Leiden University
Master Thesis
Andreas Michael Rüegger
A decentralised approach to artist initiatives – Alternative Modes in
the Guatemalan Contemporary Art Scene
Supervision: Prof. Dr. C. J. M. Zijlmans Second Reader: Dr. L. M. F. Bertens
Master in Arts and Culture: Art of the Contemporary World and World Art
Studies
2017–2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ... 2 1. Artist-run centres and galleries in Guatemala ... 7 1.1 Cultural background ... 11 1.2 Contemporary Art and its status ... 13 2. Challenges of the Contemporary Art Spaces ... 16 2.1 Adapting the framework from Canada ... 16 2.2 The formation of the Artist-Run Culture and State Support ... 18 2.3 Commoditizing Culture ... 22 3. The NuMu: El Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo ... 26 3.1 The NuMu and its Locality ... 28 4. Re-defining Artist Initiatives ... 35 4.1 Imposing Social Responsibility ... 38 4.2 The problem of a ‘western’ framework ... 43 4.3 Creating a decentralised framework ... 46 Conclusion ... 49 Appendices ... 52 List of Illustrations ... 53 Bibliography ... 66 Websites ... 70 List of Websites in alphabetical order ... 722
Introduction
“The artist-run space of the future is like a mushroom, delicate yet deadly, and able to eat oil spills. At its core is a formidable network, sometimes unseen and other times visible, encompassing neither a beginning nor an end, but always a middle from which it grows and overspills. The artist-run space of the future is thus perhaps the starting point of a vast cycle that serves as the catalyst for whole cultural ecosystems“. Christopher Kennedy1 Artist-run initiatives are a rather elusive phenomenon to describe. They are the grass root spaces for the creative development of social and cultural experiments in a country. Both the temporary projects, which only last a few single days, and the permanent spaces, rooted in their respective community, are part of these dynamic practices. They can be very local as well as active on a big scale, sometimes having international offspring and permanent transnational projects. They appear all around the world in a multitude of different facets and exist even when there are socio-economic crises that place the art world in peril; maybe even especially then, when the need for alternative modes in the art scene is at hand and these initiatives may fill the void. In this thesis, I will search for an alternative methodological strategy to approach artist initiatives that is applicable in a decentralised, or non-‘western’-centred, global context. By analysing the Guatemalan contemporary art scene through a case study I will reflect on the challenges and responsibilities of art and artist initiatives that are outside the ‘western’-centric world. I will elaborate on their positioning and their effect and will claim the necessity of supporting the arts for cultural development. The thesis will follow the underlying questions: What are the strategies and roles of independent artist-run spaces when contributing to a country’s cultural development? Since it is interesting to understand how they are nested in their respective communal localities, what are the effects that the initiatives have within their community? Further, I will elaborate on how non-profit, ideologically geared artist-run 1 Kennedy 2012, p. 36.3 spaces come into existence and by what means and modes they are able to generate incisive discussions and a dialogue between the artworks and the public. The study will demonstrate the intertwined-ness of the artist-run spaces and the state economy. Also will be considered, what the extent of the outreach of artist initiatives in the cultural development of a nation will be, due to their effect on local communities. I will also point out that as a result of the nature of artist-initiatives, the initiative itself inevitably plays a role in every concept and artwork that is executed, even more so if it is a communal project. With this collective self-organisation, a dynamic memory and educational system are created. This builds the fundament of reflective thinking, encourages creativity and thus facilitates further critical dialogues. My interest in artist-run initiatives stems from a desire to understand the development of artist-run centres, their impact and strategies and how they approach their cultural development from a decentralised point of view. I attempt to expand the current dialogue about artist initiatives into a wider context that includes a more global connectivity, as well as more locally rooted cultural impact, taking Guatemala as an example. Considering the reach that the various artist initiatives have within their community, it is surprising how little recognition artist initiatives receive from both their respective nation-states and the art world. Yet, as soon as some of these centres leashed out to the international scene, they got praised for their creative curatorial practices and visionary strategies, such as the Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala that won the Focus Stand Price at the Frieze art fair in London, 2016. This one-sided appreciation needs to be addressed and applied to a wider context than the predominant ‘western’-centric view. It is necessary to create an adaptable mind-set that is decentred and thus able to analyse the contemporary tendencies in any developing country in the world within its own cultural context appropriately. Thus, the thesis proposes an approach that might be used also as a general representation of a mainly self-supporting art scene. One might think about the scenes in Ghana2, Morocco3, Mongolia4, Macedonia5 or Uzbekistan6 among many others, that
2 Website: fcaghana.org/new/ (Accessed Nov. 2017)
3 Website: ft.com/content/828fbc4e-5c25-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220 (Accessed Nov. 2017) 4 Website: mcasa-mongolia.com (Accessed Nov. 2017)
4 are usually within the focus of specific culture-supporting foundations but not able to create a more individual output.7 Yet, it is remarkable to notice the subsequent development of the artist run networks in countries that are beyond the ‘western’-centred framework and how they use the artist-run initiatives as a multi-layered medium between the ‘idealistic’ use of art development and an educational system to create a lasting impact in their communities. Most of the research into the privatised culture and artist initiatives has happened without a decentralised perspective, focusing primarily on the forerunning initiatives in Canada, Great Britain and the United States. Paradoxically, these formerly independent ideological centres have become the predominant ones representing the scene intellectually as well as on the threshold of working with the art market, creating a hierarchical top-down structure themselves. Even though they are seen as the most important players in the field, the majority of artist initiatives are addressed only locally within a specific communal reach. Their actual significance and modes are therefore subjugated to pre-existing ideological principles of the major institutions in the scene as well. To address this issue, I will focus on the ideologies and modes of the ‘peripheries’ that develop their practices without government funding and yet have access to the collective memory and experiences of all the previous generations of contemporary art practitioners through the Internet. In order to achieve this, I will give an overview of the situation in Guatemala first and then problematize the definition and challenges of artist-run initiatives from an economic point of view in the second chapter. I will both try to define the artist initiatives from a non-‘western’-centred point of view and search for ways how they approach the restrictive parameters in the country. I then present the Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, the NuMu, as case study to understand how this specific institute 5 Website: jonblackwood.net/2016/09/06/critical-art-in-contemporary-macedonia-2/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 6 Website: sanat.orexca.com/2011/2011-2/akademiya_hudojestv-2/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 7 The number of such institutions worldwide has been slowly growing over the last two decades, generating a multitude of usually rather small and specified organisations, for instance the description of the ‘Gulbenkian Program of Contemporary Culture’, Website: proximofuturo.gulbenkian.pt/en/the-next-future (Accessed Nov. 2017)
5 manages to emerge successfully on various levels and create an output within said pre-settings by analysing its modes, its exhibitions and the way is uses the locality as an asset to create outreach. In the last chapter, I expand the discourse to a broader theoretical scheme and propose a more dynamic way to approach artist-initiatives, that is not bound to a pre-set of ‘western’-centred rules either. I will use the local culture and state conditions of needing flexible forms of multicultural education to admit importance to the practices that artist-run initiatives have, and elaborate on how they create a form of cultural reflection through their work. In the first chapter, I will look into the current state of the contemporary arts in Guatemala. For this I will give an overview of initiatives and galleries in the country and explore what kind of galleries and artist initiatives exist. I will further reflect upon the recent historical background of Guatemala and especially the consequences of the civil war that hindered freedom of expression and innovation. I will also consider the current tendencies of the heavily capitalising approach towards the cultural past of the nation and how the contemporary arts are positioned in this. The second chapter will revolve around the challenges for the artist-initiatives in a country without a state support. I will first elaborate on the definition or the term itself, how artist-run spaces occur and how they approach socio-economical restrictions. I will argue that it is the lack of restrictive economical tendencies – that dictate the art world – which allows them to move as freely as they do and to have a collective informational network (through the Internet and forerunners from other countries) to create a more dynamic form of artist initiative. In the third chapter, I will present the NuMu in Guatemala City as a case study to support the approach on how an initiative can successfully create a mode that supports the arts in an ideological way, gaining international attention, as well as being locally interacting with its community. I will look upon its (self)-positioning, the exhibition strategies and its use of the building both as an icon and as an object of art. For this I address how it uses the building and changes its appearance entirely from one exhibition to another. These are the properties that are giving it the ability to be used both as a piece of art by itself and becoming a part of every exhibition held. In the fourth chapter, I will search for a way to leave a ‘western’-centric framework of defining artist initiatives and create a more flexible understanding of their modes. In order to do so, I will look upon the relevance of the contemporary
6 development and the importance of using art as a form of higher education. I will elaborate the multi-cultural- and non-exclusive educational value that contemporary art brings to the country and vice versa and on how this creates ‘revenue’ for the art world. I then aim to come to a more dynamic methodological approach towards multi-cultural education and the role of artist initiatives within the cultural development of a nation-state in order to produce a self-reflexive, creative community by the means of a voluntary social responsibility. On the one hand, I will elaborate the problem of imposing social responsibility on an initiative when following a ‘western’-centric framework. On the other hand, I will explain from a theoretical point how to approach the static, ‘western’-centric framework, using the concept of art as a non-guiding force, as presented by art historian Krzysztof Ziarek. With this I will explain how the artist initiative can be both independent from the predominant economic structures and ‘western’ definitions of the art scene to have a sufficient dynamic property for the purpose that it has set itself to fulfil. Each chapter will also be framed by a specific set of literature, which will be addressed individually within the chapter. However, the theoretical framework used is relying on the literature about the artist initiatives from Canada, Britain, and the United States. On the one hand, I will both question and reassess the framework that derives from the Canadian artist-run scene for the context that is applicable pertinent to the Guatemalan modes. On the other hand, I will use mostly internet-resources to gather information about the Guatemalan scene, because the literature on Guatemalan artist-initiatives is limited.8
8 If not mentioned differently, translations from Spanish to English are done by myself.
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1. Artist-run centres and galleries in Guatemala
Emerging from the avant-garde spirit of the 1960s in Canada, where they became a major thing, artist-run spaces have a considerable history in the world by now. Using innovative techniques to extend the known boundaries of society and economy, they are of essential importance to the contemporary art system and it is most often these initiatives that allow artists to develop their own aesthetics without being bound to pre-set languages and practices.9 However, within Guatemala the scene is still emerging and not well developed. Because artist-run spaces are known by many names and include a variety of subgroups, I will further use both ‘artist initiative’ and ‘artist-run’ centre as interchangeable synonyms. It includes “galleries, presentation spaces, artists’ studios and specialized production facilities, collectives, archives, publishing houses, magazines, bookstores, and festivals“10, as well as non-profit hybrids, limited liability companies (LLC), artist residencies, workers and artists cooperatives. Therefore most independent initiatives such as non-profit organizations and private museums that are not conforming to the standard of the art market can be titled as such in a broader sense. Their focus of work varies strongly as well, ranging from centres for developing particular techniques – such as performance arts, media technologies, interactive art etc. – as well as very specific centres that work with particular identities, peripheral and minority groups such as the LGBTQ community, indigenous and native groups, “feminist and queer art, First Nations’ artistic production, or Francophone cultural production in English Canada.”11 The variety of definitions and sub groups shows how the regional variation and focus influences the mode that is used. The privatisation of these cultural spaces allows 9 Blessi 2011, p. 142. 10 According to: ‘What is an Artist-Run Centre?’ by the Alberta Association of Artist-Run Centres Website: aaarc.ca/arc-info.html (Accessed Nov. 2017) 11 Ibidem.8 therefore a high grade of individualism within the country, which results in currently being more private museum spaces rather than public ones in the world.12 A fair amount of literature about the artist-run cultural ideologies and their development can be found concerning Canada and the United Kingdom. Especially Canadian artist-run initiatives are comparatively well documented with collective institutions that organize a variety of activities and functions as an entrance portal into the network that artist-run centres usually provide. Among the steadily growing number of national and international committees, there is a multitude of associations and institutions that gather information and research on the artist-run culture. It is rather conspicuous that the majority of all these organisations are based in strongly industrialised countries or in countries that were former colonies of such countries. Although increasing in numbers, initiatives from countries with a similar industrial status such as Guatemala, for instance, are hardly ever mentioned in any list of collective associates. Yet, the number of contemporary biennales, festivals and museums globally has been steadily increasing over the past few years and with it also the acceptance of the emerging artists. Many museums started to try and compete with the artist initiatives by including all kind of practices used by initiatives, which is part of the “evolution of the mission and social meaning of museums”.13 Austrian socio-cultural anthropologist Thomas Fillitz explains that the global art market exploits the work of art itself by diversifying the art work into different types of commodification, such as cultural goods, luxury objects or investments objects, so it reacts specifically to regional demands, trends and supplies by organizing itself as an interactive network that transnationally cooperates to satisfy dealers and potential buyers.14 Looking at both existing art galleries and artist initiatives in Guatemala shows that profit-oriented gallery models are more dominant and fluid than non-profit initiatives. They follow this self-exploitation by commoditising culture according to the trending demand of tourists. 12 According to the statistic data provided by the European Group of Museums (EGMUS), as well as the extensive statistic studies on Private (contemporary) Art Museums by Larry’s List and the Art Market Monitor of Artron.net (AMMA), 2016. (For references see Websites: Museum report) 13 Blessi 2011, p. 142. 14 Fillitz, 2014, p. 84 – 96.
9 First, the globally participating galleries are only limited in numbers, with the 9.99gallery and Projectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala being probably the most successful galleries – seen over the course of the last few years. These organisations recently started to represent the country on art fairs, because they have the highest reputation, the best public outreach and are the ones that constitute themselves most efficiently within biennales and international art fairs. A multitude of the medium size galleries function also as an ‘in between’ commercialized art store and non-profit oriented initiatives. For example, the Panza Verde Art Gallery is a part of a larger hotel and restaurant complex. They offer artist workshops, free exhibitions, collaborations and sometimes community work, yet, their interest lies on the ability to capitalise their efforts. Especially in Antigua, the country’s most touristic city, the creation of an atmosphere that provides a sense of high-class exclusivity within the romanticised background of the city allows them to create the air of exclusivity within the hotel space for a selected group of costumers.15 This is on the one hand efficient when positioning in the city’s art scene but on the other hand damaging for the multitude of other artist modes that do not primarily focus on selling art works. Among the well-known galleries in the tourist city Antigua are for example the 9.99gallery, la Antigua Art Gallery, the Centro de Arte Popular, the Panza Verde, the Art–Design Ana Consuelo de Muñoz, the María Eskenasy Fine Art Gallery, the Sobremesa, the La Rosa de Cristal or Rocío Quiroa.16 It has to be acknowledged that although many of such galleries and spaces function as ‘chameleons’, the participation in creating new cultural practices is fairly limited, which allows the non-profit centres to operate more freely in the art scene. This also means that the artist initiatives are less publicly represented in the country. Among the artist-run initiatives and projects that can be found on the Internet, most of the small spaces reach out solely via a network based on social media platforms – Facebook being a predominant one. For example Kamin hoy, located in San Juan Comalapa, the Atitlán based Canal Cultural, Ciudad Imaginación in Quetzaltenango, L.E.A. in Totonicapán, Concepcion 41 in Antigua, the Espacio 1 in the SOMA Centro Histórico and many others make use of the accessibility of Facebook to create events, send 15 According to ‘art fairs and the logic of Glamour’ by Thomas Fillitz 2014, p. 89 – 91. 16 For individual references on the galleries presented see: Websites: Galleries.
10 invitations and to keep track and of the expected amount of participants.17 As noted in the 2015 published extensive ‘Private Art Museum Report’, this is a general trend for private institutions, stating that “Nearly 90% of private museums worldwide use Facebook as the primarily tool of communication.”18 In comparison to the targeted audience, the interconnectivity of Facebook as the predominant social media platform in Latin and Central America becomes a valuable asset, especially when the distribution of the centres throughout the country is taken into consideration.19 The non-profit centres are spread around the entire country with only an unremarkable increase in number in urban areas. This resembles to some extent the decentralisation of the initial 1960s artist-run movements in Canada, with a development of artist initiatives outside the high priced city spaces. This is true especially for the smaller initiatives, the most internationally prominent ones, however, are both located in Guatemala City, with Proyectos Ultravioleta being the best-known initiative at the moment.20 The project was founded in 2009 and ever since has had an impact in the nations art scene. As the Focus Stand Prize winner of the 2016 Frieze Art Fair in London21, it is one of the most renowned curatorial spaces of the country. The second cultural forerunner is the already mentioned El Nuevo Museo de arte Contemporáneo (NuMu), also located in Guatemala City. Both of these centres have the same founding father, the artist Stefan Benchoam, who founded Proyectos Ultravioleta just a few years before the NuMu. The NuMu will be presented more in detail in chapter three. At this point I will briefly elaborate on the cultural history of the country by pointing out a few key points about its cultural legacy and the most dominant ethical issues. Understanding the cultural background forms the basis for the contemporary cultural development and provides a better understanding of the way the initiatives approach their own cultural history. 17 For individual references on the initiatives presented see: Websites: Artist Initiatives. 18 Website: larryslist.com/report/Private%20Art%20Museum%20Report.pdf, p. 42. (Accessed Nov. 2017) 19 According to the statistics on: Website: statista.com/statistics/202372/latin-america--largest-social-networking-sites/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 20 See Website: uvuvuv.com/uv/about.html (Accessed Nov. 2017) 21 Website: frieze.com/article/focus-stand-prize-2016 (Accessed Nov. 2017)
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1.1 Cultural background
The Central-American republic of Guatemala has had a convoluted history that is affected by high violence and discrimination. Located between Mexico, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, it has access to the Pacific north as well as to the Caribbean Sea via the Gulf of Honduras, making it a transit country for the northern hemisphere of the Americas. Being the most populous state in Central America, the Republic of Guatemala is described as predominantly poor and struggling with severe health issues and illiteracy, which disproportionally affect the large indigenous population.22 The capital – the City of Guatemala – is labelled as one of the most violent places in the world and official travel sites often recommend to avoid the country altogether when travelling, especially for solo travellers and women.23 The frequent armed conflicts between the rebels and the militarised government leading up to the peace accords of 1996 show the difficult path of negotiations that lies between the state and the resisting parties, that went on for over three decades.24 Although the different Peace Accords, like the rights for indigenous people, have been written already more than two decades ago, changing an entire society with a deep-rooted legacy of discrimination into a genuine multi-ethnic community requires a long-term commitment that is still going on.25 The rich cultural legacy of the pre-Colombian era of the Maya, the largest indigenous groups, consists of entire cities that are spread throughout the country – Tikal being one of the most prominent ones. They are full of carved steles, murals and an intriguing temple architecture that is aligned along cosmic phenomena.26 Because there 22 Geography and demographic data according to: Website: cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gt.html (Accessed Nov. 2017) 23 See for example on the site of the department for External Affairs (EDA) Switzerland (See : Websites - EDA) 24 Jonas 2000. The path included several stages of mediated negotiations and contract buildings, from the signing of the Human Rights Accord in 1994, the ‘Agreement on the definitive Ceasefire’ between the different parties, the ‘Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ until the definite signing of the Final Peace Accord on December 29, 1996, in Guatemala’s National Palace. (List of references see: Websites - Peace Accords) 25 Plant 1998, p. 80. 26 Architectural description according to Miller 2014.12 are large indigenous groups that preserve traditions, there is a variety of still existing handicrafts, tapestry, rituals, languages and toys that are being produced until today by traditional artisans for the market and they are a source of inspiration for contemporary artists and designers.27 (Fig. 1 – 2) The urban development of the country is built around the structures of Spanish colonial buildings and the Maya population is often seen in a popular context of romanticised indigenism.28 This can be noticed in statues, murals and paintings as well as in literature about the country. According to the recent studies by art historian Mary Katherine Scott, touristic spots within Maya cultural areas widely commoditised both cultural practices and crafts for many years.29 She points out that the projected expectations about the image of indigeneity in the country and the tourist’s preferences of souvenirs – which reflect their memories and experiences of the travels – led a majority of living artists in a struggle when having to disassociate with the desired image about them and the arts and handicrafts.30 However, the government oppressed the indigenous Maya population extensively over the course of the three decades-long civil war (1960–1996) and thousands of members from native communities were killed, mutilated and prosecuted.31 American historian Greg Grandin explored the historical conflicts in detail as he explains, that one major group in particular, the K’iche’ elite (sometimes still referenced to as Quiché), represented a form of middleman between the state and community. They saw a necessity of developing a Maya identity to achieve political legitimacy since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the agro-export-capitalism fundamentally changed the then-new liberal state.32 Yet, the still on-going struggle between the dominant Ladino33 structures and the K’iche’ population has many obscure frontiers and led the K’iche’ to 27 According to Archeologists Mary Miller: Miller 1997, and David Carey / Walter E. Little: Carey 2010. 28 Following the studies about Maya-indigenism as done by Walter E. Little: Little 2004, p. 45. / Little 2014, p. 197 – 200. 29 Scott 2009, p. 10f. 30 Scott 2012. 31 According to the cultural study about the Maya by Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, who describe the then used state policy and military actions against the native community in detail. Coe 2015, p. 299. 32 Grandin 2000, p. 140 – 142. 33 A Ladino describes a Westernized Central American person of predominantly mixed Spanish and indigenous descent. See Website: britannica.com/topic/Ladino (Accessed Nov. 2017)
13 develop, as Grandin puts it, a “very self-conscious understanding of their cultural identity”34, as the cultural rights of the indigenous population were hardly suppressed by the militarised government.35 Thus, since the beginning of the peace negotiations in the early 1990s and the final signed accords of 1996, minority groups are able to publicly express their origins or identities through cultural habits and arts. The newly constituted liberty and the freedom of expression also formed a stepping-stone for most of the contemporary art scene.
1.2 Contemporary Art and its status
Due to the unison of rights for creating a multicultural state identity through the Peace Accords, the arts have gotten a chance to flourish in Guatemala in the last two decades.36 Yet, there is no state-supported contemporary art museum in the country up to date. The National Museum of Modern Art, El Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida, is the one closest to being affiliated with present day artists. Presently located in the Finca Nacional La Aurora in the City of Guatemala, the Museum was inaugurated in 1934 and has since then been used as the national history museum, the military history museum and others, until the history collection and the art collections were separated in 1975.37 Apart from temporary events or exhibitions, they do not offer any curatorial program for contemporary cultural exhibits so far. However, the contemporary art scene of the country is, even though limited in scale, a vivid organism and has reached respectable international reputation over the course of the last few years. Artists such as Regina José Galindo or Benvenuto Chavajay receive worldwide attention for their works and performances. They and others are, together with inventive curatorial spaces such as the NuMu, Proyectos Ultravioleta and 34 Grandin 2000, p. 196. 35 Cultural Rights include artistic expressions and customary belief, according to the Human Rights declaration. Gilbert 2005, p. 76. 36 Creating a multicultural state identity is, following Human Rights investigator Marta Elena Cassaús Arzú, only an implicit aim of the Peace Accords: Arzú 1998, p. 128. 37 According to the state-website of the museum (Spanish): Website: mcd.gob.gt/museo-de-arte-moderno-carlos-merida/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) or Website: artempogt.wordpress.com (Accessed Nov. 2017)14 the Fundación Paiz in Guatemala City, forerunners of the continuously growing, powerful artistic production of Guatemala.38 Yet, artists that had the ability to contextualise their cultural heritage are few and were hardly publicly active before the Peace Accords.39. A multitude of the recently emerging artists brought up new radical artistic practices that respond to the violent history of the country, the oppression of indigeneity and the economical and urban development of the last few decades.40 One of the most important actors in the country to address the ethical issues of the country is the Fundación Paiz, which both founded and ever since hosts Guatemala’s Biennale41, as well as the Bienal de Artes Visuales del Istmo Centroamericano (BAVIC).42 The foundation cultivates a program that works on several levels, having active collaborations with artists as well as an educational purpose, among others. As the host of the two most important art fairs of Guatemala, they use the international scale of their platform also to advert and involve financial supporters as well as collaborators from outside the country. A major exhibition of recent times addressing migration and flow, violence and justice and alternative epistemologies was the interdisciplinary exhibition Guatemala Después (2015) in Quetzaltenango, which was a transnational project between Guatemala and the United States.43 The exhibition refers to itself as “a curatorial research project” and was developed over a period of more than two years as a collaboration between the School of Media Studies & Sheila C. Johnson Design Centre44 and the contemporary arts organization Ciudad de la Imaginación.45 The aim of the exhibition was to explore “the ways in which political and social realities in contemporary Guatemala have affected its artistic and cultural production in the aftermath of the ‘inner armed conflict’.”46 Such exhibitions held at the foundation receive 38 Website: curatorsintl.org/events/contemporary-guatemalan-art (Accessed Nov. 2017) 39 Barrios 2001. 40 One might think about the institutional and state critique to be found in Regina José Galindos work, see: Barbosa 2013. 41 See Website: fundacionpaiz.org.gt/bienal-de-arte-paiz/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 42 Website: fundacionpaiz.org.gt/bienal-de-artes-visuales-del-istmo-centroamericano-bavic/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 43 According to the website of the project: Website: guatemaladespues.org (Accessed Nov. 2017) 44 The departments are part of the New School University, New York. (For references see Website – New School University) 45 Website: ciudadimaginacion.org (Accessed Nov. 2017) 46 See the curatorial vision: Website: guatemaladespues.org (Accessed Nov. 2017)
15 positive critique on a larger scale, giving valuable advertence to a multitude of contemporary artists and cultural production in the country. They are also an important part of the intra-national artist network because of the temporarily increased outreach to approach new artists in the national art scene. This brief sketch shows that the contemporary cultural spaces face a variety of socio-cultural challenges and societal issues, such as discrimination against the indigenous population and women or corruption in both military and political leadership. A challenge, however, is the lack of financial support by the state for the cultural development. Without additional funding to plan outreaching projects or exhibitions, the artist-run spaces are the most versatile possibility to allow the individual artist a wide variety of expression and interpretation. The next chapter will explore the socio-cultural and economic problems of the artist initiatives in the country more in-depth and search for a way to explain, how the artist initiatives can come into existence under such circumstances.
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2. Challenges of the Contemporary Art Spaces
An artist initiative can only form when there is enough space for it to occur. This includes both the physical space of a possible locality and the state of mind that is needed to expand into a new space, when the former models of the art scene and/or the initiative felt limiting, restrictive, or no longer exist. It is not significant from which model the initiative initially develops; where it places itself is inevitably linked to the cultural structures that are predominant. To be able to claim a space depends on the focus given towards the specific need of the community that is prevalent in the country. The view on how the development of the artist-run spaces was made possible did change over time, as the conditions for artists did. However, the discourse about the artist-run space is mainly ruled by ‘western’ voices. In order to point out the difference within the existing situations that create challenges for the ‘non-western’ artist initiative and the condition the ‘western’ initiatives face, I will use the ‘western’ framework from Canada to approach the Guatemalan situation. This will lead to a more decentralist view, which considers a more befitting way of approaching Guatemala. To support my claim of seeing Guatemala as a non-supportive state, I will focus on its economic and political situation in more detail. I will also briefly give attention to the country’s popular approach towards seeing culture as a sellable object. This will lead to addressing the social hierarchy that dominates the view on how initiatives have to position themselves.2.1 Adapting the framework from Canada
From a western point of view, the audience that is interested in cultural activities has grown rapidly over the last decades. Some curators and artists such as Hans Ulrich Obrist of the London Serpentine Gallery, Massimiliano Gioni of The New Museum New York or Thelma Golden of The Studio Museum in Harlem have reached a celebrity or star-status with their supposedly visionary contributions and are sometimes even17 invited to participate on political platforms.47 The amount of galleries, centres and non-profit institutions has increased and, not being limited anymore to the art scene itself, the acceptance within the broader population of a society has grown as well. This applies to some extent within already developed artist-run cultures such as Canada or the United States, which also produced the most literature and a framework over the last decades. Most researchers therefore use the ideologies of the British, American and Canadian non-profit art scene. This approach should be appropriated when applying it to countries that have a different socio-cultural and economic situation because they assign a different value to cultural practices and arts. To explain this, the framework that originally derived from the Canadian initiatives and is widely adopted will now be re-evaluated considering Guatemala. In 1985, Canadian Art Historian Diana Nemiroff first elaborated three reasons for the development of artist-run initiatives.48 She particularly explored the history of the Canadian art scene and concluded, that there is a “constrictive nature of the art scene” (p. 7), the “growth of a cultural criticism” (p. 9) – in a postmodernist critical fashion – and thirdly, an “economic and political” (p. 10) reason for allowing initiatives to come into existence. Because Nemiroff gives a focus on the Canadian state, her reasoning is justified due to the state support that started to allow individual artists to work on their own practices after the 1960s. She explains that a secure base for artists to develop their craft was generated as a result of the decision that the state made to “stabilize a core population of artists around a centre” (p. 11). The outlining of these principles are applicable to the development of an economically strong country such as Canada. Following the American educator of modern art, Pat Villeneuve and her writings on decentralising art, I understand that these principles have to be adapted to countries that resemble a more peripheral state of development, because the cultural development must be “specific to a culture and represent the knowledge and skills” of said culture.49 However, the questions to be answered for Guatemala do remain similar to the ones of Canada. 47 According to Reckit 2013, p. 144. 48 Nemiroff 1985. 49 Villeneuve 2008, p. 92. Pat Villeneuve’s decentralising view on art and her studies form the base understanding of approaching artist initiatives as will be discussed in chapter four.
18 The first point mentioned by Nemiroff, the constrictive nature of the art scene, does not apply to Guatemala – or to any other mode worldwide. This is because the art scene evolved exponentially since the 1960s, as did the possibilities of having access to the knowledge of the forerunning initiatives. The Guatemalan contemporary art scene did not have to take the same evolutionary steps as did the forefather of the artist-run culture. Thus, Nemiroff’s point is applicable to the initial artist-run spaces of the 1960s, which fought against the restrictions of the then modernist modes. Their accumulated knowledge has been collected over decades and the increase in global artist networks and information allows the relatively young Guatemalan scene to be more diverse and hardly comparable. Her second point, the growth of a cultural criticism, is more generally adaptable and does apply to every state that is being criticised by an individual. Such criticism is part of a reflective thinking process that can only appear when the individual can apply their own thoughts to their surroundings. Using the arts to initiate a critical dialogue is one of the arguments supporting the development of the arts. The focus of chapter four will be to further explain this point and to connect to the way that art generates said discussion, as it can be seen both as a challenge and a form of the educational output of artist initiatives. Nemiroff’s third reason for the formation of artist-run initiatives, having economical and political support from the state towards the arts, does not apply to Guatemala either. It is a rather desirable situation when the state is both able and willing to accept, support and fund artist practices, minorities or a counterculture. In the following, I will outline Guatemala as a non-supportive state for arts and culture and how initiatives come into existence within this limiting system.
2.2 The formation of the Artist-Run Culture and State Support
The art scene in Guatemala faces a more difficult economic situation, thus, the socio-economic conditions and how they influence artist initiatives will be assessed in the following section. In order to do so, the challenge of the economic status will be looked upon from two perspectives. First, it is important to understand how the space19 for artist initiatives comes into existence through the non-supportive state economy. The second perspective will lead to the understanding of how culture is seen as a sellable object in the country and how this influences the decisions for admitting state-supported funding. According to American curator and artist Christopher Lee Kennedy, two socio-economic possibilities can be distinguished that form artist-run initiatives. On the one hand, he argues that there has to be an ‘economic depression’, such as a financial or debt crisis, that creates space for the artist initiatives to come into existence.50 Kennedy uses this model to explain that the market-oriented art world retracts when the budgets for cultural development are being cut due to the accumulation of a deficit. He continues that this cut forms a ‘void’ that is filled with the creative adaptation by non-profit oriented artist initiatives, who reimagine the use of space for “people and cultural experimentation”.51 This applies rather specifically to the intra-national development – the local and regional art market – that seemed to be greatly influenced by industrial and financial crises, as pointed out in the studies about the global art market by anthropologist Thomas Fillitz.52 The initiative, in this case, may come either from the privatized, or the public sphere. It may be anchored outside the existing commercialized world of museums or galleries or can be the expansion of an already existing communal outreach that expands its dialogue towards the public, such as a community outreach initiative.53 On the other hand, as Kennedy continues, initiatives form when there is strong growth in the cultural economy and private investors start an explicit branding of the recognisable identity of cultural institutes. In the words of London based modern and contemporary art professor Julian Stallabrass, the reaction of initiatives is therefore to target a different audience than “the insecure and protean populations“, which he sees 50 I use the term economic depression as a general description of a financial crisis, which is defined as “an escalation of financial disturbances such as a sharp decrease in the value of financial institutions or assets […]” Cohn 2016, p. 173. 51 Kennedy 2012, p. 36. 52 Fillitz 2014, p. 84. 53 Natasha S. Reid, the Director of the Visual Arts Center in Montreal, explains in her studies how that this fluidity of the artist run space and collaborative practices interacts with the public, how this approach can be addressed and that it is a fundamental part of the contemporary museum practice: Reid 2014a, p. 160.
20 as the target of the commercialized branding ideology.54 Stallabrass, according to his 2013 article ‘The Branding of the Museum’, following Kennedy’s idea, believes that one of the possible responses to the commercialized and business-like use of slogans, logos and marketing strategies has to be one that does not initially attract the same customers that are swayed by the branding.55 Therefore, the alternative art space comes into existence to counteract this tendency. Bearing reference to Guatemala, the formation of artist-spaces tends to fall into the first category. Thus, the state fails to support the cultural development, because it is facing a period that might be described as an economic depression for many years now. With the amassing deficit of the state funds, the cultural budget is being reduced significantly in favour of other concerns of the government. 56 This means, that even though the current Morales administration plans on further increasing the country’s debt ceiling in favour of economic growth, the question about how the cultural education and preservation is dealt with does remain. Without addressing the far-reaching complexity and consequences that the state budget has to face and deal with, there exists a remarkable discrepancy in the revenue and the actual investment, as the cultural sector is exploited in a non-sustainable way by the state. At this point I will further explore how the actual investment is fragmented, to justify the claim of Guatemala being a non-supportive state. The designated budget for cultural practises – in which the contemporary arts and initiatives are located – is within the remit of the Ministry of culture and sports (Ministerio de cultura y deportes) that currently is under the authority of José Luis Chea Urruela.57 According to an interview with the prensalibre in 2016 his concerns are that the funding for cultural preservation is not proportional to its value and the budget needs to be raised. He, for example, mentions that the budget for patrimonial heritage got cut in favour of military spending, 54 Stallabrass 2014, p. 149. 55 Idem, p. 160. 56 The state-funding plan for 2017 reads, that, of the proposed Q 79.6 billion budget (~9 billion Euro), roughly 0.73% are intended for culture and sports. Pressing matters such as housings, infrastructure and sanitation on municipal level are also on the proposed plan for 2018, which has yet to pass congress. (For references see Websites: Guatemala Budget) 57 According to the professional and academic record of Urruela on: Website: wikiguate.com.gt/jose-luis-chea-urruela (Accessed Nov. 2017)
21 which he does not approve of.58 His ministry of culture and sports features four different core duties: the general directions for the arts (Dirección general de las Artes), cultural heritage (Dirección General del Patrimonio), sports and recreation (Dirección General del Deporte y la Recreación) and cultural development and strengthening of the cultures (Dirección General de Desarrollo Cultural y Fortalecimiento de las Culturas).59 The budget of the ministry is divided more or less equally between the first three, each with a budget of about 100 Million Quetzal. (~11.3 Million Euro) The fourth sector however – the cultural development – does have an approved budget of less than a tenth of the others core duties.60 (See Appendix 1) This is a rather sharp mismatch to the fact that reconciliation is one of the main priorities mentioned on the presidential website61, as well as being directly addressed by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales himself in his speeches.62 Yet, it is in accordance with what the minister of the cultural department is concerned by: the little funding that is available for the department is used mostly to preserve the heritage that is already there. Sustaining this allows yielding benefit for the state and a wide public, which depends on the exploitation of cultural assets. Without major incidents the budget can therefore be better predicted over the course of a long period. Monetarily this might be an understandable decision, yet, it leaves barely anything left for future development of the culture. This is important, because the travel and tourism industry, which is mainly based on the cultural heritage and arts in the country, is one of the most important contributors to a large part of the lower class population.63 This demographic 58 Website: prensalibre.com/vida/escenario/proteger-el-patrimonio-cultural-es-nuestro-reto (Accessed Nov. 2017) 59 Taken from the articles provided on the website of the Ministry: Website: mcd.gob.gt/uip/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 60 The individual Weblinks for the current annual spending are to be found under Article 15 (Artículo 15. Ejecución Física y Financiera de Inversión), Ibidem. 61 The promise to prioritize tolerance and reconciliation made by President Morales is part of the six security priorities of the state agenda, see: Website: presidencia.gob.gt/seguridad/tolerancia-y-reconciliacion/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 62 See the article in the Guatemalan News Agency AGN about President Morales speech in Tajamulco on the 03.08.2017. Website: agn.com.gt/index.php/2017/08/03/presidente- morales-lleva-mensaje-de-tolerancia-y-reconciliacion-a-ixchiguan-y-tajumulco-historicamente-enfrentados-por-limites-territoriales/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 63 According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, Tourism was already in 2015 one of the most important contributors to in terms of total contribution to GDP, at more than 40 billion Quetzals. (Websites: Guatemala Budget)
22 population is therefore in need of finding a way to commoditise culture in an appropriate manner. This leads to the second point, on how culture is commoditised in the country and what the effects are for artist initiatives.
2.3 Commoditizing Culture
As shown, the state seems to keep the spending for cultural practices and heritage conservation to be at a threshold level and plans the budget accordingly. I interpret this is in order to allow the nation to maintain the few most important cultural heritage and tourist sites. For the lower class population it follows that the commodification of cultural goods can be used successfully in the regions where the state maintains the few best-known heritage sites. This means, that the approach to creative cultural production and reinterpretation – as done by artist initiatives – therefore is subordinated to the popular view of the art market. With this increased commodification of culture, it becomes gradually more complicated to justify investments into the cultural sector outside the bare necessity of the sustenance of cultural heritage. The ‘art’ that is seen purely as a sellable object becomes separated from the contemporary art practices of artists, who seem to have a connotation of being a tool of the upper-class society – used for cultural and identity wars.64 Thus, selling the same artworks and handicrafts in the streets that can be found in the national museum is but a mournful remembrance of more prosperous times long since passed. As Fillitz explains, the value of the culture as commodity is based on the image of the entire nation that was created in the past. 65 For Guatemala, this includes upholding the romanticised context of the indigenous population as an asset. Following his thoughts, it means that to sustain this image, only as much as the minimum investment allows, the highest revenue must be attained at minimal cost. In other words, nominally it is not worth it to lessen the constantly generated benefit for the state and broad populace that can be generated at the minimal cost of investment into 64 According to the chapter about Sponsorship of Art Exhibitions in Wu, 1997, p. 200 – 238. 65 Fillitz 2014, p. 86.23 the cultural sector. For the art scene this means, that it is not lucrative to invest in a museum or an alternative scene, because there is no high-revenue museum or artist in the nation that could justify additional spending for that sector in the first place. The problem though lies within the fact that exactly because there is a lack of investment into the cultural development, it becomes less likely that a high revenue state museum or artist emerges and thus that it will be economically beneficial or exploitable by the state. This loop portrays the consistency of a nearly isolated system and forms the current investment plan of the nation-state. However, the artist-run initiative as a sole individual can enter and exit this system and also develop a possible communitarianism within it, as pointed out by Swiss journalist Gabriele Detterer and Italian artist Mauricio Nannucci. They explain that the basic ideas of fairness of opportunity, cooperation based on equality and pursuit of communal goals, are a fundamental part of the reinvented self-help culture, which can be found in the strategies of artist-run spaces.66 The artist initiatives are therefore a part of these self-helping structures of the cultural sector, covering mainly the arts itself. Following these writings, it makes the existence of artist initiatives much more difficult, because as long as they lack broad support and understanding for the arts, they are limited both regarding audience and possibilities of outreach. Thus, they have to balance between the market and the ideological art space through careful interaction with the community. If they distance themselves too much from the population, they may become an instrument for an elitist circle that uses art to display their exclusivity. The positioning of the artist initiative is therefore crucial for their practices because there exists a high discrepancy between social status and how they approach the artist-run culture differently. If initiatives stay with the market-oriented community they may be seen as part of a sellable cultural object. Yet, if they use their practices exclusively to create critical dialogues, they might lose the needed support of the upper class, which pursues a different interest with regard to contemporary art practices. This is based on the idea that art can create a critical self-awareness of the population towards the state, which may undermine political and institutional behaviour over time. 66 Detterer 2012, p. 20.
24 This point needs to be further explained because it is based on a negative view of cultural development and contemporary art practices. It means, that the ability to create critical dialogues, to bring up a self-reflexive education system and to have a direct impact on the population with collaborative community projects, is to some extent unwanted in the country. In other words, the critical practices that some artists choose to pursue in public, create awareness about political and economic structures within the public, which undermines the political elite and questions their decisions and programs. This idea is based on a modern society that propagates a dystopian postmodernist system of exhaustion and debt amassment to justify one-sided political policies and interests, as presented by Nick Srnicek, a lecturer at the Digital Humanities Faculty London. He elaborates that the widespread acceptance of today’s liberal economic system “is the best that we can hope for.” 67 It is a negative view of the world and the market in a neo-liberalist society that have become far too complex to ever plan, accelerate or intervene into in any form. He continues to explain that the state and its political system is rendered nearly impotent due to the horrendous amassing of debt and the nearly endlessly complex and linked layers that our current society is built upon. He further states, that the entrenched nature of global capitalism leaves the collective imagination of the future incapable “of seeing alternatives to trends leading to devastation, increased poverty, and violence”, which inevitably ends to an “implacable dystopian time”.68 Guatemala, which counts more than 23 different languages and has limited financial resources to change the “desperate levels of indigenous poverty in Latin America”69, faces also a high level of corruption and exploitation within the political and social hierarchies.70 Pursuing a multi-ethnic society that reflects on itself and its dominant structures creates therefore unnecessary attention to political parties.71 Even more so if the government is partially bound to investments and 67 Srnicek. 2012, p. 6 – 7. 68 Quotation according to: Srnicek 2012, p. 6. (Original quote by: Jameson 1990). 69 According to Plant 1998, p. 92 – 93. 70 One example is the recent political corruption scandals involving the UN-Anti corruption department see Website: brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/09/07/what-guatemalas-political-crisis-means-for-anti-corruption-efforts-everywhere/ (Accessed Dec. 2017) 71 Plant 1998, p. 96.
25 demands from foreign investors and therefore has to use its resources in a way that results in a balanced economy while maintaining a controllable population.72 The arts, therefore, lose support, depending on the positioning of the initiative, even without having a direct political impact. Admitting that art has the ability to “shift or challenge people’s understanding about particular social issues”73 therefore means that it stands next to the multicultural education system. It provides the necessary tools to understand the multiple perspectives of a diverse society and the changing views when approaching critical dialogues.74 The creative traits that spark from the interaction with other creative minds lead to reimagining possible future fictions of the world, that are not as dystopian as the one mentioned by Srnicek. To envision an alternative future with different predominant structures and modes, the dynamic and versatile concept of the arts is imperatively needed to create the necessary critical and reflexive discourse. Chapter four will address the potential for arts to become a form of education and discuss the effects based on a positive view more in detail. The next chapter will discuss the Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, the NuMu, which has been chosen as a case study because it manages to be successful while striving to uphold voluntary social responsibility. First, the NuMu as an initiative will be looked at in more depth. Then the locality, in particular, will be discussed more in detail, how it places and navigates itself within the state, how it uses its properties to create outreach within and outside the country, and how it is able to use this to create a desired dialogue with the public. 72 Balancing of a state budget meaning to adjust the means of state investments and spending to avoid national insolvency. Cohn 2016, p. 94–97. 73 Idem, p. 40. 74 Bailey 2005, p. 39.
26
3. The NuMu: El Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
The Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo is a peculiar case in the art world. Founded in 2012 by the artists Jessica Kairé and Stefan Benchoam, the space presents itself under the banner of being the “first and only contemporary art museum in Guatemala, dedicated exclusively to supporting, exhibiting, and documenting contemporary art”.75 The two co-founders usually use the shortened version of the name, the NuMu, with a typeface that quite cheekily hints towards the one that the Museum of Modern Art in New York uses – the MoMA.76 The name might be misleading, as there has not been any previously existing or ‘old’ museum of contemporary art in the first place.77 The two initiating artists Kairé and Benchoam discussed the need for establishing a museum in the country many years ago, with the intention of creating an institution that “could fully support contemporary artists, thinkers, and cultural producers - an organization that would welcome international exchange and offer.”78 They continue to say: “Central to our mission, is to offer the necessary support to realize artistic projects of great value, despite the shortage of local institutions and both private and governmental funding. We believe that by carefully combining local and international projects, we are creating opportunities for collaborations to take place and critical thought to develop. For us, this project is about bringing people together to experiment, question, and share.”79 Because there is no monetary support that allows for a sustainable base for a core of artists and practices, the financial basis of the NuMu is provided through a variety of crowd funding projects. As a self-sustaining artist initiative, it has a patron programme available on its website. Apart from the individual single support donation, the ‘Friends of the NuMu’ program offers also revenue packages that are common 75 Website: elnumu.org/museum (Accessed Nov. 2017) 76 Website: moma.org (Accessed Nov. 2017) 77 It is not related to the ‘New Museum Los Gatos’ in California, which rebranded itself for its 50th anniversary in 2015 and since then uses the abbreviated slogan ‘NUMU’ as well. Website: numulosgatos.org/about/ (Accessed Nov. 2017) 78 Website: elnumu.org/museum (Accessed Nov. 2017) 79 Ibidem.27 among crowd funding platforms. The rewards include everything from postcards to signed notes and a full day guided tour through the city of Guatemala with one of the founding artists. Special events that require additional funding are individually announced and organised, the LACMA-NuMu collaboration of 2017, which will be introduced later, is the most recent one with its own ‘Kickstarter’ project page.80 The majority of their practices happen in, as well as around the locality. Looking at their exhibitions and the themes chosen shows an interesting approach towards the limited space and its surroundings. The entire building measures “approximately 2 x 2.5 meters“ and is formed in the shape of an egg – purposely built as a drive-through store for selling eggs.81 (Fig. 3) Thus it is already comfortably full with one to four people inside the building, depending on the exhibition. The founders explain that this is not to be seen as a limitation, but rather as an important factor of the space that has to be considered by each artist specifically when developing an exhibition. It forces each individual to think intensively about the usage of the space and how to most efficiently appropriate it for the intended purpose. Including the current 2017 solo exhibitions ¡Hay que dar para recibir! (you have to give to receive) by artist duo Lake Verea82 and the previous Conjura de la locura (Spell of Madness), by American based artist Carolina Gaycedo, the NuMu hosted a total of fifteen exhibitions in its space so far, as by November 2017.83 To demonstrate their use of the space, the first three exhibitions that were held since its foundation in 2012 will be briefly presented in the following. The opening of the NuMu took place on the 17th of July in 2012. The first to work with the space was the internationally renowned Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero. Until October of the same year, the NuMu was painted in the colourful Herrero-Mosaic style with a little flag on top, depicting a white egg and the red letters saying “museo”.84 (Fig. 4 – 5) With its second exhibition, the Jardín de Esculturas (Sculpture Garden) project by Emiliano Valdés, it already broke explicitly from the constraint of being limited within its own 80 Website: kickstarter.com/projects/lacma/art-across-borders-bring-numu-to-lacma?lang=de (Accessed Nov. 2017) 81 Website: elnuevomuseo.org/museum (Accessed Nov. 2017) 82 Website: elnumu.org/lake-verea (Accessed Nov. 2017) 83 See Website: elnuevomuseo.org/past-exhibitions (Accessed Nov. 2017) 84 For additional references and images on the exhibitions see Websites: NuMu Images.
28 facility. (Fig. 6) The exhibition, now within the white painted building, featured thirteen named artists from all over the world next to anonymous Guatemalan sculptors. The sculpture ‘park’ used the whole parking lot next to the NuMu for the works, artist talks and as a dining area, as well as the rest of the surrounding space for the many installations and sculptures. The interplay between the building and its surrounding is a continuous and evolving theme. Not only the physical visual aesthetics of the building changes from one exhibition to the other, also the associated name becomes a part of it. The third exhibition, el Nido salvaje (the wild nest) by Puerto Rican artist Radamés "Juni" Figueroa in 2013, used a soft eggshell-rose paint for the exterior. (Fig. 7) This life-celebrating exhibition used the idea of the tropics as an artistic position, filling the NuMu with a variety of plants, lights and particular items. The building became an ecosystem of its own, thus the flagpole on top of it became a palm tree and welcomed the visitor as the Hotel el Nido salvaje. The planning of each exhibition allows the changes of details also outside of the museum. During the inaugural exhibition a blue panel was placed on the opposite wall that was visible when exiting the building. (Fig. 8) For the ‘wild nest’ exhibition it was altered and a little egg took over the panel. (Compare to Fig. 7) Already the examples of the first exhibitions illustrate how the NuMu uses its facility as an instrument for creating public interactions and attention. The following subchapter will further elaborate how the NuMu uses the building as an asset and how it may be defined or even be seen as an object of art itself. This tendency to become part of the exhibition, how the locality interacts with the surrounding area and what complications this use brings to the centre, will also be investigated.
3.1 The NuMu and its Locality
The NuMu possesses several strong assets that support its impact and recognition value in the community. Three aspects will be looked into more closely: first, locality as an asset for marketing, secondly, the definition of the NuMu – being a self-titled museum, a29 place for cultural practice and an object of art. And thirdly, how it uses the locality to create interaction with the public in the public sphere and its chances and downsides. Locality as commodity is interesting due to the fact that museums often face the challenge to use the building itself as part of their marketing strategies. Most often they are located in a specific and distinguishable place. The majority of traditional museums that are hosted by the state and placed within a cultural heritage site fall into this category. These museums are commonly recognisable from the outside due to the many banners, posters or shields in various combinations and forms. Because the buildings are often a protected historic landmark and heavily regulated by the state and its laws on cultural heritage, the building itself is usually not transformed or interfered with in between exhibitions. However, for the contemporary art museum, in which realm the NuMu places itself, it has become somewhat a trend to explicitly use the architecture as a lasting icon. The boldness and desire to create a unique and distinguishable design have left some projects in need of vast investments for the constructions of alternative forms and materials alone.85 The Dutch architect Michiel Riedijk commented on this instance, mentioning, “Architects should take a cultural Position. And this Position is about how you can provide significance to part of the city, a neighbourhood or a building. Everything shouldn’t look like a rental office building, but that also doesn’t mean that everything should be heavily decorated.”86 Over time the distinct features of these architectures, the slogan, the logo and brand create a value that is tightly anchored within its locality and the exhibitions created under the umbrella of the entire institution. Psychologically speaking it seems apparent that the recognition value increases due to its consistent appearance.87 However, the NuMu is neither consistent in 85 The use of the material is meant according to the architectural guidelines of the appropriate use of a material in the handbook for architectures used in the ETH Zuerich: Moravanzky 2015. This gives the architecture and architectural spaces the idea of having a soul and empathy. Wagner 2009, p. 79 – 160. 86 See Raaij 2014, p. 116. 87 It is similar to the positive emotional response towards complex classical music that can be achieved through plain repetition, which has been an entire field of study in music psychology. One of the earlier examples of music psychology studies dates to 1965, where psychologist Jesse
30 its appearance nor a monolithic instance that reminds of the modern deconstructivist ideology of architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, or the architects from the group Coop Himmelb(l)au. One might think of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the mirror-like polyhedron of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Ohio, or the elevated ‘saucer-shaped’ modernist structure of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói in Brazil. Also currently planned projects such as the proposal for the Nuragic and Contemporary Art Museum by Zaha Hadid in Cagliari, Italy, is a secluded monolithic icon between artistic architecture and the purpose it is intended to being able to fulfil.88 It also is not a bridging construction between a traditional museum and iconic architecture such as the 2016-finished complex of the redesigned Lugano arte e cultura (LAC) in Switzerland by Ivano Gianola.89 This shows that there is a tendency in contemporary art museums’ architecture to use the locality as an asset over time for the institution. The site-specific value thus may increase over time solely due to the fact of being recognisable and being consistent. The NuMu, however, both counteracts the capitalizing effect that the recognisable locality as a commodity has and uses it to create a different kind of recognition value through the distinct change in appearance in between each exhibition. It repurposes the site and creates an experience that is entirely different from one to another exhibition. Yet, the tendency of having an iconic architecture is leaving its mark all around the world, as architectural photographer Will Price puts it.90 The NuMu describes itself as an ‘iconic’ structure on its website as well, stating: “NuMu’s physical space […] is shaped like an egg, as it was originally designed as a drive-thru egg selling kiosk. Over the years, this ‘iconic’ structure has become embedded in Guatemala City’s urban landscape, and is probably the only one of its kind in the world.”91 Even though the visitor does not find a Evans concludes that there is a necessity of repetition in order to create positive responses from the listeners of serious classical pieces. See: Evans 1965, p. 125. 88 In the words of French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who approached the experience of architecture already 60 years ago in his work poetics of space from a philosophical point of view. See: Bachelard 1994. 89 GSK 2015, p. 46. The Architecture series by Axel Menges describes how the additional museum wing and its different visual aesthetic interacts with the public and the viewer compared to the old parts of the existing building. Menges 2016, p. 20f. 90 Pryce 2007, p. 255 – 260. 91 Website: elnumu.org/museum (Accessed Nov. 2017)
