Collections in Transition - Decolonising, Demodernising and Decentralising?

A symposium organised by museum confederation L’Internationale on collecting art in a time of Globalisation and mass migration. Part of Demodernising the Collection: Opening weekend (21-23 sep)

The symposium will be English spoken  

Time Schedule

printable programme (pdf) 

9:30   – 10:00 Registration and coffee at the Van Abbemuseum. Entrance via the Museumcafé, Stratumsedijk 2
10:00 – 10:30  Deviant Practice, research presentation by Kuba Szreder, Meg Down and Sebastian Cichocki
10:30 – 11:30  Guided tours through the collection exhibitions The Making of Modern Art and The Way Beyond Art 
11:30 – 12:00  Artists and deviant researchers Brook Andrew and Michael Karabinos talk about their exhibitions on display
12:00 – 12:20 Coffee
12:20 – 12:30 Introduction
12:30 – 14:00 Part 1: Keynote speech by Rolando Vazquez, plus presentations by L’Internationale directors Manuel Borja-Villel and Meriç Öner 
14:00 – 14:45 Lunch
14:45 – 16:15  Part 2: Keynote speech by Geeta Kapur, plus presentations by L’Internationale directors Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche
16:15 – 17:45  Workshops: 4 parallel sessions
17:45 – 18:00  Mini break
18:00 – 19:00  Panel discussion
19:00 – 20:00  Plenary discussion moderated by Chris Keulemans
From 20:00  Drinks.

Introduction

A lot is at stake for European museums in their attempt to deal with the consequences of economic, political and cultural globalisation. Values of colonial, western-centred modernity are being challenged from many sides: climate change, the millennial generation, participatory society, digital commons, rising global levels of education, mass migration, decolonial reparation, and more. In these transitional times, museums have a renewed responsibility to position themselves within today’s multi-facetted and multi-polar world and to think together how to construct public platforms that are adequate to deal with current social, ethical, and aesthetic challenges. Museums across Europe are already rethinking their programming, collecting and archiving of artistic forms of expression, both contemporary and historical. They strive to be transdisciplinary, experimental and accountable, and to come to terms with their pasts, ongoing power structures and reconsider what, how and for whom they are collecting. In this symposium, L'Internationale* reflects on ideas stemming from the recent discourses around decolonising, demodernising and decentralising to see how museums are responding and what can be expected of them in the years ahead. 

Part 1: Decolonising Public Art Institutions in Times of Transition? 

The day is set-up to understand better how the structural analysis of immanent colonialism inside modern societies permeates into its institutional infrastructure and ‘common sense’. As the European art museum is rooted in nineteenth century thought, it holds a complex position of being a public place for educational emancipation whilst simultaneously being firmly embedded in a mind-set defined by colonialism. For example, the process of considering certain art canonical while other arts and art forms are marginalised implies an uncomfortable categorisation that reveals power relationships between the coloniser and the colonised, or the rich and poor. In response, “decoloniality opens up spheres of conversational and communal healings, reorienting thinking, sensing and doing in the/our praxis of living”, to quote Walter Mignolo. In the light of such decolonial thinking, unresolved colonial histories from the past are being reassessed by a new generation in the global south. These rewritten histories then combine with contemporary mass migrations, religious revivals and identitarian movements in Europe to pressure public art museums to change. But what does a decolonial museum look like? How can museums welcome a public that has become both fragmented and more demanding? What is to be done with modernism once a relationship between coloniality and modernity is established? How is this manifest in museums and what type of changes are happening on the ground? How do their programmes, collections and archives address a pluriversal world? Is a ‘museum of the commons’ possible? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this panel.
Confirmed speakers: 

Rolando Vázquez (more about Vázquez and his keynote), assistant professor of Sociology at University College Roosevelt of Utrecht University, coordinator of the Decolonial Summer School Middelburg.
Manuel Borja-Villel, director Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. 
Meriç Öner, director SALT, Istanbul 

Part 2: Towards Demodernising Art History?

As a reference for assessing contemporary art globally western art history has become inadequate. Its underlying hegemonic and colonial structures, its hierarchical categorisations and its linear, progressive thinking are no longer able to explain the art world and its products. The questions that this crisis of the tradition raises are manifold. While colonial modernity remains one of the main departure points for curatorial research, exhibition concepts and collection formation in many institutions, its historical legacies are very different, depending on where you stand in the world. This session will set out to exchange ideas about the various options and to see how they can coexist in new entangled versions of art histories. Should “modernism” perhaps completely disappear out of the vocabulary because of its ties to colonialism? Or, on the contrary, would it be desirable to construct multiple modernisms, or, if at all possible, a kind of global, cosmopolitan or postcolonial modernism? This session explores, amongst others, how recent scholarly insights and proposals for transnational and cross-cultural understandings of modernism can be translated into museological practices. The speakers are all committed to historical analysis as a valuable tool to map relationships between different artistic practices and to museums as sites where new narratives can be told. They differ widely in terms of their geographic locations and on how to address the legacy of modernity as a concept and a still living tradition.
Confirmed speakers: 

Geeta Kapur (more about Kapur and the keynote), art critic, historian and curator  
Zdenka Badovinac, director MG+MSUM, Ljubljana
Charles Esche, director Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Part 3: Collections in Transition: Potential Tools for Decentralisation?

This part of the day will look at museum practice, exploring potential tools for decentring collections which can be seen as both the treasury and the burden of public art institutions. They are the most tangible evidence of past and present value assessments; after all, acquisitions entail long-term financial commitment (management and conservation), the conviction that the work of art is a significant contribution to the existing holding, the tradition of art as well as valuable for future generations (hence the expression ‘museum quality’). While collections are always incomplete, selective and inter-subjective, their quality is often measured against hegemonic international museum standards. At the same time, museums increasingly want to appeal or be relevant to a local public or situation. This tension is not easily resolvable, especially in a world of increasing art prices and extreme private wealth.

Deciding on how, what and for whom to collect raises the core museum questions of value, gatekeeping and mediation. It is clear that collections are powerful tools to tell stories and to imagine past experiences. Artists and museum visitors are inspired by these narratives and use them to make their own work or place themselves within an artistic tradition. There are also local stories and national narratives for which every museum feels responsible, yet they also want to be part of a bigger artistic family. The workshops aim to explore various ways to reuse, reactivate, remediate and revisit museum collections.

Four separate workshops will be organised to encourage greater exchange and discussion. Each session will be led by a moderator and include 2-3 prepared short statements or case studies. 

I. Constituencies: museum as a social tool 

While museums seek an ever greater popularity, they want to work not only with tourists but also with locals that can make use of the art institution in their own ways. Concepts such as: “museum of the commons”, “the useful museum”, “participatory art”, “shared ownership” or “constituent publics” are increasingly found in museum policy papers. There is a joint desire to change expectations around the museum or art institute and develop different and more active relationships with diverse publics and the kinds of experiences they can access. How can be dealt with mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion underpinning presentations and collections of canonical art works by networked relationships?

II. Common knowledge: joint research initiatives 

As art museums are main narrators of art histories, they seem to be in need of new perspectives and knowledge on multiple, parallel and intertwined stories of art in order to provide productive contexts for new interpretations as well as acquisitions both enriching and complicating existing collections. How can museums and archives (re)gain relevance as places of collective memory and shared heritage in contemporary culture? How can (inter)national research collaborations within ánd beyond art institutions bring about new insights and help to meet the challenges of today’s world? 

III. Mediating the collection: language, authorship and hierarchy 

If modern society needs to decolonise and/or demodernise itself structurally to come to terms with the past, it also needs to decentralise its narratives and open-up new ways to manage its institutions. What would be the consequences of this for current collections, both in how they are composed and how they are mediated? The institutionalised artistic infrastructure seems a good place to start given its experimental traditions for, despite many people’s best efforts, the concept of the museum of the commons has yet to be given real concrete form. Can relationships to publics be rethought to allow for different forms of exchange and representation that are less hierarchical or didactic but allow decisions about public heritage to be taken in common? These and related questions structure this workshop. 

IV. Collection ontologies: decentring the canon

Despite their different identities, histories and priorities, almost all European art museums share a common root in the western canon. This workshop aims to reflect the nature of the historical relations between artists, modernity and colonialism, which form the basis for art history and as a result define many art collections in western Europe. This art historical frame of reference is nowadays under scrutiny and must question the cultural, social and political value of the institution. What are the consequences of changing the referential framework for acquiring new artworks or archives and remaking the collection displays?

Part 4: Panel and plenary discussion

Concluding the day, scholars, colleagues from other museums, together with senior officials of the European Union, are invited to reflect on the day’s findings and speculate on possible strategies to re-design the future museum.
Panel members, amongst others:
Ferran Barenblit, director MACBA, Barcelona 
Bart de Baere, director, M KHA, Antwerpen
Annie Fletcher, Head Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Bart Rutten, director, Centraal Museum, Utrecht
Mirjam Shatanawi, Curator Middle East and North Africa, Tropenmuseum | Afrika Museum | Museum Volkenkunde.
Moderator: 
Chris Keulemans, writer, journalist and teacher.