Summer 2010 in Artforum
This summer in Artforum: The Museum Revisited. Nearly from its beginnings, the museum has been recognized as a reflection of the social order—with modes of display (and the objects housed therein) steeped in both the ethos and the economy of the day. What might we learn about culture by looking at the institution anew? Artforum asked some of the foremost contemporary architects, artists, curators, museum directors, and theorists—including Pawel Althamer, Daniel Birnbaum and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Manuel Borja-Villel, Tania Bruguera, Jeffrey Deitch, Olafur Eliasson, Ann Goldstein, Kathy Halbreich, Inés Katzenstein, Rem Koolhaas, Chantal Mouffe, Lars Nittve, Tino Sehgal, and many others—for their thoughts on the museum, its evolving structure and mission, and its potential impact on our understanding of art now and in the decades ahead.“I have a feeling that, like radioactive matter, there might be a half-life for the relevance of certain types of space and the art they promote.” —Rem Koolhaas
“As public institutions museums have lost much of their mediatory power and … privileged position in defining what we understand to be culture… . There is therefore a pressing need to invent new models.” —Manuel Borja-Villel, Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
“The museum—far from being an institution to be deserted posthaste—is a crucial site of political contestation.” —Chantal Mouffe
“Visual culture has changed. As a gallery director and soon a museum director, I am adapting to this new audience and the artists who come out of it.” —Jeffrey Deitch, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Also: Lynne Tillman finds the sincere irony in Role Models, John Waters’s new book of collected essays; Julian Stallabrass buys the premise of Isabelle Graw’s High Price: Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture; Tom Holert takes a look at the latest class of art schools; Robert Polito searches for pulp writer Jim Thompson in Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me; Mark von Schlegell goes on a quest for the meaning of Battlestar Galactica; Diedrich Diederichsen finds a theater director for the experience economy in René Pollesch; Maria Lind asks about fruitful conflicts of interest in “Carte Blanche” at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Brian Dillon takes another view of Gerard Byrne at Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland; Carroll Dunham reviews Otto Dix at New York’s Neue Galerie; Greil Marcus contemplates the life of punk impresario Malcolm McLaren; Douglas Crimp remembers Callie Angell, who revolutionized our understanding of Andy Warhol through her scholarship on his films; and Lewis Hyde counts down his Top Ten. With the Summer issue on the stands, Artforum editor Tim Griffin becomes editor-at-large after seven years at the helm; stay tuned for Michelle Kuo’s first issue as editor in September.
Visit Artforum online at www.artforum.com
To subscribe, visit www.artforum.com/subscribe
Visit artguide—Artforum‘s free directory of the international art world, listing art fairs, auctions, and current gallery and museum shows in more than 400 cities—at www.artforum.com/guide