MICROMUSEO EN ARTFORUM (Post número 100 de esta bitácora)
El azar no existe: el post número cien (100) de esta bitácora coincide con la sorprendente atención prestada al proyecto de Micromuseo ("al fondo hay sitio") por el último número de Artforum, una de la revistas especializadas más reconocidas en el circuito euronorteamericano.
El artículo forma parte de una revisión más amplia de la condición museal y está firmado por Inés Katzenstein, directora fundadora del programa de arte de la Universidad Torcuato di Tella de Buenos Aires (entre los demás autores se encuentran curadores como el brasileño Adriano Pedrosa, artífices como la cubana Tania Bruguera, y el director del Museo Reina Sofía, Manuel Borja-Villel).
Katzenstein trabajó desde 2004 y hasta 2008 como curadora adjunta en el Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), entidad sobre la que también trata esta publicación, considerándola un factor decisivo de renovación y rigor en el ámbito de la musealidad formalmente establecida. Todo ello en contraposición a otros proyectos argentinos como el del museo que hace pública la colección de María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, apreciados por Katzenstein como fastuosos pero carentes de un proyecto crítico. Al otro extremo –el de la musealidad alterna y experimental– la autora ubica a Micromuseo y al Ferrowhite, un "museo que es un taller", cuyas "herramientas son las voces, la memoria y el hacer de los trabajadores ferroviarios y portuarios" de la ciudad patagónica de Bahía Blanca (tomo esas definiciones del sitio web respectivo). Una compañía que nos honra. En primer término por no tratarse de un museo de arte: batallando estamos por instalar la idea de que para ser genuinamente contemporáneo todo museo debe abandonar cualquier vocación exclusiva por el arte (la sola frase "Museo de Arte Contemporáneo" es una contradicción en términos). Pero también por las connotaciones de movilidad y movilización populares también presentes en la metáfora sobre el transporte público inscrita hasta en nuestro nombre.
Antes de reproducir la nota, tres comentarios:
1. Toda visión polar exige los matices necesarios. A los ya introducidos por la propia Katzenstein quisiera añadir que, desde nuestra perspectiva, la praxis del MALBA desafía su institucionalidad aparente, problematizando con frecuencia y del modo más creativo las propias concepciones establecidas de lo museal. Así lo demuestran, por ejemplo, exposiciones como la espléndida que allí se hizo sobre la histórica Sociedad Amigos del Arte (1924-1942), curada por Patricia Artundo y Marcelo Pacheco. Este último es además curador general del MALBA, logrando desde su mirada –una de las más inquietantes en la escena continental– identificar al museo con varias excentricidades brillantes (pero siempre marcadas por el rigor).
Aunque la mía, claro, es una opinión acaso sesgada por las oportunidades que he tenido de interactuar con el MALBA, por ejemplo al proponer y eventualmente curar allí la exposición Neocriollo de la artífice argentina Mónica Giron.
2. Me importa sobremanera que en el texto la autora haya privilegiado no la colección sino el proyecto crítico de Micromuseo, citando incluso frases varias de nuestro Manifiesto de viaje. (Versión inglesa aquí). Las ideas de musealidad mestiza, musealidad promiscua, por ejemplo. O la concepción pasional del museo no como cámara de tesoros y parangón de prestigios –sociales o académicos– sino como agente crítico de ciudadanía nueva. (Al respecto, vg., véanse las sucesivas entregas de "Batallas por la memoria" en nuestros post inmediatamente anteriores). Como ese mismo manifiesto formula, se trata de no sólo comprender la realidad sino además transformarla.
3. Ha sido en extremo feliz la decisión de ilustrar el ensayo con el impresionante cuadro que Sandra Gamarra generosamente aceptó realizar como comisión oficial de Micromuseo a su propia museotopía personal, el entrañable LiMAC. Se trata de El Museo de Arte borrado, la versión deliberadamente sobredimensionada y en untuoso óleo sobre tela de la pequeña (pero fundamental) ironía gráfico-conceptual impresa en 1970 por Emilio Hernández Saavedra. Dos configuraciones culminantes de nuestro pensamiento visual.
Podría dedicarle páginas enteras a esa conjunción, pero ya he empezado a hacerlo al destacarla como nuestra pieza del mes correspondiente al mes de octubre de 2009, a cuya publicación web remito.
A continuación, el artículo de Artforum (la traducción al inglés es de Jane Brody).
Sandra Gamarra / LiMAC. El Museo de Arte borrado (d’aprés Emilio Hernández Saavedra, 1970).2008-2009.
Óleo sobre tela: 220 x 200 cm.
Micromuseo ("al fondo hay sitio").
Donación: Sandra Gamarra.
Obra especialmente comisionada al LiMAC (“Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima”) por Micromuseo (“al fondo hay sitio”), para la exposición Lo impuro y lo contaminado III en la Trienal de Chile.
Obra especialmente comisionada al LiMAC (“Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima”) por Micromuseo (“al fondo hay sitio”), para la exposición Lo impuro y lo contaminado III en la Trienal de Chile.
THE MUSEUM REVISITED
The dichotomy between the traditional museum and the “new” museum is not the same everywhere in the world. In Buenos Aires, one of the most culturally active cities in South America, for instance, a museum with a consistent exhibition program, a curatorial department, an education department, and professional management—things that would be taken as givens at any art institution in Europe or the United States—is still a novelty, a genuine accomplishment, something to strive for.
Thus, it was an enormous step in the historical development of local and regional arts institutions when Eduardo F. Costantini, the most important collector of Latin American art in Argentina, founded MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) in 2001. (I worked as a curator there from 2004 to 2008.) With its professional staff, coherent schedule of high-quality international exhibitions and careful exhibition design, and an acquisition program that is truly exceptional in Argentina, MALBA set a new standard for contemporary art institutions here. But if institutional or curatorial experimentation is what you are after, MALBA might not be the answer. In other words, despite being relatively new, it isn’t a “new” museum. Still, whatever faults and limitations it may have, MALBA has single-handedly raised the standards of the city’s art institutions; in any case, pretty much the only alternative to its museological approach in Argentina and other Latin American countries is that of the major public museum, typically beset by severe budgetary constraints and the pessimism and bureaucratic sluggishness that tend to pervade state-run institutions in this part of the world.
The past two decades have witnessed the opening of any number of “new” museums in Latin America. But, like MALBA, these institutions largely emulate the modern international museum rather than pioneer an institutional model geared to reflect recent artistic practices. Although these museums are welcome additions to our cultural life, they tend to accept the established institutional model as if it hasn’t for years been subject to questioning and critical revisions from within.
Another familiar problem is the new museum as crown—or cenotaph—of its founder. This model dictates that a fortune be spent on a major, emblematic building to house the donor’s personal collection; the museum will figure in the city’s tourist guides but may not matter culturally. In Argentina, for instance, one of the richest people in the country, María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, built a spectacular museum designed by Rafael Viñoly to house a collection of works acquired—and now exhibited—without any discernible criteria. To those who would argue that such vanity projects are harmless, one must point out that the resources could have been put to better use elsewhere; there’s also the fact that within institutionally weak contexts, like this one, such projects tend to mislead audiences in terms of what they should expect of a museum.
Despite such discouraging trends, a few innovative projects have emerged in Latin America that attempt to combat the institutional vacuum of their contexts. Strategically, I have chosen two examples in peripheral situations within the periphery itself, both of them achieved with little or no money. The Ferrowhite museum, located in the abandoned port of Bahía Blanca, an Argentine city that was once the principal point of departure for agricultural exports, documents the history of the region’s now-defunct railway system in relation to the country’s political history. It may seem beside the point to speak here of non-art museums, but given the critical tint of Ferrowhite’s curatorial vision, the intelligence and unexpectedness of its exhibition devices, and the heroic nature of such an unlikely endeavor, I believe it is eminently worth mentioning.
Peruvian critic Gustavo Buntinx launched his Micromuseo initiative in the 1980s, at a moment when the city of Lima had neither a museum of modern art nor a museum of contemporary art. Buntinx advocated for a “passionate conception of the museum not as a treasure chamber or paragon of—social or academic—prestige, but as a critical agent of a new citizenship.” Combination curatorial office, publishing house, improbable collection where popular and contemporary art intersect, website (www.micromuseo.org.pe), and device for the crossing of disciplines, Micromuseo is built on the idea that “to be truly contemporary, a museum must give up any exclusive commitment to art.” Anthropology, art history, and politics are bound into the interest of thinking critically about the current world of images.
One hopes that the region’s major museums will draw on these ideas and impetuses, since though our art institutions seem able to attract interesting artists, they often fail to harness their innovative spirit. At a moment like this one, a time of growing professionalism in the art world and growing populism in its institutions, what ideas might be capable of breaking the complacency of artists and the boredom of audiences? Perhaps the cultivation of curiosity, as opposed to the rigid pursuit of major “projects,” might give rise to a form of management conceived as investigation—that is, a management transformative by virtue of itself being constantly transformed by its cultural context.
Thus, it was an enormous step in the historical development of local and regional arts institutions when Eduardo F. Costantini, the most important collector of Latin American art in Argentina, founded MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) in 2001. (I worked as a curator there from 2004 to 2008.) With its professional staff, coherent schedule of high-quality international exhibitions and careful exhibition design, and an acquisition program that is truly exceptional in Argentina, MALBA set a new standard for contemporary art institutions here. But if institutional or curatorial experimentation is what you are after, MALBA might not be the answer. In other words, despite being relatively new, it isn’t a “new” museum. Still, whatever faults and limitations it may have, MALBA has single-handedly raised the standards of the city’s art institutions; in any case, pretty much the only alternative to its museological approach in Argentina and other Latin American countries is that of the major public museum, typically beset by severe budgetary constraints and the pessimism and bureaucratic sluggishness that tend to pervade state-run institutions in this part of the world.
The past two decades have witnessed the opening of any number of “new” museums in Latin America. But, like MALBA, these institutions largely emulate the modern international museum rather than pioneer an institutional model geared to reflect recent artistic practices. Although these museums are welcome additions to our cultural life, they tend to accept the established institutional model as if it hasn’t for years been subject to questioning and critical revisions from within.
Another familiar problem is the new museum as crown—or cenotaph—of its founder. This model dictates that a fortune be spent on a major, emblematic building to house the donor’s personal collection; the museum will figure in the city’s tourist guides but may not matter culturally. In Argentina, for instance, one of the richest people in the country, María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, built a spectacular museum designed by Rafael Viñoly to house a collection of works acquired—and now exhibited—without any discernible criteria. To those who would argue that such vanity projects are harmless, one must point out that the resources could have been put to better use elsewhere; there’s also the fact that within institutionally weak contexts, like this one, such projects tend to mislead audiences in terms of what they should expect of a museum.
Despite such discouraging trends, a few innovative projects have emerged in Latin America that attempt to combat the institutional vacuum of their contexts. Strategically, I have chosen two examples in peripheral situations within the periphery itself, both of them achieved with little or no money. The Ferrowhite museum, located in the abandoned port of Bahía Blanca, an Argentine city that was once the principal point of departure for agricultural exports, documents the history of the region’s now-defunct railway system in relation to the country’s political history. It may seem beside the point to speak here of non-art museums, but given the critical tint of Ferrowhite’s curatorial vision, the intelligence and unexpectedness of its exhibition devices, and the heroic nature of such an unlikely endeavor, I believe it is eminently worth mentioning.
Peruvian critic Gustavo Buntinx launched his Micromuseo initiative in the 1980s, at a moment when the city of Lima had neither a museum of modern art nor a museum of contemporary art. Buntinx advocated for a “passionate conception of the museum not as a treasure chamber or paragon of—social or academic—prestige, but as a critical agent of a new citizenship.” Combination curatorial office, publishing house, improbable collection where popular and contemporary art intersect, website (www.micromuseo.org.pe), and device for the crossing of disciplines, Micromuseo is built on the idea that “to be truly contemporary, a museum must give up any exclusive commitment to art.” Anthropology, art history, and politics are bound into the interest of thinking critically about the current world of images.
One hopes that the region’s major museums will draw on these ideas and impetuses, since though our art institutions seem able to attract interesting artists, they often fail to harness their innovative spirit. At a moment like this one, a time of growing professionalism in the art world and growing populism in its institutions, what ideas might be capable of breaking the complacency of artists and the boredom of audiences? Perhaps the cultivation of curiosity, as opposed to the rigid pursuit of major “projects,” might give rise to a form of management conceived as investigation—that is, a management transformative by virtue of itself being constantly transformed by its cultural context.
Inés Katzenstein
Etiquetas: Amigos del Arte, Artforum, Artundo, Brody, Ferrowhite, Giron, Hernández Saavedra, Katzenstein, LiMAC, MALBA, Museo Fortabat, Neocriollo, Pacheco
publicadas por Gustavo Buntinx @ 18:58
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