Maria Lind, "Learning From Art and Artists" - doublesession

LEARNING FROM ART AND ARTISTS 

Selected by Brian Kuan Wood 

The starting point for LEARNING FROM ART AND ARTISTS was 

Moderna Museet Projekt, a series of twenty-nine commissioned 

projects organized by the Moderna Museet between 1998 and 2001. 

Some of these projects used a temporary project space in a former 

vicarage next door to the main museum building, while others took 

place elsewhere-including inside the museum, but almost exclusively 

in its "in-between spaces," such as the lobby, a corridor, the museum 

shop, or as interventions into the display of the collection. The text 

is based on a presentation at a conference on the future of curating, 

organized by the New Ar1 Gallery Walsall and the University of 

Wolverhampton in 2000. lt was first published in Curating in the 21st 

Century edited by Gavin Wade, and published by New Art Gallery 

Walsall in 2001. 

235. LFARNING FROM ARTAND ARTISTS

Located next to the l/oderna 

Museet's main bui¡ding in 

Stockholm, The Mcarage 

served as the temporary projæt 

space of ¡/oderna Museet 

ProjeK from 1 998 to 2000 

ANNIKA ERIKSSON, 

COLLECTORS,1998 

Exhibition view at 

Moderna Museet Projekt. 



Video installation, five 

single-channel video 

loops, each 20 min. 

Kr¡st¡na Björk collects pictures of 

Esther Will¡ams. 


COLLECTORS, l99B 




Andreas Hammar collæts vidæ 

games and old computeß 

236 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 237. LEARNING FROM ARTAND ARTISTS 

l,'t Tr. l.rfitcr but .r[w (ìtd ((ìnìputcr..

ANN¡KA ERIKSSON, 





Bengt Forslund collects devils 


COLLECTORS, l99B 

Collectors meet 

with members of 

the Samlarförbundet 

Nordstjärnan (Nor1h star 

collectors' association) 

outside the Moderna 

Museet's main entrance. 

HINRICH SACHS, ANNA 

GILI, DESIGNER, VISITS 

HINRICH SACHS, 1998 

Poster as part of 

Hinrich Sachs's Anna 

Gili, designeç vìsits 

Hinrich Sachs. 




Live portraÌt at the 

business travelers' lounge 

of Stockholm's Central 

Train Station, seen here in 

the background from the 

main hall area. 

238 SELECTED N1ARIA LIND WRITING 23S. LEARNING FROI\,4 ART AND AFTISTS

240 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 




Live portrait at the 

business travelers, lounge 

of Stockholm's Central 

Train Station, seen here 

from inside the lounge. 




Anna Gili's armchair 

Tonda, designed for a 

television program in ltaly, 

and examples of her 

glass design. 




Vitrine containing 

samples of Anna Gili's 

glass designs and the 

ingredients of her favorite 

drink, limoncello. 




Lamp designed by Anna 

Gili and a recorded 

interview with Gili by 

Hinrich Sachs. 

241 LEARNING FROM ART AND ARTISTS

LEARNING FROM ART AND ARTISTS 

ln summer of 1999, travelers using the business lounge of 

Stockholm's central train station found themselves in a portrait of 

the well-known ltalian designer, Anna Gili. The poftrait took the form 

of a rather discrete installation containing not a single image of its 

subject, but instead comprising her work the Tonda armchair, a lamp, 

and several vases, some personal belongings such as a book and 

a pair of sunglasses and the ingredients of limoncello, her favorite 

drink. Hinrich Sachs's work in Citysalongen Anna Gili, designer, visits 

Hinrich Sachs, provides an interesting example of how contemporary 

art wants to, and can, infiltrate reality. lt exemplifies a desire to escape 

the institutional framework and the traditional relationship between 

art and its audience-in this case becoming something to stumble 

over rather than consume in a neatly packaged form. The location of 

the central station was carefully chosen, considering the impoftance 

of mobility and communication nowadays, as well as the designer's 

particular approach to this phenomenon. Visitors could listen to a 

recording of the artist interviewing Anna Gili, who discusses her views 

on design, our relationship to material things in today's nomadic 

environment, and what it is like to be a woman in the male-dominated 

design world, among other subjects. 

How can one combine skepticism with enthusiasm? Affirmation 

with criticism? Openness with precision? A focus on a part and on 

the whole? However vague, these are important questions both 

for contemporary art and for those of us who work with it. They 

influence my general practice as a curator at the Moderna Museet, 

and specifically inform two of the projects I would like to discuss 

here: Moderna Museet Projekt (of which Hinrich Sachs's work was a 

part) and "What lf: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design." I will 

look at the role of institutions in relation to curating in the twenty-first 

century-i.e., here and now-and how I think we can learn from aft 

and artists. 

When one tries to couple contemporary art with art institutions such 

as museums, what takes shape appears to be a paradox, something 

that Gerlrude Stein pointed out when she said, "You can be a 

museum, or you can be modern, but you can't be both." The kind of 

contemporary art I have in mind is art in the expanded field, art that, 

like Hinrich Sachs's work, moves out of the white cube and outside 

243 LEARNING FROM ARTANDARTISTS

the institutions, that wants to interfere with and intervene in the 

surrounding reality through an orientation towards the everyday. 

When it is not downright critical of institutions, it wants to simply avoid 

the solemnity and stasis that often characterize them. This kind of art 

works on a small scale without too many overarching assumptionsit 

has to do with testing a model or prototype while focusing on 

concrete situations, processes and effects, services and actions. lt 

is rarely studio-based and often requires production by professionals 

other than the artist. These artists are exploring art as a testing ground 

for work whose implications go far beyond the realm of art, and they 

are doing it in a challenging way. 

These processes have been circulating in art production over the 

last forty years, and although some have made their mark on the 

institutions and their way of functioning, they are still not 

acknowledged to the degree that one would expect. How can we 

today show these often ephemeral projects in institutional exhibition 

spaces? First of all, I believe that we need to distinguish between 

the occasion at which process-based projects take place and their 

afterlife, their documentation. I am unsure that a more classical 

approach to documenting projects with photographs and text belongs 

in an exhibition, just as it has been problematic with conceptual 

art's afterlife. Perhaps these function better in a publication or on a 

Web site. But more impoftantly, I think that we have to get used to 

pronouncing the words "showing" and "exhibition" less frequently. An 

institution is still primarily thought of as a showroom, and exhibitions 

are still taken for granted as being the natural way of dealing with 

art. ln reality, an exhibition is just one way of working with art among 

many. Just as so many artists use the medium and technique relevant 

to the questions they ask, so do we also have to ask which format for 

presenting work is relevant to their works. 

ln conjunction with the inauguration of the Moderna Museet's new 

building (designed by Rafael Moneo) in February of 1998, we began 

a new initiative entitled Moderna Museet Projekt, or MMP.1 When 

I started working as a curator at the Moderna Museet towards the 

end of 1997, I had a basic question: How is it possible to work with 

1 Unt¡l June 2000, the artists who have participated in Moderna [/useet Prcjekt have been: l\¡ar¡a Lindberg, 

Koo Jeong-A, Peter Geschw¡nd (Centre Culturel Suédois à Paris), Annika Er¡kson, Eriks Bozis (Hötorget, 

Stockholm), Tobias Rehberger, Emese Benczúr (Skeppsholmen, Stockholm), Fanni N¡emi-Junkola, S¡mon 

Starl¡ng, Apolonia SuéterÉ¡¿, Miriam Bäckström, Matts Leideßtam (Centre Culturel Suálois à Paris), Ann 

Lislegaard, Jason Dodge, Douglas Gordon, Honoré d'O (¡n the lobby of the museum's ma¡n building), Tor- 

Magnus Lundeby, Magnus Wa¡l¡n, and Claire Barclay. 

244 SELECTED MAFIA LIND WRITING 

contemporary ar1 in this context? How can I be sensitive to the 

logic of this practice and still avoid letting the institution dominate? 

How does one combine this pafticular institutional framework with 

the surprise, questioning, contemplation, and problematization that 

define contemporary arT? Thanks to the suppott of David Elliott, the 

director of the museum at the time, I drew up an outline for MMP as 

a completely new activity for addressing several different ways of 

working with contemporary art, from having classic retrospectivessuch 

as that of Cecilia Edefalk-to curated group shows such 

as "After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe," 

"Organising Freedom: Nordic Artists of the '90s" and "What lf: Art on 

the Verge of Architecture and Design." 

As such, MMP becomes a contribution to an ongoing discussion 

about the function and the role of the museum: ls its sole purpose 

really to display and mediate art? Or should the museum function as 

a production site and distribution channel as well? And if so, how can 

we make that happen? We have chosen to see the Moderna Museet 

as all of these things; we feel that we should not only reflect that 

which already exists, but also contribute to the creation of new art. 

We should, among other things, play the role of midwife to emerging 

art-allowing art and artists to inform the museum-which becomes 

increasingly important when one considers how much contemporary 

art is difficult or even impossible to sell. 

Since many aftists reach out to the surrounding reality beyond art 

institutions, we thought it suitable to not bind the projects to the 

museum's new building, but rather to shadow the artists, to follow 

them art out of the museum's walls. However, this also indicates 

how important it is to realize that, like other museums, the Moderna 

Museet is not synonymous with the museum building itself. lnstead, 

the Moderna Museet should be seen as the sum of its activities, 

whether indicated by the extension of the MMP to wherever the adist 

wishes to work, or the work of the Moderna Museet lnternational 

Programme, responsible for Sweden's pafticipation in international 

exhibitions such as the Venice and São Paulo biennials. Put another 

way, a museum is a complex communication structure. 

ln this way, the MMP became a satellite whose orbit sometimes 

brought it close to the museum, if not inside, and at other times sent 

it far away. Adists are invited to visit us before the MMP begins, often 

more than once, in order to acquaint themselves with the institution, 

245. LEARNING FROM ABTANDARTISTS

the city, and to a certain extent the cultural scene as well. So far, the 

artists have come in yearly groups, and since MMp can be likened 

to a group exhibition extended in time rather than in space, it is 

important that the participants get a sense of their context by meeting 

each other and learning about each other,s work. Following each 

MMP, the new works are documented visually with an accompanying 

text in a small catalogue produced in both English and Swedish. 

ln the summer of 1998, Annika Eriksson filled the assembly hall of 

Prästgården (the Vicarage)-a small, intimate building close to the 

museum's main entrance-with twenty collectors for the production 

of her video-based work collectors (samlare). Like all artists invited 

to work in the MMB the Moderna Museet offered Eriksson a fee, a 

production budget, and a great deal of practical assistance in bringing 

her work to fruition. Through the samlarförbundet Nordstjärnan (North 

star collectors' organization) and various friends and acquaintances, 

Eriksson met various people who collect everything from piggybanks, 

pocketknives, film posters, and action figures to Barbie dolls and 

Kinder eggs. She asked if she could visit these people at home to 

document their stories of how they began collecting, how they go 

about collecting, what their collections mean to them, and so for1h. 

The subjects were asked to compose their own shots themselves, 

and after listening to them for a while, one finds this form of pure 

documentary to become not only poetic, but also remarkably 

existential. collectors became a powerful piece of work about how we 

choose to give order to our lives. ln collaboration with North sta¡ the 

artist also arranged three so-called "collector's meetings" outside the 

museum's main entrance, where collectors could come and display 

their collections and sell or swap items. This wonderfully reflected the 

Moderna Museet's approach to collecting, as well as the nature of 

the museum's collection itself, with the private-and sometimes even 

eccentric-alongside the very public. And Collectors became one 

of several works made for MMP that entered the Moderna Museet,s 

collection. 

At a time when much art is moving away from institutions or only 

maintains a loose connection to them, and when it seems difficult 

to find new models to apply when discussing contemporary art, the 

unavoidable question that arises is: Does this kind of contemporary 

ad even need the institutions at all? Can this art not communicate 

directly with the audience? Have the institutions become redundant? 

While the role of art institutions has been questioned constantly 

246. SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 

over the last forty years, the discussion still remains highly pertinent. 

Beyond Foucault's well-known research into the regulátive function 

of prisons, schools, hospitals, and museums, Habermas'opinion 

that they comprise the foundation for the development of democracy 

remains probably the most influential formulation. 

To further consider the pressing issue of how to work with 

contemporary art from within an institution, I would like to mention 

the ideas of Roberto Mangabeira unger, a social theorist and activist, 

as well as a professor of law at Harvard. Though his political attitude 

can sometimes be a bit awkward, he takes a refreshing approach 

to institutions. ln his book Democracy Realized: The Progressive 

Alternative, he discusses practical alternatives to neoliberalism and 

social democracy, stressing the need for institutional change, a kind 

of institutional experimentalism in which imagination is central.2' ln 

times when demands for high numbers of visitors and emphasis on 

outreach programs and audience-friendly work threaten to eclipse art, 

these experimental approaches become all the more pressing' 

Beyond the obvious archival function of gathering our collective 

memories, I believe we still need art institutions to act as platforms 

for experimental art. However, the institutions must become more 

flexible and heterogeneous, just as art itself is, and those of us who 

work in institutions must be more imaginative. The institutions must 

be capable of renewing and reinventing both their own formats and 

their audiences on a regular basis. Those of us who work within their 

frameworks must refine our strategies and our methods of address. 

The paradox that I mentioned earlier only becomes a deadlock when 

institutions conform exclusively to the routines of functioning as a 

showroom and an archive. 

Most of the methods and strategies I have mentioned are closely 

related to those of artists themselves. I think while working with 

art in general, and especially within institutions, we can benefit 

tremendously by looking at artists and learning from their ways of 

working. of course this is not a new idea: even in the '1 920s Alexander 

Dorner, as director of the Landesmuseum in Hanover, turned to both 

Theo van Doesburg and El Lisstzky for the installation of Room for 

constructive Art. The latter then completed the Abstract cabinet in 

1927. As the director of the Moderna Museet in the 1960s, Pontus 

Hultén was unusually open to influences from pop art and artists' 

2. Robefto Mangabe¡ra unget Democracy Real¡zed: The Progressive Alternative (London: verso, 1 998) 

247. LEARNING FROM ARTANDABTISTS

É 

Even an estabrishment institution rike MoMA craims to have a serious 

engagement. in contempo rary arl. rts mission statement from 1 gg7 

says "that it is essentiar to affirm the impoftance of contemporary 

art and artists if the museum is to honor the ¡oears wiirr which it was 

founded and to remain vitaland engaged with the present.,,And 

it continues by saying that ,,this commitment to contempo rary aft 

enrivens and informs our evorving understanding of the traditions of 

modern aft.', 

rt is arguabre whether or not MoMA's statement is mere rip service. 

need for openness and sensitivity 

certain kind of contemporary art, 

can provide interesting models 

dispray it, but arso ro, ,"oi"tl5i:"?,i: Hï1""1,,l"å,åoq:::ï"#,,u 

historicaily often emerged from the institutionat critique oiartists 

such as Daniel Buren, Hans Haacke, Fred Wilson, nÅ¿rea Fraser, 

and many others. Site_specific work, at least according to Miwon 

Kwon, also grew out of their work and attitudes, even when more 

site-oriented than site-specific. Just as these figures furthered the 

discussion in their time, so can we rearn a tremendous amount from 

our own contemporaries. 

shorry after the inauguration of the new Moderna Museet buirding, 

a ritte boy came to visit the museum with his mother. upon entering 

the buirding, he suddenry excraimed, "Mommy, this rooks rike Arranda 

airport!" Not onry was he perfectry correct, but he essentiaty quoted 

one of the Swedish critics who commented on the new buirding as 

being somewhat monumentar, with an authoritarian feer to it. rt is 

arso a prace where security is top priority, not reast since the "Rifif¡" 

burgrary in November 1gg3 when some burgrars broke in through 

picassos and Braques, only to Oe tong 

arrived.3. lt is nowadays a heavily guaøeO 

ere the collection can be safely þrotected 

s something in 

invited to MMB 

e reers controred ""üldhqil:,, 

carrying anything itegar, you worry about the security.-tnis became 

3' The inc¡dent was nicknamed after the 1955 French film R¡fifi, ¡n which the same method was used 

248 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 

the starting point for a new piece called Fold M to M, which enters 

into a dialogue with the building. He pasted white cotton on the 

glass walls and doors of one of several "in-between spaces" in the 

museum and hung some indirectly interactive elements from the 

ceiling that were activated by the automatic doors, which in turn react 

to the movements of visitors. Compared to the rest of the museum, 

this zone had a radically different atmosphere. An X-ray machine 

typically encountered in airport securlty checks was turned towards 

the viewers in the lobby, who were encouraged to put their bags and 

belongings on the belt to be scanned. You could even take an X-ray 

printout of your bag. This unexpectedly user-friendly control device 

was also the foundation for a video monitor showing d'O's personal 

video diary from Stockholm, which included a number of things you 

normally don't do in a museum. ln the beginning of the project, those 

who were attentive could also see a little black box hanging right 

outside the museum entrance as if coming down from the sky-a 

piece of magic, seemingly from nowhere. 

The contemporary work that I like to think of as an interesting model 

for how to work with art from the point of view of an institution is, 

like d'O's work, better described as context-sensitive rather than 

site-specific. lt is not necessarily fixed to a site, and is often more 

inquisitive than provocative, more sensitive than specific. Furthermore, 

this kind of work often contains a critique of the institution, but 

whereas the earlier work of the artists mentioned tends to take a 

rather negative approach, is the work that interests me tends to be 

more constructive. lt is about skepticism and enthusiasm, affirmation 

and critique at the same time. While the older generation "broke the 

ice," so to speak, with its confrontational polemic stance, today it is 

easier to be more nuanced, smart, and sensitive. 

These are also issues that Apolonija Su5terðiö considered prior to 

her MMP in the winter of 1999. After considering how ad museums 

function today, with up to 60 percent of their floor space dedicated to 

activities other than exhibitions, and being financially dependent on 

sideshows such as guided tours, film shows, children's workshops, 

restaurants, and gift shops, and after having experienced Sweden's 

winter darkness and hearing people talk of winter depression, she 

transformed Prästgården into a fully functional light therapy center 

(see images on pages 328-29). Light therapy is used both medically 

and commercially in order to cure winter depression, and Suðteréic's 

center followed the exact guidelines for installing a fully functioning 

249 LEARNING FROM ABT AND ARTISTS

vers¡on of one-the interior was as white as possible, the benches 

and other furniture were designed by suöterðiö (who is both an artist 

and an architect), and contact with the lamps should be avoided. A 

smail ribrary was praced at the back of the room and contained books 

about light on one side, and books on museum architecture and 

museology on the other.a. 

Light rherapy is without a doubt the MMps biggest success so far in 

terms of attendance arone. And, to a rarge extent, this success is due 

to the advertisements we ran in the dairy newspapers, advertisements 

that concentrated more on light therapy tnan art. Light Therapy was 

intended as a contribution to the discussion about what musLúms 

have to do to generate attendance numbers, which is partry rerated to 

the pursuit of money and a certain type of legitimacy. òne óan Uegin 

to wonder whether aft and museums have finally been incorporaiàO 

industry but whatever the case, Light Therapy 

ntervention in the Moderna Museet,s program 

ever, that it r as a non-commercial intervãntion, 

free to the public, and potentially beneficial to our health. 

Another thing I think we can learn from aft, which is part of Sachs, 

Eriksson, d'O, and öuðter5iö's work, is mediation. A certain amount 

of this kind of work is about communication, or it contains aspects 

of it: it is, so to speak, inbuirt. At the same time, r berieve that the aft 

that the MMP works with, as well as other contemporary art, suffers 

from two different, yet related, problems. The first is the righi to be 

advanced, speciarized, comprex, unobtrusive, and even "Ãonyror" 

when required-the rig.ht to be supported by institutions eveíif onry 

one single "participant', can and is willing to take part in it. This is 

art as research, comparable to research in theoretical physics or 

biochemistry-where each individuar step may be incomprehensibre 

to all but a limited group of people, yet still has to be done in order 

for the whole to be realized. The second problem has more to do 

with unnecessary wastefurness, with freeting or missed oppòrtunities, 

which, in hindsight, will undoubtedly prove to b" on" of the most 

burning questions in art today. rt concerns the fact that current art 

pedagogy, at reast in scandinavia, remains based on the modernist 

art paradigm-ideas such as formal analysis and sensory absorption 

that stem from an understanding of art "å "n ""pr""sive endeavor, 

and which serdom functions arongside other art. r berieve that it is 

of the utmost importance that we develop new models and tools 

4 Sæ page 327 in this book. 

250. SELECTED N¡ARIA LIND WRITING 

for describing and relating to the type of art that I have discussed, 

whether it inside or outside of institutional walls. ln addition, 

these models and tools should allow the art found both within 

the institutional framework and outside of it to be compared and 

described in separate and distinct ways. 

Furthermore, the moment to do these things is now. Today, much of 

contemporary art speaks a language that the majority of people living 

in the West have access to-especially the younger generations, 

but even the older generations as well. We automatically receive a 

degree of literacy through television and other media. ln addition, 

this art often addresses that which we experience in our daily lives, 

events both large and small. lt is, quite simply, the quintessential 

contemporary form of expression, and it is genuinely multidisciplinary. 

Art encompasses all other forms of expression and understanding: 

sociology, religion, philosophy, politics, literature, film, theater, music, 

and so forth-everything can be incorporated in art today. Att, 

therefore, has probably never been as accessible to non-professionals 

as it is now, despite the fact that, without giving it much attention, 

many still describe it as difficult and hard to understand. With 

patience and concentration, even untrained observers-or ratheç 

participants-can go quite far into aft on their own. With new forms of 

guidance, they can go even fufther. 

Even regarding our professional exchange and mediation I sense a 

widespread need to develop new models for symposia, seminars, 

publishing, etc. The traditional formats don't seem to function 

anymore; the desired exchange rarely takes place, a book gives 

more than a conference, criticism becomes repetitive, etc. Again, 

I think we should listen more to what artists suggest. lt is essential 

to be sensitive to the logic of individual aft projects-to follow them 

and learn from them, to let them exist in the ways that are right for 

them, to not force them into exhibition spaces unless this is what 

they explicitly require. We have to carefully consider whether they can 

be shown at all. lf not, we need to find an appropriate context and 

situation, and if so, we need to pay a lot of attention to how the art is 

displayed or how it is allowed to emerge. 

Contemporary art is a heterogeneous affai¡ and in general its 

spaces and organizations need to be flexible, yet unfoftunately this 

is still a rare quality in institutions. One of the major challenges for 

institutions today is in fact an administrative/bureaucratic one: we 

251 LEARNING FFOI\,4 ART AND AFTISTS

cannot cont¡nue to dutifully fill gallery space within the timeframes 

dictated by institutions. rn order to avoid cementing exhibition 

routines, which basically destroys the possibility for hosting ceftain 

kinds of aft and artists, we have to be more flexible in terms of how 

the spaces are used, and with what kind of rhythm. why not turn the 

tables every once in a while, as Rirkrit Tiravanija does, and use the 

exhibition space for discussions and a temporary cafê? other things 

can then happen in the museum recture hall and the museum café. 

what if certain parls of a museum were rented out to host completely 

different activities, and the income was then used to investigate new 

models for working with contemporary art, for instance to expand 

underdeveloped areas such as the mediation of contemp orary arl? 

Everything from budgets to timetables to staff tasks to uses of space 

has to be reconsidered. A pertinent example can be seen in the fact 

th yet considered mandatory, and they ought 

to go. But in the midst of this necessary 

cr should not forget to use and benefit from 

them-if only from their srowness and relative stability. when speed 

is heightened everywhere in society and time for contemplation and 

reflection is scarce, we should take the opportunity to make space 

for these qualities within the institutions by making them serve our 

purposes, for instance by establishing think tanks and other forms 

of exchange. 

Another example in which art and artists have played a crucial role 

for the development of the project in question is the exhibition ,.what 

lf: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design.,' lt contains three 

a, 

rature 

features: its interest in architecture and design. Artists cannibalize 

these kindred disciplines for formaristic purposes, and in order to 

reflect and question the concrete, designed rearity that surrounds 

us. The project's three symposia, or ,,listen-ins,', take place in the 

exhibition hall, with architects and designers, city planners and artists, 

strategists and theoreticians presented side-by-side, giving short 

presentations and participating in discussions together.s. 

5. The thræ listen-ins were deveroped ¡n cooperat¡on w¡th the arch¡tæt and researcher urrika Karrson 

252. SELECTED i/ABIA LIND WRITING 

The ideas behind "What lf" have primarily developed from thinking 

about art-through works of art I have experienced as well as 

numerous conversations with artists-as opposed to architecture 

or design per se. After working on ideas for the exhibition, I turned 

to the artist Liam Gillick, whose work has long stimulated my own 

curiosity about the interface between art, architecture, and design 

(the title of the exhibition has been borrowed from his work, The 

What lf? Scenario). Together we decided that in order to deepen the 

discussion, it would be exciting to bring together a number of artists 

who have been intensively occupied with the question of why artists 

turn towards architecture and design, and the implications of this turn. 

We wanted to test a slightly different curatorial process, not only in 

terms of the possible influence of the artists, but also in the timing and 

rhythm of the exhibition. 

Miriam Bäckström, Jason Dodge, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, 

Jorge Pardo, Tobias Rehberger, Apolonija Suðterðiö, and Rirkrit 

Tiravanija were then invited to Stockholm in August 1999. lt became 

a straightforward gathering full of conversations-the classic panel 

discussion took place before the project rather than after it, and was 

consequently able to influence the realization of "What lf." ldeas 

about shifting scales and reflexivity were some of the notions that 

crystallized in the discussions, which touched upon the specificity 

of contexts that call for other proportions, as well as the use of 

architecture and design by artists in order to pose further questions, 

rather than to simply express interest in architecture and design alone. 

Architecture and design can function as critical mirrors for a social/ 

cultural state of affairs, in which one thing can help us to discover 

something else altogether. After the meeting in Stockholm I chose the 

rest of the aftists. Gillick's role for the project as a whole has been that 

of a filter-particularly for the exhibition. 

There has been much writing and discussion about the crossover 

tendencies of contemporary art in the 1990s, with adists moving into 

other spheres and borrowing from, among other things, film, music, 

and science. As always, art does not develop in a vacuum, and within 

a wider academic/artistic/intellectual field there are many similar 

interests-from Julia Kristeva's own interdisciplinary adventures 

and repugnant, abject leakages and the re-launching of Oswald de 

Andrade's positively charged manifest for cultural cannibalism, to 

Slavoj ZiZek's own activities within such diverse areas as politics, 

psychoanalysis, and Hollywood film. This flourishing of hybrids 

253 LEARNING FRON¡ ARTANDARTISTS

is undoubtedly a phenomenon typical of our time, and one that 

spans broad areas. lt is a cultural condition involving a wide range 

of political, economic, social, and demographic developments on 

both global and local levels. And in many cases it is heralded as a 

progressive and potentially emancipatory activity, with the dissolution 

of boundaries being seen as something positive in and of itself. 

Within ad, architecture, and design now, there are indeed several 

common questions. while moving increasingly over genre boundaries 

and between subject areas, one is forced to relate and adjust to new 

places and scales. Artists assume the role of a planner or designe¡ 

borrowing and sampling from different disciplines such as urban 

planning, architecture, product design, graphic design, and fashion. 

outside of architecture, there is an interest in questions of site, place, 

and space, the private and the public, and also in trends, lifestyles, 

fashion, and in reformulating relationships to tradition. while the first 

listen-in, "Shifting Places, Shifting Scales,, looks at how the different 

disciplines have grown out of their traditional roles and have begun 

working their way into others, the second listen-in, ,,ls Everything a 

Product?" concentrates on design practices and branding. "Urban 

Situations" is the title of the third and last listen-in, which deals 

with various concerns with the city and city planning, in how new 

technology can affect citizen participation and direct democracy. 

The exhibition publication functions in parallelwith the project 

rather than as a guide or explanation. Designed by the artist pae 

White, the table of contents, essays, artist contributions, and photo 

documentation, are all printed as A3-size posters collected in a 

specially designed box. This flexible form arrives in stages throughout 

the duration of the project, and in this way parts of the exhibition,s 

text and documentation can be "re-curated" and edited on one's 

own walls. The writers featured in the publication are designer and 

architect Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Liam Gillick, industrial 

designer Sara llstedt, architect and researcher Ulrika Karlsson, 

architect Greg Lynn, and artist and curator Jeremy Millar. 

To return to the exhibition: Gillick and I have asked each other how 

one can respect a work of art in its own right and reconcile this with 

a calculated meta level. As a possible response to this, Gillick has 

arranged the museum space in a relatively open spatial configuration 

where emptiness plays against density, with the lighting set to shift 

between day and night. Visitors wander through works of art as if 

254 SELECTED IVIARIA LIND WRITING 

in a city, encountering so-called "blanks"-inside-out spaces or 

boxes corresponding to some of the works' volume and function 

as wall surfaces, surrounded by open spaces. This wandering is 

undirected, resembling what the situationists would call a dérive. The 

interactive element is not where one might expect it-for instance, in 

spaces made for hanging out- but in the visitor's navigation of the 

exhibition's own physical and mental space. The act of interpretation 

is emphasized: instead of signs for the works of art, each visitor is 

equipped with a map upon entering the museum. 

A number of artists have more than one work in the exhibition, and 

many of the works themselves have another life outside of the project, 

begun long ago and often still happening. Other works have been 

initiated by "What lf" and will hopefully continue to live on, in some 

cases, outside an aft context, in other parts of the world, as is the 

case with Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tobias Rehberger's simple house 

built in Stockholm with Swedish materials, which will be resurrected 

on Tiravanija's meeting place "The Land" in northern Thailand after 

the exhibition is over. The project in general-and the exhibition in 

particular-functions in parallel with the art, along similar lines: there 

is a common desire to create a physical and mental movement, 

into and inside the exhibition and outside of it, and then back into 

it again. For this reason, the structural analogies in the exhibition 

are more interesting and important than the visual ones-reflexivity 

takes priority over aesthetics. Even if some of the artists deal with the 

phenomenon of style and pose questions about it, it is important to 

note that the exhibition is not itself about style. 

"What lf" is about a type of art that ventures out into our surrounding 

reality, that relates to the world at large-its social, economic, and 

political mechanisms. The intention is to establish relationships and 

exchanges. This art is sometimes referred to as "contextual art," 

sometimes "relational aesthetics." lt by and large affirms everyday 

life and takes the individual and his or her feelings into account. 

Accordingly, it becomes logical to take an interest in the tangible, 

built world we live in, in the design of our surroundings. However, one 

common denominator for the artists in the exhibition is the absence 

of formalistic concerns in the way they engage with architecture and 

design; rather, the aftists in "What lf" use these fields to help them 

think one step further, to twist something further in relation to reality. 

255. LEARNING FROI\il ART AND ARTISTS

The exhibition contains a range of art and artists. one side consists 

of an interest in sociaily and economicaily charged space, expressed 

by, for example, urbanism and architecture, and specific moments of 

architecture and design history; and the other addresses questions 

of design and consumer society by engaging with styre and rifestyre 

as the expression of individuals' desires and dreams. The ar1 lets us 

move from macro to micro, but the all-encompassing is often also 

linked to the smail, and vice versa-the generic ano ine specific 

are intertwined, with high density and complexity being what is 

shared is equally. 

Various lines of the exhibition intersect (or perhaps partitioned 

each other's surfaces) in many praces. The concept of architecture 

opens up general ideas of how space and the spatial are coded 

and conceived (Rita McBride, Nathan Coley, Michael Elmgreen 

and lngar Dragset, Liam Gillick, Jorge pardo, philippe parreno), 

approaches to cities and city planning (superflex, Apolonija suöter5iö, 

Pia Rönicke), and heterotopias and non-praces (NSS, Jim Lambie). 

It also addresses more specific questions concerning individuar 

cities, buildings, architects, and designers (sarah Morris, Dominique 

Gonzalez-Foerste¡ Martin Boyce, Tobias Rehberger, Simon Starring, 

Rirkrit riravanija). simirarry, design as a concept reads into crothinçi 

design, fashion, and style (Jason Dodge, Sylvie Fleury), which in 

turn lean towards rifestyre and the individuar (Maria Finn, Lotta 

Antonsson, Elizabeth peyton, Hajnal Németh, Olaf Nicolai). Allthis 

also connects with consumer society,s flood of new products and 

their use of graphic and packaging design (Guniila Kringberg, Gen¡¡ard 

Rockenschaub). 

They are reflective and critical of inherited ideas: several of the 

aftists in the exhibition reinterpret and reassess modernism and its 

ideology. What happened to the ideal of equality that was expressed 

in the democratic ambition to design, manufacture, and distribute 

more beautiful everyday objects? what happened to the chaos that 

modernism tried to control with its zealfor rationalism and planning 

(Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Martin Boyce)? Another section 

revealed in the exhibition has to do with everyday life-our modest 

lives, where art becomes biographicar by dearing with fundamentar 

aspects of personal life, such as clothing, housing, and close 

relationships (Andrea Zitter, Jim rsermann, Erizabeth peyton). Arthough 

Tiravanija's and Peyton's common fascination with individuals anci the 

256. SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 

relationships between them is formulated in radically different ways, 

their interests meet here. 

"What lf" circles within an area without attempting to establish 

definitive conclusions about it. lt is an armature that holds together 

distinct, but related phenomena; it creates a clear context in which the 

components move in relation to each other. Perhaps the Rubik's Cube 

can be an interesting model for the exhibition as a clearly defined, 

yet flexible structure that provides opportunities for both visitors and 

participants to produce various contact surfaces. lt is at once limiting 

and complex, opaque and lucid-and not without surprises. That 

which appears to be the solution becomes the most boring option. ln 

the process of approaching and incorporating architecture and design 

in their own work, the artists also pose questions about the role of 

art and how it functions. They develop art as a form of reflection and 

investigation, utilizing its relative openness and sometimes creating 

something that would not be possible within, for instance, the fields of 

architecture and design. 

lnfluenced by the art itself, and by the aftists, "What lf" is a project 

that experiments with the exhibition as a form, and the role of the 

curator in relation to it. lt questions communication processes and 

structures for exchange that have been established in cultural and 

academic spheres, and it tests other models. "What lf" examines 

how museums can relate to art and artists and how one can link art 

that engages with other areas to these areas themselves, within the 

framework of an institution. How can approaches within a discipline, 

between disciplines, and across disciplines be put to into effect? 

Overlaps bring matters to a head: What can each area contribute that 

is specifically its own? And what is the value of these contributions? 

"What lf" is thus part of a process of conversations and exchanges 

that has been happening for some time, but it is not an exhibition 

about that process. The exhibition space is used as just that-not as 

a studio or laboratory. The process is an implicit pad of the project as 

a whole-like different kinds of cooperation-but not as the primary 

element. The museum functions simultaneously as a production site 

(around ten of the artists have produced new work especially for 

"What lf"), a distribution channel, and as a venue for conversation. 

All in all, as a result of the influence of the artists and their work, the 

institution is a platform for the production of new ideas-a platform 

that gives space to situations that project themselves. 

257. LEARNING FROM ARTAND ARTISTS

Maria Lind, "Learning From Art and Artists" - doublesession

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