Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Joana Mendonça
FACULTY OF FINE ARTS | UNIVERSITY OF PORTO
arts education
doctoral
programme
PhD Advisors
NORA STERNFELD
CATARINA MARTINS JOANA MENDONÇA phd dissertation
For Teresa
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.
Writing as a way of finding a method
07 The author, the work, a statement
◆ introduction
13 The inevitable storytelling
◆ autobiography
23 Why I’m talking about writing, and using it to get to the world
◆ the shadow researcher
29 A good conversation will always help you deal with things
◆ silence at the museum
37 Methodological grasp
◆ depleting the choices
43 Notes from a (non) conducted experience
◆ the sources
2.
The beginning - Multiple Contexts
57 The first guided tour
◆ how do you feel?
67 How to arrive (and return) to the contact zone
◆ another beginning
85 Identity and the individual freedom
◆ this is not about me
95 Hands-on or why mediating art will never be enough
◆ mediator vs educator
117 Truth and order
◆ why to they matter?
123 Lucien’s library
◆ the first raven
3.
Looking at (curating) contemporary art museums
129 What do you think when you think of a museum?
◆ the museum effect
149 Curating
◆ mannerisms over time
167 All of this is about people and love
◆ like time passing
177 When artists become museums
◆ and vice versa
191 Why are we all trying so hard to be someone else?
◆ the crisis of shifts
4.
Archive and memory (imagination, immateriality, objects and ourselves)
203 Imagination meets memory
◆ the dream space in museums
215 Living a life that is never only our
◆ on cultural memory
227 Collaborative tools and sentimental objects
◆ is this mine or yours?
243 Are we collecting ourselves?
◆ objects of desire
259 Unsettling archive and the truth effect
◆ archiving immateriality
271 When the museum becomes your own
◆ new modes of making meanings
5.
When power and utopia meet the arts
297 When power and utopia meet the arts
◆ about nostalgia
309 (New) models of being together
◆ change the focus
329 The social work of museums
◆ art as a social laboratory
341 If one day museums fall
◆ in the wrong hands
349 Art education, art academies, artistic research & the new schools
◆ why so much (talk on) education?
377 The blind spot in art education
◆ little things
383 (Always) aiming for transformation
◆ and its (inner) contradictions
6.
How much longer? Life beyond art
411 “The objective of this work is to become the object of a discussion”
◆ by tino sehgal
417 A museum of all things
◆ for all people
423 Me & shadow researcher (in the format of a self-interview)
◆ towards the future
Appendices
439 Appendix A - glossary
451 Appendix B - visual summary
473 Appendix C - #this is not an inquiry (questions)
477 Appendix D - profiles
483 References
ABSTRACT
.1
THE AUTHOR, THE WORK, A STATEMENT
i n tro d uc t i o n
2 Being the death of my mother, and the birth of my daughter the two main events that
use the term “artistic framework”, because this idea is not about an artistic fullness, but it
regards only to the shell or the container: since I don’t care about a validation of the artistic “ambitions”
of energy in order to make things come together as a
whole – being that this whole is actually me.
6 If
from Anna Schurch “Productive Speech Moments – Reflections on Manners of Speech in Gallery Education and
sense? In searching for and finding (inventing) formulations in
discussing art, I’m always interested in expanding upon and
going beyond what is already known about the work being
viewed and encouraging and enticing others to reflect upon the
work and to take part in the discussion.” 7
on What Makes Sense”, included in “Documenta 12 – Education 2” ed. by Carmen Morsch (2008), p. 106.
My research has been conducted by me for years –
while, at the same time, I was also doing something
else, aka living. For all this time, I never intended
to map historically a way of working (specifically in
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES or whatever) or to just
jump to propose a critical perspective from it. Any
critical work is inevitably conditioned to the number
of circumstances in which it is being conducted, and
(that is obviously important) but it will always work as
a fragility from an academic point of view. Ideally, one
should aim to the production of a form of knowledge
that can be reproduced, re-enacted or experimented
in different placements, with different groups and
different resources. Maybe by then it might be
considered to be reliable and trustworthy material.
However, not aiming for that (for an obvious lack of
resources) during this time it became clear for me that
the research – as well as the writings produced from
it – could get closer to a way to think through the
relations between art, arts education, arts mediation
and curating. And in that sense, instead of trying to
formulate functional processes or ideal methodologies,
I looked instead for ways to think, to live, to
7 Excerpt
páginas cheias de anotações. Mas não consigo colocá-las em ordem. São peças de um quebra-cabeças espalhadas pela mesa. Tento
translation from the original: “As ideias não me faltam. Ao contrário, elas brotam a todo o momento. Já tenho centenas de
investigative form we are undertaking. Those thoughts
encaixá-las umas nas outras para formar um padrão único. Mas elas se rebelam.” - Livro sem Fim, Rubem Alves, n.d. p. 17.
would sometimes overlap the main text (as something
so urgent that had to be said in that specific moment),
and be placed with the same importance as suggestions
for future readings, or the footnotes containing
further information. He claimed to have developed the
centipede’s syndrome:
Figure 3
Personal Notebooks
But I could not stop using images. How could that be,
if images were everywhere around me? I Think, read,
work, teach, orientate, and ultimately breathe with
images. Truth is I’m an image addict (as we all are in
a completely visually dependent world). Probably my
situation can be adjusted to a generational problem,
but is that all too bad?
I grew to believe that my accurate sensitivity for
viewing images is what made me start enjoying the
work of orienting GUIDED TOURS in the first place.
And that sense was also what made me concern about
what other people had to say about them.
Could we experience the same feelings and sensations
about the same images?
“MIND MAP” was the only way that I encountered to manage all the things I wanted to intertwine during the writing of
on the day we had for example). So, this will lead me to
(again) a personal type of writing, but also to the idea
of multiplicity that I’ve always been interested in – like
the thesis: but soon it turned much bigger than I had expected, becoming also a part of this methodological process.
the meta voice that was present in my early writings.
I find it fascinating to perceive the instability of
boundaries between the reported information
collected at work and the biographical accumulation
of novels, stories and tales (and sometimes the mess
between fiction and reality). Imagination meets these
boundaries when they’re not exactly sure where to
belong, and turns them into a unique experience.
Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: A Curatorial Handbook in Collaborative Practice”,
predictableness of a shadow self to be constrained
by me.
This would be the final heir to my meta voice, and if I
could do this just imagine the possibilities that could
derive from here:
am I fooling? I am that person that, even a few days away from the deadline, is still writing things in a
how could I expect to come up with just one question?
This eventually became a problem for me, so I stopped
thinking about (participatory) action research.
Also, there was another thing that bothered me. As I
19 From the book “Action Research: A Handbook for Practitioners” (1996), by E. Stringer, pp. 19-20.
continued to dig up on methodologies one could use
(for artistic purposes), I found that the researches
focused (always) in very specific recipients. Privileged
notebook first to just write it in the computer after (sometimes even in the same day).
people: my fellow researchers, art students, museum
curators and eventually artists. Of course there is
always a primary group of people who will read our
thesis when they come out but, to be honest, I never
considered that to be my targeted reader.
I always sought to write (to myself) in order to allow
myself the independence to write to anyone else:
I expected my visitors (in the museum) to be my
readers, as well as my family and my friends and my
neighbours.
“It is not the shadow of the curator, as one would expect it,
Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: A Curatorial Handbook in Collaborative Practice”,
like for example an intern shadowing a curator which means
more like being at the curator’s side like someone’s shadow
cast by the sun. Shadow Curator comes more from the Shadow
Minister in Westminster politics, who, yes, is constantly at their
counterpart’s side, but also has another dimension of friendly
opposition, which you call agonism. Given where I am based in
a small town in the north of Scotland, I found Shadow Curator
a very attractive proposition. When there is no constant peer
competition looking over your shoulder, it is easy to become
complacent. (…)
I have had mentors in the past, and that is different, their role
is to make you feel good and support you. Shadow curator also
supports, but in a nudging way rather than a backscratching
way. Your concept of “agonism” is always a kind of wrestling
with words and concepts. Shadow curator is something that
Figure 9 Boy with his pockets out, while looking at the river.
name.
.2
THE FIRST GUIDED TOUR
h ow d o y o u f e e l ?
information regarding this exhibition is still available in the Museum’s web page, in Portuguese:
Picasso? Along with the discussions, we watch videos, and at
the end we make drawings of our favourite paintings by Picasso
in the exhibition galleries.” 3
a small group that was selected (before the opening of the Siza Vieira’s building) from the Faculty of Architecture
harmonious photographs of interiors and everyday
Caetano is also a mediator in the Museum of Serralves. She is about our age, but she started very young, in
in Oporto, to conduct tours centered on architecture. Some of these mediators later integrated the Educational
objects. “Visible World” is a piece about life on this
planet.
liked:
“I don’t remember the first time I assisted a guided tour, but
I do remember the first one that got me so thrilled that I got
home with the urge to find out more. I was a teenager, about
fifteen, sixteen years old, I’m not quite sure. I went with my
school class to the Ancient Art Museum in Lisbon, and I
enjoyed so much the explanations of the guide, the works, the
exhibition rooms that I became a regular visitor of museums.” 7
past of this museum, here described by James Clifford already frames it in the course of emancipatory practices.
practices of engagement from the museum with its audiences, with the project “Object Stories”. Somehow, the
– provided by the native representatives of the Tlingit
Portland Art Museum is the same Museum that I will use further ahead when discussing exemplary
elders – to facts debited by history and local culture.
And how could the museum staff act now and assume
their work accordingly to the trust that these elders
had deposited in them? How could they ever resolve
situations that would clearly involve political decision
makers and/or social power agents? More then the
10 The
Potrony, Spanish artist, art mediator, producer, lives in London and collaborates
Department of the Museum (but opened to the
public), conducted by albert potrony15, he organized
a series of actions under the topic “Get Down and
Party – together”(2011). For a total of four days, the
group got together and came up with ideas about how
we “divide” the public space among us, how should we
propose to creatively outline ideas of being together,
and how contemporary art can become a trigger
that and head on the work. But the time passed and
eventually we came up with nothing. All the ideas
materials for making paper rolls, a rope to make a spider web, a collective grid to instigate
of text from Berardo Museum’s brochure dedicated to Páris’s exhibition: this brochure had a
not believe how close this approach was to things I was
small introduction and also an explanation of the “method” followed by drawings and instructions.
trying to apply in my own practices, and I obviously
wanted to know more. During our talk to the mediator
in the room, I also understood that she wasn’t just
there because of any guided tour, she was actually
waiting for any visitors to approach her, or she would
approach them instead, in case they wanted (or were
not sure) to manipulate the objects in “that room”.
The exhibition resulted as an exercise with a number
of interventions where the building is learning how to
become a museum, and the spectator chooses what he
wants to learn, how he wants to start on different ways
of being together (in the museum).
Figure 15
Me experimenting Páris’s chair to wear
will develop this idea further ahead in the document, when appealing to real objects inside the museums.
to believe over my years of experience in a Museum
is that, once a connection is established, that freezing
effect is blurred and sometimes it becomes surprising
to see how much the visitors actually got from their
own impressions of the works. If the visitors become
comfortable enough to participate and to engage with
the artworks, the space and the mediator himself, it’s
because that initial distance is beginning to dissipate,
and the work of the mediator is actually having some
positive outcome.
Well, we might never be able to blur that distance
enough to counterbalance the cold effect of the white
cube rooms, but maybe we can get people to stop being
afraid of contemporary art museum.
23 Ibid.
25 “The Fellow Reader # 1 – On Boycott, Censorship and Educational Practices” (2015) available
desires of the public, and if we were to organise something by
the number of hits on the Youtube, maybe this would be awful,
so I guess it depends on what desires of the public there are.
And I think it doesn’t need to be some intelligent mediation
27 Ibid,
the text “Archive of the Commons: The Reina Sofia”, included in “Radical Museology,
to open the display’s discourse to some issues that are
Do I feel wanted?
32 From “Museums, Places of Learning” by George H. Hein and Mary Alexander (1998), p. 10.
essentially by people directly involved in cultural production and researchers.
the presence of curators, artists or other significant
guests, in order to debate a certain subject, usually
Generally, museums don’t make a very strong effort on publicizing this sort of events.
conceived for adults31; special tours oriented by artists,
curators, or others, and so many more examples.
All of these examples have in common the fact that
they’re conceived in parallel to the exhibition calendar
of contemporary art museums. Considering that most
of these museums (the ones I’m familiar with) also
have their own collection, there may be a difference
between the programs dedicated to the collection and
the ones dedicated to the temporary exhibitions.
Regarding education as something that has been
happening largely since the beginning of the last
century, in some countries like USA and the UK, it is
easy to find visitor’s studies and academic references
to the so called “field trips”. They were considered
as extensions of the classroom, and so the core of
the studies was to comprehend to which extent the
educational experience succeeded or not.
“Ten Fundamental Questions of Curating” (2013), by Jens Hoffmann, Mousse Magazine, p. 99.
So, why do we insist on an idea of education happening
inside the museum? Why are the educational services
so comfortable with a label that gets them closer to
the scholar model, instead of the curatorial model of
contemporary art? Why are we not fighting to find a
36 Ibid,
other (today).
In 2007, as a part of the Program for the 6th mercosul
biennial, a new way to bond curating and education
was introduced. By claiming the same importance
for the educational department that existed in the
curatorial department, and for both to be designed
together since the beginning, pedagogical Curator (as
it was designated from that moment on) and author
of this change was luis camnitzer. As renata
cervetto predicted in her “The Fellow Reader #1”
introduction: In that context,
educational program of Documenta 13, the proposals were discussed and introduced under a category of “Maybe Education”. The
comfortable way.39
likely one of the reasons that led to the questioning of that terminology on the following edition of Documenta. For the
One could ask what is the most important mission
of the arts mediator? And try to answer that in order
to define it. Mediating contemporary art is not a tool
to transmit information from point A to point B:
generally, that sort of information can be found in
the Museum’s brochures, and therefore a repetition of
those ideas could be easily accessible through audio
guides for example. It’s rather a tool to teach how to
look, how to feel, how to experience, and most of all
a way of providing tools for how to spend time with a
work of art and get the best of it. Whether the resulting
impact is positive or negative (visitors might enjoy the
exhibition or not), the mission of the mediator is to
enable that encounter but at all cost should be avoided
the transmission of bias.
honestly enjoy this way that Renata Cervetto used to confirm her suspicious. I do agree with her, but still wonder if she
arrived to these conclusions, focusing on the contexts she is more familiar with: it makes sense that the museums that are
is no way of predicting the reactions of visitors. And
more “opened” to mediation (as a way to induce a conversation rather than teaching things about art) are the same that
choose as their mediators, people with various backgrounds and curriculums (instead of the artist or the art historian).
because most of the times we host visitors inserted in
a group, it is impossible to predict the reactions of all
of them at the same time, and to converse with them
in the end – to understand their perspective better – is
not always possible, because of tight schedules.
If a work of art is created by an artist, surrounding
any hot subject on the media – whether it is on the
news now, or if it’s generally a popular subject – this
can make the mediator task even more tricky. When
it comes to politics, religion or popular social subjects
(like football for example) all bias insertion of meaning
can be vilified by the interlocutors of the tour. And if
a museum experience is desirably a healthy mixture
between knowledge and pleasure, when a discussion
like this (without a controlled outcome) starts,
there is no way the mediator can predict a way to
assure everyone’s caprices, without being considered
unprofessional or unfit (and sometimes we might even
consider it a risky job).
visit to Porto, in the context of the Masterclass “Radical Museology”, June 16, 2016.
traditional kind of guided tour, instead of what for me
is art mediation (and when I mentioned art mediation,
she seemed to prefer the term art education). claire
didn’t want to give me her input on this topic, mostly
floor: divided by a ramp the room’s floor suggesting the swimming pool normally designed with
unsettling one, and as this text might try to enlighten
10 has owned this affectionate name, given to it through time due to the two levelled
this a bit, it also leads up to a more complex view of it.
It is not simple to tell a story about something that
we did not experience ourselves (unless we are
storytellers) with our own sensitive body, and it is
definitely not easy to repeat that story dozens or
hundreds of times - even when we know that a lie
a variety of depths (one for beginners and another for the swimmers).
million times told, may end up becoming a truth. It is
also not simple to express the same thoughts to every
new group of visitors considering all the things that
can – in that moment – go wrong. But ultimately it is
really not easy when the thing that goes wrong is the
last thing we could have expected. During the month
of March 2016, guided tours in serralves oscillated
between a selection of the sonnabend collection
on the left wing of the Museum, wolfgang tillmans
on the right wing, and liam gillick’s installation
“Factories in the snow” in the central room (the
swimming pool room)46. According to the daily
activities appointed to the educational service, the
month of March suffered a bigger afflux of school’s
apointments, when compared to the same period on
the previous year.
46 Room
that they frequented the 9th grade here, this means that their ages varied between 14 and 16 years old.
Facility to conduct an interpretative exercise as a first
educational team had the chance to discuss the work with the artist, during the preparation of the installation
impression to the artworks in the Museum: permitting that
the next art pieces shown in other exhibitions won’t seem
“that hard” to understand, now that the group already
knows what they can actually experience in the Museum;
in the Museum, in the same day he conducted a Press Conference to the media.
located in the north region of Portugal – enters the
swimming pool room: depending on my own mood,
I often suggested some key words revolving around
the ideas of memory and past life, music and/or time.
According to gillick himself48, the work “Factories in
the snow” is about transformation and the revolutions
that, beginning from inside each of us, might evolve
into a contagious transformation.
That day, the group of teenagers was quietly listening
as I mentioned the idea of change in each of us, the
importance it can have in our narrative, and how
it can be used to polarize and motivate others: the
conversation had lots of interventions from the group,
and it became good and intense. A few moments
before the end of the tour, and as I was getting
prepared to lead the group out of the room (and the
museum), one girl from the group started crying and
left abruptly from near the others (to cry alone, I
47 Considering
“Every book that’s ever been dreamed, every book that’s ever
been imagined, every book that’s ever been lost, it’s here. If one
of the dreamed books were actually written, the copy in my
library would burst into flames and be destroyed.” 49
“BARBARa: On expanded library/ BARBARa Index/ The story of a fall” by Sophie Cherót, Romain Hamard
that had a remarkable impression on me. A text written
in three hands about the idea of making an expanded
library, which is precisely as wide as it might sound:
a library that goes beyond its initial constitution, and
does so with the use of displacement. Based on emilie
ibanez’s artistic practice, the displaced library is about
and Emilie Ibanez, included in “The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict” (2016), p. 145.
is about a process of dislocating what she learned from
her books, by sending them away.
51 Ibid.
.3
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU THINK OF A MUSEUM?
t h e m u s e u m e f f e c t
“From the swamps where the waters’ entangle, I see the upper
part of the hill, vacationers who inhabit the museum. Their
inexplicable appearance could make me assume that they are
only an effect on my brain from last night’s heat; but it’s not
hallucinations or images: these are real men like myself.” 1
A sua aparição inexplicável poderia fazer-me supor que são apenas um efeito no meu cérebro do calor de ontem
“Dos pântanos onde as águas se misturavam, vejo a parte alta da colina, os veraneantes que habitam o museu.
translation from the book “A Invenção de Morel”, Adolfo Bioy Casares, (2003), originally from 1940;
in consideration the Portuguese case, just this past month (June 2016) two different contemporary art museums
Why do we even need more Museums?
Why do we go to Museums in the first place?
opened to public in the north of the country, designed by two Pritzker Awards: Souto Moura for the Contemporary
What is it that we can get from a contemporary art
museum that we can’t get from anywhere else?
Sculpture Museum in Santo Tirso, and Siza Vieira for the Nadir Afonso Museum in Chaves.
But a Museum space is already naturally conditioned
by a number of characteristics (that established it)
that will merge with its identity after a couple of years:
some museums are known by its architecture, others
by a great location, others by its activities or by the
famous art collection they hold inside, but some others
manage to create their own narrative, towards what
they want to become distinguishable.
The most common (and state-of-the-art) world-wide
blockbuster Museum that is opening everywhere
nowadays is generally based on a combination of a
number of relevant works of art in the Collection or
Programme – with some very hype contemporary
artists – to an outstanding architectural project,
preferably the winner of some acclaimed architectural
prize2.
All of this is obviously wrapped by a Communication
Department that can gather the right team to turn this
Museum into a popularity achievement, sometimes
even before it opens its doors.3
am aware of the vast bibliography that was written by so many authors about this, but
clothes and take photos (for the social networks) with
as making this list, I intentionally tried to obliterate the information that I could have
our friends (just chatting there during an opening).
Inside a white cube the rules are strict, we can not
touch the works of art; we can not touch the walls;
remembered from before: I did add some references further ahead, though.
we can not get too close; and if there’s exceptionally
something we can actually touch we will be notified
by the assistants (or by written information) but most
likely we will feel strained.
The warehouse is a Museum-type that was mostly
built from the reconstruction of an industrial
(abandoned) facility like a factory, a slaughterhouse
or a depot. The fact that it is based on a pre-existing
structure makes the materials quite variable, also as
the structures for the exhibition rooms, which can vary
from the white walls to the use of the original derelict
materials. This gives these museums an impact on
itself quite different from the white cube. Museums
like this are usually open spaces that can be adapted to
the characteristics of temporary exhibitions that they
host and are therefore occupied. Warehouse museums
are commonly used as laboratory spaces, because it
is also common that they appear in cities that already
have other contemporary art museums, so they don’t
4I
“Everything you always wanted to know about curating, but were afraid to ask”, ed. Hans Ulrich Obrist (2006), p. 129.
the text “A Protest Against Forgetting”, Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed by Gavin Wade (1999) included in
“There’s the Whitney-type of museum, there’s the Guggenheim-
type, and there’s the Soane-type of museum: let’s put them all
in the same building. A museum shouldn’t be reductive; there
should be different forms of museum conditions, different forms
of experiences, if possible, to enable the freedom to move.” 6
the context of a Conference I attended in Porto, in November 2013: “In the Name of the Arts, In the Name of the Audiences:
was a factor related to comfort. I’m not referring to the
Provisional Certainties”, a Four Year Edition Conference organized by the Educational Department of Culturgest, Lisboa, in
comfort (or empathy) that makes us feel desired, in
order to be able to give our contribution, no, I’m just
mentioning simple, plain, physical comfort. To be able
to sit on a comfortable chair inside a museum (or in
the bar), to find provided for me a place where I can
the book “Museums: Places of Learning” by George Hein and Mary Alexander (1998), p. 11.
george hein, American professor and coordinator for
a number of educational researches instigated in the
USA, was one of the first persons I heard mention this
idea of comfort:
9 In
for that.
11 This idea is further developed in the book “Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience” (2009), by John Falk, p. 118.
should be lead towards people instead of items. His ideas have influenced authors and museum practices until today.
starting point:
Initiate a “survey”, to collect some information from
the first impact that the groups would have in that
museum. I would then share it and (discuss) with the
students in the end of the tour.
targeted audience:
Teenagers and young adults from schools mainly from
the north of the country, others from the interior and
a few other exceptions (like one school from Lisboa
the experience:
“What do you think when you think of this Museum?”
Taking with me a black cloth bag, I would distribute
some little brown papers and markers by all the
participants (teachers included) in the immediate
beginning. No introductions or any preparation
necessary. The intention was for the students to take
one piece of paper and one marker to write the first
immediate word that would come to their minds: just
for being there in the contemporary art museum
of serralves. Or, in other words, what should be the
word that they immediately connected to serralves
specifically (in that moment).
This should take a couple of minutes between writing,
folding the papers and introducing them back in the
bag (just as if they were performing a vote).
After that I would then lead the group through the
museum like any other time, addressing them in one
of the ways described above – depending on how many
other groups are in the museum at the same time, on
the number of exhibitions or the number of students
composing that group.
In the last minutes of the tour, I would ask the
participants to help me unfold the papers and lay
them in the floor as opening them: after a few papers,
some similarities begin to be spotted, and the students
naturally organise the words by repetition, proximity,
and they immediately separate the crazy ones, or the
Right there in the museum hall was the right place and
moment for what turned out to be my data collection.
And full of rich results it revealed to be.
Figure 28
Papers on the ground
graphic configuration.
Ulrich Obrist, for the foreword of the book “On Curating –
Figure 29
Cardboard boxes
13 Hans
the Introduction of “Rethinking Curating – Art After New Media”, Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook (2010), p. 10.
“As traditionally used, it referred to the act of caring for a
collection, and the Latin root “curare” (to care) is reflected
in the usage of the noun “curate” in the United Kingdom
for someone who assists a priest in caring for the needs of a
congregation. So the basic definition is “caring for objects”, but
a curator of contemporary art is just as likely to be selecting
artworks; directing how they are displayed in an exhibition;
and writing labels, interpretational material, catalogues, and
press releases.” 14
his pocket sized book “(Curating) From A to Z”, Jens Hoffmann (2014), pp. 10-11.
16 https://www.nodecenter.net/course/history-of-curating-0616, accessed in May 2016
This is far from being one simple definition. From this
same book, the authors continue in what it is for them
an attempt on defining
15 In
hoffmann continues:
and justifies the never-ending reflections based on his work: “A creator of myths, Szeemann has also become the
the same book “(Curating) From A to Z” Jens Hoffmann chooses Zeemann as one entry to this pocket
seems to have become an outdated way of curating. It appears to be quite global that
aesthetic contemplation is today regarded as an elitist positioning towards the world, and if
order to concentrate in finding reasons why mappings
it might have been regarded as glamorous in the past, it is now mouldy and undesired.
and framings and conceptualizing methods of telling
stories with art – which contemporary curating has
become – has more to it than juxtaposing objects
through the use of aesthetic values.18
If so much is changing, it is fair to say that this change
is not being operated by chance or faith but it might be
22 Deleuze’s original idea of disciplinary societies – which were developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth
21 https://monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Benjamin_Walter_1936_2008_The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Its_
centuries, with the high point in the twentieth in the diverse dictatorships that Europe had – from the text
I did read this work during my painting degree (more
than ten years ago) but it seems that these words have
“Postscript on the societies of control” (1990), published on “October – The second decade, 1986-1996”
echoed differently in me now, as it is so obvious and
unreal at the same time.
We are not just talking about the surprise that comes
from this dependence from the valuable items in our
sponsored in the Fall of 1992 by the Atlanta College of Art Gallery and Continuing Education
exhibitions with the incorporation of the certainty that
all objects have a historical background.
text is drawn from the lecture series “Art in context: rethinking the New World”,
Department. It was originally published in Artpapers, 17:3 (May–June 1993), pp. 2–9
In “Mining the Museum” (1992), fred wilson creates
a reflection on (and from) maryland historical
society, for its sobriety and conservative approach. At
that time, he had been invited to propose a long-term
project in any Baltimore museum, and so he staged
Nagel and Christopher Wood, quoted from “Time: Documents of Contemporary Art” (2013) ed. by Amelia
especially of the world with us in it.
34 Pablo Helguera, from “Education for Socially Engaged Art – A Materials and Techniques Handbook” (2011), p. 19.
“No device more effectively generates the effect of a doubling
or bending of time than the work of art, a strange kind of
event whose relation in time is plural. The artwork is made or
designed by an individual or by a group of individuals at some
Groom, included in “The Plural Temporality of the Work of Art”, Anachronic Renaissance (2010);
moment, but it also points away from that moment, backward
to a remote ancestral origin, perhaps, or to a prior artefact,
or to an origin outside of time, in divinity. At that same time
it points forward to all its future recipients who will activate
and reactivate it as a meaningful event. The work of art is a
message whose sender and destination are constantly shifting.” 33
41 Excerpt
from http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1999/muse/artist_pages/distel_drawers.html
Functioning as an object of desire (first) for himself,
Distel acted as a curator that puts together a specific
number of artist’s work inside one space, following a
certain narrative: in this case a preservation effect is
highlighted by the miniature size of the items, and by
the immediate connection we make with an idea
of time.
An interesting approach to this work could be to re-
connect (today) these miniatures to the practices of
these well known artists, but in the other cases, to the
artists who have disappeared from the surface of the
visible art world.
For the exhibition “The Museum as Muse: Artists
Reflect” organized in the moma in 1999, mark dion
assembled a piece quite similar to this one with the
vertical drawers. “The great chain of being” (1998) is
one of the pieces included in this collective exhibition
curated by kynaston mcshine, where the museum’s
role is put to question: by the way it embraces the
artwork and fosters the relationships towards artists, as
the artists do the same through institutional critique.
45 Retrieved
It is (by all of us) expected that the artist doesn’t get Highlights – The writings of Andrea Fraser” (2005), p. 5.
seduced by the lures of the institution – where he/
she will be validated by peers, invited for dinner
parties, and integrated in the collection (his/her work,
obviously). The artist has always been in crisis, and
“But how does a life look when it doesn’t define itself in relation
to the status of wage labor, but rather through the desire to
freely decide one’s own conditions for living and working,
effectively comprising a demand for a flexible labor market?
What does it mean for our work and life when the social, the
cultural, and the economic cease to be clearly distinguishable
categories and instead condition and permeate each other?
Beyond this, what does it mean when people come to terms
with these new forms of work as isolated individuals? What can
forms of collectivity look like?” 50
52 From the text “Artists as Curators/Curators as Artists” included in the book “Thinking Contemporary
failure to escape from the rapacious drive of capital’s reach.
the ninth text “The Complete Curator”, included in the book “Industry and Intelligence –
The complete curator is fully aware that cultural workers are
part of a precarious class terminally alienated from the parallel
insecurity of zero-hour casual workers.” 51
.4
IMAGINATION MEETS MEMORY
t h e d r e a m s p a c e i n m u s e u m s
the text “On being serious in the art world”, by Irit Rogoff, included in the book “Visual
complimentary thing we can say about someone. So you can
imagine my surprise that what I always saw as a positive
attribute was seen as undesirable in another context.” 1
never really liked them, but I guess maybe that’s because I lacked imagination.
part of the context. So, even if we contemplate an
object that someone else has used, if we don’t know
School) why most people seem to really enjoy the Surrealistic paintings: I
has always been surprising for me (since I was studying in the High
anything about that someone, we might as well be
looking at a conceptualist work or an abstract painting,
that the perception of the realness of the thing will
pretty much be the same.
Although our focus here is on contemporary art, if we
look for the moment where it seemed that museums
started to care about the nature of the narrative – and
the confirmation of that narrative – we will find it very
embedded in processes of anthropological museums,
city museums, or museums based on modes of living,
like a museum of garment, a museum of toy, a museum
of industry, as many others.
4 It
museum exhibitions”8.
6 Ibid,
7 Ibid,
8 Ibid.
Figure 43 People
transforming into
art pieces at Tate
Liverpool
around us, that’s my goal. The task is vast, and my means are
frail. Why didn’t I start before?” 11
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/performance-and-music/2053-living-museum;
https://youtu.be/XWhqwkIpJMU?list=PLHXI4ECmt9mzyjKaXWkhFGGJty2cnLw0O
the introduction text available on the website, retrieved in
13 Ibid.
Figure 45
Crack on the floor
of the Tate Modern.
“Introduction” included in “Of What One Cannot Speak”, by Mieke Bal, a book about
of working through it that eventually leads to healing, is
“translated” or “metaphored” in the gloom of the light,
reinforcing the noncolor of the material and the impossibility
of seeing the entire work that carries the burden of violence.
This metaphoring makes it possible to share, retrospectively and
belatedly, the grief of the event that occurred – hence, that had
the actuality of the classical conception of the event – but that
at the same time could not be fully experienced, if only because
it remained an occurrence behind walls.” 16
Figure 46
Some of the 280
chairs hanging
from the building’s
walls.
p. 188.
17 Ibid,
Perspective from the South”, Celeste Ianniciello and Michaela Quadraro, included in the online
In that sense, we might claim that the ultimate
responsibility is now held by the universally acclaimed
institutions of knowledge production, meaning the
Museums! But are we willing to trust them the distinct
publication “Collecting Geographies” Stedelijk Studies Journal Issue #1, retrieved from
power to tell the story all on their own?
http://www.stedelijkstudies.com/issue-1-collecting-geographies/
19 “A
Welcome to my home
hanne darboven is a case where the connections
between audience and memory arise through the
application of a minimal effort. The thin line between
random object and artistic creation is broken
and sewed back so many times when mentioning
darboven, that her work is still continuously re-
interpreted in the light of the contemporary (art,
music, museum studies and more). She unlocks
“Outside the Frame”, Dan Cameron in “Still, the Museum”, (1997), p. 49.
artwork and memory (and obviously archive).
24 Dan
Obsessions – The Artist as Collector”, in the context of the exhibition with the same name, in the
most unsettling known methodology of artists working
the introduction text about Hanne Darboven, included in the catalogue “Magnificent
with collections and archives.
the exhibition with the same name, in the Barbican Art Gallery, London, (2015), p. 66.
the notes to the text “Hanne Darboven’s Objects” by Miriam Schoffs, included
in the catalogue “Magnificent Obsessions – The Artist as Collector”, in the context of
Figure 49 Richter’s archive
the text “A Modest Collective: Many People doing simple things well” by Julia Bryan-Wilson,
suggesting other audiences and other spaces for art besides
museums and galleries.” 30
32 See
the text “Prologue: The way things go” included in the book “Ways of Curating”, by Hans Ulrich Obrist (2014), p. 2.
degree (that we coursed together) to convince some
of the teachers that this language made sense, and had
already been legitimized by all her predecessors36.
hans ulrich obrist wrote in the introduction of
his book “Ways of Curating” (2014), that everything
we live has an influence in what we are (and what
we have become), from the friends we made, the
experiences we lived, and even the country we were
born in. Portugal can be a very particular example of
this idea that obrist describes. He says Switzerland
(in his specific case) is a very comfortable but strange
country, influenced by the three others around it,
making it hard to accept all others. Small territory
is important to highlight that this was after the turn of the millennium.
though, obrist found that Switzerland provided him
with all the tools that empowered him to discover that
he needed to leave it “in order to expand my sense of
the world”37.
In order to become an artist, claudia would most
likely need to stop thinking as an artist, and discover
her own space in between. Graduating from a painting
degree had been able to provide her all the basic tools
she needed to discover that she would never actually
become a painter (and neither would I).
This idea of outness or exteriority is very popular
in contemporary art and has been feeding both sides
(theory-based reflections as well as artistic projects)
into the conquer of a space for the complementary.
Objects, ideas, depositions.
37 From
36 It
former Portuguese colony that became independent after the 25 of April 1974. During
the seventies, an impressive number of Portuguese people lived in Angola, where the work
grandmother: I said yes, of course, but today when I
look at it, it’s not my grandmother I remember of, it’s
my father instead.
conditions were in many aspects, superior to the ones that existed in Portugal.
Objects can also have their own attached meanings, no
matter what they’re unique characteristic features say
about them. In Portuguese language, the translation
for coming out towards someone who wants to assume
homosexuality as a sexual choice is a direct translation
of coming out of the closet. The closet here has a
connection of importance, of attachment to a past that
wants to be left behind: so, no matter how important
that closet can be, it will eventually be abandoned
and forgotten. In English, the expression “skeletons
in the closet” also suggests another connotation: the
skeletons are usually a secret that should be kept that
way, and the cabinet’s doors are the ones keeping it
inside (of course that, if we imagine ourselves in an
ordinary house, full of kids trying to reach the cookies
inside the closet, pretty sure the door is not going to
be locked for a long time). Eventually the closet is
opened, and the secrets are revealed.
42 A
included in the compilation Book under the subject of “Memory”, (2012), p. 134.
45 Ibid.
“We walk above the rooftop of hell and look at the flowers.” 46
47 Sandra
49 From “Chapter V – Action”, in “The Human Condition” by Hannah Arendt, (first edition 1958), p. 186.
for example the methodology used by Peter Blake – in his artworks – mentioned on the previous
touch – but also the conceptual ones like the meaning,
the process of creation, and integrations of unique
characteristics from that artist’s own way of making48.
But for something to be real, we can be talking of
a completely different story: it has to be something
that happened, that existed, or that was alive, but not
necessarily an object we can touch or feel.
In the absence of proof of its existence, what we often
have is the experience of it.
1.
OBJECT STORIES
Portland Art Museum, USA
----------------
Under the label of exhibitions, the website of
portland art museum holds a surprise for me.
Separated by current, upcoming and past – which is
quite the standard interface chosen by user friendly
websites – we can find a number of interesting
exhibition proposals which have in common the
attempt to preserve (or instigate) the impressions of
the audiences towards the exhibitions: the curatorial
discourse, the montage, the chosen works of art, the
content, among others. What I did not expect was to
find another label inside the exhibition drive, named
upon “Object Stories”.
Looking further, I found that this is much more than
an exhibition – and maybe that’s why there’s a whole
label for it in the website.
Object stories is an initiative that the portland
art museum has launched in 2011, and has been
undergoing since then. The idea began to be nursed
by a group of curators that were not comfortable
enough with the role that audiences had been keeping
inside this museum, but also because of the concept of
audience itself.
“Do you have an object you would never give up? Something
that lives on your wall, your mantle, or buried in the corner of
your dresser drawer? Something that evokes a time in your life,
a place you miss, or something you hope for?
These connections between people and their things are at the
heart of Object Stories.
Object Stories invites people and their objects into the Museum
to tell stories about things that matter to them—whether a
postcard, military medal, childhood toy, or an iPhone. These
objects and stories will be captured and published to an
onsite and online digital archive where they will comingle
with recorded personal stories about Museum objects. An
installation of Museum objects, selected and told by the public,
will accompany the digital archive.” 54
54 Retrieved
from https://brokenships.com/en/on_tour/past_exhibitions
they’ve turned into a ready to assemble kind of
exhibition. There’s also a brand new version of a
permanent museum of broken relationships, which
opened this year of 2016 in Hollywood, after such a
huge success of the touring around the United States.
3.
MUSEO DE LA MEMORIA Y LOS DERECHOS
HUMANOS
Santiago, Chile
----------------
This is a Museum that was opened in Chile to give
space to the comprehension of collective history
through micro narratives within private and personal
items. In Chile, families and individuals who wanted
to collaborate to the creation of the Museum donated
their own personal effects to the Collection of the
Museum, together with the narration of the episode
that makes that object be the representation or the
reflection on violations of human rights. In this
specific context of Chile, most of the objects are related
towards the period of the dictatorship (1973-1990),
and the massive efforts that for years were undertaken
in order to hide the dictatorship’s effects from coming
to public.
The objects incorporated in this collection can be
visited in exhibition context and can also be browsed
from the internet website that has been designed to
make the collection as accessible as possible to all of
us. The objects represent Human Rights (memory and
trauma) which can be taught through personal tales or
collective memories.
http://ww3.museodelamemoria.cl/sobre-las-colecciones/adquisicion-y-adicion-de-colecciones/
from the original introduction, available in the website of the Museum, acessed in
4.
quarterly of art and culture.”, issue 57 - Catastrophe, pp. 13-17., (Spring 2015).
ELSEWHERE
Greensboro NC, USA
----------------
elsewhere is a very trendy Museum located in
Greensboro, North Carolina, in a region that has seen
changes (through time, economy, real estate and war)
affect the turn-of-the-century buildings-three stories
high, from initially crowded and populated to mostly
vacant. joe gray bought his own building here in
1939, after he improved his father’s business into a
furniture repair shop that would be shipped and sold
to New Yorkers: he moved to North Carolina where he
met sylvia, and their kids were born in between the
second world war. joe and sylvia worked as a team as
they adapted to the different moments of their store:
“At first they sold furniture, and later work wear and Army-
Navy surplus, on the first floor; they kept a boarding house on
the second, and for a short time, lived on the third beside the
60 Translated
5.
EL ARCHIVO CAMINANTE
Buenos Aires, Argentina
----------------
the book “The innocence of objects”, the catalogue for the Museum of Innocence, Istanbul (2012), p.15.
Although not being an actual museum (with a specific
venue) the walking archive has a strong program in
order to fulfil the urges of comprehension on a sort
of topics. Because this is the life project of eduardo
molinari, and he overlays it with other activities,
like teaching for example, there are times in which
the archive seems to be suspended, holding for new
stimulus.
6.
MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE
Istanbul, Turkey
----------------
The museum of innocence is a creation of ohran
pamuk, and it consists of an existing Museum opened
in 2012 in the city of Istanbul drawn from the narrative
of a novel he had written before, under the same name
(published in 2008).
When the idea first came to him, pamuk did not know
exactly what the narrative would be like: only that the
museum should have an aesthetic based on objects and
that the objects could be the excuse to tell a story. So,
we can say that the book did not start itself by drawing
the main character, nor by framing the city in its
never-ending life, but instead it started being written
65 From
“There is, of course, a strong bond that holds the novel and
the museum together: both are products of my imagination,
dreamed up word by word, object by object, and picture by
picture over a long period of time. This is perhaps also why the
novel and the museum each tell a story. The objects exhibited
in the museum are described in the novel. Still, words are one
thing, objects another. The images that words generate in our
minds are one thing; the memory of an old object used once
upon a time is another. But imagination and memory have a
strong affinity, and this is the basis of the affinity between the
novel and the museum.” 66
p. 18.
7.
THE TOWN IS THE VENUE
Deveron Arts, Huntly, Scotland
----------------
Although most of the examples I decided to include in
this part of my research are actual museums – in what
concerns to the fact that they have, besides a regular
in the catalogue of “The innocence of objects” (2012), pp. 54-55.
Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: A Curatorial Handbook in Collaborative Practice”,
(artistically and culturally challenging) as well as for
the remaining population, they addressed invitations
to some artists to come to Huntlly and spend a
residential period living and intervening there. This
idea turned to what today is a recognised program
of four visiting artists per year, accounting for about
three months each:
.5
WHEN POWER AND UTOPIA MEET THE ARTS
a b o u t n o s ta l g i a
parties involved.
Despite some of the efforts made by artists working
with communities through the years, some of them
are still constantly perceived as decorative or as
something nice that only gets them to smile a bit: there
is probably a pattern in the procedures that did not
go towards the intended direction, or maybe this is
something that artists haven’t been able to master yet
(or maybe they never will).
“Conversation Pieces – Community + Communication in Modern Art” by Grant H. Kester, (2004), p. 22.
“To take all that learning and put it together with all that art” by Carmen Morsch, included in the book
be designed (between artist-educators and museums,
and in some cases involving also the schools), and
aided in the activation of available funds (European
funds, the lottery fund or private institutions for
example).
“Art for Change – Loraine Leeson: Works from 1975-2005” (2005), p. 110.
interactions with the groups and individuals involved.” 8
9 From
remember her.
If I put together a group of kids (from a school) in
the Museum, and lead them through it in a way that
they expect to learn something, then I’m not changing
anything from what is the role of the traditional
16 “Relational Aesthetics”, Nicolas Bourriaud (ed. original Les Presses du réel, 1998, english 2002).
from the introduction of “Artistic Bedfellows - Histories, Theories, and Conversations in
instance, is the process the same, but the subject different?
Or are both very different? Is a collaborative practice enough
to make the work art if you’re a group of artists with an
interesting and mysterious name? And what is collaboration
in art and who and how is it practiced? Can a group make an
artistic decision? How much do the individuals really merge?
And are these really the correct questions? Does this approach
help us understand the art?” 15
in “Conversations at the Castle – Changing audiences and contemporary art” (1998), p. 17.
course of our lives.” 28
28 Ibid.
◆ Community work;
in common to be considered.
What happened to be the most surprising feature
in this text was that the name of the author was
not visible: actually this self-reflected and honest
writing was offered to us by someone under the label
“anonymous” (perhaps for fear of being let off):
31 Retrieved
30 Note
32 Ibid.
for the past in the museums, how they became an important part of modern societies, to look up for
it. This young woman (I’m trusting this was written by
a woman) is passionate about her work. She does not
want to do anything else in her life, I mean, how many
of us have the privilege to have a job we really love?
She feels inspired by everything that museums have to
offer us (now and in the future).
But in this relation that is being built between power
and the possibility of being useful (of generating
knowledge spreading, and we will see how far museums are from their origin;
some sort of income) somehow the museums today
are facing these contradictory mission34: they are
in fact sanctuaries for western knowledge, they
will perpetuate our history, teach our children and
grandchildren about our past, our ancestors (and all
that could get lost in between lines), and if one day
everything collapses, this memory vault might be all
that’s left.
But if the museums are facing a total dependence
on funding’s (whether public or private), which are
inevitably arriving from external sources, then the
control is being exerted by those who are not familiar
with museum language, and are not aware of how
fragile this knowledge is (if given to the wrong hands).
We are facing (today) a contradiction reality that can
be more dangerous then we could ever imagine: we are
presented with volunteers that are undertaking some of
the basic work inside the museum, while the curators
are carefully kept inside their offices, exercising just
a few controlled encounters with visitors and publics
34 Look
33 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
I could do with no effort, and seemed indifferent towards anything more unusual I could go for.
even better.
43 Since I was a child, I can remember feeling anxious because adults always praised things that
Arts Academy in Porto still maintains the “Fine Arts” appendix, as an example.
For starters, where does it happen?
a) Art schools: professionalized curriculum,
differentiated schools. In Portugal there’s a lot of
private schools, and just a few public ones: Escola
Secundária Soares dos Reis in Porto, and Escola
Secundária António Arroio in Lisboa;
Falling in a river
Why not asking instead where should it be happening
(today)? Or where do we want it to be happening in
the future?
If, by the convention of the fine arts, art education was
not supposed to be learnable, therefore there was no
need to actually teach it.
Traditionally, the visits to the art museums were
enacted in order to educate the youngsters about the
importance of art in our evolution, as it was also used
to tell epic stories from the depictions in paintings or
sculptures.
48 From “Explore or Educate”, Clémentine Deliss, included in the book “Curating Subjects”, ed. By Paul O’Neill (2007), p. 87.
And, according to tony bennet, museums were only
doing what they were supposed to: spread a number of
values by which our existing society will persistently
thrive, and “posits man - the outcome of evolution - as
the object of knowledge.”46
And as long as everyone managed to get access to this
form of knowledge, everything would be okay:
“The Birth of the Museum - History, theory, politics”, Tony Bennet (first edition 1995), p.7.
“For it can be asserted in the form of an expectation that the
museum’s benevolent and improving influence ought, in the
interests of the state or society as a whole, to reach all sections
of the population.” 47
47 Ibid,
from “Turning point: A Strategy for the Contemporary Visual Arts, Arts Council, England,
2006”, included in the publication “Envision: a Handbook – Supporting Young people’s participation in
Figure 78 Alternative art mediation action taking place in the Children
Museum in Findland
51 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
◆ What is it then?
from http://artreview.com/features/november_2015_feature_nicolas_bourriaud_educational_turn/
As the highly popular and provocative curator nicolas
bourriaud would put it, in a very recent essay on
this topic:
claims that art schools have been the clusters for new
these schools? Who might have been able to reform, root and
branch, their administrative structures or their recruitment
models? Who could have actually devised an art school that
was as contemporary as the spaces in which its students would
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/ultra-reds-reassembly, accessed in June 2016
from “Re: Assembly/ Ultra-Red – A teacher’s Reflection…” included in “The School and the
1.
The Silent University
----------------
“The silent university63 is an autonomous knowledge
exchange platform by refugees, asylum seekers and
migrants.” Maintaining the University word embedded
in the name, the silent university is not a traditional
academia; it started as an art project by artist ahmet
ogut (2012) in the search of a politically and socially
engaged debate towards some topics that are silenced
by the way our society lives throughout things.
From an artistic project, ahmet ogut understood
that this idea was powerful enough to be transformed
into an organization. Using practices like transversal
pedagogy as explained in its online introduction, the
group has been formed originally by people that have
been through changes in their lives, and that are now
struggling for that change to have impact in societies.
“Since 2012 the Silent University has involved those that have
had a professional life and academic training in their home
countries, but are unable to use their skills or professional
training due to a variety of reasons related to their status.” 64
2.
The New School
----------------
The educational approach of the new school is a non-
traditional one, that focuses on challenging the present
issues (of society), emphasizes creativity thinking, and
aims for collaborative and project-based learning, in
order to enable the students to become more aware of
66 Ibid.
up at http://www.newschool.edu/
taught that in all of the, you know, if the words that people use
are reflexivity and self-evaluation and constant critique, that
that thing gets limited some kind of way to, like, your fucked up
sculptures. And it’s never a way of imagining that the reflexive
has something to do with something that might exist outside
your studio. Like, is it possible that we could be reflexive about
anything?” 68
http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/how-to-be-alone-sara-maitland/
the book “How to be alone” by Sara Maitland, available online:
3.
The School of Life
----------------
Wouldn’t it be nice to own a guide book with a single
purpose of teaching us how to make all the right
decisions in life; to help us make our future brighter by
turning ourselves into self-sufficient adults instead of
insecure and fragile human beings?
Well, there is and it has been published by the school
of life. Not just about life itself, but about the most
disturbing (and rather transversal) questions we will
have to deal with throughout our lives.
the notes to the article “Anarchism, Education and Compromise: Voices from Montevideo”
and focus on solving the problem on their own, or
they try their luck elsewhere, hiding or running from
those same problems (there is no intent to become
judgemental with this idea).
from Sara Hossein “This Could Get Nasty...Playfull Gallery Education for School and Groups at
No wonder why I started this work. I must say that
documenta 12”, included in “Documenta 12 – Education 2” ed. By Carmen Morsch (2008), p. 84.
from my work in the serralves museum, about 80%
of what I do everyday is similar to a classic guided
tour – or that’s what I’m supposed to do anyway. Like
the gallery educators in documenta 12, I also want
to avoid this format of addressing audiences (almost
every day). I do not want to be warned by the teachers
that I talk too much, but I also don’t want to over-
question the expectations that the group has towards
what they’re going to get.
I spend a good part of my (supposedly free) time
preparing for mediation practices, and after I do it, I
spend almost as much time trying to grasp on what
could/should have been done differently.
Adding up to the twists in the tours, and the fact that
all offered activities had the duration of two hours
(instead of the traditional one), there was another very
prodigious detail about documenta 12: the creation
of specific spaces for pit-stop known as Palm Groves. If
any random visitor, either alone or in a group needed
a break caused by exhaustion or the need to sit (maybe
even to change a diaper), there were the palm groves.
These spaces were designed inside a geometric shape
(marked in the floor), which was filled with Chinese
chairs: all different from each other.
80 Excerpt
publishing them.” 82
81 From
Parr, Álvaro Lapa and João Gabriel Pereira are just an example of how ecletic the list of artists was
José Maia (also my colleague in the Museum) proposed to juxtapose some works, regardless the conceptual
city, as it is a public space (sustained by local taxes)
in the second moment (out of three) of the event “Bienal da Maia”. In this case, the curatorial project by
there are frequent presentations of theatre, congresses,
as well as the direct access to the local library. This
factor on its own might not bring us any new ideas,
if it wasn’t for the fact that (unlike a traditional
framing, looking for surprising connections to arise from the spaces in between the works.
museum) I am constantly forced to remember visitors
not to touch the works of art. It’s as if the fact that
the building is so familiar for the visitors, makes
it somehow feel a bit like theirs too (not just the
building, but also the objects exhibited).
Carmen Morsch “At a Crossroads of Four Discourses – documenta 12 Gallery Education in between Affirmation, Reproduction
time, sometimes we would just prefer to shout at the
attendant to stop the roller coaster from spinning,
because we need to come out and to start it all over
again.
Deconstruction, and Transformation”, included in “Documenta 12 – Education 2” ed. By Carmen Morsch (2008), p. 28.
As a mediator (and not a coordinator or a producer),
I often feel like I would like to have more access to
freedom and experimentation (the same way I did in
this Biennial), but what I feel the most is the idea of a
communication between all levels of work inside the
museum:
as spaces of education we have a clear claim: Secure working conditions for educators.”, (July 2016), available from
art education and mediation for a museum / an institution?” to which they replied: “We don’t think that we have
to sell or explain the importance of education for museums and institutions. As far as they understand themselves
.6
1
“THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS WORK IS TO BECOME THE OBJECT OF A DISCUSSION”
by t i n o s e hg a l
Objective of That Object” (2004) was exhibited in the ICA in London in 2004. There’s (among many others)
absolutely empty with just a few performers inside.
I went with a friend of mine (my best friend from
high school) to the ica for the first time, and we were
still to come.
3 There’s
[S.R.] Do you ever feel like you have (had) to prove yourself
for the worth of what you’re doing?
the exhibition dedicated to the work of Fernanda Gomes (2006) in the Serralves Museum, pp.148-149. At
the text “On time, between home and the world”, by João Fernandes, included in the catalogue of
that time, he was the curator of the exhibition and he was also the director of the Museum of Serralves.
flatware, street sounds that come to us in a certain way, filtered
through curtains, draperies and corridors.
There are always secret places in a home, where one keeps
trivialities of priceless value to those who keep them there, in
drawers, boxes, suitcases or closets, containers of an intimacy
not easily shared, inheritances of precious nothing that no bank
would safeguard or hold.
Home is always an experience of the senses reconstructed day
by day through a memory filter which compiles them and adds
them to other senses brought to or taken from it in order that
we many confront the world outside.” 5
the book ”ARTocracy: Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: A Curatorial
They are one element that composes a final
a. glossary
b. visual summary
c. this is not an inquiry
d. profiles
GLOSSARY
a p p e n d i x a
439 appendix
Accumulation
When we put a lot of things together we are
accumulating them: if we have a reason for it, whether
it is an aesthetic justification, a conceptual motive or
even just an urge, we might be considered collectors.
Accumulation can have a negative undertone as it is
usually associated to hoarding, which is a form of
collecting uncontrollable amounts of items with no
specific purpose.
However, accumulation is here introduced with
another goal: as a way of connecting to learning
processes that we earn with the passage of time as with
life experience and the stories we are told (from our
ancestors). Because I believe that an intellectual pursue
in life is just one side of one’s possible achievements,
the idealised image of learning through processes of
accumulation is a solid representation of how things
can be done.
Aesthetic Drift
The aesthetic drift (la dérive) is developed as a way of
interacting with the city and its essential elements: to
drift differs from walking because there is no initial
purpose in it, except for the one of aesthetic absorption
of elements and energy. Also the aesthetic drift is
expected to be gifted of some revolutionary qualities,
such as guy debord claimed.
Well known in Paris during the 1960’s, the Parisian
drift is justified by the unquestionable beauty of the
city in a period where artists and poets kept choosing
it to live, even when conditions were not reunited.
There is a close connection to the Situationist
International (1958) and a strong belief that the
public space - the city - belongs to those who
live it. The actions performed by these artists are
always ephemeral because they consider themselves
independent from any power relations: if artistic
attitudes reject power relations (and acquisitions), the
artist can continue to fight about art’s transformation
into a commodity.
Archival Activism
An archive is most likely attached to an authority
level, when integrated in a National Archive or a
National Library, for example. The archive of a nation
or the archive of an institution proceed to collecting
and documenting past histories in the form of raw
materials (photographs, videos, audio recording,
life statements, among others) that prevent us from
forgetting. However, these archives are built in a way
that is rarely questioned, for its order or structure is
normally bound to norms that ensure that preservation
is more important than comprehension.
Archival activism, as accounted by mathias danbolt
(MJ#14), can be a way of artistic production, or an
aesthetic practice that breaks this main narrative by
suggesting a detour.
Artists have always created methodologies that
somehow contradicted the leading storyline of their
time. It is because of the existence of a critical and
conflictual nature in contemporary art practices that
so much has been said (and done) concerning these
questionings in what regards to regime-led narratives.
And also why so much importance has been given to
archives becoming public, with artists like voluspa
jarpa or doris salcedo that turn them into raw
material for their creations, operating connections and
creating meanings.
Artist Book
An artist book is in itself a contradiction. It is a work
of art that is born of a desire essentially nurtured by
visual artists, which is the portability of the outcome,
but it can also be the result of an obsessive artistic
practice that does not rest when the artist returns from
the studio.
It does have something close to an ancestor, or at
least a good part of its methodology is imported from
the (always present) architect’s black notebook for
drawings. But sources are dubious about which is the
most precise origin of the artist book, notably william
blake at the end of the 18th century as one possibility.
The artist books very often escape from the book
shape to become something more objectual, but even
maintaining the book-like form, they are self-edited,
artisanal, unique or edited in small series.
The 1960’s are the highest period of popularity of
artist books assumed by ed rusha, dieter roth
and robert frank, who held great influence on the
successors fluxus or the Conceptualists in adopting
the book as an artistic form as well as medium.
Autobiography
An autobiography is commonly recognised as a
literary genre per se, in which the author reflects on
his/her own life in order to conduct a narrative. It
can be an extensive work or it can reflect on parcels
of the author’s storyline but in both cases the intent
is to disclose unknown facts or to propose revealing
connections. In the case of a hypothetically famous
and/or popular author, an autobiography is normally
followed by a great deal of curiosity and hype.
There is a clear problem towards the distance one
desires to achieve during the process of writing an
autobiography: In fact, even if the author is clearly
the inspiration to the written words, he/she expects to
be able to read them afterwards and keep a cosmetic
distance. An autobiography triggers moments in
memory that would not be summoned in other
contexts, and the cadence of these memories is not
only the core of an autobiographic work, but is the
striking difference towards a biography.
Censorship
The act of censoring can become the act of writing
something using different words, or it can be the sense
of care that a parent might have in order to prevent the
child to endanger him/herself.
To censor is invariably seen as something terrible,
because it removes our sense of freedom towards
things. However, it is in this movement that the
concept becomes interesting.
Dialogical Art
Term coined by grant e. kester in the development
of what he named “Conversation Pieces”. Through a
series of interviews to artists of his selection, kester
has mapped a practice that has been aligned with other
concepts such as Socially Engaged Art or Community-
based Art.
Desacralization
Desacralization can be a rejection or the absence of a
religious component or rather a spiritual element in
each person’s life.
If we create a parallel to what desacralization of
art can be, we can roughly say to be the defying of
what is sacred, hence institutional. It can be about
a process of denial of dominant rules towards the
approximation of the works of art to the public.
This can take place through a community approach,
in which the strategies are to provide some type of
service to the population (sometimes substituting
social institutions), it can hold importance on the
claim for the public space and it can also be about the
empowerment of the individuals, which eventually
may lead to a kind of emancipatory discourse.
Educational Service
The educational service is commonly acknowledged
as a department integrated in a museum or another
institution with the purpose of programing and
orienting regular actions with different publics. It is
expected that the educational service’s focus group are
children and teenagers integrated in the school system,
as well as their teachers and monitors.
This is a very socially accepted term, and it somehow
validates the museum’s mission through visibility
and repercussions. However, the most recent studies
(coming from all different origins) focus on the
urgency of conducting actions in the museum that
help the students to pose questions instead of offering
them the answers. Trying to meet the audience half-
way in an institutional discourse will decrease the
levels of distance between the viewer and the artwork,
create stronger memories and it will initiate processes
of questioning that would not be triggered by a
monologue from the educator.
Even if the practices are today breaking more and
more barriers, the conceptual framing as well as the
institutional role of the educational services are not
favourable for becoming autonomous, nor even for an
actualization of a label that seems to please so well to
the founders.
Guided Tour
The idea of a classic guided tour is present along this
work as something close to a ghost. I keep trying to
hide it away, but it always seems to find a way back to
the surface. As the person who conducts the guided
tour in a museum, one is considered to hold a specific
type of knowledge or to have the permission to teach
what he/she knows about it, and at the same time
points the direction into which the audience should
move (or not). The guide is expected to transmit
previously verified facts, or to reveal extraordinary
details about the works of art, the artists and the
museum, transmitting a universalized and affirmative
type of knowledge. Therefore, the communication does
not lead way to questioning nor for critical positioning
towards the institution.
A guided tour always makes me think about traveling
to a new city, and looking up for someone to guide
us through it as a form of introduction. In this
context, the tour may be the beginning of a process of
discovery, and therefore will be only the first layer of
an exploratory task.
In Between
The space that lies from one point to another. The
void.
Or instead, the immense possibilities existing in
between those two points.
Identity
In order to define identity, we must acknowledge that
this concept is necessarily hosted in a specific moment
in time, and according to singularities that define
that time. Identity is not about the characteristics that
differentiate me from anyone else, but it is about the
context in which my subjectivities were turned into a
collective. To be part of a collective identity is to have
common traces such as race, culture, religion and even
gender, it only depends on which institution hosts
these identity traits.
Institutional Critique
Is the result of a combination of two separate words,
echoing in their own significance: to engage in a
form of critical thinking always depends on where
the critique is coming from. In this case, we’re
referring to an artistic counter movement in which the
practitioners had nurtured some kind of relationship
towards institutions like museums, galleries and
academies for example. In most cases, something has
changed them in order to trigger the questioning,
the process of antagonizing the institution instead of
simply trying to make part of it.
Magic Lantern
The magic lantern’s origin is related with the 17th
century’s fascination with optics. Consisting in a
portable metal projector with a light source inside
(who evolved from candles to electrical light in a few
centuries), the mystic of this object relied in the glass
stripes that were hand-painted with elaborated stories
and therefore used to educate whole populations about
a certain historical passage, myth or fable. Even though
it is considered an object of the pre-cinema optical
objects, because of the movement illusion (when
moving the glass stripes), the magic lantern was still
very popular for quite some time.
Participant Observation
It is a methodology imported from the social sciences
and particularly from the anthropology in which the
research is held by one agent that gets close to the
so-called observed community. In order for that
to happen, the researcher has to do an exercise of
immersion, forgetting what he/she already knows,
trying to engage in a pure and open-hearted way,
and for a long period of time. The anthropology has
shown us some cases in which the immersion was so
successful that after the work, the investigator could no
longer get back to what his/her life was before.
Today, this methodology is commonly used in
academic contexts, but is sometimes absent of some
essential elements. If, for example, one is to conduct
a research in a social housing neighbourhood, the
method used is to go there and get to know the
community, but it won’t be about becoming the
community.
Relational Aesthetics
A theory of aesthetic and form that is based in the
way the works of art propose and generate inter-
connections with the audiences. It has been thoroughly
developed by nicolas bourriaud (in the book with
the same name), but the philosophy that lies behind
it, a “realism of encounter” is a concept defined by
louis althusser. The artworks that evoke relational
aesthetics are based on some kind of social encounter,
and even though they don’t depend upon objects,
there’s a straight relationship with form.
Silence
Silence is generally regarded as an absence of any
type of sound. In artistic terms, it may not seem of
particular interest, as it requires an isolation, and
creativity is more a collective thing. But I have always
craved for the idea of working in silence. lourdes
castro shows in a film about her work (catarina
mourão, 2010), how she grows plants from a small
seed inside her kitchen cabinets. According to castro,
silence is an essential trait for lifespan to sprout in
nature, as it should also be in artistic production.
Visual Atlas
A visual atlas is a process of juxtaposing images from
different origins, expecting to provoke unexpected
encounters and meanings. In the context of visual
arts or in museum contexts, the method of creating
visual atlas is in the core of the presupposed collective
processes of creation.
Our own visual atlas, according to andré malraux is
the one we carry within ourselves, meaning that every
relevant experience has a resonance in our memory
and that places itself in visual reminiscences of the
past. In specific contexts, these memories can be
activated and repurposed for the moment.
The origin of the mnemosyne atlas goes far back
to aby warburg, but the process has his own origin
in the Greek Mythology, according to which Atlas is
condemned by Zeus to hold the weight of Heaven or
Earth.
VISUAL SUMMARY
a p p e n d i x b
451 appendix
that came to visit the exhibition in its first days, in
August 2014. Also there is something about this image
that can not be seen: I was on my seventh month of
pregnancy, and Viseu is a very hot city this time of
year.
Questions
The individual memories that each of us preserves
about a particular event serve to catalogue this event,
but also to reframe it within certain subcategories and
reactivate it whenever necessary. If these memories
automatically transfer to a future (still unknown),
these will sooner or later integrate a kind of
knowledge in history yet to be written - a sort of
collective memory.
If we do not take for granted what we know - our
ability to memorize and evoke a particular event,
feeling, sensation - perhaps we can find out a bit more
about ourselves.
The set of topics that are here aligned, arise in the
context of a doctoral research which, having reached
a terminal phase persist in not settling for the
information/knowledge acquired and produced here.
For this reason, what is sought here is for an honest
sharing of concerns - that I understand existing
besides my own.
#1
Think of a guided tour that you have recently oriented
(or another action mediated by you). Think of one that
has been particularly remarkable. Talk a little about how
you felt in the process: how the group interacted with
you, what stood out the most during the tour, what you
remember immediately.
#2
In a more general way, can you clarify what is the best
thing to happen on a guided tour? - Anything goes, from
spectacular questions to intuitive actions conducted
by the participants, specific things related to the space,
different visitors or others - If you ever happened to
experience something remarkable, please share.
473 appendix
#3
Think of topics that are controversial or taboo. I’m sure
you have been through a “harsher” experience in a guided
tour context, from where the outcome was out of your
reach. Please refer to the episode that you considered
more noticeable in this regard.
#4
What do you consider to be the greatest challenge
submitted to art mediators today?
#5
If you could change (only) one aspect about the work you
do everyday as a mediator, what would it be? Consider
that this may be related to you, with the museum where
you work (and its positioning) or with the public. Also
consider that this may or may not be an achievable aspect
(it can be a bit utopian in the resolution if you wish).
#6
Think of a specific moment in the context of an exhibition
that has been presented in the museum where you work,
in which you consider to have been surpassed some
major barriers. How was this experience for you?
#7
Do you think that the work of an artist or a collective
can (contribute to) change the current thinking on
contemporary art, on institutions or on how we relate to
both? If you want, please mention examples of artists
who, in your opinion, might have achieved this goal.
#8
As a mediator for contemporary art, do you think of a way
to evaluate the work that you do everyday? Do you ever
make that assessment? How?
#9
Do you believe it it important that the work of the
museum can contribute to a possible emancipation of
individuals (about certain topics or about the possibility
of generating more critical position towards concrete
situations)? Do you think that your work there can
contribute to this? What do you think could change in
order to enhance this idea?
#10
Do you think it is possible to address to a collective
imaginary in a museum of contemporary art? How?
#11
Can you remember about the first time that you assisted a
guided tour? Tell us about your experience.
#12
How about the first time that you conducted a tour
yourself? How did it feel?
THIS IS NOT A INQUIRY - PROFILES
a p p e n d i x d
Inês Caetano
Inês Bento Caetano de Azevedo has
a degree in Architecture from 2006
by the Porto School of Architecture.
Between 2004 and 2010 she
collaborated with Arqtº João Paul
Loureiro and has since then kept a
parallel activity is teaching arts. In
2014, Inês completed a Master degree
in Visual Arts in the 3rd Cycle of
Basic and Secondary Education
at the Faculty of Psychology and
Educational Sciences in partnership
with the Faculty of Fine Arts,
reflecting about “Conciliations
and misunderstandings with
contemporary art: intersections
between teaching and cultural
mediation”.
Inês collaborates with the Serralves
Foundation since 1999 developing
activities in the context of art and
architecture with different audiences.
José Maia
José (Manuel Santos) Maia was born
in Nampula, Mozambique, in 1970.
He lives and works in Porto.
Degree in Fine Arts - Painting at
the Faculty of Fine Arts, University
of Porto, and a PhD candidate in
the PhD in Fine Arts and Visual
Arts “Modes of Knowledge on
477 appendix
Contemporary Artistic Practices” by the University of
Vigo, Spain.
As a curator, José organized solo and group exhibitions in
alternative and institutional spaces in Lisbon and Oporto
but also in Faro, Braga, Guarda and Elvas. He organizes film
cycles and performance shows as well as debates, talks and
conferences, gathering creators from different artistic fields,
curators, critics and historians.
From the various curatorial projects developed during the
last year, a special note on the curating of Maia Biennial 2015,
under the topic of Voyage (“Lugares de Viagem”) “Sub 40 -
beyond the known memory” in the Municipal Gallery of Porto.
He is the artistic director of Espaço Mira since 2013,
programmed the Espaço Campanhã from the period between
2008 and 2009 and, among other projects, is preparing for
January 2017 the opening of Multiplex Gallery in Universidade
Lusófona of Porto, dedicated to the digital media.
José Maia joined the team of the Educational Service of the
Museum of Contemporary Art of Serralves Foundation in
2000, joined the team of the Educational Service of Culturgest
Porto and implemented Educational Services in Centro de Arte
Figueira da Foz, the Terminal Project in Oeiras and others.
He is currently professor of “Contemporary Art”, “Art, Culture
and Communication”, “Theory of Photography” and “Image
Technology” in Universidade Lusófona of Porto.
He taught painting, drawing, Visual Arts and Photography
in the Arts School of Porto (ESAP) and Introduction to
Contemporary Art in Balleteatro in Porto.
As an artist, and under the choice of a different name
combination, Manuel Santos Maia exhibits his work regularly
since 1999. Contemplating diverse artistic practices, such as
installation, photography, painting, film, video, performance,
theater and sound, he has presented artwork in different
countries such as England, France, USA, Brazil, Belgium,
Spain, Norway, Macau and Algeria.
Melissa Rodrigues
Melissa Rodrigues (Cape Verde, 1985). BA
in Anthropology from the Faculty of Social
and Human Sciences - New University of
Lisbon. Graduated in Contemporary Dance
and Performing Arts at C.E.M. - Center for
movement, Lisbon.
As a core member of the Arts (NAVA) CRIA -
Centre for Anthropology Research Network,
she was part of the team that organized the
1st and 2nd editions FACA - Anthropology
and Art Film Festival. Interested in non-
formal education and art, Melissa worked on
art projects with Community and Education
Through Art in the suburbs of Lisbon, as
a teacher of Education through art in the
Portuguese Movement of Artistic Intervention
and Education through Art.
Melissa has lived for three months in Brazil
where she collaborated with the Collective
Mama Luta - Movimento Sem Teto de São
Salvador da Baía, and in other participatory
art projects.
She collaborated with the Educational Service
of Museum of Oriente in Lisbon. Currently
living in Porto and working as an educator
at the Educational Service of the Museum of
Contemporary Art of Serralves, Melissa is also
an activist of the SOS Racismo Porto, having
currently co-organized the 3rd edition of
MICAR - international film festival for anti-
racist film.
As a member of NADA - artistic and activist
collective, Melissa organized during the
month of February 2016 the 1st edition of the
Festival NADA - Laboratory of Art, Activism
and Experimentation.
She has a particular interest in video art and
documentary cinema, having made videos and
documentaries as ‘Éter’, ‘Memorias (s)’ or ‘Todos os
caminhos vão dar ao Carmo’ collective documentary
that integrated exhibitions and festivals such as
DocLisboa - International Documentary Festival.
Rita Faustino
Rita Faustino (Lisbon, 1982), artist graduated from
the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto
She has been developing work in the educational
field in several museum institutions since 2011, from
which stands out the Museum of Contemporary Art
of Serralves in Porto, José de Guimarães International
Arts Centre (CIAJG) and more recently Casa da
Memória both in Guimarães, having collaborated with
the Museum Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso in Barcelos
and the Douro Museum in Régua. In 2015, Rita also
assumed the role of coordination in the Educational
Service of the Center for Art and Architecture Affairs
in Guimarães.
Sónia Borges
Graduated in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the
University of Porto in 2004.
Initiates her collaboration with the Serralves Foundation the
same year, and later joins the artist-educator Educational
Services, designing and orientating different audiences
with artistic workshops, usually concerning the practices of
drawing, writing and illustration. Noteworthy is the project
“Porto a Ler”, a partnership between the Serralves Foundation
and the Municipality of Porto in which Sónia joins with the
workshop “A History by mail”, involving eight groups / city
schools for ten sessions throughout the school year.
The stories and illustrations always go hand in hand, whether
it is in workshops, writing books or making exhibitions.
In April 2008, Sónia Borges published the first book both
written and illustrated by her “A Menina Triste” and in 2010
“O Riscas”, both published by “Trinta-por-uma-linha”. She’s
also illustrated books for different authors, and regularly
participates in collective and individual exhibitions.
At the moment Sónia is also conceiving brochures of
activities for families in the context of the exhibitions in the
Museum of Contemporary Art of the Serralves Foundation,
all containing original illustrations for each exhibition, as
well as creative proposals to accomplish in family.
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