Changing Perspectives

Pe Ch rs an pe gi ct ng ive s

Dealing with Globalisation in the Presentation and Collection of Contemporary Art

Compiled and edited by Mariska ter Horst

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Pe Ch rs an pe gi ct ng ive s

Dealing with Globalisation in the Presentation and Collection of Contemporary Art

Compiled and edited by Mariska ter Horst

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contents How many nations are inside of you? Cultural diversity, global art and art museums Mirjam Westen pp. 76–85

Editorial Mariska ter Horst pp. 6–13

l ty ra ei t u an ul r C po ion i n t o e m a es s nt l i s an ht Co ba pign 4 ug y, o p 9 o t Gl d A 6 – i Th rs d har p. 8 n ve a R i c p Di

Shifting Perspectives Edwin Jacobs pp. 14–16+ 25

Towards a World Renaissance?

Meta Knol pp. 26–31

Collaboration as A Response to the Curatorial Complexities of Contemporary Global Art Mariska ter Horst pp. 32–44 C O L FO L E R C TI M O Ar O D N B pp jen E A . 4 K RN L A 6 – ok A N R T CE 52

Whose Global?

Some Reflections on Critical Cross Cultural Museology and Curatorial Practices in the Age of the Global Museum Paul Goodwin pp. 96 + 105–111

Framer Framed: The Museum in Transition Cas Bool & Josien Pieterse pp. 112–120

Towards a Museum of the 21 st Century: The Ambiguity of an Aboriginal Museum in Holland Georges Petitjean pp. 122–129

Homo Collector Transculturalis: Good Intentions, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Contemporary Art Markets Wilfried van Damme pp. 54–56 + 65–67

From a Collection of Objects to a Collection of Relationships: 'Play Van Abbe' and the Museum in the Age of ‘Global Art’ Steven ten Thije pp. 130–136 + 145

The Financialisation of Contemporary Art Under Globalisation Derrick Chong pp. 68–75 2

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contents

C o & nt C r pp o ib . 2 lo Ut 3 1 ph o –2 o r s 38 n

th

e A an N e f r i t c Si d E h e a , m pp o u r r l a .1 nN o n 4 6 ja p d s –1 m e , 52 i

Globalisation and Localisation: Two Sides of the Same Coin Kitty Zijlmans pp. 214 + 223–229

The Global Turn and the Stedelijk Museum Jelle Bouwhuis pp. 154–162

Modes of Presentation Paul Faber pp. 164–171

Art Unlabelled: towards an unconditioned approach to art Wouter Welling pp. 172–176 + 185–187 Ri er ne io on , P ti r ie a fe m lis hro d e a Sc 9 5 ka oc m –1 sa l lle 8 jk n G nwi . 18 i Ja pp

Re(connaissance) Tineke Reijnders pp. 196–203

Beyond Globalisation in Contemporary Art History: Learning from the Transnational Caribbean Leon Wainwright pp. 204–212 3

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contents by keywords contexts pp. 32–44 pp. 130–136 + 145 pp. 164–171 pp. 172–176 + 185–187

art all pages

globalisation pp. 32–44 pp. 46–52 pp. 68–75 pp. 86–94 pp. 154–162 pp. 204–212

inclusion/exclusion pp. 112–120 pp. 122–129 pp. 146–152 pp. 204–212

curating pp. 32–44 pp. 76–85 pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 122–129 pp. 130–136 + 145

quality judgements pp. 32–44 pp. 68–75 pp. 154–162 pp. 172–176 + 185–187 pp. 188–195

museum practices pp. 32–44 pp. 46–52 pp. 54–56 + 65–67 pp. 76–85 pp. 146–152 pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 154–162 pp. 164–171 pp. 172–176 + 185–187

art criticism pp. 86–94 pp. 146–152 pp. 172–176 + 185–187 pp. 196–203

art histories pp. 54–56 + 65–67 pp. 86–94 pp. 130–136 + 145 pp. 172–176 + 185–187 pp. 196–203 pp. 204–212 pp. 214 + 223–229

revisiting the institution pp. 112–120 pp. 122–129 pp. 130–136 + 145

canon pp. 154–162 pp. 172–176 + 185–187 pp. 196–203 pp. 214 + 223–229

representation pp. 112–120 pp. 146–152 pp. 164–171

4

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contents by keywords relationships network pp. 32–44 pp. 112–120 pp. 130–136 + 145 pp. 188–195 pp. 214 + 223–229

terminology pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 154–162 pp. 164–171

Eurocentrism pp. 76–85 pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 112–120 pp. 122–129 pp. 146–152 pp. 214 + 223–229

financial art markets pp. 54–56 + 65–67 pp. 68–75

collecting pp. 32–44 pp. 46–52 pp. 54–56 + 65–67 pp. 68–75 pp. 130–136 + 145

(post)colonialism pp. 54–56 + 65–67 pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 146–152 pp. 196–203

education pp. 188–195 pp. 214 + 223–229

global vs local pp. 96 + 105–111 pp. 122–129 pp. 154–162 pp. 188–195 pp. 204–212 pp. 214 + 223–229

artists pp. 46–52 pp. 146–152 pp. 172–176 + 185–187 pp. 188–195 pp. 196–203 pp. 204–212 pp. 214 + 223–229

cultural diversity pp. 76–85 pp. 86–94 pp. 96 + 105–111

society pp. 76–85 pp. 86–94 pp. 112–120

politics pp. 76–85 pp. 86–94 pp. 112–120

audiences pp. 122–129 pp. 164–171 5

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t rs ho r te ka is ar m

This volume intends to probe the critical thinking, knowledge production and practices of all people and institutions attempting to cope with new local and global conditions. It hopes to inspire a thoughtful reconsideration of institutional practices in the exhibition and collection of contemporary art in response to the necessities of globalisation.

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Editorial

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mariska ter horst In 2011, for the first time in 21 years, Pablo Picasso no longer numbered amongst the top three of Artprice’s global ranking of artists by auction revenue. Picasso had fallen into fourth place, behind two Chinese painters, Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian.1 China has now overtaken both the UK and USA as the largest auction marketplace for fine art, causing ‘an electroshock in the history of the global art market’.2 With some economies in recession, others, such as those of the BRICS-countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are developing rapidly. Art fairs are being held in places as diverse as Hong Kong, New Delhi and Dubai. Since the mid ‘90s, Biennales too are booming, with Havana, as early as 1984, a leading frontrunner.

These developments demonstrate globalisation’s effect on the art world. However, globalisation — itself a complex and contested concept — denotes an acceleration of the processes of change within many fields, including the economy, politics, culture, ideology and environmentalism. The Internet and new possibilities of transportation have increased the mobility of money, goods, people and ideas. Some changes went hand in hand with the global events beginning in 1989: the reunification of Germany, the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, the rise of global trading agreements and the transformation of China into a partially capitalist economy3 — all presaging the end of the old East-West divisions.

For other observers, like Simon Njami, change was more symbolically indicated by the liberation of Nelson Mandela in 1990, and his subsequent presidency. Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, some divided places didn’t witness such dramatic transformations, e.g. Mostar and Belfast, whilst others even saw new divisions built, such as the West Bank barrier and the 4,100-kilometer-long Great Wall of India.

With globalisation upon us, the contemporary art world seems no longer to cluster around one prominent centre. Nonetheless, many artists from around the world still move to Western hubs, partly for artistic inspiration and cross-fertilisation but also because there are few other ways to gain visibility and recognition in the mainstream art world. Artists are also increasingly seen in the position of curators, or as initiators of their own art centres.

Art historians are just now starting to acknowledge the existence of multiple, parallel and interacting narratives, many of which still require further research and elucidation in writing.

A global visual language is evolving, even as certain artists consciously revert to their specific cultural, historical and artistic traditions. On the one hand boundaries are blurring; on the other new ones continue to emerge. Greater mobility, improved access and the intensified exchange of knowledge are the order of the day, but so too are persistent social and economic differences, limited freedoms, insufficient inter-regional mobility, visa problems, censorship and the tendency of important collectors to favour artists of their own nationalities. Patrons are not only indispensable for many galleries and museums, but also for sustaining a vibrant art scene in many regions — especially the Middle East — where public funding is lacking. All other such efforts notwithstanding, this also affects the production and public acquisition of art.

Within this rapidly globalising world, major institutions of art, culture and history must necessarily re-evaluate and reposition themselves. They need to be up-to-date and relevant to speedily transforming societies that increasingly continue to be less mono-cultural. These shifts and the manoeuvres they entail affect not only future practice; they also demand a fresh, critical look at the histories of institutions and their collections, so closely 8

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editorial tied in with colonialism and based upon a Eurocentric view of the world. These strictures apply equally to the museums and research centres of the Netherlands as to most other European institutions.

Following exhibitions such as ‘Magiciens de la terre’ (Paris) and ‘The Other Story’ (London), both 1989, some people began to feel uncomfortable about the Western bias of their institutions’ framework being only sporadically reflected upon in their museum practices. Awareness is still growing that unless we face up to the past we’ll be impeded in actively relating to the globalised future. The road to improving global access in the collection and presentation of contemporary art will not appear magically by itself: it requires concentrated and coordinated effort. David Barrie, former director of The Art Fund (UK), neatly summarises the situation thus: ‘Not only will it require a determined change of collecting policies, but it will also call for a sustained intellectual investment in research and, more importantly, in the development of new relationships with artists and communities in the source countries.’4 Though sometimes completely absent from the agendas of Dutch museums, today we see an increasingly lively debate on globalisation and diversity within the visual arts. This is apparent, for example, from the conference ‘Onbegrensd Verzamelen’ (Collecting Without Borders, 2009) and the public debate series ‘Framer Framed’, which from 2009 onwards questioned the Western view of ‘non-Western’ art. At the conference, discussion was focused on the need to break through two kinds of boundaries: those surrounding the collection and exhibition practices of Western art in museums, and those dividing different museum types from each other. The present volume, Changing Perspectives: Dealing with Globalisation in the Presentation and Collection of Contemporary Art, is the direct result of this conference and aims to contextualise and view critically the collection and exhibition policies of contemporary ‘global art’. The twenty authors engage with current discourses, mainly in relation to the Netherlands, but in ways that are also valid on a wider, global scale. While the focus is on collecting institutions, the writers reflect on globalisation in the visual arts from such divergent perspectives as museums, academies, universities, art criticism, social politics and economics.

This collection of essays, of course, has its limitations, beginning with its specific origins in a Dutch debate at the 2009 conference. The choice of format was deliberate; we thought that it furthered a useful exchange of ideas between individual curators from various types of museums. The objective was to enhance collaboration between institutions which are currently operating autonomously. Although acknowledging the participation of artists in this discourse, the present book only touches on artists’ perspectives without including essays by the artists themselves. It was felt that the book would benefit from a concentration on curatorial practices in the field of global art and culture. The questions posed and the issues and notions dealt with here, although they concern mainly Dutch circumstances, have bearing on developments in other Western countries where museums are likewise in search of some sort of transformation. The curatorial narrative, we feel, is not so narrow as to block all insight into broader issues beyond its particular purview. This volume intends to probe the critical thinking, knowledge production and practices of all people and institutions attempting to cope with new local and global conditions. These dynamic realities seem both to enlarge and reduce our experience of the world even as we watch.

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mariska ter horst In his introductory preface, Edwin Jacobs, director of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, emphasises the importance of museum collections as the living underpinning of history itself. Jacobs underlines the necessity of revisiting the relationship between the national and the international. In her introductory words, Meta Knol, director of Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, places museums in the wider context of recent Dutch politics. Addressing the fragmentation of the Dutch museum world into separate museums for ethnology, cultural history and art, she calls for a new attitude towards the global so as to liberate us from colonial shackles.

My own essay briefly outlines how Dutch museums are responding to globalisation, particularly in their recent exhibition and collection policies. It touches on the main issues discussed in the plenary session of ‘Collecting Without Borders’, such as cooperation, and upon the complexities involved in curating contemporary global art.

Arjen Kok describes the ‘Collection Balance Modern Art’, in which the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency set out to inventory and then to analyse the acquisitions made by Dutch museums. Making use of the data in the study, Kok examines the extent to which the Dutch situation confirms the interesting conclusions of a French researcher who, testing the impact of globalisation on French museum acquisitions, found only minor additions of new works by ‘non-Western’ artists. As co-founder of the multidisciplinary World Art Studies programme at Leiden University, Wilfried van Damme is sceptical about newly adopted museum strategies to include art from around the world. He warns against the danger of reinstating Western hegemony in a modified form and falling prey to mental colonialism. Most apposite, in this regard, is a passage from Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: ‘The oppressed and exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves.’5 Although written in 1986, essentially a different era to our own, the cogency of this statement still has the power to force us to pause and re-evaluate our own behaviour.

Contrary to the hesitation displayed by Van Damme, his fellow academic Derrick Chong, lecturer on Art Management in the University of London, discerns a completely different attitude towards collecting on the financial side of art markets. Globalisation is regarded as a ‘civilising influence’. Art dealers choose to represent more ‘non-Western’ artists in order to broaden their scope. This is to be understood as a form of product diversification that actually absorbs cultural differences. Chong therefore talks of a pluralisation of consumption paradoxically accompanying the homogenisation of taste.

Mirjam Westen, curator at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (MMKA), explains how she internalised the debates on cultural diversity and ‘the “absence of representation” of black artists and artists from other continents’ and started a policy best described as one of inclusion. In deciding whether to buy or display a given piece of contemporary global art, Westen looks for connections between it and the museum’s existing holdings and the themes with which it deals. As one learns from other essays in this book, curators at various other institutions seem now to tend to do the same. She urges museums to provide ‘new critical interpretations of ties between local and worldwide developments’. In his essay, Richard Appignanesi, editor of the art magazine Third 10

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editorial Text, criticises the ‘top-down multicultural “rescue’’ programmes’ led by state politics.

He speaks of ‘virtual cultural ghettoisation’ by positive discrimination. While seeming to welcome artists, this system actually puts them outside the mainstream art scene.

Appignanesi spurs critics and art historians on to write about those artists who are still missing from current art-historical narratives. In the startling second part of his essay he sets out the paradox we face: ‘contemporary artists will in the future be subject to assessment within the circuit of a globally calibrated art history. And yet it is precisely this ideologically suspect standard of critical assessment that artists must withstand in order to qualify as marketable producers.’

Curator Paul Goodwin puts his finger on the ‘highly problematic, essentialist and lazy “national(ist)” and state-led multiculturalism’ adopted by museums that ignore domestic migration cultures, thereby avoiding confrontational questions about the collection, the colonial past and knowledge production. Goodwin’s article is based largely on practices within the UK, particularly at the Tate, but the topics dealt with are definitely relevant to the Dutch situation. Josien Pieterse and Cas Bool ascertain that ‘our society is still highly dependent on classical modern institutions with a strong belief in measured progress, while at the same time we are undergoing rapid change, transnationalisation and increasing fragmentation and diversity’. Note how sharply this perspective diverges from Chong’s observations of the commercial world. As Pieterse and Bool see it, ‘transition can only be accomplished when niche parties and change-minded regime players find each other and decide to cooperate’. In organising the Framer Framed debates they try to fulfil such a niche position and create a platform for the discussion of new roles for public institutions. They pose fundamental questions: What is the role of museums in a multicultural and globalising community? What are the various roles of artists, curators and scientists in relation to art?

From subsequent contributions the interested reader will gain some understanding of current thinking and curatorial approaches in Dutch museums. Georges Petitjean not only offers an insight into the exhibition and collection policies of the privately sponsored Museum of contemporary Aboriginal art in Utrecht (AAMU), he also investigates the possibilities for a true 21st-century museum that integrates global and local conceptions and sources. The Van Abbe Museum takes a different stance. Instead of limiting its selfcriticism to purely artistic narratives, Steven ten Thije writes that the Van Abbe ‘realised that the question of inclusion and exclusion has no meaning unless the institution of the museum itself, in its Western form, is subjected to fundamental reappraisal’. It takes the core business of the museum — collecting and preserving — as its point of departure. A similar concern is raised by the academic and art critic Fieke Konijn; she regards the collection as a key aspect of which museums should more often make use of in their presentations to distinguish themselves from other institutions that produce one exhibition after the other.6 The Van Abbe Museum is currently conducting research on how global realities are transforming the identity of the museum itself. One of the conclusions is that the context of the institution and the objects it owns become virtual collectibles.

In 2009, Simon Njami — writer, critic and curator — in his provocative keynote speech to ‘Collecting Without Borders’, stated that he could hardly recall any major events in the Netherlands involving African artists. Moreover, he continued, ‘We should now focus on Africa, and when I say we, I mean we non-Europeans. Let Europe deal with Europe. That may be a way to invent another future.’ Jelle Bouwhuis of the Stedelijk 11

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mariska ter horst Museum, though admitting that the Stedelijk is still defining its position towards ‘the global’, describes some often overlooked exhibitions and incidents in the history of the museum that betray interest in global art and issues. He also cautions the reader to the meaninglessness of the term ‘global art’. He is referring to the much-cited Hans Belting, who regards ‘Global art as no longer synonymous with modern art. It is by definition contemporary, not just in a chronological but also, as we will see, in a symbolic or even ideological sense.’7 Some authors in this volume speak of global art. Others speak of ‘non-Western’ art. The use of such a negativistic term perpetuates a dichotomy which is itself under scrutiny. For lack of viable alternatives, ‘non-Western’ is here put between quotation marks to alert the reader to the problematic terminology. Similar dilemmas loom as we try to identify specific regions. As Gerardo Mosquera writes, some prefer to speak of art in Latin America instead of Latin American art, ‘as a de-emphasising convention that tries to underline, on the very level of language, its rejection of the suspicious construction of an integral, emblematic Latin America, and beyond this, of any globalising generalisation.’8 As a curator at the Tropenmuseum, Paul Faber opens his essay by criticising the outdated distinction between Western and ‘non-Western’ art. ‘The problem lies not with the art itself, which is extremely dynamic and unbounded. Had we been paying better attention to the art, we would have realised long ago that a term like “non-Western” had lost whatever meaning it may once have had.’ The ongoing debates are all well and good, he writes, but a close look at actual practice reveals no greater cultural or geographical diversity in museum exhibitions than in the 1990s. He is of the opinion that varying museum contexts can confer quite different meanings to one and the same work of art, a point that he illustrates by explaining different ways of presentation. Wouter Welling, curator at the Afrika Museum, supports this view while adding the proviso that the art must above all be shown autonomously. He suggests taking the ‘inner necessity’ of art (Kandinsky) as a starting point to tackle the classic centre-periphery dichotomy and pleads for a true universalism which does not try to make the ‘other’ identical to ‘us’.

Drawing on his extensive experience as (former) director of the Rijksakademie, Janwillem Schrofer looks at the relationship between the global and the local from an artist’s perspective, delving into the education of Rijksakademie artists, their personal responses and their willingness, following their time in Amsterdam, to set up artistic centres in their home countries. Schrofer describes the process of judging candidates from cultures with which one is unfamiliar and illuminates such pitfalls as choosing works that are ‘readable’. Art critic Tineke Reijnders argues that in order to get beyond generalisations in judging a work of art, the critic requires sufficient knowledge. ‘That knowledge can only be acquired if one opens oneself up to the sources. Openness and interest of this kind have been sorely lacking in the Netherlands, especially with regard to art from the former Dutch colonies.’ Reijnders feels that it is incumbent on us to fill the gaps in our knowledge; note that this standpoint is almost diametrically opposed to Njami’s stated position.

The academic art historian Leon Wainwright scrutinises the narratives of art history and of globalisation. He poses questions about freedom, mobility, time and space in relationship to the Caribbean, a part of the world which is best understood in ‘its various contexts (note the plural) — not only with regard to the geographical region itself, but the transnational and diaspora community that reaches all shores of the Atlantic’. In 12

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editorial proposing that we look at art in comparative contexts, Wainwright finds himself in agreement with Kitty Zijlmans, who, as the other co-founder of World Art Studies at Leiden University, is committed to the comparative approach. ‘We must now grapple with art history’s relationship to the growing international interconnections in the fields of art and culture and above all their relationship to trade, the labour market, finance and the business community.’

Let me conclude with an art and architecture collective and a residency programme based in Palestine, Decolonising Architecture Art Residency (DAAR). DAAR’s work combines discourse, spatial intervention, collective learning and public meetings. DAAR is subverting, reimagining and recycling architecture — such as the Palestinian Parliament (see p. 18) — as a way of thinking and rethinking a space and its relations.9 In accordance with this method, we hope that this volume will prompt a reappraisal of oneself and one’s past and future practices. Here we can only briefly and fragmentarily outline the complex field of entangled local and global realities. Nor can we expect to provide any clear answers. However, we do hope to inspire the thoughtful reconsideration of all institutions engaging in the collection and exhibition of contemporary art in response to the necessities of globalisation. Besides the mere display of art, such institutions should provide some framework within which to discuss important and at times difficult questions. After all, we are talking about those places in society where, ideally, one should be able to express oneself openly, to experiment unreservedly and to explore and exchange ideas unconditionally.

My sincere gratitude to everyone who supported this project with their time and enthusiasm: all the authors, Wouter Welling, Gary Schwartz, Ron Smit, Özkan Gölpinar, Jelle Bouwhuis, my colleagues at October Gallery, my family and friends. Special thanks are due to the funding institutions for their invaluable assistance.

Mariska ter Horst NOTES

1 Artprice. Art Market Trends 2010. p. 5. http://imgpublic.artprice. com/pdf/trends2010_en.pdf 2 Artprice. Art Market Trends 2011. p. 15. http://imgpublic.artprice. com/pdf/trends2011_en.pdf 3 Julian Stallabrass. Contemporary Art, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, p. 7.

4 David Barrie. ‘A Bigger Picture: Why Contemporary Art Curators Need to Get Out More.’ Text of Arthur Batchelor Lecture at the University of East Anglia on 6 May 2010. http://cdobarrie.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/abigger-picture-why-contemporary-artcurators-need-to-get-out-more/ 5 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Decolonising

the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. East African Educational Publishers Ltd., Nairobi/ Kampala/ Dar es Salaam, 1986, p. 3.

6 Fieke Konijn. ‘Presentatie in kunstmusea na de Tweede Wereldoorlog’ (Postwar Presentations in Art Museums). In: Kabinetten, galerijen en musea (Cabinets, Galleries and Museums). Uitgeverij Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, pp. 415–452, pp. 448–450.

7 Hans Belting. ‘Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate.’ In: Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg (eds.). The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2009, pp. 38–73, p. 39. See also http://www.globalartmuseum.de/ 8 Gerardo Mosquera. ‘Against Latin

American Art.’ In: Contemporary Art in Latin America. Black Dog Publishing, London, 2010, pp. 12–23, pp. 20, 22.

9 http://www.decolonizing.ps

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PR EF

Edwin Jacobs

AC E

Museum collections remain the foundation on which history is sustained, but the framework around them is constantly shifting in response to outside pressures, prominent among them today being the steady growth of internationalisation.

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Shifting Perspectives

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Edwin Jacobs Beyond Globalisation is a volume of symposium proceedings, but it is more than that. It is a serious attempt on the part of some highly qualified experts to enlarge our view of the production of visual arts, museum collections, and the world of art fairs and galleries. It gives a new twist to our understanding of relationships in the system of visual art by supplying comparisons between the concepts ‘national’ and ‘international’, acknowledging that it won’t be long before these terms will become irrelevant as the distinction they designate loses its meaning. The project is a discussion between visionaries who live with the knowledge that ‘national’ and ‘international’ are in a state of transformation.

They tackle this phenomenon as it manifests itself in various cultural fields, especially the visual arts. Their contribution supplements the daily work of artists, writers, scholars, curators and educators. All of them create contexts and connections, and in doing so expand our sense of what it means to be alive. That consciousness resides in ourselves, but it is fed by the material and immaterial culture around us. Museum collections remain the foundation on which history is sustained, but the framework around them is constantly shifting in response to outside pressures, prominent among them today being the steady growth of internationalisation. National history is still very important as a means to correlate the various histories of humanity that are always being written and revised. But that does not imply that national histories ought to serve as a measuring stick for history in general. All over Europe populism is raising its head and frightening people. Now that Europe is sapping its own strength through the inward-looking mentality generated by national histories, it is urgent that we rethink things. What attitude should we adopt towards each other and each other’s history ‘beyond’ national history?

Museums throughout the world are in a position to bring about the kind of agitation that can inspire a range of perceptions and insights deeply rooted not only in national histories but also in the hope of progress.

It is time to reflect on the meanings of ‘national’ and ‘international’ and how they relate to culture. The time to do so is ripe because the powers that bind us – culture on the one hand and nationality on the other — are undergoing increasing stress and experiencing greater volatility. As a worldwide emancipation is taking place in the access of knowledge – knowledge that everyone can acquire and share — culture is being ridiculed. Of all things: culture; and of all places in Europe!

In 2003 the Venice Biennale was the stage of an exciting event. In that art environment, a feeling of urgency was created in Utopia Station, put together by Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija. The ‘station’ offered temporary refuge (and an extensive fringe programme) to a collection of very diverse works by 160 internationally renowned artists, architects, graphic designers, intellectuals, writers, scholars and critics. Rirkrit Tiravanija and Liam Gillick designed Utopia Station as a complex that enabled physical contact between onlookers and specialists. At the heart of the project was the attempt to turn interpersonal relations into an independent work of art, with the aim of creating a superior and spiritually enhancing mode of life. The key was provided by the notions ‘utopia’ and ‘station’. Utopia refers to Thomas More’s book of 1516, an evocation of the perfect society to which we strive, while a ‘station’ is universally recognised as a temporary abode. Artists render both these fields of meaning visible and are able to link them to each other in troublesome images. Utopia Station was not able to stimulate visitors, irrespective of whether they were denizens of the art world or not, to form concrete strategies for reshaping social relations in such a way that a new world would 16

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See Preface Edwin Jacobs Edward Lipski, White Fang, 2010. Plaster, wood, acrylic, fibreglass, 171 × 63 × 62 cm. Collection Centraal Museum.

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See editorial Mariska ter Horst Installation view ‘DAAR Common Assembly’. Nottingham Contemporary, 2012. Photo: Andy Keate.

See editorial Mariska ter Horst Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR), Deterritorialized Parliament, 2011. Photo: Carina Ottino.

The Palestinian Legislative Council building in Abu Dis sitting within three different spaces: part within Israeli territory, part within Palestinian controlled territory, and a small strip, no larger than the line’s thickness, exists in a legal and sovereign limbo.

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p. 29 Installation view ‘Beyond the Dutch: Indonesia, The Netherlands and Visual Arts since 1900’. Centraal Museum, 2009/2010.

Including works of the Indonesian artists Sudjojono and Hendra Gunawan. Photo: Ernst Moritz.

p. 29 Jompet Kuswidananto, Javaanse Oorlog, Weet U Nog? #3 (Javanese War, Remember?), 2008. ‘Beyond the Dutch: Indonesia, The Netherlands and Visual Arts since 1900’. Centraal Museum, 2009.

Photo: Ernst Moritz.

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p. 38 Installation view ‘Raising Dust’. Calvert 22, London, 2010/2011.

Including AcDcWc Portable with Chandelier by Sašo Sedlaček, Naked Freedom by Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid with Zvonka Simčič. Courtesy of Steve White, Calvert 22, and the artists.

p. 36 Romuald Hazoumè, La Bouche du Roi, 1997–2005. Installation sound and mixed media (petrol cans and various found objects, glass, pearls, tobacco, fabrics, mirrors, cowries, calabashes), 1000 × 290 cm. Courtesy of the Trustees of The British Museum.

Photo: George Hixson.

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p. 37 Installation view ’New World Order. Contemporary Installation Art and Photography from China‘. Groninger Museum, 2008.

With Liu Jianhua‘s Yiwu Survey. Container, commodities, variable dimensions (2006–2007). Courtesy of Beijing Commune and Groninger Museum. Photo: Marten de Leeuw.

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p. 36 Yinka Shonibare, Planets in my Head, Literature, 2010. Mixed media, 109 Ă— 76 Ă— 51 cm. Collection Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam.

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p. 34 Installation view ‘Museum of Contemporary African Art & More’.

Museum De Paviljoens, 2009. With Meschac Gaba’s Art and Religion (2000) and Museum Shop (1999–2006). Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij, Museum De Paviljoens.

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p. 51 Botalatala Bolofe Bwailenge, Dévaluation du FCFA, 1994. Wood, paint, cardboard and metal, 84 × 98 × 9 cm. Collection Felix Valk, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, permanent loan to Afrika Museum. Photo: RCE/Tim Koster.

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shifting perspectives emerge. That is: to develop a different way to judge the value of art, or to relocate art to a different context. What Utopia Station did achieve was to transform a work of art in the Biennale into an independent republic with borders that were defined elastically by the unplanned, unordered milling of the public. Allow me to call this pseudo-chaotic synchronicity. Pseudo-chaotic because it relates to an awareness of chaos rather than the real thing, and synchronous in the sense that it demonstrated how people and their behaviour converge at a given moment under given circumstances, and shows what the convergence brings forth.

Another work of art that, although, despite its completely different form, nonetheless also deserves to be called an example of pseudo-chaotic synchronicity is Former West, a long-term project of Basis Actuele Kunst in Utrecht (BAK). Since 2008 BAK has been engaged in a robust dialogue with leading thinkers in and around the art world concerning the significance for the arts, seen from a Western perspective, of the fall of the Wall and with it of Communism in 1989. The idea is to speculate on the potential futures of a globalised Europe and to shed new light on developments in the visual arts in relation to developments in society and politics. The project derives its thrust and nourishment from the high quality of its network.

The former Eastern Bloc is analysed from a variety of viewpoints, such as its imagined role — given the dependence of its intellectual life on the existence of a politically determined canon — in the perception of visual art. This can be related to chaos; synchronicity enters the picture with the shifting composition of the groups that participate in activities, which are held in different locations (including universities and museums) and produce readers, exhibitions and debates. Although the outcome to date, admittedly, does not yet offer guidelines or contours for action, it is solid enough to justify continuation on the chosen path. In 2013 an exhibition is planned in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, where the concrete research results of Former West will be displayed.

Like Utopia Station and Former West, Beyond Globalisation too aims to provide guidance. Not too long ago, the Netherlands was considered a guiding light (gidsland) in Europe, a progressive country that was not afraid of experiment and self-reflection.

Today the Netherlands threatens to fall back into conservatism and mistrust of everything that dares to be different, to come from elsewhere. That ‘elsewhere’ can also apply to the spirit that animates the artist, the writer, the scholar. A guide functions best when it can spark others, other institutions – museums and educational facilities in the first place, since they are most acutely aware of their responsibilities in this regard. The next step is to stimulate discussion and debate. That, in any case, has been achieved with the initiative to publish the volume you hold in your hands.

Continued from p. 16

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M a et

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Kn o l The radical changes now being wrought by globalisation and the worldwide diaspora demand that we adopt a cosmopolitan attitude towards contemporary art and culture. How good it would be for the Dutch museum public to be able to determine its own position in these ongoing cultural developments.

It would beneďŹ t the Dutch museum world to ďŹ nally liberate itself from its historical, colonial shackles.

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Towards a World Renaissance?

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Meta Knol Are we headed towards such a pervasive generalisation of taste that we will no longer hear the difference between Chinese pop music and American pop music? Or are we in for a wave of creolisation, with different cultures giving shape to their own versions of the same style or the same artistic programme? Will our lack of dismay (let alone rejection) contribute towards greater understanding between cultures, or will it lead to loss of identity?

— Umberto Eco (2010) 1 We are living in the midst of a cultural revolution. The world is globalising at a breakneck pace; artists and scientists from all points of the compass exchange ideas and images instantaneously. This intense and inspiring cross-fertilisation cannot but lead at a given moment to a more cohesive, global culture, a ‘World Renaissance’. In this new constellation, the meteoric rise of centres such as China, Brazil and India will turn the traditional Western world view upside down. In its place a complex network of juxtaposed, interlocked cultures will come into being, distinguished from each other only by local idiosyncrasies. This new network culture will replace the former pyramidal hierarchy, which is dominated by a relatively small group of Western elites.

If one looks back at the Western European Renaissance of the 16 th century, one sees that internationalism is the prime generator of productive renewal. Individuals and groups that cross borders, picking up useful new instruments right and left, will better themselves in the process. This rule applies in science and trade as well as in the arts. If this is true, then we should already be able to detect a certain impact on Dutch museums and art history of the decades of cultural globalisation that lie behind us. How are the universities, museums and art institutions of the Low Countries responding to global developments in the visual arts? In what if any concrete form have these responses manifested themselves in collections and exhibitions?

On 22 October 2009 a symposium was held in the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, with the title ‘Onbegrensd Verzamelen’ (Collecting Without Borders).2 Curators and directors of different kinds of Dutch museums and scholars from various Dutch universities came together for a day of lectures, presentations and discussions on the display and collecting of art from all over the world. ‘Onbegrensd Verzamelen’ fits into the framework of a larger series of debates begun in March 2009 under the title ‘Framer Framed’.3 Artists, curators and academics met to discuss the groundbreaking implications of the new art. They analysed the Western view of so-called ‘non-Western’ art, asking themselves what the role of museums should be.4 There is something peculiar about Dutch museum practice. The museum density in the country is high, but we have no large, encyclopedic museum like the Louvre in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Instead, Dutch museum culture is strongly fragmented, with clear dividing lines between museums of ethnology, cultural history and the fine arts. This compartmentalisation can easily be seen as a typically Dutch combination of tolerance and pillarisation: everyone does his own thing on his own turf, leaving the others alone to do theirs.

It is no secret that the art museums of the Netherlands have habitually focused on modern and contemporary art from Europe and North America, leaving the Dutch ethnological museums to care for so-called ‘non-Western’ art. This encompassed 28

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towards a world renaissance? contemporary art from the ‘non-West’, which was therefore often bundled in together with ethnography.5 Unlike countries such as England and the United States, where museums are often associated with universities, this is not common in the Netherlands.

Collaboration between the academic and museum worlds is the exception rather than the rule. In 2010 I joined up with Lejo Schenk, former director of the Tropenmuseum, to write an op-ed piece in NRC Handelsblad, in the same issue as the one in which Umberto Eco’s article on ‘the internationalisation of taste’ appeared. Concerning the split between kinds of museums in the Netherlands, we wrote: Three reasons can be advanced for the persistence of this division. In the first place, many museums of art and ethnology in the Netherlands are rooted in the 19 th century, so that their history is bound up with Dutch colonialism. Secondly, during their 150-year-long past, the museums of art and ethnology seldom if ever cooperated with each other. To this day they hardly pool their knowledge, experience and expertise. Finally, the international debate on postcolonialism has largely been ignored by Dutch art historians. Teaching and research in Dutch universities is shaped around the Western canon, giving future generations of art historians a markedly ethnocentric view of the world. The chapters on Chinese and Islamic art in the standard textbooks are routinely skipped in many universities.6

In 2009 Enin Supriyanto, an independent curator and writer in Jakarta, and I curated the exhibition ‘Beyond the Dutch: Indonesië, Nederland en de beeldende kunsten sinds 1900’ (Indonesia, the Netherlands and the Visual Arts Since 1900) for the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (see p. 19). During the preparation of the exhibition we ran up time after time against mistrust and prejudice on the part of our colleagues. They were often of the opinion that Indonesian art, which they believed to be based upon imitations of Western style principles, could for that reason not have artistic quality. There was a substantial lack of knowledge concerning the history of art in Indonesia. In the preparatory stages I attended an international expert meeting in Vienna in January 2007, ‘The Interplay of Art and Globalization: Consequences for Museums’, under the inspiring leadership of Hans Belting and Peter Weibel.7 We learned there that in Vienna, London, Dakar, São Paulo and Gwangiu the postcolonial era had already been virtually buried, while in the Netherlands, as Tineke Reijnders writes in the present volume, the postcolonial debate had not yet even started. This book cannot repair the situation, but it can help Dutch museums to reconsider their behaviour vis-à-vis ‘global art’ on the basis of up-to-date insights. The volume before you is intended to deepen and develop the quality of discussion and of museum practice with regard to this important issue.

The cultural transformations brought about by globalisation generate some inevitable tensions. Local and national cultures come under pressure, and react by building barricades. In the Netherlands, the well-intentioned notion that we are now living in a ‘multicultural’ society has been shelved. While a worldwide identity crisis rages, in direct connection to the progress of cosmopolitanism, Dutch politics looks inwards. Cultural discrimination is no longer taboo, as we have been shown by the unabashed rejection of Islamic culture by the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom), a major partner, albeit without a place in the cabinet, in the present government. The right-wing cabinet 29

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Meta Knol of Prime Minister Mark Rutte pursues a nationalistic cultural policy that mainly follows the money. Pivotal is the withdrawal of subsidy for the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, founded in 1870 and internationally renowned as a melting pot for young talent from all over the world.

Museums have long been the custodians of our collective material memory. The big question right now is how the museums of the Netherlands are to fulfill their classical role with respect to cultural heritage in the face of these dire developments. Are they going to acquiesce in the nationalistic agenda or are they going to acknowledge that Dutch culture cannot exempt itself at will from a worldwide paradigm shift? In the above-mentioned article, Lejo Schenk and I wrote: The time has come to convert a long-standing source of tension into a creative force. This is in the best interest of the public as well. In the 19 th century the museum was the first place people would go to learn about far-away, other worlds. The radical changes now being wrought by globalisation and the worldwide diaspora demand that we adopt a cosmopolitan attitude towards contemporary art and culture. How good it would be for the Dutch museum public to be able to determine its own position in these ongoing cultural developments. It would benefit the Dutch museum world to finally liberate itself from its historical, colonial shackles.8 This book provides a perspective on the present-day state of affairs in Dutch museums and universities with regard to contemporary art in the world at large. The authors trace the effects of the new cosmopolitanism on the art of our times, asking how – or if – these developments have been picked up by Dutch museums and universities. Thanks to the diversity of their backgrounds, the authors can provide a broad scale of perspectives, critical methods, concepts and considerations, laced with examples from their own experience. The inclusion of prominent authors from other countries place the Dutch situation in a capacious, international context.

Beyond Globalisation is intended for any curious reader with an open mind, but its main target audience are those professionals in art institutes and galleries, museums of ethnology, art and culture, universities and art schools who want to know more about the position of Dutch museum culture in today’s cosmopolitan world.

In closing, I would like to thank the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and all the authors and partner organisations that contributed to the realisation of this book: Afrika Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centraal Museum, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Museum De Paviljoens, Museum De Lakenhal and the Van Abbemuseum. A special word of thanks is due to the project leader and editor: without the unrelenting, intense efforts of Mariska ter Horst, this book would never have come into being. Wouter Welling, Afrika Museum curator of contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora, oversaw the contents. Thanks as well to the Mondriaan Fund and the Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst (BKVB; Foundation for the Visual Arts, Design and Architecture), which supported the project financially through its programme ‘355° Art Beyond Borders’. As this book goes into print, the two subsidising agencies have been united into the Mondriaan Fund, bringing to an end the former programmes for internationalisation. We are curious to see how the new Mondriaan Fund is going to deal with the world-wide paradigm shift described in this book, which 30

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towards a world renaissance? cannot and will not bypass the Dutch art world. Perhaps this publication can be of help in the important search for an answer to that question. notes 1 Umberto Eco. ‘Kunst verbaast steeds minder nu alle kunst internationaal voor iedereen toegankelijk wordt.’ (Art is Less and Less Surprising Now That All Art From All Over the World is Accessible to Everyone). NRC Handelsblad (Opinie & Debat), 2 January 2010.

2 The idea for the symposium was born in 2008 in a discussion between Simone Vermaat of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage and Christiane Berndes, collection curator of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

The present writer took the initiative to get things going, after which the actual organisation was in the hands of Mariska ter Horst, working from the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, backed up by myself and Wouter Welling, curator at the Afrika Museum of contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora. Institutional support was provided by the Instituut Collectie Nederland (now Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed), Museum De Lakenhal, Museum De Paviljoens, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Tropenmuseum and Van Abbemuseum.

3 ‘Framer Framed’ was an initiative of Josien Pieterse, then attached to the debating centre Tumult in Utrecht, and myself. The project has since been institutionalised in the form of a foundation devoted to critical debate and knowledge transfer concerning the Western view of ‘non-Western’ art. The name ‘Framer Framed’ was borrowed from the book with that title by the Vietnamese-American writer, filmer and composer Trin Minh-Ha. See www.framerframed.nl.

4 The term ‘non-Western’ is problematical in that it is based on the old principle that the West (Europe and North America) are at the centre and the rest of the world in its periphery.

5 This issue was addressed in 1985 in a debate in the Tropenmuseum concerning the position of international contemporary art in relation to the traditional fields covered by ethnological museums. The

participating representatives of art museums concluded that the presentation of ‘non-Western’ art was best relegated to ethnological museums.

6 Lejo Schenk and Meta Knol.

‘Het onderscheid tussen westerse en niet-westerse kunst is achterhaald.’ (The Distinction Between Western and Non-Western Art is a Thing of the Past). NRC Handelsblad (Opinie & Debat), 2 January 2010.

7 ‘The Interplay of Art and Globalization: Consequences for Museums’, Vienna, IFK, 25–27 January 2007. Convener: Hans Belting (IFK Vienna). Commentators: Peter Weibel (ZKM Karlsruhe), Beat Wyss (HFG Karlsruhe), John Onians (University of East Anglia), Ladislav Kesner (Cultropa Prague). For the publication that emerged from the meeting, see: Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg (eds.). The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2009.

8 Schenk and Knol, 2010.

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We speak of ‘institutions’, but we are dealing with individuals and their mutual relations.

In all respects — whether practical, financial, intellectual or idealistic — I believe that particularly in these times of government withdrawal from the arts the way forward is cooperation: interdisciplinary, international and intermuseum.

Mariska ter Horst

N S K O E R TI IC O SA T TW LI AC E N R BA P S G ts LO M IP IN G SEU SH AT ting en N R c em U U M IO C lle g s T co jud text LA ity n a l co RE

qu

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Collaboration as a Response to the Curatorial Complexities of Global Contemporary Art

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Mariska ter Horst ‘For me, the value of the day was in discovering a lot of new collections from which I can make choices for loans — unless, that is, a lot of costs are involved.’ This was one of the many promising remarks made during the conference ‘Onbegrensd Verzamelen’ (Collecting Without Borders), at which Dutch professionals from various museums and disciplines met to discuss the collecting and display of ‘global contemporary art’.1 During the plenary discussion the participants were urged to investigate the interaction between collecting, display, selection criteria and theory. The form of interaction in which the participants were most interested was the exchange of expertise. This essay can only review the main issues in a discussion about the curating of global contemporary art in a complex network of museums, artworks and audiences. Several comparisons will be made with practice in the United Kingdom, which is taken to be one of the leading countries in the field of ‘global art’ and ‘postcolonial discourse’.2

The initiative to organise ‘Collecting Without Borders’ came from the museum world itself, faced as it is with the need to coordinate activities involving global contemporary art. Many museums are undergoing a transformation in which global art seems to be playing an increasingly important role. While every museum has its own institutional history and loyalty to its collections, some Dutch museums are trying, each in their own way, to break out of the cocoon of Eurocentrism, monoculturalism, cultural simplification and colonial ballast. They are experimenting with new methods and attempting to attract new audiences while continuing to meet the expectations of their traditional audience. The latter is a necessity — no cultural institution can afford to lose visitors in a situation where government subsidies are pegged to attendance figures. Generally, museums choose to take on this heavy challenge on their own, out of fear of relinquishing their autonomy. However, in one of the densest museum landscapes in the world, there is bound to be overlap in any given area, and this is certainly true of global contemporary art. Take a few examples. When the conference took place, work by the Indonesian artist Heri Dono was being shown in a one-man exhibition in the Tropenmuseum (see essays Wouter Welling and Paul Faber, and p. 138) and in the group show ‘Beyond the Dutch: Indonesia, the Netherlands and art from 1900 to the present’ (see Meta Knol, pp. 26–31). Dono had earlier been shown in various Dutch museums, including Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2001), Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara (2000) and Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal (1996). The Tropenmuseum had recently purchased a tapestry by Eko Nugroho (see p. 219), another of the artists in ‘Beyond the Dutch’. In the course of the same year, 2009, Meschac Gaba had been invited to transform Museum De Paviljoens into a ‘Museum of Contemporary African Art & More’ (see p. 23). Works by Gaba had already been acquired by the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (MMKA) and Het Domein.3 Works on paper by Belkis Ayón Manso could be admired both in ‘Cuba! Art and History from 1869 to the Present’ in the Groninger Museum and in ‘Roots and More: Journey of the Spirits’ in the Afrika Museum, which, in addition to the item in the exhibition, owns five other works by the artist.

To go by the Collection Balance Modern Art, described by Arjen Kok (pp.

46–53), the ‘overlap’ one might expect to find between acquisitions made by various types of museums occurs only sporadically.4 One important reason for this is that not all museums agree that global art or themes related to globalisation deserve special attention.5 Among the objections one hears is that global art does not fit in with the existing 34

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Collaboration as a response… collections and — the point to be dealt with here — that it lacks museum quality.

That judgement, according to Niru Ratnam, has a grain of truth in it. As director of the Frith Street Gallery in London and former director of the Aicon Gallery, focusing on contemporary art from South Asia, Ratnam has the credentials to back up his opinion.

He sheds light on emancipatory processes by reminding us that the art world in India, to take one example, is still young, that schools for art education have relatively little experience, and that the market is immature. Ratnam states that ‘It is important to remember that there are still fewer artists in India than there are in “hubs” such as London or New York. On the other hand, the country is so large that the potential for talented artists to emerge in the future must be greater than that of the UK or America.’6 There has never been general agreement on what criteria should be applied in judging the quality of art. At a moment like the present, when the need for such standards seems greater than ever, the art historian Isabelle Graw insists that universal standards are simply unattainable. Referring to Leo Steinberg’s book Other Criteria,7 she argues for the development of criteria related to the object in question. Steinberg (1920–2011) was of the opinion that ‘the capacity to experience all works in accord with their inward objectives and at the same time against external standards belongs rather to the collective judgement of a generation, a judgement within which many kinds of critical insights have been absorbed’.8 Yet one cannot deny that quality judgements are also closely interwoven with the cultural baggage and background of the individual critic. Globalisation in the art world is being driven by Chinese, Iranian, Arabian and Indian ‘patrons’, whose tastes tend increasingly to reflect their own cultural, social, religious and artistic traditions. This ‘paradigm shift in cultural perception and value’ influences the production of art both in the region and in the international art market.

As Iain Robertson puts it: This new art from emerging markets, which is supported as much by an ideological shift as by the economic and political rise of East Asia, China and India, is forcing the international cultural scene to address not fragmentation so much as polarization. […] the transformation is best illustrated by the rise of an emerging market consensus that favours commonality and tradition over individualism and 'originality'. The emerging market societies are choosing to re-examine and reinvigorate their past, which has led them to question the purpose of globalisation and the application to their civiliations of an international cultural standard.9 Different preferences from those of private collectors come to the fore in museums that do pay attention to global contemporary art. Art museums, looking for ways to tie in with their collections and themes, will generally select works with a ‘global’, often conceptual formal vocabulary, while ethnological museums tend to prefer narrative works.

An unintended result of these inclinations is that a certain kind of art is likely to be ignored: art based on age-old cultural and artistic traditions, often linked to the dominant religion of the culture, but which starting from this basis aspires to more universal forms.10 The assumption is that visitors to ethnological museums will not see them as autonomous works. For art museums they are too culture-specific and are not linked to Modernism. The heavy hitters in the museum world, such as Tate Modern in London, 35

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Mariska ter Horst are trying to look outside the borders of the traditional canon. The appointment over the past decades of separate Acquisition Tate‘s committees for art from Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa and Africa11 contests of a serious attempt to reposition the institution. But despite these efforts it continues to be problematic to draw in art from previously overlooked regions into to the framework of Western art history, which essentially remains unchanged. This issue is discussed in the essays by Kitty Zijlmans, Richard Appignanesi and Leon Wainwright.

The initiatives and intentions of museums are not the only relevant variables. Some artists have mixed feelings about exhibiting in ethnological museums, to the point of evading or even turning down invitations to do so. They wish to be judged on their merits as artists and not — as would inevitably be the case to some extent in an ethnological museum — by their origins. Others take up the challenge of relating to the collection, whether explicitly or not, and seizing the opportunity of such an invitation to critique the institution. Just some examples are Heri Dono and his Ethnographic Museum (2001), now in the collection of the Tropenmuseum, as is Yinka Shonibare‘s Planets in my Head, Literature (2011, see p. 22). Answering to this description are also e.g. Andries Botha‘s An Outdoor Archive; Remy Jungerman‘s Yellow Home; Meschac Gaba‘s In Memoriam Anonymous Artists & Anonymous Visitors (all made about 1999/2000) and several installations made by George Nuku in 2011 for the outdoor spaces of the Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden. Romuald Hazoumè‘s La Bouche du Roi (1997–2005), now in the collection of the British Museum, see p. 20, is another striking example of a work that takes a critical stand towards the histories displayed in the museum in possession of the art work. La Bouche du Roi challenges the European perspective [of portraying African people as passive victims, stripped of all individuality and culture] and aims to restore the identities of the enslaved people.12 It is also true that one context does better justice to a specific work of art than another.

While every museum aspires to some degree to inform and entertain the visitor, ethnological and historical museums are more apt to deploy narrative and ‘experience’ to stimulate the transfer of knowledge. The object may remain at the heart of a presentation, but it serves increasingly to illustrate ethnographic and historical phenomena. The present-day art museum, functioning as it does both as a repository of cultural memory and a laboratory, concentrates primarily on the art object and its immediate context.13 Exhibition spaces are kept neutral in order to allow maximum scope for the visitor’s wonderment, enquiry and contemplation of the distinctive elements in the room. In this way viewers are ‘supported’ in their attempt to unravel or decipher the meaning of the displays; they are stimulated to assign meaning to art objects, objects that by definition lack mono-interpretable significance. In short: the museum context influences the mental and emotional susceptibility of the visitor and therefore his or her awareness of and response to visual images.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) analyses the encounter with art in his book of 1960 Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer Filosophischen Hermeneutik (Truth and Method: Principles of Philosophical Hermeneutics). The encounter with a work of art always takes place in a certain context and in relation to other observations, experiences and expectations of the viewer. What takes place is not an appropriation or taking 36

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Collaboration as a response… possession of an object by a subject but inserting oneself into the process of transmission. A work of art itself has a horizon; it cannot be separated from the circumstances of its origination, its intentions and functions. Increased understanding merges these horizons. The historical horizon of the work of art and the present-day horizon of the interpreter combine to form a new horizon that overrides both previous ones. To Gadamer, the interpreter’s understanding is not merely reproductive but productive as well.

During the workings of the understanding, new aspects come into being that enlarge the original significance horizon.14 Following Gadamer's thoughts and proceeding from the assumption that the meaning of a work of art comes into being in interaction with the viewer, we can say that the museum context contributes to the interpretation and assignment of meaning to the work of art. This demands of museums a circumspect consideration of each artist and each individual work.

A number of Dutch museums have taken clear steps to renew their presentation and acquisition practices. One pioneer with regard to ‘global art’, in the 1990s, was Frits Bless, director of the Van Reekum Museum in Apeldoorn (now incorporated into CODA, Apeldoorn). Exhibitions that were held under his leadership include ‘La ronda Cubana’ (1992), ‘Benin/Benin tussen gisteren/morgen’ (Benin/Benin between Yesterday/Tomorrow, 1998) and ‘Rewind’ fast forward.za: new work from South Africa’, curated by Bozzie Rabie (1999). Moreover, Bless purchased work from these exhibitions for the museum collection. The Afrika Museum has long been acquiring contemporary art; the Tropenmuseum as well now owns a considerable body of present-day art. Seen in historical perspective, this is not so much a shift in policy as an expansion of the collecting ambit. The Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (MMKA) enlarged its programme in the latter 1990s to include thematic and solo exhibitions of ‘non-Western’ art. (See Mirjam Westen’s contribution pp. 76–85.) Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen has hosted several exhibitions with guest curators, resulting in shows which were slightly different from their remit, such as ‘Xianfeng! Chinese Avant-garde Sculpture’ (2005); ‘Territorial Bodies: Hedendaagse beeldhouwkunst uit Israël’ (Contemporary Sculpture from Israel; 2008); ‘The Unwanted Land’ (2010)15; ‘The Rainbow Nation: Hedendaagse beeldhouwkunst uit Zuid-Afrika’ (Contemporary sculpture from South Africa; coming in 2012). The Zeeuws Museum has incidentally opened its doors to the wider world and undertaken initiatives of its own in this direction.16 The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam commissioned Okwui Enwezor in 2008 to curate ‘Snap Judgments: New Positions in African Photography’ (see p. 144) and is seeking ways, mainly through its project space, SMBA, to move in new directions.17 (See Jelle Bouwhuis, pp. 164–171.) In the year 2009, the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam showed a selection from the Isabel and Agustin Coppel collection in ‘Mexico: Expected/Unexpected’; the Hague municipal museum GEM, in cooperation with the Willem Baars Art Consultancy, organised ‘India Contemporary’ and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Netherlands Fotomuseum joined forces in ‘Brazil Contemporary’. In 2008 the Groninger Museum invited a number of Chinese artists to present existing works or create new ones in ‘New World Order: Contemporary Installation Art and Photography from China’ (see p. 21).18 The following year it showed ‘Cuba! Kunst en geschiedenis van 1868 tot heden’ (Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to the Present), organised by the 37

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Mariska ter Horst Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in cooperation with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana. These are only a few examples. Not all of them represent a structural revision of the museum programmes. Some seem to look more like items on a checklist of countries to be ‘covered’. Nonetheless, they demonstrate a willingness on the part of Dutch museums to question their former limitation to Western art and explore alternatives.19

One striking characteristic of the exhibitions named is their basis in geography. The main binding factor among the objects on display in a given exhibition is cultural provenance. ‘Now you would be criticised [for building an exhibition around a geographical designation], but at the time a show of this kind was often the first occasion both for the curators and the public to see work by a range of artists.’, says Tessa Jackson, director of London‘s Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva), established in 1994 to address an imbalance in the representation of culturally diverse artists, curators and writers.20 Chris Spring, curator of the Africa department of the British Museum, takes a principled stand against geographic categorisation. ‘Africa is not a country, it is not just a continent, it is an idea, a concept’. Yet he is aware of being caught in a paradox: ‘Many artists do acknowledge that such labels (e.g. African artist) may still be necessary in order to give their works sufficient ‘visibility’ to question the validity of these very labels.’21 At ‘Collecting Without Borders’ a similarly paradoxical situation was touched on

by Nancy Jouwe, programme director of Kosmopolis Utrecht and director of the Papua Cultural Heritage Foundation. She reported on the results of a survey among ‘postcolonial Netherlanders’ — Indonesian Dutchmen, Moluccans, Papuans, Surinamers, Antilleans and Arubans — which showed that the immigrants in question felt that their image in the Dutch media was projected by others rather than themselves and that it was, moreover, inaccurate. The respondents also indicated that they were disregarded by society. This could be alleviated, in their opinion, by a museum for their particular group, but also by a museum dedicated to postcolonial immigration in general, a subject that is hardly dealt with in existing museums. This is a precarious matter, however.

When a separate museum is devoted to a group, the group is isolated, and no one wants to be excluded.22 These considerations lead me to conclude that in organising an exhibition on a certain culture it is imperative to cooperate with art experts or curators from the region and to bring in representatives of the local community as a focus group. Less and less do we find presentations as broad as ‘Black art’ or ‘Asian art’; instead, curators look for more obscure issues and perspectives in order to interrogate existing hierarchies and preconceptions. Acknowledging the complexity and pluriformity of the world, they look increasingly for creative approaches to factors like ‘origins’. One such endeavour is ‘Raising Dust’ (see p. 20), held in the London gallery Calvert 22, which focuses on Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. Curator Richard Appignanesi invited artists to react to the ‘poetry and politics of place’. Most of them came from Eastern Europe, but there were artists from other parts of the world as well, a circumstance that allowed the artists to investigate varying notions of identity and relativity. Appignanesi broached the idea that it 'can be argued that the very idea of Europe is in itself a dislocation, a nomadic horizon which responds differently to the shifting perspectives and desires of its inhabitants’.23 In an obverse parallel to these developments, we find a growth in the number of 38

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Collaboration as a response… galleries and auction houses specialising in art from particular countries or regions.24 This stands in stark contrast to the futile attempts in the 1980s of the auction giants Christie’s and Sotheby’s to set up subsidiaries in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sydney. The economic, social and political climate was simply not ripe.25 There are indeed artists who profit from ‘branding’ of this kind, which furthers recognition and respect while creating a sales market; but they run the risk of being labelled, stigmatised and drummed out of contemporary art discourse.

The first question that arose at ‘Collecting Beyond Borders’ is whether Dutch museums, which have largely bypassed postcolonial discourse, are able to go ‘beyond’ at all. Will they be able to join the ongoing wave of globalisation in art without first examining critically their own colonial history, its meaning and consequences? Opinion was divided.

Many participants doubted whether they were properly equipped to address such complex questions and to translate them into museum practice. They regretted not having been better prepared for this challenge in their education. The training of today’s curators demonstrated a gap where one would expect globalisation to be taught. Even the chapters in the textbooks dealing with ‘non-Western’ art were skipped. (Are they still?) Recently several initiatives came into being to raise academic standards in this regard, which mainly address global and multidisciplinary methodologies.26 No time was taken to tabulate the areas of missing knowledge. The prevailing mood was to push on into the future.

Macha Roesink, director of Museum De Paviljoens, stressed the importance of reaching children at a young age. Roesink, who took up the cudgels for early training in a research project called ‘De Nederlandse identiteit?’ (The Dutch Identity?),27 argued that secondary-school teaching in the arts (as in Cultureel Kunstzinnige Vorming (CKV; cultural artistic education) should be remodelled to take account of the diverse backgrounds of many Dutch schoolchildren. The schools should foster interest in and understanding of different ways of life and cultural and artistic traditions.

The participants agreed that much knowledge is available but that it is insufficiently implemented; more exchange of expertise is called for. One way of helping things along would be the establishment of a ‘kenniscentrum’ — a knowledge centre — but the conference left the concept undefined. Without pretending to answer the epistemological question ‘What is knowledge?’, we can say that it is more than mere information and that the production of knowledge involves more than assembling and presenting information. Knowledge needs to be discussed and analysed critically. New ‘formats’ may be required to allow for the time and space needed for truly democratic exchanges; new ways to distribute knowledge may be called for. Measures that might be considered are: standardising audio recordings of debates and lectures for ready availability on the Internet; digitalisation of exhibitions, collections and bibliographies; converting static websites into interactive resources; providing free copies of certain publications to a worldwide group of knowledge centres. I gladly second the following remark by Marion von Osten: ‘The production and distribution of knowledge, however, is ambivalent and contested not only since recently; it is closely connected with the question of class difference, access to education, and exclusions based on “race” or gender.’28 She reminds and warns us insistently that ‘the subjects of research have long since produced relevant knowledge themselves’. Von Osten — herself an artist as well as a curator — refers as 39

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Mariska ter Horst well to the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari concerning art as a special form of knowledge.

Isabelle Graw emphasises that art is not only a product of knowledge but that it is also based on knowledge of certain things.29 The Dutch word ‘conservator’ — or as they are called in the UK keeper — implies more than simply keeping historical artefacts and works of art. He or she is also responsible for creating knowledge and supplying context. That aspect of the job is implicit in the Latin roots of the word curator, meaning guardian but also leader.

One could say that it was almost traditional for Dutch museums to ignore art from the world beyond Western Europe, rarely exhibiting, least of all collecting it. Many of them were set up in the early 19 th century with the specific aim of highlighting national art and national history. In this regard, they differ from European colleague institutions that had a broader purview from the start. The national museums of the Netherlands were established by the central government, in contrast to the municipal museums, which often owed their origin to private initiative.30 The private collections at their nucleus were formed on the basis of very personal choices, which were built on in later years.31 When a work is acquired by a museum it rises in esteem and value; the museum contributes to the artist’s career. This is a reason for museums to be cautious in their acquisitions, especially of work by young artists with an uncertain future. The situation is exacerbated by the high price of contemporary art, which is largely the result of the postwar entry of auction houses into the market for contemporary art. This is a serious impediment for museums with diminutive and fragmented acquisition budgets. In the Netherlands expensive art is rarely bought in any case, due to the relatively small number of private collectors and the fact that the acquisition budgets provided by the government are paltry.32 Taking the above into consideration, there is every chance that the present interest in global art that we see in conferences, debates and exhibitions will some day evaporate into thin air as so much hype. The examples we have named are mainly exhibitions — an important first step — but they are rarely followed up by serious acquisitions, which stand for long-term commitment and in-depth investment. Not only does an acquisition involve the financial responsibility for purchase, curating and conservation, it also implies that the museum believes that the object adds to the value of its existing holdings and that it has sufficient quality and promise for future presentations.

According to the Dutch subsidising bodies cooperation in the field of acquisitions is not yet taken seriously enough by the museums in the Netherlands and this is regarded as an important item to be taken on in the future. This also came to the fore in the meeting organised on 20 October 2008 by Erfgoed Nederland (The Netherlands Institute for Heritage) and the Mondriaan Foundation: ‘Voor de eeuwigheid? Over collectiebeleid in Nederland’ (For Eternity? On Collection Policy in the Netherlands). An exemplary case in point was the coordination of collection policies by various repositories of Asian ceramics: the Princessehof in Leeuwarden, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Groninger Museum. The Dutch ethnological museums took it upon themselves on their own, in 1998, to form a Stichting Volkenkundige Collecties Nederland (SVCN; Foundation for Ethnological Collections in the Netherlands). On the larger scale of the ‘Collectie Nederland’ — the totality of objects owned by Dutch museums — few museum directors feel the urge to adjust their policies to take account of 40

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Collaboration as a response… what other museums are doing. In the United Kingdom one seems to be more disposed to think in terms of a national collection, or show more concern with national visibility of collections.33 In summation, given the small scale on which Dutch museums collect contemporary global art plus the prevailing attitude towards fine tuning collections, the time has not yet come to coordinate acquisition policies in this regard. Perhaps the present change in attitude foreshadows bigger things to come.

Starting with their own collection, identity, social position and tie with the local community and art world, museums of all kinds are attempting to define their relation to ‘the global’. It goes without saying that museums in the Netherlands now collaborate with each other in certain ways, but especially in tackling the complexities of curatorial issues involved in ‘global contemporary art’, museums may find it helpful to break them down into distinct projects and to deal with them in (structural) collaboration with other institutions. Some examples from the UK serve to illustrate various formats, and perhaps to provide inspiration for the Dutch.

Collaboration makes use of and leads to the formation of personal networks, internationally but also locally. Joined forces make it possible to realise projects beyond ones normal remit. Powerful marketing and PR can reach out to new audiences.

This was evident in the way a large number of institutions in London, such as British Museum, British Council, Hayward Gallery, Tate, Southbank Gallery and October Gallery, collaborated in ‘Africa ’05’, a series of events to celebrate contemporary and past cultures across the continent. One of the highlights was ‘Africa Remix’, an exhibition which featured works by 86 artists from 25 countries and toured worldwide.34 The aim of this unusual but successful collaborative effort of ‘Africa ‘05’ was ‘to offer a diverse array of delivery points and drawing upon a huge variety of specialist expertise. Each component institution is geographically and strategically important, targeting specific audiences. This pan-organisational form of subsidiarity will encourage each partner to play to its strengths by giving participating organisations the freedom to deliver to the sectors they know, in the ways that they know work best, whilst enjoying the benefits of working under a coordinated umbrella of the Africa 2005 bannerhead.’35 Barbican International Enterprises, part of the cultural institution Barbican, works with the Barbican Art Gallery and global partners to develop and tour a broad range of international art exhibitions. Though their prime motivation is financial, Barbican is also driven by the ambition to realise major ‘challenging and accessible’ projects for new, in this case, global audiences. It operates in a wide range of formats. Most exhibitions are produced ‘in house’, but Barbican is sometimes called in by outside bodies to contribute professional expertise to boost an existing plan or project towards blockbuster status.

Interesting in this regard is the format adopted in 2008 by the Serpentine Gallery for the four year touring exhibition ‘Indian Highway’.36 The underlying idea is that all the required knowledge exists in the first place. By pooling networks it is possible to effectuate an exponential growth of knowledge, visions and capabilities among individuals and communities, a true win-win situation. Artists develop new contacts as their work circulates throughout the world; institutions learn to navigate local channels and thereby acquire new information quickly and efficiently. Because the curatorial concept 41

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Mariska ter Horst is produced by joint effort, each participating institution sharpens its thinking, while no one has to worry about the ‘authorship’ of the project. Besides this, each host institution made its own choice from the available displays and provided the exhibition with a narrative of its own, to tie in with the local context.

‘Contested Terrains’ (2011) is another exhibition that emerged from direct international collaboration: Tate Modern and the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Lagos. The show was co-curated, with both partners agreeing on a single presentation that matched the needs of localities as far removed from each other as London and Lagos.

An example on quite a different model, founded in 2009 is L’Internationale, a longterm collaboration between five art institutions that are sharing holdings, archives and expertise: Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; Museu d‘Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp (M HKA); and the Július Koller Society, Bratislava. The project ‘aims to investigate local-to-local correspondence among cultural institutions, to instigate transnational, plural cultural narratives and, ultimately, to challenge common canons and dominant narratives of art history’.37 Collaboration calls for a measure of transparency. You have to know the historical and current contexts of the partner museums as well as their future plans. Militating against this ideal is the unfortunate tendency of museums to keep their policy plans to themselves. The display of collections in the galleries and on the Internet is generally limited to the top items, with the bulk of the holdings sequestered in depots and databases.

Transparency might be seen as a risky proposition, in a time when knowledge carries a hefty price tag. They are caught on the horns of a dilemma ‘between ownership as key to profit-making, and collaborative or interactive work as essential to the production of knowledge’.38 The optimal cooperation is a mutual process of learning and reflecting.

Preconditions for success are engagement, joint responsibility and input and a common starting point and/or target. Trust, solidarity and shared passion are indispensable for fruitful collaboration; we speak of ‘institutions’, but we are dealing with individuals and their mutual relations. In all respects — whether practical, financial, intellectual or idealistic — I believe that particularly in these times of government withdrawal from the arts the way forward is cooperation: interdisciplinary, international and intermuseum. notes 1 Hans Belting draws this crucial distinction: ‘Global art is no longer synonymous with modern art. It is by definition contemporary, not just in a chronological but also, as we will see, in a symbolic or even ideological sense. It is both represented and distorted by an art market whose strategies are not just economic mechanisms when crossing cultural borders, but strategies to channel art production in directions for which we

still lack sufficient categories.’ Hans Belting.

‘Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate.’ In: Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg (eds.).The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2009, pp. 38–73, p. 39.

2 In my opinion certain initiatives are definitely progressive and worth mentioning, but please don’t misinterpret this as a glorification of the UK, which has its own struggles such as

ongoing class and race differences.

3 Respectively: Tresses and Summer Collection 1999.

4 Note however that work by the Dutch artist Roy Villevoy on such themes as exoticism and post-colonialism has since been acquired by Museum Volkenkunde, Bonnefantenmuseum, museumgoudA, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Tropenmuseum and Museum De Lakenhal.

5 This statement is based on interviews

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Collaboration as a response… with curators held in the summer of 2009 during the preparations for ‘Collecting Without Borders’. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen affirms on its website that a visit to the collection ‘is like a trip through the history of Western art’.

‘Global art’ seems no longer to interest the Gemeentemuseum, which in 1991 was a trendsetter with ‘Rhizome’.

6 From a personal interview on 7 July 2010, when Niru Ratnam was still director of Aicon. Aicon is a commercial gallery in London and New York, with a scope that ‘begins in the Indian Subcontinent but reaches outwards internationally from there’, see http://www.aicongallery.com/.

7 Daniel Birnbaum and Isabelle Graw (eds.). The Power of Judgment. Sternberg Press, Berlin, New York, 2010, p. 42.

8 Leo Steinberg. Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1972, p. 64.

9 Iain Robertson. A New Art from Emerging Markets. Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2011, pp. 7, 8.

10 I am thinking of artists like Rachid Koraïchi and Golnaz Fathi.

The British Museum has less trouble with this combination of qualities. It owns work by both artists.

11 From an interview with Tanya Barson, curator of International Art at Tate Modern, 28 May 2010.

12 Chris Spring. Angaza Afrika.

Laurence King Publishing, London, 2008, pp. 126–127.

13 Fieke Konijn. ‘Presentatie in kunstmusea na de Tweede Wereldoorlog’ (Postwar Presentations in Art Museums). In: Kabinetten, galerijen en musea. (Cabinets, Galleries and Museums). Uitgeverij Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, pp. 415–452, p. 417.

14 Kai Hammermeister. Gadamer. Lemniscaat, Rotterdam, 2002, pp. 47, 78–80.

15 Curated by Kitty Zijlmans, see this volume.

16 ‘Desire’, Remy Jungerman, 2009; ‘KABK -> ZL (RE)FOUND(ED)’; ‘SUPERFLEX Porcelain Pirates’, both 2009/2010.

17 ‘Africa Reflected’ (2009) en project ‘1975’ (2010–2012).

18 The intention of the Groninger Museum to broaden its horizons and to take in China was expressed in Beleidsplan Groninger Museum 2009-2012: Extrovert en veelkleurig (Policy Groninger Museum 2009–2012: Extrovert and Multicoloured), p. 13. http://www.groningermuseum.nl/ sites/groningermuseum.nl/files/press/GM_ BELEIDSPLAN_2009_2012_low.pdf. On

the other hand, the museum has recently taken leave of its collection of Aboriginal art, acquired by Frans Haks, transferring it to the AAMU in Utrecht. See the article in this volume by Georges Petitjean.

19 Not included in this overview are exhibiting organisations without a collection of their own. Worth mentioning are: GEMAK, which since 2007 has focused on topical and controversial themes in art, politics and society worldwide, and which organises discussions and offers residencies (www.gemak.org); Photofestival Noorderlicht, which starting in 2000 has been originating truly large international travelling exhibitions, of which those every second year are ‘on photography from a non-Western region, in which not “our” vision, but the peculiar vision of the photographers from the region was definitive’ (www.noorderlicht.com); UNFIXED Projects started in 2010 to investigate ‘photography’s relationship to ideas of ethnicity, culture and identity in contemporary art’ (www.unfixedprojects.org).

20 Iniva creates exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research projects engaging with new ideas and emerging debates in the contemporary visual arts which reflect the diversity of contemporary society, see http://www.iniva.org/.

21 Interviews on 27 July 2010 and 20 May 2010.

22 Gert Oostindie and Fridus Steijlen.

‘Enquête resultaten postkoloniale Nederlanders, voorjaar 2009.’ (Survey Results Postcolonial Dutch, Spring 2009). Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Landen en Volkenkunde (KITLV; Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies of Leiden University), Leiden, 2009.

23 http://www.calvert22.org/e/ exhibition-programme/raising-dust/.

24 A few examples: Canvas International, Willem Baars Projects and Galerie23 in Amsterdam; Selma Feriani Gallery, Rose Issa Projects, Michael Goedhuis Gallery, Tiwani Contemporary and Jack Bell Gallery in London.

25 Janet Rady in a personal interview, 20 May 2010. www.janetradyfineart.com.

26 Examples are the rise of World Art Studies at University of Leiden; Postcolonial Studies at the University of Utrecht, see http://www.postcolonialstudies.nl/; the recently instituted interdisciplinary Ph.D. and Post Doc programmes on the BRIC countries at the University of Amsterdam; Susan Legêne, professor of political history at the VU, Amsterdam with

courses such as migration studies; various initiatives in the context of the Master Museology at the Reinwardt Academy.

27 In this project Museum De Paviljoens shows that Dutch art after 1960 can be analysed as a set of parallel histories.

Social developments such as immigration, interculturality, new towns and the colonial and post-colonial part of the Netherlands – all seen in international context – come into their own as formative elements in the Dutch identity. http:// www.depaviljoens.nl/page/14835/nl.

28 Maria Hlavajova, Jill Winder and Binna Choi (eds.). On Knowledge Production: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art. BAK, Utrecht, 2008, p. 124.

29 Daniel Birnbaum and Isabelle Graw (eds.), 2010, p. 41.

30 Ellinoor Bergvelt. ‘Tussen geschiedenis en kunst: Nederlandse nationale kunstmusea in de negentiende eeuw.’ In: Kabinetten, galerijen en musea. Uitgeverij Waanders, 2005, pp. 343–372, p. 343.

31 Nor should the influence of individual museum directors and curators be overlooked in studying the formation of the collections of municipal and state museums alike. An eloquent statement of this proposition can be found in a publication of the Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, Een collectie is ook maar een mens (A collection is only human).

NAi Uitgevers, Rotterdam, 1999.

32 James Goodwin (ed.). The International Art Markets. Kogan Page, London & Philadelphia, 2008, p. 228.

33 This attitude has a long prehistory: the British Museum Association was established as early as 1889, and in 1929 a National Museum Director’s Conference (NMDC) was held ‘in anticipation of a Royal Commission recommendation that the national collections should coordinate their work and discuss matters of mutual concern’. The Netherlands Museum Association, founded 30 years later in 1926, has a less proactive mission: to come up for the interests of museums, provide a forum for discussion and other facilitary services, and to strengthen the image of the museum. A current example of the British efforts to create national collections of importance is the serious funding of five partnerships of national museums and galleries to build international contemporary art collections by the Art Fund, thereby showing a preference for themes such as urbanisation, diversity, migration, conflict zones. (http://www.

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Mariska ter Horst artfund.org/grants/art-fund-international) 34 The works were made between 1994 and 2004 by autodidacts and formally trained artists, from the continent or diaspora. Head curator was Simon Njami (see essay pp. 146–152) and toured to the following institutes: Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf; Hayward Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Johannesburg.

35 Working papers of ‘Africa ‘05’.

36 The show came into being in cooperation with the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo and with many artists and specialists from India. Every venue paid a fee, which helped to cover at least part of the disbursements of the organisers.

37 http://internacionala.mg-lj.si.

38 Maria Hlavajova, Jill Winder and Binna Choi (eds.), 2008, p. 11.

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