Performing Collections

In recent decades, the visual arts have witnessed an unprecedented development of performative practices. This has brought about both a heated academic and institutional debate about the notion of performance and the phenomenon of performativity—in relation both to ways of presenting performance in the exhibition space and to the problem of creating museum collections made up of performance works. The Performing Collections publication gathers the results of the many years of research work of the collection curators and performance scholars associated with the museum confederation. The issue of how to collect performance is at the heart of this publication. Another important question the authors of the study address and aim to answer is why museums should collect performance.

The traditional, static model of the Western museum reproduces colonial strategies of isolating and preserving objects. Performances are alive. They combine the local and the geographically distant. They have intimacy and emotion, and are sensitive to temperature and time ofday, but in a very different way to traditional art objects. How can a museum go about collecting such sensitive, ephemeral works? Who will be responsible for the hierarchy of such a living, time-changing collection and how can it stand the test of time? A new type of ‘breathing’ institution needs to develop an entirely new methodology based on the concept of embodied knowledge—involving an understanding of the power of the performative work. It is imperative to engage with places and people, caring practices and indigenous knowledge based on oral transmissions. In this context, an educational and mediating role is also essential, while maintaining the continuity of research. The fluidity and evolution of the performative work must be contrasted with the staid solemnity of the traditional collection. The book Performing Collections not only provides guidance on how to handle living works, it also hints at what form the art institution should take in the future. The  publication is organized in three parts: introductory essays on the subject, case studies and a glossary of terms.  

A free copy of Performing Collections can be downloaded here.

Contributors: Amira Akbıyıkoğlu, Persis Bekkering, Lotte Bode, Zofia Czartoryska, Clémentine Deliss, Lola Hinojosa, Chantal Kleinmeulman, Bojana Kunst, Myriam Rubio José A. Sánchez, Claudia Segura, Igor Španjol, and Joanna Zielińska.

Artists: The Circo Interior Bruto, Co-Op Festival, Mapa Teatro, María Teresa Hincapié, Otobong Nkanga, OHO, Ria Pacquée, Joanna Rajkowska, La Ribot, Franz Erhard Walther among others

Edited by Joanna Zielinska.

Graphic design: Fontarte / Artur Frankowski, Magdalena Frankowska 

Published by: L’Internationale Online 

L’Internationale Online Library is a continually expanding selection of publications of critical theory, postcolonial studies, geopolitics, museum studies and other cultural fields, edited by L’Internationale Online and members of the confederation. All e-Books are available to be read, printed and used as reference material for free. Physical copies of all the publications are housed at the institutions of the members of the confederation.

L’Internationale Online is the platform for art and research of a confederation of seven modern and contemporary art institutions: MG+MSUM (Ljubljana, Slovenia); Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); MACBA, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain); Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium); Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN, Warsaw, Poland); SALT (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey) and Van Abbemuseum (VAM, Eindhoven, the Netherlands). L’Internationale is working together with complementary partners such as HDK-Valand—Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin (NCAD), Ireland.