutely anti-modernist approach to time. So, we
— Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: Well, let me unfortunately have tended to kind of put our step in a
maybe just tell the story of the 10th Sharjah Biennial, kind of proverbial sheet, in terms of exhibitions and
since we have some important members of that rights, I mean, we worked in Manifesta, despite the
biennial team here. It was a biennial that was much fact that many of our colleagues were pulling out,
spoken about because the issue of censorship, and and we don’t necessarily believe in boycotting, in so
the Mustapha Benfodil’s piece was censored right far as the bigger challenge is to really say yes and
next to our pavilion. Our pavilion was called then say no while you’re saying yes, so to really
“Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz,” and engage but engage with the complexity of the
it traced the unlikely points of convergence between matter and not try to brush it under the carpet. So,
Iranian and Polish history from the seventeenth whether it’s in the Emirates, whether it’s in Russia,
century to 2009, including, as a way to look it, these issues are not very different from those we
essentially Iranian protest movement, Green have to deal with in New York or London or Berlin,
Movement. If Poland’s Solidarność had battled to be honest. It’s simply acknowledging that
communism effectively, then what could it teach complexity.
Iran’s struggle with the counter-partner of the — Olga Sviblova: [I’m from] from Russia. I think it
political Islam? And ironically, in 2009, while we was very important expression “English-speaking
were doing this research, in fact many Poles were world modernism,” and we were talking today about
translated for the first time into Persian, from modernism, it’s not by chance that we started with
Zygmunt Bauman to Miłosz to Kolakowski, etc. So, this whole story of the Latin American presentation
a dealt with the notions of protest, ideas of Shiism in from the moment when national arts found identity.
a country that was overwhelmingly Sunni, and So, I think what we have to be in the contemporary
opening the day that the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, art world… It’s a very fashionable discourse today
sent troops over into Bahrain, an overwhelmingly what it means the relationships between interna-
Shiite country, and yet nobody raised an issue during tional and national context. So if you’re not local, you
these three months, in spite of the fact that next could not find your place in the international context,
door there was a very provocative piece that was but how do we read this idea of local art? How do
censored. And what’s interesting about that is… we translate the local context? And we touched this
there’s a kind of fetishization of conflict in our milieu theme a little in the panel discussion yesterday. A
that… And we’ve been accused, for example, by few days ago, I was in Mexico and in a beautiful
some saying that, you know, that they hope that museum, University Museum. I saw a piece of con-
Slavs and Tatars could do work that would be more temporary art they did to remember the local artists
censored in the Emirates, in Russia, and I find this to and it was a great piece. It was just writing: “If you
be somewhat a very outdated vision of politics, in a don’t know the English language, you’re not a con-
sense that it’s politics that “speaks at you” as temporary artist,” and I think it was a quite great
opposed to “speaking with” an audience—so there it presentation. It was a show about younger local
already loses a sense of generosity. You know, we artists who explain exactly what’s the way to be
started as a reading group, so the idea of a level visible and to be understandable. So, if we begin to
playing field, we’re not pedagogically more experts, have the migration from local context to this, I can
we’re not “speaking at people,” we’re “speaking with tell the word “imperialism” in the contemporary art. I
people,” hopefully, so I don’t really consider the hear a lot about Russian imperialism. We talk about
work to be overtly political in a sense that… Of the colonial style everywhere in the world, we have
course, it’s political in a sense that in so far as the same things in the fields of contemporary art
anything that we do, the subject matter is very today, and it’s exactly the game: How we want to
political, but part of the reason was that I think that see this local context? Without these new forces,

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new vitamins, the general global art market couldn’t realities deal one with another?
be blocked today, but when these flowers arrive to — Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: Is the
this big machine, English-speaking global context, question whether the English language is necessarily
it’s totally transformed to another product, and they limiting the freedom of contemporary art? Well,
live there and they can write the book for the young okay… So, I mean, I can only speak from my per-
artists who understand very well when they write, “If spective. Our work is a constant struggle against
you don’t know the English language, you’re not a the hegemony of English, we do research in Russian,
contemporary artist.” So that’s this innovation, but Polish, Persian, French, those languages we can. I
that’s the way how artists start to be seen. So, how don’t know many artists who do research in five
do we understand when we describe with the same languages, so we try our best to do that, but English,
words “avant-garde,” “modernism,” totally different yes, it’s a transactional language, it’s not the most
processes. You started today… If we talk, for suited for all the purposes, but is… At certain
example, about the history of Russia, now we talk countries they’re at disadvantage because of
about the beginning of the twentieth century; for the English… Let me just speak about Russia, because I
Latin American you started much earlier, modernism think that, to be honest, as much as a Russophile as
started much earlier. So, how do we understand who I am, I think that the country is underperforming
is writing today the history? And that was your significantly in contemporary art, and the reason
question also; if somebody stopped, if this institution why is that it hasn’t invested in education, and that’s
stopped to write the history; or this artist, if he will why a country right next to it, like Poland… It’s not
be in the history of contemporary art. Yesterday, we because Poland is an Atlanticist country that is
saw Niki de Saint Phalle from one of the biggest somehow always at the behest of America—and
collection of this artist in Japan. For example, I didn’t believe me, I can criticize Poland’s politics with the
know that Niki de Saint Phalle was so present in United States—, but it’s not because Poland is an
Japan, but what was the visibility of Niki de Saint Atlanticist country that it has a much stronger
Phalle in France and in Japan? How she was under- tradition of… or kind of larger number of artists that
standable if she didn’t arrive? The artist didn’t arrive are engaged today in making contemporary art, it’s
for the biggest collection—and that’s the topic of our simply because there’s an investment in education,
discussion yesterday—, if we then have the and in Russia there still isn’t an educational model
museums who collect the same things, we arrive for for artists that has moved beyond anything that was
the museum of contemporary art at the end of ages. done a hundred years ago. And that’s astounding to
What we’re looking at? The same names? Quite the me, that all this money in such a wealthy country is
same pieces? And like this, was not the history of spent on exhibiting. And the same thing happens in
contemporary art very quickly conceptualized? And Central Asia. Central Asia, after the fall of
it’s quite difficult later to rebuild this, to put us in the communism, all these NGOs come in—Hivos,
bricks of this building. So who made the signature Soros…—and they give money to this generation of
like our posters today, the blue posters to go to the central Asian artists that are shown everywhere.
performance to the museum? Who tells us today Great artists—Aharonov,* Arbusin,* Olivierkov*,
what the history of contemporary art means? What etc.—but the next generation sits there and says:
it’s not? We might respect the algorithm, we know “What about us?” Because none of that money was
the law, we know the rules of the game. If these spent on education. It’s nothing new, it’s not rocket
rules, if contemporary art we need because we need science. So I think that’s one important element in
the freedom, but the law that we constructed in our contributing to the writing of contemporary art
world is the same law like the political systems, like history: educating young artists in their own country,
economical systems, so we need to be proud. These so they don’t have to leave to be educated, like Taus,
rules of the games that’s totally against the for example, or like Arseni, for example, or like
freedom… We need artists because we would like to others.
find the new drops of freedom, but when we work — Hammad Nasar: If I could add sort of two
with the history of art, we totally put them to the comments, one is referring back to the work that I
clean structure. We don’t give the visibility of the showed of the youngest artist, Noor Ali Chagani,
freedom, so that’s just the question: How do we deal these little bricks in the wall, and Noor Ali… Well, he
with this structure, not structure, freedom? speaks English perfectly, you know, perfectly well,
— Frances Morris: Olga, can I just interrupt you can be understandable, but in a way I’m interested in
for one second? Could you just frame your question this particular group of artists who sort of think in
in just a very few words? Because I think some of Urdu, and this idea that, yes, you know, that’s not
that was lost in the delivery. their first language and that particular work is
— Olga Sviblova: I want to know how today we interesting to me also because it is literally
write the history of contemporary art. Where is the embedded in the wall, inside, it is as local as it gets.
law and where is the freedom? How do these two That work cannot travel. Those images don’t really

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travel unless people like me show them elsewhere, ways speaks to that story, about the investment in
so that is work that is speaking to a very, very this group of artists’ teachers through this idea of
specific place, and I think it’s a good example of that the living tradition. I haven’t read enough of
specificity that through being so local and through Yothreenda Jane to see how sympathetic or not he
specific can actually transcend that place geograph- would be to that formulation of living tradition, but I
ically and through time. And while we’re then looking think there’s efficient common ground. The first of
at that local, I think we shouldn’t ignore the other the projects as part of this “London, Asia” thing with
local… Britain, for instance. One of the things that… the Paul Mellon Centre is actually a conference next
I’m sorry if I start like advertising projects, but one summer in London, which looks at how South Asia
of the projects that we just started with the Paul has been exhibited in Britain over the last century,
Mellon Centre for British Studies in the UK is called and the interest in that is coming out on how that
“London, Asia,” and it posits the idea of London as has been framed. So, for example, right now there is
an Asian city for the generation of art history and an exhibition at the BNA that has a title called
visual culture, so to think about it as a… not about “Festival of India,” and if you quickly google Festival
exchange, but actually intermeshing, so people like of India—somebody will do it right now—, I’m sure… I
David Medalla, what he did for London and for the don’t know how many entries you will get, but there
art scene in Britain… I mean, Britain, to be perfectly have been many, many festivals of India in Britain,
frank was a minor player in the story of modernism, and I think one of the questions is why does that
and sort of the injection of, you know, dragging framing continue and what does it reveal, and I think
Britain to contemporary time was largely thanks to one of the things that we need to question with
people like David Medalla, and Rasheed Araeen, you exhibitions, with collections, is… You know, in your
know, and we can think of many others, and Ligia beautiful museum in Sydney, and what you just said
Clark, and I think those stories, so it’s not just about about the importance of the aboriginal story, but if
writing this new stories in Lahore or in Biskek or in you just stay outside the museums all you see is
Kuala Lumpur, it’s as much about writing new stories names of dead white guys, none of whose work is
within Britain or London or New York. actually inside the museum, so my sort of question to
— Frances Morris: Okay, so those are respond- you is… You know, when you build the extension,
ents for that, I’m sure you all agree… Should we whose names would you put on that extension?
begin at the back with Suhanya? — Frances Morris: Would you like to answer that?
— Suhanya Raffel: [I’m] from the Art Gallery of — Suhanya Raffel: I’ll just let others know the Art
New South Wales, from the Pacific end of the world, Gallery of New South Wales is a museum that was
and I just wanted to say two things. One, a question built in the mid-eighteen hundreds, 1871, and it’s
to Hammad, with the project with Geeta and almost an identical copy of the Scottish National
modernism and the parenthesis and the other Gallery. In fact at the time, when it was being built,
languages, but also to… And it links to my next the architect Walter Vernon had… You know, his
comment, and this is about Yothreenda Jane’s* work original idea for the building was an indoor Saracen
with the other masters, and these are the artists who piece of architecture, but the trustees at the time felt
are known as Arvasi* artists within the Indian that that was certainly not what they wanted, and
context, artists who are coming from a tradition that they directed Vernon to look at the Scottish National
is in a very different relationship to modern India, Gallery Building, which he then proceeded to copy in
and is there and is recognized within the dialogs of beautiful Sidney sandstone, and you have a neoclas-
art, so I’ll just park that to one side and then come sical façade and, as Hammad said, with all these
from the Australian perspective. We had Brook names of artists that again the then trustees
Andrew speaking yesterday about aboriginal voices, believed were the masters of art at the time, and
and to know that in the context of our museum work these are people like Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, and
in Australia that the voice of aboriginal artists, first so on. As Hammad said, we don’t have any of those
nation artists, are vital to our histories and how we particular artists inside, and perhaps that’s quite a
speak about our history, and to know that the good thing. Underneath those names, on the façade
museums in our part of the world are engaged in of the building are these blank recesses that were
those projects, as intrinsic and embedded to meant to be filled with reliefs of these artists’ work,
thinking about what is artistry today and how are we which were never done, so it’s really a wonderful
contemporary today. So, I’ll just leave those two metaphor for what maybe… You know, thinking
thoughts and hand back to you, Hammad. I mean, about the Palestinian museum that you actually don’t
you have spoken about the other story. What about fill it with something because it is much more alive
the other masters? by not doing that. We are at the moment in the
— Hammad Nasar: Well, in some ways the trajec- process of expanding our museum and we’re
tory that I was sort of just sketching out very briefly working with the Japanese architects Sanaa to make
today about the living tradition of Indian art, in some this expansion, hopefully opening in 2021, and the

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architect chair that has been proposed by Sanaa is when a question implied that that is also a
diametrically opposed to that sandstone piece of hegemonic dimension. I’m afraid, at least in the part
architecture that Walter Vernon gave to the people of the world where I’m functioning, which is
of New South Wales. This proposal is much more… Southeastern Europe—former communist block—
It’s an architecture that responds to the site, and the there is this kind of hegemonic dimension that
site in many dimensions. Topographically it is a applies in a very funny way. All the young artists, all
complex site that goes down to Wooloomooloo Bay my former students, are talking through their art only
and so it’s a sort of wonderfully, beautifully designed in English to a local audience, which happens to be a
cascading pavilions. What will go inside, that’s a Romanian audience, which happens to be a Latin
debate that we are all engaged within the most country where, of course, the middle class speaks
productive way, but without question the first sets of English, but I find it to be a ridiculous trait, and
galleries that have been agreed on are aboriginal whenever I address it publicly or in private with the
galleries, because if we are saying what is a twen- people in question I never get any reaction. It’s like
ty-first-century gallery in Sidney today, it has to I’m not there, so that’s something very hegemonic,
begin with that story of who we are. But also a city, and there is this guy, Mladen Stilinović, whose work
Sidney is a city well run for people with a bond I revere, who put it very simply: “If you don’t speak
somewhere else, it is one of the most diverse cities English, you don’t exist as an artist.” And now the
in Australia, culturally diverse, diverse in languages thing I wanted to extent to you in a sense. What
as well, so there’s no question that Pacific art, Asian struck me this morning, especially in the first three
art, and the contemporary voices of those artists are interventions, was a sort of continuum of preoccupa-
part of that new building, without question. The tion—subterranean, I would say—for spirituality, the
names are going to be inside of the building, not values of the spiritual, I wouldn’t call it religious, I
outside. Thank you. would call it spiritual, and for me it was evident that
— Hammad Nasar: I think what would be really in one way or another you were part of this
interesting… I think that’s great and I think we are all pedagogic turn from the postwar atheistic way of
going to look forward to that gallery opening, and I looking at modernity and at modernism, towards
think it’s also a wonderful opportunity for these new something that I think happens right now and which
histories to be written. You know, are those histories is a critical turn, as I said, towards the values of the
going to be written in compartments or are they spiritual that were repressed. I think we grew up in
going to talk to each other? Will they be enmeshed? the last decades in a sort of a Euro-Atlantic complex
And how does that enmeshing take place and take of interpretations where anything that was dealing
physical form? I think it’s one of the real challenges with the spiritual was a bit suspect, it was a bit
that we are all facing… new-agish maybe—we don’t like that. So, what was
— Suhannya Raffel: I think the enmeshing has my question, actually? I have a question. I believe in
already begun. For us we have begun to play with the march of this development, and for me it was
the collection and to think about those ideas as on just a confirmation that this is happening—and I was
the floor, and the first place that we began to do that telling Frances previously during lunchtime—, that it
playing and the enmeshing is with the Asian collec- is no coincidence that three people in one morning
tions, knowing that there are so many Asian artists are talking in a way that for me is obviously aiming
working in Sidney, and in fact Khadim Ali is now a at that. And it’s obvious for me also that last year at
trustee on our board at the Art Gallery of New South CIMAM’s conference. Two years ago that wouldn’t
Wales, so we have begun that process of thinking have happened. So probably there’s a sense of
about who is making the art, what is the story that is urgency, I think, in that sense. By the way, next year,
being told, how is contemporary art speaking to this 2016, Dada: Dada was the spiritual revolution, it’s
history and in which way, and it’s through the collec- the centenary of spiritual revolution also, I think, so
tion that those stories are being developed. do you think that better than talking about the ghosts
— Frances Morris: Well, there are some other we could talk about the skeleton in the closet that
hands. I don’t know how to choose. Calin Dan had a could be the spirituality of modernism or modernity?
question first. You want to do it? And then we’ll move That’s the question actually.
on. — Frances Morris: Who would like to take up on
— Unidentified questioner: Let me get back first that?
to this issue of the language and then address the — Shigemi Inaga: It’s waiting for the spirituality
expected question, because if we’re talking without that I began the story with ghosts, of course, so
a question I see that there is a nervousness on thanks for your following. For “the spirit” I can make
stage. Okay, so I’m afraid that I agree with what you another one-hour lecture, so that’s why I hesitated.
said about the transactional dimension of English Turning back to English, for example, several years
language, this is an obvious thing, but I also under- have already passed since a Chinese artist—I forget
stand a bit the gracelessness coming from that side his name— put on one side E.H. Gombrich’s short

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story of world history, art history, and on the other a kind of polarization of the intellectuals on one side,
Chinese painting history, put together in a wise box who are completely secularized and who look down
with the result of a tabula rasa. Thirty years have upon the religious people, and the religious people
passed, and we are facing to this reality. It’s quite who look down upon the intellectuals as somehow
obvious that within twenty years English will no decadent people. So we have to somehow bridge
longer be the most dominant language in the world; this gap as societies, otherwise we’re just speaking
Spanish speaking population will be much larger in to ourselves essentially, both as artists, as curators,
the United States, for example, so probably we are as museum people, but just as human beings as well,
quite unfortunate in this contemporaneity to be I think.
forced to speak English, and it’s a kind of legacy of — Eugene Tan: I’d like to follow what you’re
the British Empire, it’s quite obvious, and I’m trying saying. The work of scholars I was talking about
to rewrite all the world history in the last five earlier in terms of Inter-Asia, people like Chen
hundred years, but it’s another story once again, but Kuan-Hsing, for example, his Asia’s method argues
because the Japanese can properly speak for how we should be looking within Asia at each
Japanglish, the Hindish is everywhere, so we’re other and how we understand each other rather than
speaking English, but English is no longer one comparing ourselves constantly to the West, you
unique language. I stop here. know. I think that’s a very useful way for us to under-
— Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: Just to add stand this idea of regionality and particular the
on to that and on this point back. You know, Russian countries within Southeast Asia as well, particularly.
is also still the second most widespread second — Hammad Nasar: I think one of the things, other
language in the world. I guess what I would hope is than spirituality, I think is an issue of confidence, and
that… Maybe we talked about this early amongst a sort of… I see some of the… Especially in some of
ourselves, perhaps is a way to address this defini- the young artists, there’s a certain confidence in
tion of modernity without always referring to wanting to claim things as a legitimate tool or part
Western modernity, maybe these networks can of a practice that I would say maybe five or ten
happen across. So, for example, Russia vis a vis years ago they wouldn’t. At the moment I sit on a jury
Iran, both of these countries are constantly looking for a… a word given by the BNA, so I can’t give
to the West; well, maybe they should look to each names right now, it’s not yet been announced, but it
other because they happen to be neighbors, right? was very interesting to see the names of the artists
Teheran’s capital was founded only a hundred forty who are… because they have to nominate them-
years ago because of Russian encroachment onto selves, they have to submit, so some of the artists
the Caucasus, so their history is much more linked who are part of the sort of circulating global
than either is linked to the United States, which biennials are happy to nominate themselves for an
they’re both obsessed with, and which for me, or art prize that has “Islamic” in its title. You didn’t see
let’s say the Western model is kind of outdated… that five years ago, and I find that very interesting,
This obsession with the Western model is an not because they’re certainly, you know, praying—I
outdated one… To the question of “the spirit,” I think don’t think they are—, I think it’s just a question that
to this idea of embracing those things that are your they’re happy to be able to claim that cultural con-
enemy, or embracing your antithesis, or embracing nection, and I think it was that idea of unearthing, of
those things that are difficult… I think that the spirit looking at that hinge, and it can be cultural rather
by its very nature, the spiritual, like you said, the than necessarily faith-based that I think the contem-
metaphysical, the terminology we have is so icky, it’s porary is beginning to engage with. And I think it’s
so compromised, we don’t know a way to even about time because this… To the relationship
speak about it without sounding hippie-ish or new- between, you know, faith and art, again is a bit of a
age-ish, and I think that’s part of it, it’s actually not disturbance. Until about a hundred and fifty years
meant to be spoken about as much as it’s meant to ago, the only art was, you know, faith based art, and
be experienced, so I think it doesn’t mean that you then over the last century it’s about word, so
have to just be there, but it means that you have to perhaps, I think, one of the issues—and that links to
engage with knowledge in other forms, other language also—is: Does the language keep up with
affective non-enlightenment forms of experience. talking about these ideas? And that can be the
And some people do write about it very well, like actual vocabulary; so in Urdu, which is my mother
Rudolf Otto, who writes about the “holy other”—both tongue, but in which I cannot function professionally,
“holy” as an H-O-L-Y but also W-H-O-L-L-Y, the certainly in a panel discussion like this, because
“wholly other”—, but the fact that this wouldn’t come simply some of those words don’t exist, so they have
up in Doha is not a coincidence. I think that what to be invented, and I think in this sort of critical
unites this spiritual context and brings them discourse that’s also one of the problems. I think you
together, whether it’s Turkey, Middle East, United raised this problem in Hong Kong in your talk, that
States, Europe, and perhaps Japan, is that there’s a you cannot rub together five names of people who

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are writing interestingly about, you know, religion as probably being the most fast at being modern. So,
a critical enquiry. So I think that requires a certain going back to Olga, we have other internationalist
critical investment. radical networks, you know, Diego Rivera and
— Mariana Botey: Well, this makes much sense in Eisenstein, some interest in those histories, these
the regions from where you’re talking, but I would other alternatives, because I’m interested in the
like, in this particular set of notions floating there, to problem of the dialectic between emancipation and
separate Latin America in its colonial history from empire and I claim—and I’m horribly dialectically
that particular formation, because the significance Hegelian on this—that these things go together, that
of “the Other” and “the postcolonial Other” in the the moment you don’t have empire you will not have
Latin American process actually has a real radical revolution, and the moment you don’t have revolution
engagement with the principles of the you don’t have empire, and I think that particular
Enlightenment, with the French Revolution, with the tension is in a sense part of what art as a criticality
notion of Jacobinism, with the notion of the is. So, I’m thinking more in terms of the presentation
International Socialist, so the materials I presented of Patricia yesterday on this notion of the public
are precisely not a notion of a ghost as a… Is the space of the museum as a history of a secular, it’s a
ghost almost in the Marxist sense, the ghost as an secular apparatus, so changing it may happen and
objective phantasmatic reification of material histori- I’m open to it, but, you know, I think the tension is a
cal process. We need to think of Benito Juárez in lot more complicated, in particular from the particu-
Mexico. The people who actually generated the lar history of Otherness in Latin America.
gender of these indigenous paintings were the — Frances Morris: Thank you. I know there are
intellectuals that were all of them of indigenous in lots of other questions, but we have about ten
origin and had been educated in the principles of the minutes, so, Benjamin, you had a question; Lewis
Enlightenment, and very much were translating their has one; this one over here… So we just try to
subaltern oppressed conditions to precisely a phrase some last questions.
project of universalism and engage that particular — Benjamin Weil: Hello. Just I was thinking,
form of discourse as the perfect anti-colonial listening to all that’s been going on, this whole
struggle, because of course the localization was that notion of anti-modernism that was appearing in your
the Christian Church was actually the dominant talk, is that an interesting concept sort of use, sort
land-owner force from which they needed to eman- of trying some…? I mean, I don’t know, it has not left
cipate themselves, so the enemy was the Church. my mind, so I was just wondering if you or anyone
So, this is a form of postcolonial Other experience else could address this idea.
that is radically secular and radically engaged in — Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]:
these principles, and I think… You know, I get a Unfortunately there’s identity politics at place, so
little… I’m interested about narrating the history of when you say anti-modern it’s more political than
the cosmopolitan and the modern from this very when I say it because people imagine it to be
complex history in which each one of us participated against modernity, which is not against modernity, it
since the sixteenth century, and claiming the particu- would be idiotic to be against modernity in that
lar space within that complexity. To posit is difficult sense but perhaps…
in Latin America because basically the systemic — Hammad Nasar: I would resist the urge to
organization of the sacred and the ritual was so summarize.
destroyed that when we claim that is religion, when — Frances Morris: Thank you. Next question.
we claim that is spiritual, we’re actually naming with — Guillermo Santamarina: This is probably
the master language a set of concepts that require a coming out of this sphere, but I want to reach at
far more complex analysis. So, we do some study of least a comment on the biggest fear, which is tech-
actually, you know, Náhuatl, Quechua, Guayaqui nology power and how it is perceived in the modern
concepts, and they are radically against the form of globalized world. Power, technology, artists’
spirituality. You know, that monotheism… if anything, practice, and of course museums—museums in the
if we were to return to religion we would become “other” world which are absolutely not in the condi-
pagans and begin to sacrifice and eat you in a very tions of… I mean, in a handicapped condition,
nice mole, so it’s a slightly more humorous, right? handicapped conditions, of course, and something
I’m going to claim that Latin America and the that we can… I mean, it’s impossible not to be fasci-
materials I show are precisely this schizophrenic nated and on the other hand to avoid new
mistranslation that is, in my opinion, actually the technology.
dominant narrative of capitalist modernity, because — Frances Morris: Eugene, do you want to
capitalist modernity was formed by precisely all respond to that?
these colonial experiences and because the so — Eugene Tan: Well, I think we as museums have
called “primitives” were constantly taking the to recognize how audiences are going to be experi-
language of the master, appropriating it and encing or expecting to experience a museum, given

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the prevalence of technology today, and how that hierarchies? And then the second question is about
technology can potentially detract from the experi- the presentation about Indian art and the innovation
ence of the art that we are presenting. Certainly building on tradition, and I just wondered how much
we’re trying to use technology in a way that doesn’t the government was in there fomenting sort of
detract but at the same time provides a way in for certain kinds of craft production to be marketed for
audiences and visitors. We’re not so familiar as is export, for tourism, you know, as the years went on,
the case in Singapore and Southeast Asia to active and how that intertwined with the art that you were
this in museums and scene art. We’re doing this talking about.
through multimedia guides that users can download — Hammad Nasar: Should I address that first?
and apps that visitors can download to their smart- Okay… Very quickly in a big way, it was not just
phones and provide more information about India, of course, I was also talking about Pakistan,
artworks. It helps them to navigate the museum, but and just its name and the National College of Arts
not actually replace the experience of the art itself, would tell you that there was an intent, but I think…
so we’re taking away all the monitors that we have, In Urdu there is no difference in the word between
that we sometimes see in museums. “craft” and “art,” they are both ‫[ آرٹ‬fun], so the
— Frances Morris: I’m not sure that was what you “artist” and the “craftsman” is ‫[ یم� آرٹسٹ‬fankaar], and
meant about technology, but maybe that’s another I think that sense, in some ways, people play with,
debate that we should come on to tomorrow since people abandon, and then people go back to as a
we’re so running out of time. sort of servers of purpose, and I think that’s interest-
— Guillermo Santamarina: But we have to ing and it’s in play, and you can also see them play
remember that’s how many, especially new genera- in Slavs and Tatars’ work, they’re working with that.
tions, understand the avant-garde, and that’s how a On language, I’m not sure… I mean, I think also what
wide population of this world follows art and follows you’re bringing in is also economics, which is the
culture. one thing we haven’t talked about. Oh, my God, a
— Frances Morris: You want to respond? two hours panel discussion and nothing on money!
— Payam Sharifi [Slavs and Tatars]: I think Great! But we then have to also then think about the
perhaps we can link it to the previous question in the models of capitalism that allow art to circulate, that
sense that, if museums are supposed to replace or allow print to circulate, and if you go back to people
have—whether they like it or not—taken the role of like Eric Hobsbawm, whose charge against the
modern day cathedrals, spaces of education and avant-garde… And I think you were on the theme
entertainment, it is clear they’re fulfilling that with him, I remember, on a radio show, no? Well, he
function, but a space of reflection? I would argue in was basically saying art has completely failed, it has
many museums is difficult to create that space of not been able to revise its business model behind
reflection because… there’s nowhere to sit in a creating these, you know, fake singular objects that
museum, first of all. Museums are places where you have value, whereas print, music, they’re so over it,
pass through, you can only sit in front of master- they have figured out a model, and I think, you know,
pieces or in the café, so if you actually want to on making those comparisons, we’ll have to address
reflect upon or consider a piece, museums aren’t the that model.
most inviting spaces. I think it says a lot about our — Frances Morris: Lewis, you want to have the
culture, that cultural spaces aren’t the most inviting, last word?
whereas a ministry of finance is not a place you — Lewis Biggs: Thank you. I’m… an independent
want to hang out, but in a museum… I don’t know if curator. I just wanted to say, to pick up on Shigemi
the question perhaps is on how can technology make Inaga’s wonderful talk. I thought you had two ghosts
it more inviting or more welcoming, as opposed to in your talk, two main ghosts, and forty years ago,
simply accommodating. fifty years ago, the art world, I remember, was not
— Peggy Levitt: Thank you. Thanks a lot for your dominated by English, and many artists went into the
great presentations. I’m… from the United States. I art world precisely because they thought they could
think that so much of what you have said is about communicate universally or internationally through
challenging the global canon and creating a new set esthetics, not through language, so this relates your
of common intellectual threads, and I’m wondering if point, Hammad, about craft and the importance of
we could take a page from the global literary world, craft. But the second ghost in your talk, Shigemi
and the idea of… I’m thinking about how somebody Inaga, was craft basically, the use of esthetics, and
goes from being a national author to a global author, I’m surprised in a way that the panel has not thought
and what’s the role of translation in that, because I to talk as much about the return of this ghost as the
thought it was really interesting what you said about return of spirituality, because they seem to me to be
you writing in a made up language that was untrans- importantly linked.
latable. So, is there a way that we can insinuate — Shigemi Inaga: Thanks very much for the
ourselves in that translation to bridge these power comment. Yes, for arts and crafts probably we have

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to set another panel for next year or, I don’t know, in and the West as a whole. And Australia of course is
three years. Some of you are gathering once again connected with that, so of course the British Empire,
in Kyoto. Kyoto is really the capital of arts and ex-British Empire is on the way, constructed in this
crafting in Japan, and not only in Japan. A few texts crossroad. In a sense, we’re in a global age and a
are coming from the Philippines and Taiwan, so it postmodernity and a postcolonial situation must be
will be a good occasion for you all, and thanks again reconsidered from that point.
for the story of the ghost. To be very short, I’m going — Frances Morris: Well, I think it is remarkable in
to be anti-modern in the sense of Antoine an age dominated by discourses around globaliza-
Compagnon, but I will be a moralist and that tion and money, an age of austerity for much of us,
probably is the best way to answer to the previous to go for two hours with hardly mention of money or
question. Finally, in the case of, for example, globalization, with focus really on, I think, regional
Singapore, Singapore is really an artificial city, but enmeshing and trans-historical narratives. Can I just
it’s really a core of the world transactions and how ask you really to thank our five amazing, fascinating
capitalism is taking over the Eastern source of speakers for a really interesting discussion.
prosperity and how would be the world of art there.
It’s very important, not only for Southeast Asia, but
also in Asia and the transactions between the East

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Monday
November 9, 2015

Day 3
Is there a global
audience?

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a global audience?

Perspective 01. Bose Krishnamachari, President and co-founder,

Kochi Biennale Foundation, Cochin, Kerala, India.

Short Bio:

Artist and independent curator, Bose Krishnamachari’s diverse artistic and curatorial practice includes
drawing, painting, sculpture, design, installation, and architecture. He has exhibited in several important solo
and group exhibitions, including Bombay Maximum City, Lille 3000, Lille, curated by Caroline Naphegyi,
2006; The Shape That Is, Jendela and Concourse, Esplanade, Singapore, 2006; Indian Art, Swarovski
Crystal World, Innsbruck, Austria, 2007; Gateway Bombay, Peabody Essex Museum, 2007; India Art
Now, Spazio Oberdan, Milan, 2007; Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2009, Astrup Fearnley
Museum, Norway, 2009, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, 2010, Lyon Contemporary Art
Museum, The Fondazione MAXXI, Rome, 2011, and the ARTZUID Amsterdam, 2011. His curatorial projects
include the seminal exhibition The Bombay Boys, New Delhi, 2004; Double Enders, A travelling show,
Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Kochi, 2005; AF-FAIR, 1X1 Contemporary and 1X1 Gallery, Dubai-2008;
Guest Curator, Indian pavilion, ARCO, Madrid, 2009; and the traveling project, LaVA (Laboratory of Audio
Visual Arts), 2007–2011. In 2009, he created Gallery BMB in South Mumbai with a vision to bring the best
national and international art to India. He was artistic director and co-curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale
2012, India’s first Biennale; Director of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014; and is President of the Kochi Biennale
Foundation. 

Presentation: Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Creating of contemporaneity. In the standard portrait, the

audiences South is full of rivers and palaces; full of nature and
pasts. Kochi-Muziris Biennale becomes an occasion
A biennale in India to produce a distinctive contemporary that refuses
the representation of the centers of power. Okwui
The temporality of a biennial, as perhaps distinct Enwezor, after visiting the 2014 Kochi-Muziris
from other art institutions, means that it is lighter, Biennale, observed that it was a location from where
quicker, has the ability to respond—has a responsi- one could “think the South in a deep way from the
bility—to its time. As this timely response, South.”
Kochi-Muziris Biennale is a gathering of contempo- Kochi becomes an ideal host for such an
rary art, and a meditation on the contemporary. exercise, because here can be read a model for
Perhaps the format itself has gained its signifi- another cosmopolitanism. Kochi has been home to
cance from the biennales in the South. The over 30 different communities who speak over 15
above-said temporality and fluidity of the form of the different languages who have been living there for
biennial has meant that it has been used to circum- centuries now. Kochi’s cosmopolitanism is one that
vent the weakness of traditional art infrastructures does not effect a flattening of differences, but
(the absence or weakness of museums, galleries, signifies a multiple existence. Where traditions are
etc.), to become occasions for other models of not circulated as inert relics of the past, but are
art-making, for art to be a means of exploration of alive and active. Such a co-existence of many tem-
the historical spaces and of the time it occupies. poralities is a feature of the contemporary that the
Therefore, São Paolo, Gwangju, Havana, Sharjah, Biennale seeks to extend.
Dakar, to which we may add Kochi.
Creating Audiences
Kochi
We did years of work prior to the first edition of the
A biennale like Kochi-Muziris Biennale is not simply Biennale to let ourselves grow in Kochi. We’ve had
a platform for the presentation of art that is being people—who are not artists but who have lived in
produced today, but also for the production of forms Kochi and know its rhythms and its textures—on the

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decision-making team of the Biennale. We’ve been Of course, contemporary art is not something
received by schools and by cultural organizations in people are familiar with in Kerala and in India, if it is
Kochi in their enthusiasm to learn about new devel- at all anywhere. The Biennale and its content is new
opments in art. Workers’ unions in Fort Kochi and and strange. We have depended on the hospitality of
Mattancheri have extended their complete support Kochi again for receiving this format, this activity.
for building the Biennale. Most importantly: we’ve There is a sense in which, even as the Kochi-Muziris
seen ourselves and we’ve received reports from Biennale draws its energy from several traditions
artists and curators about the remarkable number of and projects, its newness means that it does not
local people visiting and discussing the Biennale. have a readily available addressee. The Biennale is
Happily, we can also report that the word an exercise that must suggest the community of
‘biennale’ has, in fact, passed into the Malayalam people that will experience it.
language and popular imagination here. We have
not asked people to come and see art. Kochi-Muziris Culture as Catalyst
Biennale has been an invitation to the political-cul-
tural disposition of the Malayalee. The state of Culture is always a big catalyst for the local
Kerala in India has had a rich tradition of public economy. Kochi-Muziris Biennale has itself boosted
action involving esthetic interventions, and the Kerala’s tourism, which is the biggest contributor to
Biennale is in participation and extension of that. We Kerala’s economy. The two editions of the Biennale
have sought to be an intervention not in contempo- have seen almost a million visitors. Interestingly, the
rary art, but in the cultural milieu of India. Biennale in Kochi has also precipitated an increase
This is why the Biennale has been conceived in visitors at art events in locations in West Asia,
not as a periodic event, but as a concert of actions. where there are large working populations from
Kochi Biennale Foundation operates 365 days a Kerala.
year, developing and executing programming that Of course, economics cannot be the reason for
includes research and artistic residencies through art. As Brian Eno said in his John Peel lecture, art is
the Pepper House Residency, educational interven- anything or everything that you don’t have to do. Yet
tions through the Students’ Biennale, the it is central to everything that we do—from the way
Post-Graduate Residency Program, and the Master we cook our food and eat it to our hairstyles, our
Practice Studios, public conversations and discus- dressing and the way we like ourselves to be seen. It
sions through the Let’s Talk series, infrastructural is central to our existence, and therefore we need
and creative support for lens-based practices our galleries, museums, and biennales. Allow me to
through KBF Media Labs, and the Artists’ Cinema conclude by repeating one of God’s unheard procla-
program, to mention some. mations: Let There Be Art.

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a global audience?

Perspective 02. Wong Hoy Cheong, artist, George Town, Malaysia.

Short Bio:

Wong Hoy Cheong was born in George Town, Malaysia. He studied at Brandeis University, Harvard
University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a visual artist, educator, and social activist. As
a visual artist, he has exhibited widely, including Mori Art Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Hayward Gallery
and Kunsthalle Wien, as well as the Venice, Istanbul, Lyon, Liverpool, Gwangju, and Taipei biennials. As an
educator, he has given lectures and/or tutored at institutions such as Harvard University, Oxford University,
National University of Singapore, Goldsmiths College, and Australian National University. He was awarded
the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Creative Fellowship (2011), named as one of the ten trailblazers in
“Mavericks & Rebels” of Asia by Newsweek (2000) and art and culture “Leaders of the Next Millennium” by
Asiaweek (1999). He is also a founder member of SUARAM, a human rights organization and a founder-di-
rector of Institut Rakyat, a policy think-tank. His work in politics and the community engages with issues of
local democracy, social housing, policies, and sustainability.

Presentation: In search of new strategies, places, Taipei and did some research and understood that,
and communities: the local-global dialectic & other especially in Asia, Indonesian and Filipino domestic
digressions. workers or maids support the countries, support the
economy, support the families, all the way from
The title of this talk has somewhat been changed. Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan to Saudi Arabia. I
The content is somewhat the same, but in the past spent some time with the Filipino and Indonesian
two days I have sort of re-jigged the presentation in domestic workers and made a work about them
response to the trajectories, the ideas, and the being superheroes. The one you see in the subway
issues debated and presented here. So I am an artist station is called I Dream of Jeannie, so it was a
and I may presume my role here is like an interloper Filipino maid as a Jeannie. The second one is Storm,
literally sneaking in from the backdoor, hoping to washing the car, and Supergirl flying the children to
add a different dimension, a counter point, and a school.
different way of responding to issues as a practi- The third work is in Lyon: I spent some time
tioner and hopefully, as well, that it might have some again doing research in Lyon, particularly in the
resonance and relevance to your practice as cultural banlieue and met up with some of the Algerian
managers, producers, and also consumers. So I migrants, who again were disenfranchised. And I will
unabashedly as an artist present some of my works, talk about other things as I show a series of slides.
but they are not in a linear order, they are ideas and I engaged with local context and issues and
hopefully I have given it enough critical distance and tried to retrieve local histories and marginalize
reflexivity to have some relevance as well. So I will stories. There’s sort of a perverse voyeurism to all
begin by showing three of the last works I did before this and should I return to some sense of the
I migrated to a different arena of work. modernist eye. So questions abound. Where are the
The 2007 Istanbul Biennale: I think some of Roma, Indonesian, Filipino women, Algerian women
the issues we discussed here were about under- in the banlieue I was working with? How do these
standing local context, global issues, and this was a people figure in the postproduction of my works? In
commissioned work by the Istanbul Biennale. It was the lives and troubles of the works far beyond their
a dream project for me to work with the Roma lives and communities? What does it mean to work
community. I always wanted to run away with the with local communities and issues, and then
Roma when I was a kid. So when I went to Sulukule translate and transpose that process that experi-
to Istanbul and worked with the Roma community ence into an artwork within the confines of a white
there, it was a dream. I spent four months with them cube? Was it enough to show these works to cultural
developing a project and as we know the Roma producers, managers, and consumers? What about
community is one of the most disenfranchised in the global audience, what about the local audience,
Europe and perhaps in the world. what about the communities themselves? So these
The 2008 Taipei Biennale: Again I went to were the thoughts that plagued me and in 2010 I

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decided to leave the art world and since then I have this was a failed project.
been sort of out of the art world and today is one of The next project I worked in 2012 and is still
the few occasions where I become an interloper ongoing, is a more successful project. Having learnt
back into the art world. from the first project I worked again in high-rise this
I will talk about some of the things that time, 22 stories, low cost social housing, rented to
shifted—that made me migrate to a new arena of an urban poor, multiracial community, a site of
work. One was Sulukule in Istanbul. When I was in conflict that the local council didn’t want to deal with
Sulukule I realized that the community, the district, and asked if I could devise a program to work with
part of it in the world heritage zone, was going to be the community, which I will talk more about later.
demolished. Since 2010 the majority of the residents Third project, another failed project, was
have been evicted and they had been sedentary Journey of Harmony. I worked with the think-tank,
Roma for a few hundred years. That sort of sponsor of the funding organization helping the city
disturbed me. While I was working, I was looking at and the local council of Penang George Town,
housing issues and what happened. I made a work where I come from, and where I am living now.
with children and then showed this work all over the Penang George Town is a UNESCO World Heritage
world including Mori Museum, but then these people site and I worked in the core zone. The street called
I worked with: where are they? They are sort of Jalan Kapitan Keling is quite long but within five
stuck in my mind since 2007. So 2010 to 2015 I have kilometers there are five eighteenth- to nine-
been working on what I call community or social teenth-century religious sites. Ethnic and religious
housing projects. One urban regeneration, I worked issues abound nowadays in Malaysia and elsewhere.
with local council to look at this low cost flat again is One of the objectives of this group is to work with
in the zone of conflict, 2002 as you can see people the communities and find out what they want and
were killed in ethnic clashes and just recently, a how to interpret this for themselves and the public
couple of months ago, a group of politically and find shared values, which was one of the most
motivated Muslims demonstrated in front of a church complicated things because there is a lot of politick-
and forced the priest to take down the cross at the ing, a lot of fractured communities, and fractured
top of the church. But then the chief minister inter- relationships.
vened and then they went back up. What happened? I was a salesman selling the
So I went into the community with the support project. We did surveys with worshipers. We stood
of the local council and I was naïve, one of those outside the religious sites and we did surveys: 150 in
naïve probably righteous artists who went to a each site and found out what were the issues, what
community wanting to do good and worked with the they wanted, what were the common values,
residents there. We had focus groups. We discussed whether they went to the other sites and then we
what were the needs of the residents and then we had focus groups with the religious community and
came up—working with some architects and then we came up with a design plan using an
artists—we came up with a master plan. abandoned phone booth. We came up with five
We did workshops with children about play- common values through discussions and focus
grounds and then we worked with adults on issues groups: water, lunar, sharing, light, and flora—and
that were important to them with their community as we started designing. In the midst of it all the state
well as creating new social spaces. So we came up government together with a funding group, Think
with a little plan. There are more details, which I City, decided to sign an agreement with the Aga
won’t show, but these are some of the interventions Khan Trust for 3-year collaboration. All projects on
we wanted to do. We got some of them done. We the street were abandoned because a new master
put in new windows because this building was so plan was going to be made. So after spending about
badly made that every time it rained heavily in US $100,000—again, another failed project and the
tropical countries like Malaysia water would seep community was actually quite angry.
through those windows and enter the apartment. Let me go into detail on these two projects.
This window prevented water from going in. We Sulukule, why did it make me migrate to a different
repainted it, we resurfaced the road and in the midst arena? When I went into Sulukule the first time there
of this we found a bigger problem, which we were was a huge meeting, fiery meeting between United
not aware of. The sewage underneath in the Nations UNESCO, the municipal council, the Roma
courtyard started overflowing. It was a structural community leaders and NGOs negotiating over
problem with the building and we didn’t have the whether it should be demolished and the council had
budget. In order to do that we had to support the earmarked buildings for demolishing. And some of
building, dig up the courtyard, put in the new the Roma had already started living in tents—and
sewage system and pipes and then continue with the this was a target group I wanted to work with. I got
rest of the project. It was left hanging, the residents permission from the religious leader, Imam Asem,
were angry that we didn’t have enough budget. So and was honest with him that I will be there for three

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months to spend some time with the community and Then we went back with the residents to the council
if they would give me permission to work there and and reworked the budget it was increased by 400%
develop an art work. from about US $100,000 a year to about $400,000
I had a methodology very pedagogical, but a year to improve the quality of life there.
completely decontextualized, so it had to be thrown One of the first things that the residents were
out. Moved by the situation there, the children and complaining about was the maintenance of the
myself as a facilitator did interviews on the issues of building. We really needed cleaners, and originally
eviction, issues of housing with the adults. But then the cleaners were hired. They came to clean the
it didn’t seem honest because the children played place and then left. The assumption was that if local
and we opted to play. Instead of playing with politics residents who are underemployed take up these
we played football, we played drums, we played jobs, they would do a much better job because they
games, we even played in sites of demolition and are stakeholders in the community and indeed there
then we made the art work for a film, video, and was a difference. But the workers developed an
some photography for the Istanbul Biennale. In the entrepreneurial sense: they went from unit to unit,
meantime, the site was slowly being demolished. I 500 units in total. They asked each unit to give them
went back to look for my Roma friends two weeks $5 a month and they would take your personal
ago, but most of them are gone, kids are either late rubbish out. We started with five apartments and
teenagers or some of them are adults now. Imam then it started growing, they started making actual
Asem was away, but I met up with these children money and in the end even registered that
and the road you see there—Cinarli Bostan—where community as official cleaners. Now they have
we used to play, now it’s got a barbed wire, fake certification to take on other cleaning jobs.
leaves, and hounds. They voted on what they can build with the
Second project: Gender Responsive funding we had we created offices for the four
Participatory Budgeting in Social Housing in City organizations, a Buddhist association, an Islamic
Council. After the first failed project of urban regen- center, a women’s center, and a residents associa-
eration I became a consultant for the local council, tion. In the past five years all the art indicators that I
devised a program, which consisted of four phases. have been familiar with kept dropping and the
First survey, second focused groups, third voting political indicators—necessity of policy making, of
your needs after the focus groups, and then planning working with communities, of having different
and implementation. First phase who are we? With arbiters, different legitimizers, different funders—
funding from the local council within two months of started moving up, and I just went to list down some
survey, we went from house to house finding out of the divergent context. When I moved from the
who are the residents, what were the needs, who global art context to the local art context working
had jobs, who didn’t have jobs as you can see in the with communities these were the transitions, so the
statistics. There was complete data on demography. arbiters completely changed, not curators who were
After that we decided to divide the community into telling me what is right, what is wrong, not museums
five target groups, children, teenagers, female, funding me. It was the local councils, I had to
teenagers male because it was a gender project, so negotiate with councils and politicians and residents.
we wanted to divide the community: disabled, youth, Previously some of the projects I did were
women and men. We did focus groups for another framed as participatory art, socially engaged art,
two months, I think about 50 focus groups and then but now the kind of things that I have been doing is
we came up with some common needs after called participatory democracy, sustainable devel-
listening to the community: security, building mainte- opment. I used to make artwork that circulated the
nance, these were the six issues that emerged or the globe and now the kind of work that we try to
main issues there were more than that. Then, during produce as a team is to improve the quality of life.
phase three we devised the system where people Previously in white cubes and now in basketball
could register like a normal voter registration list courts, playgrounds, car parks, community spaces.
because we had the demography of every unit. The Previously to a global art audience and now to very
residents of every unit, they came, registered, local and very parochial residents mainly and the
picked coupons and they voted what were their local community on streets. Previously, languages
needs. The only art thing I did was to design those like the ones we have been using for the past two
banners. They voted for what they needed over days about modernism, about postmodernity. Today,
three days. This social housing had over 2,000 when I work there, I use technocratic and sociologi-
eligible voters. Anybody above 10 years old could cal language. Previously, I worked with file cut pro
vote for what they wanted. So I was very nervous and Photoshop, now I work with SPSS, Social
that we might not get the community to come up. Science Statistics Analysis for Social Science.
But we were lucky, about 69.5% came out to vote Previously we talked about making works, now we
and building maintenance won the majority of votes. talk about building “stakeholdership.” We talk about

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acting laws, we talk about strata titles, about things afternoon it was as if I had discovered that the
that I have never talked about and am learning to longing I was feeling for my homeland had begun to
talk about. And yet we have been debating here be prepared by the lived relationship I had with my
today about global housing, local housing is such a backyard. The way Brazil exists for me could not
global issue, it affects every community, everywhere have been possible without my backyard to which I
in the world, but is also a very local concern and a later add streets, neighborhoods, and cities. Before I
very urgent one. Is that a kind of dialectic or a could become a citizen of the world I was and I am
dichotomy? first a citizen of Recife. The more rooted I am in my
To end I will leave you with a kind thought or location, the more I extend myself to other places,
three interjections and ruptures. First, let me read so as to become a citizen of the world. No one
you something from a mentor of mine, Paulo Freire, becomes a local from a universal location. The
those friends from Latin America, South America, existential road is the reverse. I am a citizen of
will probably know him. He is a very famous Recife, I am first from Recife, from Pernambuco, a
educator who influenced me and I had the privilege north easterner, afterward I become a Brazilian, a
of a doing a workshop with him when I was much Latin American and then a world citizen.” First, this
younger. is a thought that I leave you with. Second, I am
Paulo Freire is an educator who was interested playing you a video.
in literacy and his work in literacy in Brazil particu- And one final thought, you can read it:
larly with the disenfranchised community made him “What I dream of is an art of balance, of
an easy target. I think in the seventies he was exiled purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depress-
because he was associated with the left and lived ing subject matter, an art which could be for every
abroad for many years and only went back in the mental worker, for the businessman as well as the
eighties. And when he was in Geneva, he received a man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming
letter from his hometown, Recife. influence on the mind, something like a good
I quote: “I all of a sudden like magic recall into armchair which provides relaxation from physical
time and almost saw myself again as a child in my fatigue.” — Henri Matisse
backyard full of trees learning to read with the help Thank you very much for your time.
of my mother and father, writing phrases and words
in the ground shaded by the mango trees. In that

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a global audience?

Perspective 03. Peggy Levitt, Professor and Chair of Sociology,

Wellesley College and Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Short Bio:

Peggy Levitt is Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department at Wellesley College and Co-Director
of Harvard University’s Transnational Studies Initiative. Her latest book is Artifacts and Allegiances: How
Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display (University of California Press, July 2015). She was
the CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the American University of Cairo in March 2015 and a Robert
Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute in Summer 2015. In 2014, she received an Honorary
Doctoral Degree from Maastricht University, held the Astor Visiting Professorship at Oxford University
and was a guest professor at the University of Vienna. She was the Visiting International Fellow at the Vrije
University in Amsterdam from 2010–2012 and the Willie Brandt Guest Professor at the University of Malmö
in 2009. Her books include Religion on the Edge (Oxford University Press, 2012); God Needs No Passport
(New Press 2007); The Transnational Studies Reader (Routledge 2007); The Changing Face of Home
(Russell Sage 2002); and The Transnational Villagers (UC Press, 2001). She has edited special volumes of
Racial and Ethnic Studies, International Migration Review, Global Networks, Mobilities, and the Journal of
Ethnic and Migration Studies. A film based on her work, Art Across Borders, came out in 2009.

Presentation: Artifacts and allegiances: How individuals send a lot of money back home.
museums put the nation and the world on display. According to World Bank projections, international
migrants were expected to remit more than $550
(Talk based on book with same name published by billion in earnings in 2013, of which $414 billion will
University of California Press, 2015.) flow to developing countries. In 24 countries, remit-
tances were equal to more than 10 percent of gross
You just have to walk down the street in any domestic product (GDP) in 2011; in nine countries
immigrant neighborhood—Washington Heights in they were equal to more than 20 percent of GDP. In
New York City, Kruetzburg in Berlin, or the Bijlmer countries like Mexico or Morocco, these contribu-
in Amsterdam—to realize that big changes are tions are one of the principal sources of foreign
underfoot. No doubt many of the businesses you currency, and governments—now dependent on
pass will have to do with migrants’ homelands, be them—want to make sure the money keeps flowing.
they travel agencies; ethnic grocery stores selling Migrants are also a tremendous source of ideas,
sorely-missed fruits and vegetables, phone cards, know-how, and skills, and some governments try to
and videos; or stores that wire money to relatives systematically harvest these social remittances as
back home. This is because more and more people well. To keep migrants close, they offer tax and
continue to vote, pray, and invest in businesses in investment incentives, allow dual citizenship and the
the places they come from at the same time that expatriate vote, or even create special passport
they buy homes, open stores, and join the PTA in the lines for “returning” emigrants at the airport. To
countries where they settle. Putting down roots in keep money coming, they put programs in place to
the place where you move while continuing to boost migrants’ contributions to development.
remain active in the economics and politics of your At the same time, and as a result, we live in a
homeland isn’t just for poor or working class world of heightened diversity. Because people from
migrants. Think of the many highly-educated, high- a wider range of countries, with different legal
ly-skilled professionals that populate the status and levels of access to benefits, travel to a
boardrooms and bedrooms of the world’s cities and greater variety of places, new patterns of inequality
suburbs. More and more, they too buy homes, raise and discrimination are emerging. This new complex-
their children, invest, and cast ballots across ity layers onto existing patterns of socioeconomic
borders. diversity, residential segregation, and social
As a matter of fact, one of out every seven exclusion. In a special section entitled, “The World in
people in the world today is a migrant and these One City,” the Guardian newspaper called London,

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“the most cosmopolitan place on earth” where “[n] become, to varying degrees, hotbeds of anti-immi-
ever have so many different kinds of people tried grant sentiment. I then ask if museums in Singapore
living together in the same place before.” In 2005, and Doha create Asian or Arab global citizens. How
people from more than 179 countries lived in the does the tension between globalism and nationalism
city. How people answer the question “who are play out outside the West? Taken together, these
you?” is complicated. They say I am Jamaican and accounts tell a fascinating story of the sea change
American or Indian and British at the same time that underway in the museum world at large and about
they claim to be Londoners or New Yorkers. They how the local and the global come together in
may say I am a Muslim, a professor, or an environ- different cities and nations. I want to share some of
mentalist, thereby staking claim to a place by virtue what I found with you today.
of their sense of membership in a religious, profes- The differences I discovered in how institutions
sional, or activist tribe. do “nationalism” and “globalism” have a lot to do
These dynamics challenge basic assumptions with their histories. Museums are constrained by the
about how and where inequality is produced, family limits of their collections and their curators’ fields of
life gets lived, and the rights and responsibilities of expertise. They cannot do more than what their
citizenship actually get exercised. New social safety showcases, storerooms, and bookshelves allow or
nets are needed to respond to people’s heightened what they are able to borrow. They also have to do
mobility and multiple allegiances based on a with whether they are public or privately funded—
different set of assumptions about how livelihoods with the extent to which they are one of several tools
and social security are organized and who the governments use to pursue social goals or whether
winners and losers are. But first, we need a different they are primarily answerable to donors and visitors
vocabulary that allows us to articulate a different whose race, ethnicity, and class change over time.
understanding of the nation that does not necessar- They have to do with scope, whether they began life
ily stop at its geographic borders. We need new as museums of art, created to preserve and display
ways of understanding identities that are not based humanity’s greatest treasures, or museums of
on a zero-sum game—that increasing numbers claim artifacts, either collected and displayed to preserve
to belong to several groups at once and that which national traditions or to teach visitors about worlds
takes precedence is likely to change over time. We beyond their own.
need new tools that help instill the willingness and But these differences also arise from a city’s
skills to engage with difference across the world cultural armature—its social and cultural policies,
and across the street. That is where museums come history, institutions, and demography. Part of this
in. They are one of many messy arenas where these armature is created from the deep cultural struc-
aspirations, skills, and political projects might take tures in place in each city—how old ways of thinking
shape and where we might make sense of the and doing still leave their traces in the bricks and
relationship between people and culture on the mortar of today. These deeply rooted ideas about
move. community, equality, or the collective good do not
If museums in the past helped create national disappear but rather continuously echo in the ways
citizens, in today’s global world, what role do things get done today. Differences in museum
museums play in creating citizens? What kinds of practice also arise in response to demographic
citizens do they create, what kinds of objects and diversity—who is part of the nation and who can
stories do they use to create them, and who gets to become so—and the institutions and policies or the
decide? How do developments in the global museum diversity management regimes in place that regulate
world at large affect local practices? What is it membership. As one Danish curator told me, “As
about particular cities that helps explain the citizens of Denmark we need to know about the
answers? What do we learn about nationalism in a world and that is why we need to display the ‘Other.’
country by looking at its cultural institutions? Because ‘the Other’ or the non-Dane or immigrant
To answer these questions, I visited a variety has not been considered part of the Danish nation,
of museums around the world. My story is based on museums display difference in a context where
firsthand conversations with museum directors, similarity is the staring point. In the United States,
curators, and policymakers, their descriptions of because the national story is about being a country
current and future exhibits, and their inside stories of immigrants, the point of departure is difference—
about the paintings, iconic objects, and sometimes displaying immigrant artifacts shows us America and
“quirky” benefactors that define their collections. In possibly ‘the world.’”
the United States, I compare museums in allegedly To varying degrees, museums operate within
parochial Boston with their counterparts in the transnational social fields—multi-layered, unequal
so-called center of the cultural universe, New York. networks created by individuals, institutions, and
In Europe, I focus on Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and governance structures. More and more, the things
Stockholm, former bastions of tolerance that have on display, the museum professionals who put them

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there, the financial and administrative arrangements also inform it. The different strategies and materials
that make it all possible, and the visitors who enjoy that art, ethnographic, and cultural history museums
the fruits of these labors are connected to people, bring to their work shape the kinds of assemblages
objects, and politics all over the world. Museums, they influence and are influenced by.
therefore, are increasingly sites of encounter where A transnational class of museum directors,
global approaches to diversity, education, art, and administrators, curators, and educators, some of
management bump into regional and national whom circulate regionally, if not globally, form part
history, culture, and demography. of these assemblages but also carry pieces of it with
Assemblages are the contingent clusters of them when they move from post to post in their
people, technology, objects, and knowledge, which laptops, suitcases, and portfolios. These profession-
circulate through the social fields that museums als, like their peripatetic counterparts in business,
inhabit, coming together in different constellations religious orders, and higher education, engage with
depending on where they land. Multiple assem- the places where they work with varying degrees of
blages inform and are informed by my story. One intensity. Some “parachute” in during a crisis, find
key cluster are what we might call global museum out what they need to know, fix the problem, and
assemblages—changing repertoires of ways to quickly move on to their next challenge. “Spiralists”
display, look, educate, and organize objects, that get stay longer but they also eventually move on to a
“vernacularized” selectively each time they come to new post within a few years in contrast to “long-tim-
ground. The Masters in Fine Arts, Museum ers” who settle almost semi-permanently. No matter
Education, or Curatorial Studies programs are part how long they stay, though, the members of this
of these assemblages. It inheres in the gift shops, transnational museum professional class are guided
gourmet restaurants, and blockbuster exhibits by an overarching backdrop or regional storyline
museum visitors around the world now expect. It that shapes what they do as they reshape it through
seeps into the stone of iconic museum buildings, their work.
designed by a select group of “starchitects” whose And finally, the differences that I found also
work features prominently around the world. It is reflect how a city or nation understands its historical
regulated by institutions of global governance, like position on the global stage and its aspirations for
the International Committee on Museums. The art the future—where a country is in the arc of its
fairs and biennales mounted throughout the global nation- and empire-building projects and the kinds of
north and south, and the cadre of artists they anoint, citizens it believes it needs to achieve them.
Discussion of cases: Gothenburg, Boston, Doha

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a global audience?

Perspective 03. Anton Vidokle, artist and founder of e-flux,

New York / Berlin.
Short Bio:

Anton Vidokle is an artist, born in Moscow and currently based between New York and Berlin. His
work has been exhibited internationally, including documenta 13, Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennial, and
Tate Modern, among others. As a founder of e-flux he has produced Do it, Utopia Station poster
project, and organized An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life, as well as Martha Rosler
Library and Unitednationsplaza. Other works include e-flux video rental and Time/Bank, co-organized with
Julieta Aranda. Vidokle is co-editor of e-flux journal along with Julieta Aranda and Brian Kuan Wood. Vidokle
was resident professor at Home Workspace Program (2013–2014), an educational program organized by
Ashkal Alwan in Beirut where he initiated the exhibition A Museum of Immortality. Most recently, Vidokle
has exhibited films in the Montreal Biennale (2084: a science fiction show with Pelin Tan) as well as This
is Cosmos (2014) at the Berlinale International Film Festival, the Shanghai Biennale, and Witte de With in
Rotterdam.

Presentation: A museum of immortality rehabilitating and redeeming life, not for

judging everyone.
NB. As this is a visual poem, original font and
spaces must be respected. 5. The museum is the collection of everything
outlived, dead, and unsuitable for use.
A Museum of Immortality Precisely because of this it is the hope of the
(final version for a reading) century.

1. The museum is the last remnant of the cult of 6. The existence of a museum shows that there
ancestors. are no finished matters.

2. One cannot annihilate the museum: like a This is why the museum provides consolation
shadow, it accompanies life, like a grave, it is to everyone who is afflicted with mortality:
behind all the living. because it is the highest level of development
for society.
3. Each human bears a museum within himself,
bears it even against his personal wish, as a 7. For the museum, death itself is not the end but
dead appendage, as a corpse, as reproaches only the beginning.
of conscience.
8. An underground kingdom that was considered
4. People lived, ate, drank, judged, decided hell is merely a special department within the
cases, and put those that were settled into the museum.
archives, not even thinking at the time of death
and losses. 9. For the museum, there is nothing hopeless,
nothing that is impossible to revive and
It turned out that putting matters into the resurrect.
archive and transferring all the remains of life
to the museum was a transfer to a higher 10. Only those who wish revenge will find no
order, to a domain of investigation. consolation in the museum, which is powerless
to punish: because only life can resurrect, not
The highest degree of this will be attained death, not deprivation of life, not murder.
when resurrection immediately follows death.
11. The museum can and must return life, not take
The museum is not a court, for everything that it.
is deposited in a museum is there for

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12. When the museum was a temple supporting 21. An observatory observes the world that is
the life of ancestors (at least in people’s merged with the memory of the dead, of the
understanding), then people’s will expressed past.
in this temple (even if it was an imaginary
action,) was in agreement with reason that 22. The beginning of the observatory was the
justified it and acknowledged this imaginary sundial.
action as real.
23. Primordial man probably told time using his
At that time reason was not separated from own shadow.
memory, and the act of commemoration,
nowadays just a ceremony, had a real 24. In later times, in urban life, the sundial replaced
meaning. this way of telling time; it was an instrument
for measuring one’s actions and one’s life
Memory was not just preservation, but a experience.
restoration, (even though only imaginary and
conceptual,) serving as a real guarantee of 25. This is why clocks became an attribute of
preserving the common origin: brotherhood. death.

13. When reason is separated from the memory of 26. With the help of the sundial, humans also
the fathers and mothers, it becomes merely an created a calendar in which they marked off
abstract exploration of causes of phenomena: not only the times of nature’s rebirth and
philosophy. fading, but also the days of the passing of
fathers and mothers: the days of commemorat-
14. When reason is not separated from the ing ancestors (holidays).
memory of the departed, it is not the seek-
ing-out of abstract principles, but of ancestors. 27. That is why a museum, as a formation of
memory of parents and grandparents and of
Reason, directed in this way, becomes the everything that is connected with them and
project of resurrection. with the past, is inseparable from the
observatory.
15. Linguistic investigation supports this original
unity of capabilities: one and the same root 28. The educational significance of observato-
appears in words that express memory and ries-as-schools demands that idle gazing be
reason, and soul in general, and finally the turned into obligatory observation, so that the
human as a whole. sky has as many observers as there are stars
in it.
16. Psychological investigation also supports the
unity of memory and reason, attributing the 29. One must raise one’s eyes to the sky; one must
processes of knowledge to the law of memory, turn contemplation into observation.
of association, turning will into the regulator of
action. 30. The observatory is related to the museum as
the external senses are related to reason: to
17. We can say that museums were born from reason that cannot be separated from the
memory: from the whole man. memory of the ancestors, and contains within
it one indivisible whole.
18. The purpose of the museum can be nothing
other than the purpose of the circle dance and 31. The museum, unifying the sons of man for the
the ancestral temple: the sun-path, returning universal investigation of the sky or universe,
the sun for the summer, awakening life in all is related to the observatory.
that had faded in winter.
32. The museum is not a depository of mere
19. The action of a museum must have power that chronicles and photographic snapshots of the
really returns, gives. This will be, when the sky.
museum creates tools that regulate the
destructive, lethal forces of nature. 33. For an astronomical observatory there is no
past, as there is no past for the movement of
20. The past is the subject of history. the solar system, which is a continuous event
revealed by the changing position of the stars;

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which is why it is necessary for astronomers to establish control.

remember, to hold within themselves, the
positions of the stars entered in the very 45. Astronomy will be transformed into astro-con-
earliest of chronicles. trol, and the human race will become the
astronomer-controller, which is its natural
34. Here memory is merged with reason, and the vocation.
past with the present to such an extent that the
death of the observers appears only as a 46. Constant discord gave the question of the
changing of the guards who organize the world and society a primary place, and over-
regulation of the world and open the way for shadowed the fundamental, universal question
the establishment of control over the world. of death.

35. The powerlessness to establish control has 47. History, having as its subject the eternal
deprived humans of the opportunity to hold discords, separated into an individual science
and restore life.
But as long as it speaks of man as creator of
36. There is no past for natural science, as it is discord, as long as it looks at the life of the
only a human representation of nature, or a human race only as it is now, only as a matter
project for controlling it, enacted in the shape fact, not asking the question of what it must
of a museum by the whole human race. be: meaning a project of future life, humanity
will not discover either in astronomy, or in
37. The museum is a historical enterprise not only cosmic art, or in world regulation, its common
in the sense of knowledge, but of action. purpose.

38. However, a museum with just an observatory, 48. In order to have internal peace, without which
which provides only reconnaissance, still external peace is impossible, we must not be
remains an organism without active organs: enemies to our ancestors, but really be their
without hands and feet. grateful descendants.

39. Humanity on the whole is yet incapable of 49. It is not sufficient to limit ourselves to only
restoration of life and free movement in space, internal commemoration—merely a cult of the
unless we accept as such the movement of the dead. It is necessary that all the living, having
earth, happening independently of mankind. united as brothers in the temple of ancestors,
or the museum, transform the blind force of
40. This organism (a museum with an observatory) nature into one that is directed by reason.
will remain without hands as long as the city
and the village remain separated, because the 50. Because the energy of cosmos is indestructible.
natural-historical museum will remain outside
of the natural, and memories preserved in the Because true religion is a cult of ancestors
museum will not be a true, material resurrec-
tion, nor will they be a regulator of nature. Because true social equality means immortal-
ity for all
41. It is because of the separation of city and
village, and concentration of all mental life in Because of love, we must resurrect our ancestors
the cities, that nature seems elusive to us;
while we blame nature for hiding from us. From cosmic particles, as minerals, as
animated plants
42. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that we do not
dis­cover nature for lack of time, occupied with Solar, self-feeding, collectively conscious
manufacturing and everything connected with it?
Immortal
43. Due to our business we cannot prepare
observers and investigators, because from Transsexual
childhood we enslave them in the factory in
order to satisfy our most trivial desires. On earth, on space ships, on space stations,
On other planets.
44. It is equally unfair to say that nature, having
attached us to earth, makes us powerless to

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a global audience?

Panel discussion with speakers. Part one.

Bose Krishnamachari, Wong Hoy Cheong, Peggy Levitt, and Anton
Vidokle, moderated by Kian Chow Kwok and Marcela Römer.
Panel discussion and Q & A with speakers: as we talk about, as Peggy mentioned this morning,
the transnational network of museum or culture or
— Kian Chow Kwok: Thank you for coming back curators and, you know, museum directors, like
early, and we could start again at two o’clock for ourselves here, having the opportunity of coming to
this. I’m sure you enjoyed the presentation of the Tokyo to discuss about all this, but, you know, we
video. Now we are back to the classroom and let’s have to still go back to the question “is there a
continue with our discussion. It’s sort of an occupa- global audience?”, which is the theme of this after-
tional habit that, you know, you will respond to noon’s discussion. So we extended the whole idea of
things with images, so what I’ve done is I picked up museum to, of course, you know, the Museum of
three images from my phone as my response to try Immortality, but of course at the very end of the
to frame the discussion this afternoon. presentation it says that that museum does not exist.
Now, the first image… this is on the way to So where are we as a museum or as any kind of art
Kochi Biennale, you see this poster—you’re probably programming? Where do we exist and how do we
familiar with this one, Bose: “Invest in the Biennale relate to the global? And again, the question: Is
city.” Now, this reminds us, of course, of our there a global audience? So, can we start the dis-
concerns—not only this morning but also the last cussion this afternoon? Thank you… Yes, Enrico, I
two days—about those enabling factors such as a believe.
funding structure that would make a museum or an — Enrico Lunghi: Yes. Thank you. Thank you for
art project possible, and it was in closing after all the speakers and the contributions. I don’t have
discussion yesterday when Frances said that it was any answer to the question, but just as a starting
amazing that for over two hours we could do one point I can only talk about… or to give a starting
whole discussion without mentioning two words: one point or comment to this. I think we all work in
is globalization and the other one is money; unfortu- different situations, that’s obvious, as Peggy showed
nately these two words are very much part of the us very well how in different situations the
discussion this afternoon. responses are different, but also how you can read
My second slide is from Penang… I’m sure if the museums differently, or what is shown in the
they served desserts in heaven it would be this one, museum, or even what a museum does, can be read
it’s called Cendol, it’s rich in coconut milk and it’s differently according to the different contexts,
absolutely the most wonderful thing that you could cultures, and so on. I can only talk about my experi-
have in Penang. Now, Hoy Cheong was showing, of ence. I was born in Luxembourg, one of the smallest
course, the different McDonald’s items going to cities and capitals in the world, which faced
different local cuisines and making a “mcdonaldiza- dramatic changes in the last hundred years—like
tion” of local cuisine, but you were reminded many cities, of course, but in Luxembourg, since it’s
yesterday in the presentation that, in the tea so small, the changes are perceived very directly
ceremony for instance, eating of course or any and what’s happening in the city, in the country,
experience has to be a total experience, it’s not just everybody is really experiencing it or, I would say,
visual but it’s also, how you feel with it, what is the it’s on the body. And what’s happened, for instance,
ritual around it and human relations and if not social in the contemporary art field in the last twenty years
relations around that whole experience; and is that there are two institutions that came up
therefore, in showing Cendol, even if we do a there—one is the Casino Luxembourg contemporary
McCendol, it would not be the same as this dessert art center, that was founded and opened twenty
that is served in heaven. years ago, and the other one is the Mudam contem-
Now, the third one is about the currency of the porary art museum that opened less than ten years
word “contemporary art” and I took this picture in ago. So what happens now is that we start to say
Zanzibar where there’s a gallery, and it says, as you that we have thirty years of contemporary art in
can see, “all our artists are featured in contemporary Luxembourg—so ten plus twenty is thirty—and what
art books”; and this is globalization for you that even happens also is that a big part of the Luxembourg

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population, which is very small—when I say the swarms of people. That for me is global as
Luxembourg’s population, it’s global population, opposed to, let’s say, a tiny little show somewhere in
because we have in the city 100,000 habitants and Malaysia where it’s a local audience. The people in
70,000 are not Luxembourgish, so that’s in the that small town, they will turn up, but you don’t
capital of Luxembourg—and even the national expect people flying from all over the world, so
language of Luxembourg is spoken by a minority of that’s my sort of own interpretation of the local vs.
Luxembourg’s population, this is global in the whole the global.
country, so that’s a very particular situation, and — Peggy Levitt: I think it’s a really provocative
with this ten plus twenty years of contemporary art question, and I’m reminded of the conversation we
in Luxembourg what one could observe—it’s only had this morning about when there’s an elephant in
one way of seeing it, of course, but I think it’s an the room you have to eat it in small bites. I don’t
observation that could be done—is that this popula- know how else to take this on, so I think the question
tion in Luxembourg is maybe closer to contemporary becomes: where is the audience and who is the
art than many others in big cities, because almost in audience? And it reminds me where we ended up
everyday life it’s almost impossible to escape from yesterday about technology, because the audience—
what Casino and Mudam do in the city… It’s talked whoever you can reach—is not just the people
about it a lot when there is a show that maybe has thinking of museums. So, the Peabody Essex
some public discussion and there were some in the Museum, for example, that director would say that
last twenty years—that a big part of the population the audience is not just the people who come
participate in it, and so it happens that some artist… through the door, but the audience who sees the
I will just take one example: Sanja Ivekovic, for traveling exhibits and then the audience who goes
instance, the Croatian artist is known by almost on to the website to see all of the exhibits. So, where
everybody in Luxembourg, because she did a project is the audience and then who is the audience?
that made a big public discussion and every There’s a constant tension there between talking to
newspaper, every television, every radio was talking your neighbors, you know, the people who are your
about it during two months, so you would enter the everyday constituents and then talking about the
bus and a lot of people were talking about this people who come to your city and are visiting, and
project of Sanja Ivekovic, for instance. how do you talk to them both at the same time. So, I
You see… what is a global audience I really think what I saw is similar to what Richard Wilk
don’t know, but I think that the more time you work in describes as “structures of common difference,” so
one place and the more you try to communicate this what you see are similar structures around the
work to a diverse public—because the public is so world, filled with different things. So structures of
diverse—you can construct something like a how to do certain kinds of museum work, but what’s
common ground of how you can discuss about art, the content, what’s in them, looks different in every
but then again, everybody perceives it differently, place.
and it’s totally different to our perception as profes- — Jaroslaw Suchan: I have a very particular
sionals, in one way or another, [compared to] what question, but I think the answer could help us to
people who come to visit the museum perceive, and understand what we are as a museum or what we
being very often, even Sundays, in the museum and should be. The question is to Wong Hoy… You left
trying to talk to the people in the museum, you can the field of art, but do you think that any experiences
find out that from three persons everybody sees and expertise you collected as an artist help you
something totally different in the same art piece. right now in your work for the communities? And
And I don’t know how to change this—or if I want to there would be a second question that somehow
change this, I think that’s the thing. So, what a global mirrors the first one: What do you think, what can
audience is, I don’t know, and just to comment, I like we can learn as a museum from your practice?
the title How Global Can Museums Be? but all the — Wong Hoy Cheong: Yes, it’s a complex
discussions that we heard and that were very inter- question, and I have various feelings about it. People
esting these days, my question to myself is that I have told me—when I’ve done a sort of a variant of
don’t know how global I can be “myself,” so it’s this talk—that the whole social housing project is
difficult to answer this question, I think, because just another council developmental project, which is
everybody has a different experience of that. fine, but the Istanbul project was definitely more
— Wong Hoy Cheong: For me in my mind, my meaningful to some people. So, when I went into
interpretation of it when I use the word “global,” I Istanbul I framed myself, or I was framed, as an
think of the Venice Biennale, I think of the impossibil- artist. When I work in social housing or an interfaith
ity of finding a hotel at a cheap price, I think of the project, I’m framed as a community worker, and in
swarms of people that fly in like for three days or fact most of them don’t even know I’m an artist or
four days in June, and all the locals hate it. I mean, was an artist. So, bringing the experience… Yes, I
they make money from it, but they really don’t like suppose, for one thing I could—I mean, in a very sort

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of silly manner—do the banner designs, I could do organizers to go out to the immigrant community,
some basic graphic work for the campaigns and because that’s who is around where the museum is
what we were doing, to bring in a kind of perversity, located and they kind of do art installations or
if you like, a kind of way of looking at things in a performances that have something that’s recogniza-
skewed manner a technocrat counselor or politician ble to the community so that they can enter but also
might not see. So, just to give you an example, in the be stretched, and then the community organizers
participatory budgeting project I merged two forms: say, “By the way, there’s a museum down the street
one is gender responsive budgeting and participa- and we offer English as a second-language classes,
tory budgeting. Participatory budgeting emerged and we offer space for you to have your Taiwanese
from Porto Alegre, in Brazil. This kind of methodol- dance performance for your kids…” And that’s the
ogy has been taken on by cities all over the world, way that art and museums are intertwined, and
from Birmingham to New York City; it’s becoming activism.
quite an important way for local councils to deal with — Hammad Nasar: Thank you for your perspec-
communities. So I took on the methodology and I tives. I wanted to try and pick one or two things from
took on a different gender methodology and I them and encourage a conversation amongst you.
combined it with a sort of more performative meth- One was this provocative idea of art as technology
odology and sort of made up this gender responsive that Boris Groys articulated, and this idea of that it
budgeting. And because of its uniqueness, just to being capable of changing the material condition of
show-off a bit, it won a prize in Porto Alegre as one humans. And Bose’s presentation… you were talking
of the most interesting participatory budgeting about how you and your team are trying to introduce
projects by local councils, and it’s not within an art precisely that: art as a technology, so you showed
context, it’s a prize within working with communities examples of the children’s biennial or the student
through local councils. So, I do feel I’m bringing a biennial, and this idea of injecting or inflecting the
different perspective, that’s one. Second question, everyday… And then, Hoy Cheong… I think what you
whether it has any relevance to a museum… It’s very are doing in some ways is actually using the technol-
difficult because when it’s framed by a museum, ogy of art. I think the question, then, in order to try to
basically it’s framed by four walls, it’s framed by the connect them, is what is the audience? Or is that the
cube, and I’m saying that we bring it out of the cube, wrong word? Because certainly you’re not talking to
so how does that fit into the museum? Do you mean an audience, Hoy Cheong, you’re talking to people,
that museums shouldn’t exist? I don’t think so… and thinking about how their lives can change
Should museums do more projects out of the positively, through some of the techniques that may
museum? I really think so, because it’s a whole borrow from the undisciplined field of art, and
different experience for both artists, for the museum therefore the question then becomes: Is “audience”
and for the community when the projects exist within a too single-dimensional word for us to be thinking
the art space; and sometimes it’s not that you don’t about for today’s museum? Connected to that, the
want to do it, it can be something very simple. I was question to Peggy would be… It was fascinating
talking to Lewis now about it… I did a project in looking at your… and I have to go and get the book,
Liverpool and I wanted to put the project within the but one of the things that was playing in my mind
space, and that space didn’t have disabled facilities, was: What if you applied that to the academy? So
as simple as that, and we couldn’t do the project the kinds of things that you were talking about and
there, it had to go into a cube. So… Yes, that’s how I many of the same places also have branches of
feel. Thank you. NYU, you know, the audience of the academy is also
— Peggy Levitt: So, there’s a project that has in a consumerist mindset, you know, you put your
being going on for a long time at Harvard called the credit card first when you apply for many of these
Cultural Agents Project—directed by a woman institutions… Is there any sort of thing that we can
named Doris Sommer—, and the whole idea there is learn from each other?
to sort of insert cultural catalysts so that people — Bose Krishnamachari: I think, you know, when I
start seeing things in different ways, and it’s just the say Kochi-Muziris Biennale… Muziris—many people
slightest shift. So from her perspective a teacher or don’t know—is a kind of mythical tongue, or it used
a police officer or, you know, anyone can be a to be. Recently, eight years ago, that area was
cultural agent, because you do something that excavated, in a place called Pattanam… And Muziris
makes somebody wake up because there’s some vanished in 1341, almost like a tsunami or Katrina
kind of surprise, and then they see their environment kind of situation… So that place used to be for the
in a different way. So I did find some examples in my Muziris a kind of trading port. The study states that
peregrinations and one that comes to mind with your the bottom of the excavation, if you dig one meter,
question was the Queens Museum, that, you know, you find a thousand years of history, and if you dig
really doesn’t have a big collection and did not have one more—two meters—you find two-thousand
a big visitor base, but started hiring community years of history in Pattanam. It’s almost like that

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place was, you know, three thousand years ago, present, and we constantly go to and fro, between
thirty-four to thirty-seven countries used to have the present (local) and the global—and this “folded-
trading relationship with Muziris. When Muziris ness” of experience is almost like a part of our
vanished, Kochi arose as a kind of kid, so for us it’s a fingers and proclivities now… We all have Google
kind of backbone. Muziris is our backbone and Kochi genes in us, everything we just Google, so technol-
became more meaningful because, as I mentioned, ogy has really shifted our notion of what is local and
another cosmopolitism existed there, it was glo- global… You know, in this twenty-first century the
balized long before we were talking about “foldedness” of experience has run so deep that we
globalization, or globalized within that small radius cannot separate that anymore. That’s my personal
that existed. So I think what we have done is put a feeling. And then, audience. There’s no one
seed in that cosmopolitan area, and it is fortunately audience, there’s audiences or communities or
blooming, and there is a kind of magnetism or target audiences. It’s never a homogeneous
something like that happening to that area. I think audience… And, again, I think of target communities,
it’s an ideal location, because it’s Kerala. I don’t target groups, because even in art you think of your
know whether you’re familiar with Kerala. It’s known target As museum managers and professionals you
as one hundred percent literate, most of the think of your target audience, you think of how to
educated people travel around the world, work… You frame things, so we are constantly thinking of an
know, I would like to say that even the study says audience but at the same time it’s not an homogene-
that the remittance amount coming to Kerala is from ous or sort of amorphous audience, [but] we always
the UAE, and when we look at it seventy percent of have “audience” in a very specific manner in our
the people are working from Kerala moved from mind. That’s what I think, and when you work in a
Kerala to work in the UAE, and that place was built community you must know your target audience or
by the workers from Kerala and from India, and your target community or group; if not, your project
Pakistan now, from Bangladesh and other places. will go nowhere.
Anyway, it’s a kind of interesting thing that I would — Marcela Römer: Anton, hello! E-flux… is it
see everywhere… Everywhere there is a museum global?
existing, everywhere there is a kind of university — Anton Vidokle: If you say so… I mean we are
existing… Local could be “glocal,” global… I see located in Manhattan, in the Lower East Side, in a
everywhere there is a possibility of engagement with kind of older and small building. On the ground floor
the work that we do, so I see there is… It is what we there’s a religious bath that belongs to a kind of very
are looking at in the first question, I mean, there is conservative Jewish association; it’s a purification
as a kind of people from everywhere, there is a kind bath. So, yes… what can I say?
of blood relationship with everyone and everything. — Kian Chow Kwok: Peggy, do you mind if we
— Kian Chow Kwok: I suppose that earlier glo- hold on the question of the university, because I
balization, you know, that you are trying to think what we’re pointing to here is something of a
reenact—or recall at least in memory—is part of the higher order. We tend to refer to global as
global. This is where we insert the word in a kind of something that is a kind of higher conditioning, that
historical time frame, and this will allow the city to will allow institutions—including both museums and
relive that early globalization… Hoy Cheong. universities—to operate in certain ways, or at least
— Wong Hoy Cheong: Globalization… I think influence the directions of these institutions. So, we
sometimes we use the word as if it was just born, but are talking now about this question of boundary. We
globalization has been happening, in a way, for are saying that, yes, we question what is the
many thousands of years. I mean, I had the privilege boundary of art and how it stands into the social; are
of going to the Afrasiab Museum in Samarkand, and art and social, two separate categories or do they
in this museum they rediscovered a mural, a fresco, flow into one another? That’s certainly a major
from the seventh century, and a sultan was sitting in concern here, and also then we ask ourselves about
the center, you had a boat from the Tang dynasty, art institutions, which may include museums,
you had Turkish people, you had Iranian people, you biennales, and even art practices… How would that
had Koreans, and they are all gathering in Central relate to this broader culture, which must be
Asia! I mean, how global can that be! But, fast-for- perceived in a context of the global? So I want to
ward to today—and you talked about technology—, pick up one expression of yours, Peggy; you said: “It
the notion of global is local, and local and global. I depends on how you want to use the museum.” So,
mean, I have written a paper about it and I called it there is this sense of “user” here, and this user
“The Foldedness of Experience.” We sit today here probably may not be so much in terms of museum
with our phone, smartphone, and we tweet, we do curators and directors and other museum col-
Whatsapp. We are connected to a different world leagues, it could be maybe perhaps more city
that is timeless, global completely, and then pull administrators, you know, politicians and so on, who
back—almost like an alienation in fact, back to the will determine the use of museums; therefore, what

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that suggests is that there is a kind of a higher methodology or based on what were these museums
“ordering” because of the ability to mobilize selected, because the selection excludes pretty
resources and with museums and projects getting much the whole world besides the West and the
larger, and therefore the user who determines how institutions that are heavily influenced by the
museums may be used may be set at a very different Western models of building a museum… And the
register. So perhaps we could pick up that one other to Wong Hoy Cheong… About your projects
because we are so concerned about the whole related to, let’s say, fixing problems that are caused
question of structure, and also the community of by someone else. The last remark that art has the
museums, you know, globally, as we are trying to biggest influence in the experience that people have
make a sense of it here. Lewis… there was an earlier in their heads, and in their hearts and minds, is
question by Lewis. Would you like to comment first? contrary to the work that you are maybe currently
— Lewis Biggs: I did come under certain doing, because right now you’re trying to fix
pressures around funding from my board as a immediate problems, right? And I think these are
museum director and then as a biennial director. Of also what you’re trying to compare in your big table,
course the people who give you money want to use so whether we should try to stick there and to point
you and your organizational abilities to do something out problems that exist around and our failures of
that satisfies their ambitions. “Whoever pays the mostly authorities, let’s say, people that are respon-
piper calls the tune,” as we say in English. The sible for them, that are paid for those duties that
argument usually, whether it’s a board or a city they are not performing, or we should find a way to
council or a regional funder, their interest is in go and intervene, basically, to fix those problems.
bringing more money to their area, or bringing fame, And by doing it, I think that you, of course, resolve
because fame produces tourists and tourists the situation, a given situation that you locate, but
produce money, so this is the logic. It’s very under- you also limit your possibility or the possibility to
standable, and we all know it very well. The address more problems or to highlight more
argument that I always had to have was: If you make problems and to call for responsibility for, let’s say,
your place wonderful for people who already live for other structures in the society to address those
there, then it will also be interesting for people to immediate problems. To compare, just last night on
visit, and this is turning the normal political and Youtube someone posted—on Facebook actually, an
monetary logic on its head, but again we have a NGO, I think it was in San Francisco or something
phrase: “Charity starts at home.” If you can make a like that—recycling all the buses that are used to
wonderful place for people to live and work, then the provide showers for homeless people, and it’s a
chances are that it will also be a good place for quick solution, right? But there’s no more than this
other people to visit. If your city remains a problem bigger influence that art usually has after making,
for the people who live there, then it’s not going to highlighting problems and calling the authorities
be a particularly pleasant experience for people who responsible for the failures of the administration of,
are going to visit it. So, I think whether it’s Liverpool let’s say, cities, localities… Not only like in Istanbul,
or Kerala or Folkestone or New York or Teheran, but all around us. Thank you.
there is an obligation on institutions, such as — Wong Hoy Cheong: First of all I would like to
museums or biennials, to sort out the problems at pick up on the notion of fixing the problem and also
home first, and I think art is useful in that context, pick up on what Hammad said about improving the
mainly for its intangible presence, not through its lives of people. When I mentioned “quality of life,” I
tangible presence. So, we all know that the real meant it in a very abstract sense. What I’ve learned
value of art, the real impact of art, happens in actually from many failed encounters is that if you
people’s heads and in people’s hearts; it doesn’t go in as a do-gooder—usually socially engaged art
happen in a museum or in a biennial, it happens tends to do that, going in as a do-gooder—you can
through what people remember afterwards; what encounter these kinds of issues that I have learned.
they talk about with their friends after sometimes Rather than do good, do no harm, and this is the first
many years of the experience that they had. So I thing I have learned from all the failed projects: just
think that museums and biennials even, and all of us do no harm to a community. If it improves their lives,
could concentrate more fully on the “intangible good; but just make sure you don’t leave the
heritage,” as UNESCO defines it, which in my mind community more fractured, fighting among them-
includes social institutions and social organizations selves, and there is no one party to blame when you
as the form in which art takes place. work in a community. Communities are not homoge-
— Albert Heta: Hi, I have one question and maybe neous, or at least the ones I’ve worked with, they’re
one observation that are simple I think. The first one incredibly fractured by ethnicity, by religion, by even
is to Peggy, if I can address you like this. So you small social class divisions—the shopkeeper vs. the
showed a few museums that you selected for your jobless person—, so these divisions can fracture a
research. I’m just interested to know based on which community incredibly deeply. So, when you work

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within a community, just try not to do harm. That’s a sense that museums shouldn’t be doing any kind of
what I’ve been trying to tell myself about not fixing social work and that, you know, they are for… some
the problem, but just make sure that if you can heal people would argue, like James Cuno of the Getty,
some of the fracturing it is good enough; whether that museums are about enlightenment values and
art can come in later, perhaps like what Lewis said, preserving—like old mission statements on museums
the lives improve or if there’s less fracturing, less from the eighteen hundreds. But I think in Sweden I
ruptures and less anger, perhaps it’s better; and heard a level of comfort with the idea of museums
sometimes it’s not the authorities’ fault, it’s the ennui for social engineering, so museums are like
in the fractured community itself. So it’s not simple, I hospitals and schools that just use different tools to
cannot… I mean, with five years of projects and achieve art goals. And then I think in Singapore and
working with communities, I’ve learned at least that Doha you have museums being used to not only
it’s very difficult. They don’t need you, you need create certain kinds of nations, but also reposition,
them; so don’t go in there pretending you are doing rescale the nation higher regionally if not globally.
good, because a lot of communities have been That gets back to the question about the academy
marginalized so long, they really don’t care whether and all of what we are doing, so I keep on thinking of
you go in or not. They will get by—they are resilient. the next book you are going to write, so I keep
— Peggy Levitt: Thank you for these questions. In thinking of what if we compared, you know, how do
terms of the sites that I studied, there are two pairs art… Is it easier for artists from different countries to
for each nation-building stage, so Sweden and become globally prominent than authors from
Denmark are sort of over empire and the United different countries, than intellectuals from different
States is at its peak or in its decline depending upon countries? And what does that say about how these
your politics, and then Singapore and Doha are different countries are? Where they are in relation to
using museums to stake a more global claim. So, this kind of global thing that we are all talking
those are the two cases that are outside the West, about? Isn’t there a sort of a regional version of that
and I would certainly be happy to continue this work relationship between the national and the global that
in many other places around the world… To think influences how much one gets to contribute to that
about how museums are being used by govern- global assemblage and then how much that global
ments, there’s also a parallel with the pairs, because assemblage influences you back?
there is a… You know, in the United States there was

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Monday November 9, 2015

Day 3. Is there a Global Audience?

Q & A with speakers.

Bose Krishnamachari, Wong Hoy Cheong, Peggy Levitt, and Anton
Vidokle, moderated by Kian Chow Kwok and Marcela Römer.

— Unidentified questioner: I would like Anton and intentionality, but sometimes it’s very, very hard to
Peggy to elaborate a little bit about the distinction see what it is that you’re actually doing.
between museums and art museums. Anton, in your — Peggy Levitt: As I said in my talk, I learned that
film you speak about museums as graves of all different kinds of museums have a window onto
memories, and, Peggy, you talked about museums the nation and onto the globe, even if it’s more
as tools, and I would like to know if you have thought explicit with some than with others, and part of that
a little bit about are there any distinctions. has to do with their scope—what they started out life
— Anton Vidokle: I’m still getting my head around doing—, and then part of it has to do with the role
all of these ideas, you know, and when they kind of that they play in the institutional distribution of labor,
came across I thought often of this incredible gener- but even if it’s solely an art museum I still think I saw
ation of writers quite recently, as I said in the many institutions struggling with this challenge of
beginning of my talk, you know, most of this material making themselves more welcoming and accessible
was really heavily suppressed, it did not really start to a broader audience, and in that way helping to tell
circulating until sometime in the seventies and very a different kind of story about what the nation is.
few people knew about this, but from the perspec- — Anton Vidokle: I mean, I think it’s also important
tive of thought there are no real differences between to think about the origin of the art museum, because,
art museums and natural history museums and, you you know, art museums didn’t come into existence
know, museums of whatever, because in the end it’s until quite recently, it was actually in the days of the
kind of like there is a very nice anecdote or analogy French Republic, and it actually starts as displays of
that Boris Groys sometimes makes about maybe it’s kind of objects looted from Egypt and other places
a hypothetical scenario that you have some kind of a that were kind of invaded and colonized, right?
situation in some village or some remote place that These objects were taken away, re-contextualized
has a kind of a religious practice, that they have this radically and then, for lack of a better category, they
kind of precious object, a kind of an idol, and they were presented as “artistic” artifacts. So this is the
have some kind of a ceremony where once a year beginning of our profession, let’s say, this is the
they, let’s say, pour milk on this object to actually do beginning of our field, so it’s very difficult to draw
some kind of offering for the gods or to venerate the separation between an art museum and a
their ancestors or whatever. It’s a gesture of museum of natural history, because art in itself is
respect, but if you look at it like if you were a such a recent category that was created in a rather
Martian that just arrived in this field and you look at artificial way, and of course it has a lot to do with
what they’re doing, they’re actually kind of destroy- nation building, because, of course, these early
ing this beautiful object, they’re putting things on it museums in France and these early displays were
that will have organic molecules, that will rot, that part of what actually forged the Republic.
will eventually destroy this object. So, sometimes it’s — Kian Chow Kwok: I think it’s very interesting
very difficult to say what you’re actually doing, you that this discussion now is sort of speaking up again
think you’re putting together an art collection, you on the earlier discussion in the morning during the
think you’re trying to build up global audiences, you General Assembly about ICOM and CIMAM, and
think that you’re trying to rewrite the history of art; there were certainly sentiments that, you know, by
in fact you may be collecting some kind of samples, being not part of ICOM, does it mean that as a kind
cultural samples that could be used in the future for of museum community we are lesser in terms of
some kinds of purposes that seem to be completely being able to be more persuasive and to have more
fantastical right now. So, it’s kind of a very interest- audience—or call them participants, or call them
ing way to think about museums and to think about partners or whatever—making more a… However,
art, because we don’t… You know, we have a lot of the fact that we have mentioned that different cities,

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different places, there is at least a confluence of South to the South, and after seeing the Biennale
ideas that we need to draw in more audience, and Okwui said that, you know, and you see the North in
that’s the important part. In other words, the impor- the First World, you know the First World and the
tance of museums, at least conceptually, is on the Second World, you know, Third World. In the Third
rise, that there is a desire on the part of many World we would like to start something like that, we
interests and sectors of society wanting to develop need to educate our local public. I’ll connect both
more museums and wanting more audience. Now, questions. In my experience, how we started this
this relates to another question that is, you know, biennale is kind of like many people dream in a way.
what we were talking this morning, that organiza- We used to have the first triennale in India. It was a
tionally you know that ICOM and CIMAM may not be bureaucratic thing in Delhi, which was started by
more suitable in terms of a very centralized overall incredible minds. It was part of nation building in the
umbrella of having CIMAM and ICOM. However, in Nehruvian time, and Dr. Mulk Raj Anan and Octavio
terms of spirit and intention, in terms of purposes, it Paz, the Mexican ambassador, used to be there at
may work better just as in many cultural institutions the time it was started, and they wanted to make an
these days that go through privatization, restructur- infrastructure, we didn’t have anything as such, but
ing, or whatever you call this, which is an unfortunately the academies, you know, we call it
organizational issue as opposed to intentional and Lalit Kala Akademy, Fine Arts Academy, their pro-
outcome-focus issue, and we are probably going to gramming on how to set up a biennale is almost to
agree that until it sounds an echo on how the send out invitations to embassies and consulates,
museum community, you know, as a kind of a global and the consulates, you know, send out their repre-
network is becoming more ambitious, more purpose- sentative. It was not really curated program
ful in what we are doing, and more, you know, exhibitions. Anyway, in 2005 onwards we don’t see
important in different communities by the way they any triennale in India. While I was a student in
so much support whatever, you know, different Bombay, the two biennales or triennales I could
political instances or whatever, in wanting to see see… I wanted to see, because I was curious to know
more audiences come into museums, and therefore what was happening around the world. You know,
we are trying to struggle precisely with that also an interesting story about Kochi-Muziris
problem. So, on the one hand we have the question Biennale comes from the Cultural Minister of State.
of what is the boundary or what is the category of We sat in Bombay and he asked me what would be
definition of the museum, and of course art, and on the best thing to do to raise awareness about
the other hand we are trying to make sense of this culture, and I suggested with Riyaz Komu had call
general meaning of the museum, the possibilities of for the meeting with this… Riyaz is also from Kerala,
the museum, and I think having great faith in exactly he was born there but often lives and works in
that, in wanting to develop museums, and art Mumbai. So that was in May 2010, and that’s the
museums in our case, you know, to further possible time we started, you know, one night over dinner we
dimensions. So maybe that could be, you know, this suggested it would be a great idea to start the
is just my reading on where we are. Perhaps you biennale. In 2005 lot of people like Vivan Sudaram,
want to comment on this one. Geeta Kapur, and other great minds and artists,
— Unidentified questioner: Thank you. I do have a tried to start a biennale in Delhi in 2005, which
question that’s related to boundaries, but it’s not unfortunately the State did not support in any way.
directly related to your last remark. My question is There are many anecdotes on how we understood
for Bose. In your video presentation I was quite the local. I used to go to many biennales and many
struck by Okwui Enwezor’s comment that Kochi exhibitions… I would like to say this anecdote
Biennale seems to be a means of rethinking the because from there I relearned how to start it. I
South-South relationship, and of course we’ve been visited the Biennale, an opening day of the Biennale;
looking at the globe, but we have the realities of the there were lots of kids who were playing in front of
Global North and the Global South, so I wonder if the museum and the kids, I just ran up to them and I
you could speak about the significance of the asked, “What do you guys know about what’s
Biennale for Global South audiences. happening? There are many people like getting into
— Second unidentified questioner: Before Bose’s that space. Any celebration, any party, whatever…”
answer to that question, I thought I wanted to add So, unfortunately, that was a kind of thing I felt that
one more to you, talking about global audiences, and these kids didn’t have any clue of what was
you raise that global audiences by organizing happening next door. So that’s the moment I realized
biennales without having more contemporary it is important to make awareness through
museums, so I was interested in how you think of the education, you know, through institutions, children’s
relationship between the necessity of the museum programs, working on the roads, and whatever, you
for Kochi and after having two great biennales. know, we had people, local communities, and also
— Bose Krishnamachari: Thank you. The Global interest. There are more than thirty-five communities

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living in one small area of five kilometers in Kochi, Please, don’t shut the mouth. Talk now.
and the different kinds of language that people — Marja Sakari: Okay, I’m from KIASMA, Finland,
speak. It’s an incredible place, you know, four and actually about the educational part of our job, so
hundred and fifty years of history with the now we are very happy and lucky at KIASMA,
Portuguese, Dutch, and British, but they never ruled because we have an artist who has an exhibition that
the Kochi, the maharaja always said that history is called The School of Disobedience, and actually
would damn or dwelled with them. And, you know, we have there some classes and actually the things
that’s the only place, when the Jewish community that are taught are mostly empathy, understanding
was slaughtered everywhere else in the world, there others, respecting others, and so on and so on,
were two hundred families safely living in Kochi, so which are also, I think, the task of museums to do.
it’s an incredible place, an ideal place to start So, of course, the educational part of our job is very
something like that, you know. I realized a kind of crucial and also, as we are working with contempo-
long strip but one hundred percent a true State, and rary art, which is always something new that people
each and everybody is very much aware now in a are never used to seeing, or I suppose we want to
day-to-day life. Before we opened the Biennale show things that have never been seen before, so
there was a lot of controversy because it was that’s also quite a difficult task: how to teach people
started from the State, the State was giving us a to understand, or I don’t know whether we have to
little less than one million dollars to start the teach anybody or if it’s just the privilege of our
Biennale, but what we have done the first thing is audiences—our global and local audiences—to have
that we created… We had to create… You know, if the possibility to come and see the exhibitions that
you want to exhibit art we need to create some we propose them. We can’t oblige people to come
museum spaces, we didn’t have many spaces. The and see, but we can try to make it easier for people
academy had around eight thousand square feet of to understand and to appreciate or to come to our
exhibition space, and two galleries existed in that museums, so, for example, in Finland we don’t have
area, very small spaces. So half of the money we so many immigrants. Now it’s changing, the situation
spent creating one of the best places in India is changing, and actually we have decided that we
academy, on spaces we returned back to the State, will have free entrance for all the new comers in
so we have maybe less than half a million to start Finland, so I think that’s one way to really give the
our Biennale. There was lot of controversy. We live opportunity for all people to come to visit our
and work in Mumbai, successful as an artist, but, you museums, but of course it’s not the only possibility.
know, people said that “these people are corrupt” That’s my comment. Thank you.
and whatever, and anyway we went on working on — Unidentified questioner: Yes, I share the
our Biennale and educating people. The first edition, concerns of course of education and also of how
before opening, people didn’t know what is a ethical we can be in our work. I have just two
biennale, people thought it’s a barking dog or comments for something we try to do, and again
whatever it is called. Marcella said something very important also to
Text missing due to technical malfunction me—it’s that we do things together, with the teams,
— Marcela Römer: […] so all the time we are in as representative, as director I represent an institu-
discuss with all my team. I work with seventy tion of the work of all those who work with me, it’s
people—curators, educational team—and all the not me alone who does that. But two points very
time we discuss, all the time together work in the important for me are maybe… Well, including this
museum together; of course, I’m the director, I educational and this ethical thing, it has to do with
suppose I have the power? I don’t know. I suppose time. I think that, as Marja just said, contemporary
all my team have the power, because all my team art is something that many of us deal with and has
work with me together, so in the moment we have this thing that it’s innovative, it’s going with our
problems, I suppose the big problems, I put my face world and changing very rapidly, but this rapidity is
with the big problems, the money problems or the something that is against many of the values that we
political problems, and answers are difficult, we want to share and to promote. Education needs time,
need to think all together, we are here to think all ethics needs time, so how can we compose with this
together and debate all together. What can we do? innovation all the time we need to show new artists,
We have the panelists, have special cases about new works and so on, but we forget sometimes to
something in the art world, but all the day when we deal really with this: again, it needs time. So, we
work in the museum we have different problems. If always have this contradiction and this tension to
you’re in Europe, I suppose you have different work with. And there is another notion I want to
problems than I have in South America. So, I insist, introduce; it might seem very romantic, but I think
the first problem in South America is the money and that… I talk for myself, because I don’t want to… I
political, both are very… are brothers, those are don’t know if everybody would share this, but
brothers. So, CIMAM is a platform to talk about this. through the exhibitions I try to give a notion of

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beauty, because I think also beauty, and beauty in a three days. So, can we thank the panel on the stage?
very non-esthetical or formalistic sense, but a sense
of how an attitude towards beauty, and yesterday
the talk about the tea ceremony was really going
into that. I think when people come also to the
museum, and also to a contemporary art museum
that can share, that can deal with a very contradic-
tory and up to date notions, we can do it in… or it’s
possible, or I try to do it, in giving also the sense
that you can take distance from all what is
happening and this can also be something that can
be shared and discussed, of course, in very different
ways, but… So, it’s just a notion I want to introduce.
— Marcela Römer: Thanks, Enrico. Beauty and
death are sisters too… take care.
— Unidentified questioner: I just wanted to pick
up on something Hoy Cheong ended with, which I
found particularly bleak, emulation the very… I think…
I mean a positive presence of your projects and the
kind of usefulness of what you’re doing. You made a
comment about the marketplace determining what
constitutes value in art, and I think it’s maybe
something that I would like to throw out as an
important subject maybe for the next CIMAM confer-
ence, because I think all of those… We are all
engaged in trying to negotiate contemporary art,
either locally or regionally, or, in a transnational
context, but we are also trying to rethink the
histories of our places and how they connect with
the rest of the world, and I don’t think there’s any
curator in this room who thinks that they are doing it
guided by the marketplace. The marketplace might
be determining the monetary value of art, and it’s a
scary and compromising challenge for us, but I
would like to contest that we are engaged in
something a little bit more fundamental.
— Anton Vidokle: Well, you know, statistics were
just released that ninety percent of the exhibitions or
artists exhibited in museums in the United States are
represented by ten galleries in New York. Ten
galleries represent ninety percent of art that has
been shown in the United States’ museums of
modern and contemporary art. Now, how can you
say that at least the North American museum estab-
lishment is working separately from the market?
— Question: I think we could have a very good
debate about this, because I don’t… I mean, I agree
with the statistics, but I don’t necessarily agree with
your conclusion that that means that is the history
that we have in front of us, so let’s return to that…
— Anton Vidokle: The history we have in front of
us? I think in front we have a future—history is
behind us!
— Kian Chow Kwok: How do you want to do with
the closing?
— Moderator: I would just like to maybe close this
session three Is there a global audience? once, and
then using the rest of our time to just summarize the

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Colophon
CIMAM Erika Hoffmann, Berlin, Germany
International Committee for Museums and Fondation LVMH, Paris, France
Collections of Modern Art Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South
Korea

Patron Member
Board Members 2014–2016 Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

President Sustaining members

Bartomeu Marí Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain
Albert M.A. Groot, Sittard, Netherlands
Secretary-Treasurer Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney,
Patricia Sloane Australia

Members Programs Coordinator

Charles Esche Inés Jover
Ann Goldstein
Madeleine Grynsztejn
Kathy Halbreich
Philipp Kaiser CIMAM 2015 Annual Conference
Abdellah Karroum How Global Can Museums Be?
Mami Kataoka November 7–9, Tokyo, Japan
Vasif Kortun
Kian Chow Kwok Co-organized by
Elizabeth Ann MacGregor CIMAM
Frances Morris Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
Marcela Römer CIMAM Executive Committee of 2015 Annual
Jaroslaw Suchan Conference in Tokyo

Honorary Members Special Grant by

Tuula Arkio Ishibashi Foundation
Zdenka Badovinac
Manuel J. Borja-Villel Sponsored by
Renilde Hamecher van der Brande Benesse Holdings, Inc.
María de Corral Fukutake Foundation
David Elliott Shiseido Company, Limited
Rudi Fuchs
Olle Granath Supported by
Jürgen Harten Japanese National Committee for International
Thomas Messer (1920–2013) Council of Museums
Richard Oldenburg Japanese Association of Museums
Suzanne Pagé The Japanese Council of Art Museums
Alfred Pacquement The Japan Association of Art Museums
Margit Rowell
With the cooperation of
Founding patrons Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
Fundació Bancaria “la Caixa,” Barcelona, Spain Nihon Kotsu Co., Ltd.
Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de Yu-un
Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela ANA InterContinental Tokyo
Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany Hotel Villa Fontaine
Fukutake Foundation, Kagawa, Japan
Josée and Marc Gensollen, La Fabrique, Marseille, Travel grants funded by
France Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de

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Cisneros
The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles
Gwangju Biennale Foundation

Additional travel support by

Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores/AMEXCID
Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Agency for
International Development

Online publication by
CIMAM, Barcelona

With the support of

The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles
Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de
Cisneros

Editor
Patricia Sloane
Keith Patrick

Contributors
Brook Andrew
Mariana Botey
Patricia Falguières
Shimegi Inaga
Bose Krishnamachari
Mika Kuraya
Peggy Levitt
Hammad Nasar
Jack Persekian
Georg Schöllhammer and Hedwig Saxenhuber
Slavs and Tatars
Eugene Tan
Anton Vidokle

CIMAM—International Committee for Museums and

Collections of Modern Art

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© 2015 CIMAM International Committee for

Museums and Collections of Modern Art, the
authors, and the photographers. All possible effort
has been made to contact copyright holders. Any
omission or error is regretted and should be notified
in writing in order to be corrected in subsequent
editions. Kindly contact CIMAM.

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