Master Thesis
What About Now?
On the Symbolic Role of the Mudam in Luxembourg
Submitted to
the Graduate School of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts in
Heritage Studies: Museum Studies
Under the supervision of
Prof. Dr. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes
Second reader
Dr. Mirjam Hoijtink
Submitted by
Jamie Kay Armstrong
on
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 1
Chapter One. Luxembourg, a “cultural desert”? On the history of Luxembourg and the arts in the twentieth century ... 7
1.2 “An idiot’s guide” to the Mudam Collection ... 12
Chapter Two. The Mudam Collection on display... 16
2.1 Telling the origins of the collection. Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s ... 16
2.2 A museum in self-reflexivity. Eldorado ... 25
2.3 Grappling with the beliefs and identities of our time. Dieu est un fumeur de Havanes 31 2.4 The Mudam Collection abroad. A More Perfect Day ... 38
Chapter Three. The Mudam museum and Collection in relation to national identity ... 47
Conclusion ... 55
List of Figures ... 57
Bibliography ... 59
Appendix ... 72
A. Floor plans ... 72
A.1 Floor plan: Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s. Mudam Collection ... 72
A.2 Floor plans: Eldorado ... 73
A.3 Floor plan: Dieu est un fumeur de Havanes ... 76
A.4 Floor plans: A More Perfect Day. Mudam Collection Luxembourg ... 77
B. Plan of From Lucy with Love by Christian Andersson ... 78
I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes for generously sharing her incredible knowledge with me. Her guidance, understanding and calmness were essential in the process of writing this thesis. Thanks also go to my professors of museology, Dr. Mirjam Hoijtink and Prof. Dr. Bram Kempers, for teaching me the Dutch motto ‘alles komt goed’ and greatly supporting me in my choice of topic. Although these lines will never do justice to the unlimited thanks I owe to the Mudam’s head of collection, Marie-Noëlle Farcy, and her assistant, Lisa Baldelli, I want to thank them for all the time and excitement they have given and shared with me. Their help and inexhaustible offerings of it have been
indispensable to the completion of this thesis. Knowing that my research would make a
difference to them motivated me greatly. I am further grateful to the Mudam’s director, Suzanne Cotter, and the head of the fine arts collection from Luxembourg’s National Museum of History and Art, Gosia Nowara, for kindly joining me on my time capsule and allowing me to
investigate the past and the future of contemporary art collections and museums in
Luxembourg. Finally, I thank the team of the University of Amsterdam’s Writing Centre, as well as my proof reader Robin Fixter for making sure all this makes sense.
1
Introduction
Built on top of the ruins of the eighteenth century Fort Thüngen, the architecture of the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam, has the appearance of harmoniously connecting the old and the new of its surrounding city, Luxembourg.1 It seems that the ancient walls of the fort
and the modern structure of the museum, opened in 2006 and designed by the prominent architect Ieoh Ming Pei, mutually enrich one another by entering into dialogues about history and the present, heritage and the future (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 View of the Mudam architecture and the Fort Thüngen.
Over the past years of visiting this museum of contemporary art, which is the first and only one of its kind in the country, the relationships it has with the surrounding city, the small country and its people has intrigued me. Whether this museum has brought crucial changes to the contemporary cultural landscape and possibly even to national cultural identity in Luxembourg remains a conjecture. Importantly, the museum and its young collection of art from the 1980s until today were essentially shaped by their cultural context and, reciprocally, continue to determine it.2 In interviews and editorials of the museum’s annual reports, which almost by
nature are idealised in tone, Enrico Lunghi, former and second director of the Mudam (2009– 2016), claims that the museum is fundamentally anchored in its environment and interacts with it.3 Similarly, he states that the museum’s artistic programme constantly refers to its particular
1 The acronym Mudam results from the first letters of Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.
2 Thirty works from the Mudam Collection date from before 1980 (Lisa Baldelli, assistant conservator at the
Mudam, personal e-mail communication, 20th November 2018).
2 situation.4 In order to critically investigate the accuracy of these claims, this thesis is thus
concerned with the following question: To what extent do the Mudam’s curatorial approaches to the display of its collection articulate the museum’s symbolic role in the Luxembourg context? This leads me to ask the following sub-questions: How does the museum relate to Luxembourg? What distinguishes the Luxembourg context from others? In what manners do the exhibitions engage with the cultural and societal environment? In how far does the display of the collection trigger primarily locals but also international visitors to identify with artistic culture?
In order to investigate this relation between the museum and its context, I will approach the subject with what museologist Jean Davallon terms a symbolic approach.5 Davallon argues
that a museum institution needs to be defined on the basis of the society it is anchored in and not vice versa.6 The symbolic approach is thus a method to analyse a museum’s function in relation
to the society it is surrounded by. According to Susan Pearce, “society […] consists in its history, in the trajectory through time which has produced the notion of a given community to which individuals belong, and within which all its content, including its material culture, has symbolic meaning and value.”7 By this approach, the functions of the museum are not limited to
the core functions defined by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), namely those of collecting, conserving, studying and exhibiting.8 Davallon suggests that such an approach can be
adopted by investigating a museum’s “symbolic operations,” which include the heritagisation of objects and the objects’ display in exhibitions.9 The exhibition, Davallon continues, enables
visitors to enter into contact with the world that these objects represent and the world these objects are originally part of.10 In accordance with the concept of narrating culture, widely used
since the 1990s, it is thus by the means of these objects that the museums suggest a mediation between the visitors and the world these objects originally issue from.11 According to Davallon,
this approach allows to read the institutions outside their own frameworks.12 Thereby, it expands
ICOM’s definition of the museum with regard to function.13
4 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, 2012 Annual Report (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2013), 2.
5 Jean Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ in Parlons Musée! Panorama Des
Théories Et Des Pratiques, edited by Céline Schall et al. (Luxembourg: Éd. Guy Binsfeld, 2014).
6 Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ 21.
7 Susan Mary Pearce, “Collecting Ourselves,” in On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the
European Tradition, edited by Susan Mary Pearce (New York: Routledge, 1995), 166–67.
8 International Council of Museums, “Museum definition,” date unknown,
https://icom.museum/en/activities/standards-guidelines/museum-definition.
9 Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ 22. 10 Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ 22. 11 Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ 22. 12 Davallon, “La ‘muséologie’ pour penser l’évolution des musées?“ 23.
13 Notably, institutions’ roles in society have in the past years been subject to much attention from the art
world. One example is the Van Abbemuseum’s exhibition and project Museum of Arte Útil (December 2013 – March 2014), which will be further discussed in subchapter 2.3 of this thesis. Another example is the series of exhibitions organised by the basis voor actuele kunst (BAK) in Utrecht entitled Instituting Otherwise (2016–2017).
3 In order to adopt this approach for the analysis of the Mudam, multiple methods needed to be combined. First of all, due to the focus of this thesis, only exhibitions composed
exclusively of the collection were considered. For the same reason, as well as that of scope, the museum’s educational and event programmes represent only a marginal part of the analysis. Secondly, a combination of various sources was necessary. Due to a considerable gap in scholarly literature regarding the Luxembourg cultural landscape – presumably a result of the lack of professionalism and the little attention attributed to art education that prevailed until recently – this thesis is greatly based on verbal sources: Conversations and interviews with museum professionals from the Mudam and the National Museum of History and Art, audio recordings of conferences, and curators’ visits for the museum’s tour guides. Moreover, newspaper articles, annual reports, exhibition booklets and catalogues, the museum’s website and smartphone application served as literary sources. Likewise, the Kulturentwécklungsplang (‘Plan for cultural development’ coordinated by Jo Kox) and very few scholarly texts, such as Céline Schall et al.’s publication Parlons Musée! Panorama Des Théories Et Des Pratiques (2014) or the book L'art Au Luxembourg: De La Renaissance au Début du XXIe Siècle (2006) edited by Alex Langini, represent sources that enable to investigate the Luxembourg context.14
Regarding the Mudam itself, it is particularly the building, which is written about. One example of this is the book Mudam: Le Bâtiment de Ieoh Ming Pei (2009). Similarly, above all
international press articles quickly refer to the building when writing about new exhibitions. Also Elizabeth Conter’s sociological study from 1997 on the polemics around a new museum for contemporary art in Luxembourg revolve mainly around the costs and the heritage site. In contrast, national newspapers and the museum institution itself document the exhibitions well in the form of press articles and the museum’s webpage, exhibition booklets and catalogues. It thus comes as a surprise that in particular the museum has never issued a scholarly publication on the collection or an analysis of its display. To my knowledge, no critical study has ever been
conducted on the symbolic role of the collection or the museum. Additionally, from my research, I understand that most literature on the cultural landscape in Luxembourg is of journalistic nature, dominated by interviews with Jo Kox and Enrico Lunghi. Arguably, journalist and art critic Josée Hansen needs to be mentioned as the most active writer in this
“The series Instituting Otherwise probes ways of imagining—as well as embodying and inhabiting—alternative institutional practices in myriad arenas: from the state, law, and democracy to infrastructures of education, health, care, intimacy, and art, to discursive formations and imaginary spaces” (Basis voor actuele kunst (BAK),
“Instituting Otherwise,” https://www.bakonline.org/program-item/instituting-otherwise/).
14 In fact, Parlons Musée! contains some of the only critical essays (mostly written by French scholars) that address
global issues of collecting, exhibiting contemporary art and mediation and, thereby, make regular connections to Luxembourg museology. Interestingly, the book presentation took place in the Mudam’s auditorium. Arguably, this is not a coincidence. It highlights the Mudam’s importance in the development and professionalisation of the discipline and scene.
4 field. Amongst Hansen’s most important publications are her essay “An idiot’s guide to
contemporary art” in Virdrun. Pour Une Histoire De L'art Contemporain Au Luxembourg (2008), for which she collaborated with the Mudam, as well as her book Piccolo Mondo. Un an
d'art contemporain au Luxembourg vu de l'intérieur (2015).
Sources for key concepts such as collecting, exhibition making, national identity, context, etc. were generated by international scholarly literature, such as publications by Susan Pearce, Mieke Bal, Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy or James Bradburne, amongst others.15 In
relation to the concept national cultural identity, the publication Heritage and Museums:
Shaping National Identity edited by Magnus J. Fladmark as a result of the Robert Gordon
University Heritage Convention held in Aberdeen in 1999 was most valuable for my research. Although most essays grapple with Scottish museums, the final part of the book argues these concepts at an international level. Above all James Bradburne’s essay “The Poverty of Nations: Should Museums Create Identity?” approaches the question of identity creating critically by arguing that “the attempt to hitch museums and the culture they preserve to the cart of the shaping of nationhood is dubious, misguided, and possibly dangerous.”16 Finally, visual sources,
such as videos of artist talks, exhibition plans and photographs further contributed to the combination of sources.
Furthermore, the framework within which this thesis offers a reading of the Mudam museum and Collection suggests an unusual situation in Western Europe. As it happens, Luxembourg’s artistic heritage is fairly poor and hardly idiosyncratic.17 Chapter One will,
therefore, discuss the history of Luxembourg’s relation with the arts, in particular the great delay of innovative approaches to contemporary art and the government’s engagement with it in the twentieth century. The chapter will highlight how the preparations for the year 1995, when Luxembourg was to be the European Cultural Capital, and the resulting projects, such as the
15 The fifth issue of the journal Stedelijk Studies (2017), edited by Rachel Esner and Fieke Konijn, revolved
around the issue of curating a collection. In addition to the editorial, essays by Judith Spijksma and Ann-Sophie Lehmann, as well as Michael Neumeister were particularly interesting with regards to the politics of display. Furthermore, in Ten Fundamental Questions of Curating (2013), edited by Jens Hoffmann, Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy raises the questions why, “that in print and in discussions on contemporary curating, the subject of art
collecting practices fails to be addressed” and how it is “that in the fundamental curatorial study programs, courses on collecting are missed?” Ann-Katrin Luther grapples with the patterns of collecting and producing contemporary art in her PhD thesis from 2016. Her study, however, consists mainly of the establishment of a method of how these patterns can be visually analysed, rather than a semantic analysis of what these patterns mean for art collections and collectors. Nevertheless, Luther also addresses the intrinsic value of art works and, thereby, compares three authors’ understandings of ‘symbolic value’, these being Velthuis (2003), Graw (2009) and Horowizt (2011).
16 James Bradburne, “The Poverty of Nations: Should Museums Create Identity?” in Heritage and Museums:
Shaping National Identity, edited by Magnus J. Fladmark, et al. (Shaftesbury: Donhead, 2000), 379.
17 Edmond Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ in L'art Au
Luxembourg: De La Renaissance Au Début Du XXIe Siècle, edited by Alex Langini (Brussels [Esch-sur-Alzette:
5 conception of the museum for contemporary art, represent a milestone in the country’s cultural policies, art production and the professionalisation of the field.18
In addition to this unique context, the museum’s exhibition practice is equally significant. Shown almost exclusively in temporary shows, Chapter Two will analyse four exhibitions of the Mudam Collection. By means of these, I will investigate the curatorial practices by which the Mudam creates an unprecedented relation to the context defined in Chapter One. More specifically, the first two case studies will analyse the symbolic role of the collection by examining the curatorial approach of metamuseology. The term ‘metamuseology’ was introduced by the Czech museologist Zbyněk Stránský in the 1980s and designates “‘the theory whose subject is museology in itself,’ in a certain way being strictly bound to museology, but also related to philosophy, to history and to the theory of science and culture.”19 The last two
case studies then investigate the collection’s symbolic role through the lens of thematic curation. Examining curatorial practices for the Mudam Collection in relation to its symbolic role will lead into a discussion of what the collection and the museum mean for the people’s
identities. Having grown up in Luxembourg myself, I want to, in Chapter Three, test whether the Mudam’s activities feed into a national cultural identity. Accordingly, Janet Walker et al. follow Susan Pearce when considering “collecting as a process of communication between subject and object.”20 Thereby, they articulate a strong relation between a collection of objects
and individuals. Collecting is considered by them as “the building of a narrative – a narrative of identity.”21 Last, it is not until the conclusion that I will include my voice as a Luxembourg
citizen in the study of the Mudam.
Indeed, to study a museum and its collection through the lens of the symbolic approach, coincides with the nature of museums. According to ICOM’s definition of museums, these are “in the service of society and its development,” not least because the majority of European museums are funded with public money.22 A reading of the Mudam with respect to its societal
and cultural context thus appears to be fundamental for the understanding of it. Especially in relation to contemporary art, which repeatedly reflects the society it derives from, the inclusion of the latter seems important. In her dissertation on contemporary art collecting, Anne-Katrin Luther states that “the art is not only contemporary because it was produced in the Now, it has
18 Joining the Mudam in this turning point is another important cultural institution which opened one year
before the Mudam in 2005: The classical music hall Philharmonie Luxembourg, officially called the Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte Concert Hall. It was designed by Christian de Portzamparc.
19 Bruno Brulon Soares, “Provoking Museology: The Geminal Thinking of Zbynek Z. Stránsky,”
Museologica Brunensia 5.2 (2016): 10, doi: 10.5817/MuB2016-2-1.
20 Janet A. Walker, Helen Asquine Fazio, and Julie V.G. Rajan, "Introduction: Collecting And/as Cultural
Transformation," The Comparatist 32 (2008): 36.
21 Walker et al, Collecting And/as Cultural Transformation,” 36. 22 ICOM, “Museum definition.”
6 been placed into a context that vetted and produced the contemporary in contemporary art.”23
As a result, the links between modern society and contemporary art can be considered to be close. Essentially, art historians Rachel Esner and Fieke Konijn suggest that the relationship between museums and their contexts is mutual or reciprocal: „the public has become more and more interested in the links between works of art, as well as their relation to current social and political issues.”24
Moreover, the material context, embodied by the exhibition galleries or the site of the museum, is important in studying the Mudam’s symbolic role. Davallon claims that this material ‘support’ of exhibitions is crucial in the creation of meaning.25 To illustrate, he suggests that the
signification of the same name changes greatly when written on a house or a boat.26 This means
that the context shapes the meaning of the text, meaning the exhibits. Importantly, in accordance with semiotic theory, Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson note that context “is a text itself, and it thus consists of signs that require interpretation. What we take to be positive knowledge is the product of interpretive choices. The [ … scholar] is always present in the construction she or he produces.”27 In other words, context is never objectively given.
It appears that the act of writing works as a metaphorical cohesive glue joining all topics relevant to this written thesis. Correspondingly, in his 1931 essay “Unpacking my Library,” Walter Benjamin suggests that by building a collection, “the collectors become authors, constructing a narrative that links the objects they have collected to their identity as it has unfolded in time.”28 Although Benjamin refers to individual collectors, I believe this is equally
true if the collector is a foundation at the heart of a museum. Likewise, in his essay “L’écriture de l’exposition. Expographie, muséographie, scénographie“ from 2010, Davallon argues that the making of exhibitions, meaning the expographie, muséographie and scenographie, is in fact an act of writing, as the Greek etymology of these words suggests. According to him, the exhibition is a text, i.e. a significant ensemble of objects, destined to be read or interpreted by the
visitor/reader. In addition, this ‘exhibition text’ relies heavily on its context, which serves as a support in shaping meaning.29 Finally, by collecting, studying and exhibiting young and socially
engaged art, as well as regularly co-producing works, the Mudam takes on the role of an author of contemporary art history and cultural heritage in the making.
23 Anne-Katrin Luther, Collecting Contemporary Art: A Visual Analysis of a Qualitative Investigation into
Patterns of Collecting and Production, PhD thesis, London: University of the Arts London, 2016, 3.
24 Rachel Esner, and Fieke Konijn, “Curating the Collection: Editorial,” Stedelijk Studies 5 (2017), 1. 25 The following sentences rely on Jean Davallon, “L’écriture de l’exposition. Expographie, muséographie,
scénographie,“ in Culture & Musées 16 (2010), 231.
26 Davallon, “L’écriture de l’exposition.,“ 231.
27 Mieke Bal, and Norman Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History" The Art Bulletin 73.2 (1991), 175. 28 Walker et al, "Collecting And/as Cultural Transformation," The Comparatist 32 (2008), 36–37. 29 Davallon, “L’écriture de l’exposition,“ 230–231.
7
Chapter One. Luxembourg, a “cultural desert”? On the history of
Luxembourg and the arts in the twentieth century
Luxembourg’s history goes back more than one thousand years and is coloured above all by foreign occupation. Up until today, the small country’s land and cityscapes provide a large amount of physical evidence for these occupations, resulting in the fact that parts of history are visible to the naked eye.
While this political history and the impacts it has had on local society are part of Luxembourg identity, a national identity issuing from an interconnection with the fine arts hardly exists. In comparison to its neighbouring countries, Luxembourg’s artistic heritage is fairly poor or at least hardly unique.30 Lunghi argues that there is no (international) history of
modern art in Luxembourg.31 He claims that Picasso, Warhol, Basquiat never came to the
country; it remained unattractive to (international) artists to work or exhibit.32 In Virdrun. Pour une Histoire de l’Art Contemporain au Luxembourg (‘Before. For a history of contemporary art
in Luxembourg’), Hansen identifies reasons why, in the twentieth century, Luxembourg was almost non-existent on the ‘international art map.’33 She notes that contemporary art was neither
appreciated nor supported in Luxembourg: “The incomprehension, or hostility, of the public and art institutions concerning contemporary art was such that the most important [Luxembourg] artists chose exile.”34 Local artists, she argues, could not find galleries or institutions willing to
exhibit non-conformist art, which often forced them to leave the country and work abroad.35
Indeed, the annual salon of the Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg (CAL), founded in 1893, and the State Museum were the only spaces where contemporary art was exhibited until the late 1980s, when new institutions such as the Mudam were planned and galleries multiplied.36
Regardless, with Luxembourg’s lack – or deprivation – of artistic education in the twentieth century, artists seeking to study art were somewhat forced to move abroad.37 To a
great extent, these were the only ones who entered into contact with international art and unconventional approaches, which, with their return from Germany to Luxembourg around the
30 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, 2013 Annual Report (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2014), 3. 31 Romina Calò, “Un prophète: Un entretien sur les dix ans du Mudam avec Enrico Lunghi, son directeur
général,” Land, 20th May 2016. 32 Calò, “Un prophète.”
33 ‘Elo’ is Luxembourgish for ‘now.’
The publication is one of the few critical publications on the history of contemporary art in Luxembourg, published within the frame of the exhibition “Elo: Inner Exile – Outer Limits,” which took place in the winter of 2008/09 at the Mudam.
34 Josée Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” in Virdrun. Pour Une Histoire De L'art
Contemporain Au Luxembourg, edited by Josée Hansen et al. (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2008), 131.
35 Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 131-32.
36 Enrico Lunghi, „La Création Artistique: Les Dernières Décennies du XXe Siècle et le Début du XXIe
Siècle,” in L'Art Au Luxembourg, edited by Langini, 346.
37 Christian Mosar interviewed in Cercle Artistique du Luxembourg, “125 Joer CAL – en Ausbléck,”
8 end of the 1920s, resulted in a so-called first revolution or secession in the Luxembourg art scene.38 Joseph Kutter and Jean Noerdinger, amongst others, founded the salon of the
secessionists, which opposed itself to the traditional CAL but also dissolved after only two exhibitions.39 According to art historian Christian Mosar, their art was modern, yet delayed in
comparison to European modernism.40 Even so, it was neither appreciated nor could the artists
find buyers, not least because there was no collecting tradition.41
After the second world war an admiration for French art of the École de Paris prevailed, which was introduced to local artists and the public by Joseph-Émile Muller.42 He was the first
to be engaged by the State in 1958, in order to acquire art for the State Museum’s collection of contemporary art.43 Many of these works he acquired from the CAL’s salons. Lunghi claims that
due to the State Museum and the CAL salons being the only exhibition spaces, the aesthetics of the École de Paris monopolised the creation and artistic debates in Luxembourg until the mid 1980s.44 Artists adopting this form of lyrical abstraction and exhibiting in Luxembourg were
Michel Stoffel and Lucien Wercollier, amongst others, who were part of the artist groups Iconomaques and Nouvelle Équipe.45 This long-lasting tradition of French abstraction, which
had lost its innovative nature after some years, had been challenged by the internationally oriented artist group Société des Beaux-arts in 1950, but continued to represent the taste of the ruling, educated, yet conservative class and once again created a delay of Luxembourg art and its display in comparison to international art practices and collecting.46
Attempts to break with what had established itself as a new academism and – not to forget – was displayed and collected by the only art museum of the country, was organised by the artists of the Consdorf Secession consisting of Norbert Ketter, Nico Thurm and Marc Henri Reckinger in 1967.47 These did not follow an aesthetic programme except for that of rejecting
the dominating conventions, as well as the established institutions.48 Their inspiration was
drawn from German and British-American movements, such as op, pop, conceptual and feminist
38 Mosar interviewed in Cercle Artistique du Luxembourg, “125 Joer CAL – en Ausbléck.”
39 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 12 ; Musée National d’Histoire
et d’Art, “Art in Luxembourg,” https://www.mnha.lu/de/Rundgange/Kunst-in-Luxembourg.
40 Mosar interviewed in Cercle Artistique du Luxembourg, “125 Joer CAL – en Ausbléck.”
41 Mosar interviewed in Cercle Artistique du Luxembourg, “125 Joer CAL – en Ausbléck” ; Gosia Nowara
(Head of the Fine Arts Collection at the Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art), personal communication, 14th
November 2018.
42 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 322. 43 Nowara, personal communication, 14th November 2018.
44 Lunghi, “La Création Artistique,“ 344.
45 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 324.
46 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 327 ; Lunghi, “La Création
Artistique,“ 345.
47 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 306 and 340. 48 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 306.
9 art.49 Yet, isolated in the little village of Consdorf, they soon disappeared from the surface and
are nearly forgotten by today.50
Finally under the presidency of Albert Dondelinger in the 1980s, the CAL opened up by professionalising itself and additionally exhibiting international art.51 At the same time, the
major lack of galleries, which in comparison to art capitals hardly existed in Luxembourg, finally began to be compensated.52 The multiplying galleries did not only provide alternative
spaces for artists to exhibit, but also opportunities for the public to buy Luxembourg or international art and become acquainted with new aesthetics.53 Accordingly, the first ever Kulturentwécklungsplang (‘Plan for cultural development’), published by the government in
2018, highlights a link between national feelings and culture during the 1989 festivities, which celebrated the 150th anniversary of Luxembourg’s political independence.54
In addition to what Hansen calls ‘incomprehension’ and ‘hostility’ towards
contemporary art, which according to her even lasted into the 2000s, the government hardly promoted the education of art until the late twentieth century:55 “At the beginning of the 1990s,
Luxembourg had neither a University nor an Academy of Fine Arts.”56 The lack of
professionalism – exemplified by the juridical introduction of the artist profession only in 1999 – could also be found in other fields of the arts:
There was only one museum (that mostly resembled a cabinet of curiosities), only one review, […] and no real critical tradition. A few rare and interesting galleries […] dared show anything other than abstract painting […]. Amongst local artists there is little exchange, little emulation or debate. The critical mass is rather weak. There is also the banal question of economic survival: if collectors do not follow new trends (and those who do buy from abroad), if local galleries so seem a bit wary and if the only existing museum blows hot and cold but buys little, how can one live from one’s art?“57
The shift of institutional and public interest towards contemporary art in the late 1980s ran parallel with a boom in the economic sector defined by a shift from the first to the tertiary sector, shaping the image of Luxembourg as a financial hub.58 These times of change were also
apparent in the country’s “redefinition of its architectural landscape, with the construction of an
49 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 307. 50 Lunghi, “La Création Artistique,“ 345.
51 Mosar interviewed in Cercle Artistique du Luxembourg, “125 Joer CAL – en Ausbléck.” 52 Thill, “L’Art de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la Fin des Années 1960,“ 337.
53 Lunghi, “La Création Artistique,“ 346.
54 Jo Kox, et al, Kulturentwécklungsplang 2018-2028 (Luxembourg: Ministère De La Culture, 2018), 36. 55 Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 131.
56 Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 132. 57 Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 132.
58 Alexandra Midal, “The Prenuptial Agreement and Contemporary Art: Strategies for a Marriage,” in Musée
d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean: Mudam 2000 - 2004 Almanach, edited by Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
10 important number of public and private buildings.”59In addition, it was in this climate of change
when, in 1989, the government decided to build the first museum and collection for
contemporary art, bearing in mind that Luxembourg would be the European Capital of Culture for the first time in 1995.60 Jacques Santer, then Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and
Culture, saw the urge to merge politics and culture and to “offer the country an extra identity. To do so we [the government] had to link this identity to a cultural dimension, for the situation in neighbouring countries had long since demonstrated the close links that had been forged between politics and culture. […] If only for the sake of healthy competition, cultural development on national ground had become essential.”61 From this cultural political
perspective, the planned museum, which was to be called the Mudam, is the expression of a political willingness to expand Luxembourg’s art scene, as well as negotiate its identities and image.62Indeed, the preparations for the year 1995 ultimately allowed the government to
acknowledge the considerable cultural backlog.63 According to sociologist and political scientist
Marc Gerges, the occasion triggered local authorities and people to think about their relation to the arts and their identification with them.64 Ultimately, he claims that, in 1994, Luxembourg
was searching for an identity.65
Within this larger context, it is no coincidence that the National Cultural Fund (Focuna), established by the government in 1979 in order to reinforce the cultural infrastructures, began to collect international contemporary art in 1996.66 Importantly, this collection was transferred to
the Mudam Foundation in 2000 and, thereby, entered its collection.67 In the meantime, the
Casino – Forum d’Art Contemporain Luxembourg, which had served as a “centre for cultural and social events [ … from the 1950s] to the end of 1990” and was architecturally and
conceptually restructured by the State for the occasion of the European Cultural Capital, hosted first temporary contemporary art exhibitions in 1996. An example is the show entitled Recent
acquisitions by the National Museum of History and Art (the former State Museum) (March –
May 1996), or Photopeintries (October – December 1996), which displayed pieces
59 Alexandra Midal, “The Prenuptial Agreement and Contemporary Art,” 137. 60 The programme ‘European Capital of Culture’ has existed since 1985.
61 Jacques Santer quoted by Claude Neu, “Preserving is One Thing, Activating is Another,” in Musée d’Art
Moderne Grand-Duc Jean: Mudam 2000 - 2004 Almanach, edited by Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
(Luxembourg: Mudam, 2004), 133.
62 “Mudam: Le Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean,” Totalement Vôtre (September 2007): page numbers
unknown.
63 François Besch, “Happy Birthday, Dear Mudam,“ Tageblatt, 22nd June 2011. 64 Marc Gerges, “Dépasser la peur,” Paperjam (27th June 2015): 1.
65 Gerges, “Dépasser la peur,” 1.
66 Fonds Culturel National Luxembourg “Editorial,“ http://focuna.lu/fr/Editorial ; Midal, “The Prenuptial
Agreement and Contemporary Art, 137.
67 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. Opening July 2006,
Luxembourg: Mudam, no page numbers.
11 “combin[ing] painting and photography.”68 As Casino’s co-founder – next to Jo Kox – and later
director of the Mudam, Lunghi explains that by putting itself to the disposal of artists and their ideas and intentions in the 1990s, Luxembourg finally succeeded in emancipating itself from its artistic provincialism.69 This emancipation and professionalisation exemplified by the Casino,
which furthermore organised international projects and made use of public spaces, laid the foundation for a local contemporary art scene and the future Mudam.70
After the prominent architect Ieoh Ming Pei presented a first architectural model of the new museum for contemporary art, the project was put on hold in 1993, due to unprecedented controversy about the project and building costs.71 Indeed, in the 1990s, people feared the
commodification of art and the universalisation of artistic practices, the spectacularisation of liberal politics and that artists would be instrumentalised for the tourist industry.72 The Mudam
project, however, was relaunched in the context of the European Cultural Capital and finally continued at a considerably smaller scale in 1996.73 Similarly, two years later, Luxembourg
hosted the contemporary art biennale Manifesta 2, which ultimately allowed the small country and local artists to be received internationally.74 While, according to Lunghi, the world showed
an interest in art displayed in Luxembourg, the event and artworks were not necessarily appreciated at a local level, as exemplify the small number of local visitors, as well as the missed opportunities to acquire some of the works.75
As the following section will highlight, the Mudam was still not well received by parts of the public at its opening in 2006.76 However, the professionalisation of the scene; the many
efforts made by the government and cultural institutions such as the participation in important biennals, the investment in education and museums, or a further year of being the European Cultural Capital in 2007; as well as the recognition of the Luxembourg art scene by other
countries have ultimately enabled a native public interest in contemporary art.77 That this shift in
paradigm has an effect on a national cultural identity has most recently been demonstrated,
68 Casino Luxembourg, “About Casino: History,” http://www.casino-luxembourg.lu/en/History; Casino
Luxembourg, “Photopeintries,” http://www.casino-luxembourg.lu/en/Exhibitions/Photopeintries.
69 Enrico Lunghi, “Vingt ans d'art contemporain à Luxembourg - défis et limites, ” Conference from 10th
November 2018, uploaded by Radio 100komma7, https://www.100komma7.lu/audio/90840.
70 Lunghi, “Vingt ans d'art contemporain à Luxembourg.”
71 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Pocket (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2012), 37. 72 Lunghi, “Vingt ans d'art contemporain à Luxembourg.”
73 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Pocket, 37. 74 Lunghi, “Vingt ans d'art contemporain à Luxembourg.” 75 Lunghi, “Vingt ans d'art contemporain à Luxembourg.”
76 Elizabeth Conter, “Etude sociologique d’une polémique culturelle. La pari de l’implantation du musée Pei
au Luxembourg,” master thesis, Paris: Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1997.
77 The government’s budgetfor culture multiplied by 18 in the past 35 years (from 7,8 million euros in 1984
to 141,1 million in 2018. Taking into consideration the inflation rates, this same budget multiplied by 9,1 times. Concurrentlz, the overall governmental budgets multiplied by 4,6. (Culture.lu, “Présentation du
12 amongst many other things, by the government’s presentation of plans for a national gallery due in 2023.78
1.2 “An idiot’s guide” to the Mudam Collection
The Mudam Collection is the permanent collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg. When the Luxembourg government voted on building the first museum to exclusively collect and display contemporary art in 1989, it was not only preparing for the cultural year of 1995 but also “celebrating 150 years of national independence, 100 years of dynasty and the 25th anniversary of His Highness the Grand-Duke Jean’s reign.”79 As mentioned
in the previous section, the Focuna started acquiring the first works in 1996 for what was to become the Mudam Collection.80 Based on the law of 28th April 1998, the government
established the Mudam Foundation for which the State is the main patron.81 The foundation
holds the status of a private-law entity, which gives it legal and organisational independence from the State and, thus, does not make the museum a national museum.82 It is administered by
a Board of Directors chaired by former Prime Minister Jacques Santer, whose office has been succeeded by Her Highness Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg since 2016.83 Gallerist
Bernard Ceysson was appointed the foundation’s director and continued acquiring works for the collection, which was and still is above all funded with public money.84 Immediately it became
apparent that whatever art had not been purchased in the 1950s and 60s could no longer be acquired without disbursing millions around the turn of the millennium.85 Lunghi claims that it
is too late for the Mudam to become a competitive museum of modern art; however, with efficient acquisition policies, it stands great chances to become an important reference for contemporary art museums in the future.86
78 Marie-Laure Rolland, “Galerie Nationale d'art au Luxembourg: Un projet qui ne fâche (presque) plus,”
Reporter.lu, 17th July 2018,
https://www.reporter.lu/luxembourg-galerie-nationale-un-projet-qui-ne-fache-presque-plus/.
79 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam 2000 - 2004 Almanach, 133.
“These events, in addition [to] the results of a commissioned study, were valid reasons for offering the nation and its regent a cultural symbol that would raise the country above the conservative cliché to which, in public opinion, it was generally reduced.” (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam 2000 - 2004 Almanach, 133).
80 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Collection,” https://www.mudam.lu/en/le-musee/la-collection/. 81 Musée d’Art Moderne Duc Jean, 2002 Annual Report (Luxembourg: Musée d’Art Moderne
Grand-Duc Jean, 2003), 3 ; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Grand-Duc Jean, “Le Musée,” https://www.mudam.lu/en/le-musee/.
82 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Le Musée.” 83 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Le Musée.”
84 Janina Strötgen. “Das Mudam blickt auf die Welt,” Tageblatt, 29th January 2010.
85 Lunghi cited by May. “Das Mudam segelt unter falscher Flagge – aber zunehmend auf Erfolgskurs,”
Journal, 28th April 2010.
13 Two years after the establishment of the foundation, Focuna transferred about eighty artworks collected between 1996 and 1999 to it.87 At the arrival of the first director
Marie-Claude Beaud in 2000, she replaced Ceysson and also decompartmentalised the collection by collecting art different from British sculpture, European and American painting and German photography.88 For the museum’s opening in 2006, many works were commissioned and
acquired by the foundation.89 Concurrently, the State officially handed it over the Mudam
building.90 As previously outlined, the Mudam was subject to controversy in the country. An
extensive sociological study was conducted by Elizabeth Conter in 1997 on the origins of the polemics against what had become the “Musée Pei” and the difficult relation between
Luxembourgers and contemporary art.91
Since 2000, a scientific committee with prominent international museum professionals has been in charge of selecting the works for the collection, which today holds approximately 700 pieces.92 These “are chosen for their quality and relevance, without having to fulfil any
quotas.”93 As a result, the collection is characterised by its contemporaneity – about ninety per
cent of the pieces were created after 1990 –, its internationality, as well as the diversity of artistic practices.94 Additionally, according to Lunghi the public collection should not succumb
to trends, the art market, individuals’ interests or exclusive paradigms.95 Instead, in order to
avoid being forced to submission by the art market, amongst other reasons such as artistic creation, the Mudam has developed a strategy of (co)productions, which repeatedly enter the
87 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Opening July 2006, no page numbers.
Subchapter 2.1. looks at how the current exhibition Paintings from the 1980s and1990s highlights Focuna’s acquisition policies.
88 Thierry Hick, “La collection, colonne vertébrale du musée,” in “10 Jahre Mudam,” Luxemburger Wort, 1st
July 2016, 4.
Subchapter 2.2 discusses the choices made by Marie-Claud Beaud.
89 These commissions and acquisition policies will be discussed further in subchapter 2.2.
90 “Mudam: Le Musée d’Art modern Grand-Duc Jean,” Totalement Vôtre (Septembre 2007): page numbers
unknown.
91 Conter, “Etude sociologique d’une polémique culturelle.”
Luxembourg critic Lucien Kayser wrote “I am sure […] that an intolerant attitude to contemporary art […] simply arises from our ignorance of the subject” (Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 131). Likewise, artist Bert Theis speaks of a “lack of infromation and intellectual poverty” (Hansen, “An Idiot’s Guide to Contemporary Art,” 131).
92 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Collection.”
“From 2018 to 2021, under Suzanne Cotter’s direction, the board members selecting the artworks for Mudam Collection are Nancy Spector (Artistic director – Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York), Daniel Birnbaum (Director of Moderna Museet de Stockholm) Okwui Enwezor (Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich)” (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Collection”).
93 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Collection.”
94 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, 2011 Annual Report (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2012), 4.
The collection holds works of reference as well as pieces from newer generations, which, according to the Head of Collection Marie-Noëlle Farcy, complement each other. Examples for works of reference are pieces by the Irish artist James Coleman, performance artists Gilbert & George, American artist Chris Burdon or Marina Abramovic. According to the curator at large Clément Minighetti, these artists still have an important influence on younger generations (Christian Mosar, and Charlotte Wirth, “Konschtsammlungen: D’Beispill Mudam,” Radio 100komma7, 2nd November 2016).
14 collection.96 Likewise, as the 2008 acquisition of works by Shiro Kuramat exemplifies, the
Mudam occasionally takes on a pioneering role, as it was one of the first museums to collect the Japanese designer’s works, which now sell at very high prices.97 Moreover, whether acquired,
donated or deposited, all artworks have to be approved by the scientific committee before entering the collection.98
The Mudam Collection was already displayed at multiple institutions before the opening of the Mudam in 2006, for example in the exhibition Perspectives. Acquisitions for a new
museum at the Casino Luxembourg in 1997, or the 2005 Mudam Base Camp exhibitions, which
were hosted at the Bank of Luxembourg.99 Furthermore, the manners in which the collection is
exhibited remain particular even after the museum’s opening: after the museum building was drastically reduced in size in 1996 due to protests by advocates of material heritage
preservation, as well as for financial reasons, museum professionals were left with significantly less space.100 While initial plans intended to provide more than 6000 square meters as exhibition
space, the galleries today count approximately 4800 square meters.101 Consequently, while the
museum’s collection is constantly growing, the museum finds too little space to display a
meaningful ensemble of the collection in a permanent way.102 This is why, with the exception of
some twenty works displayed in different parts of the museum and the surrounding park, the collection is never shown in a permanent exhibition. It is almost exclusively exhibited in temporary monographic or thematic shows – a curatorial approach, which challenges the permanence associated with museum collections.103 Importantly, this also implies that the
collection is strongly integrated in the dynamic artistic programme of the museum and that the programme and collection are strongly entwined. Accordingly, Lunghi states that one cannot speak of the collection and exhibitions separately.104 Consequently, unlike at many other
museums, the visitor does not choose to see either the permanent collection or the temporary exhibition at the cash desk.105
96 Botquin, “Une collection pour notre monde.”
97 Sonia Da Silva, ”Le Mudam propose un certain regard sur le monde: La collection revisitée,” La Voix, 30th
January 2010.
98 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, 2002 Annual Report, 12.
99 Casino Luxembourg, “Perspectives – Acquisitions pour un nouveau musée,”
http://www.casino-luxembourg.lu/en/Exhibitions/Perspectives-Acquisitions-pour-un-nouveau-musee ; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, 2005 Annual Report (Luxembourg: Mudam, 2006), 2.
100 Michel Pauly, “Es geht nicht nur um das Fort Thüngen,“ Forum.lu (date unknown),
https://www.forum.lu/wp-content/uploads/.../2908_135_Pauly.pdf.
101 Romina. “Un prophète,” 34 ; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Le bâtiment,“
http://www.mudam.lu/fr/le-musee/le-batiment/.
102 Enrico Lunghi,. “Le Mudam Luxembourg” in Parlons Musée!, 134.
103 Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, “What about Collecting?” in: Ten Fundamental Questions of Curating,
edited by Jens Hoffmann (Milan: Mousse Publishing, 2013), 58.
104 Lunghi cited by Clarinval and Coubray,“‘Porter un regard sur le monde,’” 149.
15 Not only does this unconventional exhibition practice manifest itself physically, but also historically. In the past, temporary exhibitions were activities reserved to non-museological spaces, which for the majority did not have collections to work with.106 Arguably, exhibitions
with ensembles of isolated works or fragments of collections made self-referential narratives about collections impossible and thus triggered curators to find cohesive narratives at a different level, for example by approaching the works thematically.107
Over the course of the half-century, the thematic approach to exhibitions has been adopted by museums for temporary exhibitions.108 It is only recently that thematic narratives are
applied to collection exhibitions. Accordingly, art historian and critic Jeannine Tang states Although thematic curation of museum collections existed in isolated instances in the 1980s in Germany and France, such hangs gained popular attention with the advent of the MoMA’s Modernstarts hangs from 1999–2001: People, Places, Things; Making
Choices; Open Ends. This trinity of exhibitions began with the decision of MoMA’s
chief curators to integrate its medium-segregated departments in an experimental curatorial project, bringing works and curators from MoMA’s painting, sculpture, drawing and film departments together, and rewriting its often-criticized formalist history of modernism. In 2000, Tate Modern opened with a signature thematic hang as well, a deft utilization of its small collection and inability to construct the traditional modernist narrative (Cubism-Surrealism-Expressionism-Abstraction-Minimalism).109
In comparison, Esner and Konijn state that the Tate Modern initiated the thematic approach to collection display, when in 2000, the Tate “shook the museum world with the groundbreaking and much-debated installation of its permanent collection according to theme rather than chronology.”110 Finally, the Centre Pompidou opened its exhibition Big Bang in 2007, where
conventional categories of art history were sacrificed for more contemporary themes.111 Either
way, it is highly surprising that a medium sized museum, in a city that before the opening of the Mudam in 2006 hardly existed on an ‘international art map,’ lines up with cultural hubs such as New York and London and even precedes Paris in adopting a trend in contemporary curatorial practice.
In summary, this chapter has discussed the historic relation between the arts and the Luxembourg government and people in the twentieth century. Opposed to multiple sources claiming that Luxembourg was a “cultural desert” and tried to create a cultural scene ex nihilo in the 1990s, the chapter has shown that an art scene did exist, however, that it had a great delay
106 Lunghi, “Le Mudam Luxembourg,” 134.
107 To illustrate, Harald Szeemann, who is generally known to be the ‘father’ of thematic curatorship, started
his career as an artist curator at the Kunsthalle Bern in the 1960s rather than at a museum institution with a collection.
108 Esner and Konijn, “Curating the Collection,” 2.
109 Jeannine Tang, "The Big Bang at Centre Georges Pompidou: Reconsidering Thematic Curation," Theory,
Culture & Society 23.78 (2006): 245.
110 Esner and Konijn, “Curating the Collection,” 4.
16 compared to neighbouring countries at the levels of artistic practice, policy, art education and exhibiting practice.112 It has further contextualised the need for a new national identity, which
wants to connect the country with culture. Finally, the following chapter will analyse one way of making this connection, namely through exhibition making. It will look at how temporary exhibitions of the Mudam Collection challenge the abovementioned delays and, as a result, articulate a symbolic role in the Luxembourg context.
Chapter Two. The Mudam Collection on display
“The collection has from the beginning served as the spine of the museum and its exhibitions,” claims journalist Thierry Hick on the occasion of the Mudam’s tenth anniversary in 2016.113 By
analysing four exhibitions of the collection, this chapter will investigate the ways in which the Mudam Collection not only connects the museum’s ‘brain’ and ‘actions,’ i.e. its intentions and exhibition programme, but also the museum and its context.
2.1 Telling the origins of the collection. Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s
With the arrival of Suzanne Cotter, the new director of the Mudam since January 2018, a new emphasis has been put on the Mudam Collection. In the past four to five years, exhibitions with exclusively pieces from the Mudam Collection have been rather scarce: Between Paintings from
the 1980s and 1990s: Mudam Collection (September 2018 – April 2019), the current exhibition
of the house collection, and the last of this kind lies more than one year (Double Coding; June 2017 – September 2017). The one preceding these shows goes back to the winter of 2014/15 (Art & Me). In comparison to other museums, this is not striking as such. However, in contrast to the Mudam’s programme from 2010 to 2014, when many exhibitions of the Mudam
Collection were organised during the first two thirds of Enrico Lunghi’s directorship, the past four years have not ascribed the same importance to the collection. Notably, parts of the collection were nevertheless on display: collection pieces were exhibited in other temporary shows together with objects from other external collections in the meantime. Yet, for such exhibitions, the museum does not immediately state the collector of the objects in the title or the introductory text – mediums by which visitors often enter into contact with the exhibition. In contrast, shows with pieces exclusively from the house collection always carry “Mudam Collection” as a subtitle. This makes it easier for the visitor to immediately understand the organisational origin of the museum exhibits.
112 Elisabeth Bouvet, “Luxembourg et Grande Région, capitale européenne de la culture 2007,” Radio France
International, 9th December 2006 ; Antoine Prum, “Atelier Luxembourg: Antoine Prum,“ Musée d’Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean, Youtube Video, 00:08:28, uploaded 15th July 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=280&v=72-QERKhi6c.
17 With a view to the time between the collection exhibitions, the new director Suzanne Cotter concludes that “the collection is not visible enough in the museum.”114 Indeed, she wants
to increase the visibility of the collection, as well as the presence of the museum in the daily lives of locals, frontier workers and tourists.115 In other words, Cotter aims to improve the
general knowledge about the collection, an effort, which will deeply mark her directorship. This plan will not only concern the museum’s own spaces but also those outside the given
infrastructure: The surrounding city, digital platforms and national education.116 Hence, the
director intends to increase the presence of the museum and its collection at a physical level by exhibiting more of it and, thereby, ensuring that the visitors see the collection whenever they visit. By developing a new website and digital strategy in the first six months of 2019, she wants to increase the visibility of the museum at a virtual level, too. An example of this is the
replacement of the Miniguide, a paper-based booklet with interpretations of the exhibited
objects, which visitors used to collect in the exhibitions. In Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s:
Mudam Collection, visitors use the Mudam App on their smartphones to point to the Quick
Response Code on the labels next to the artworks to receive information on the work and artist. Finally, to introduce learning about a number of works from the collection into the curriculum of the national education system would increase the presence of the collection at the level of collective memory.
It is, therefore, no coincidence that the first exhibition that she curated as the Mudam’s new director exclusively shows works from the collection. In fact, Paintings from the 1980s and
1990s is the first show in a new series of exhibitions on the museum’s holdings. Conceptually,
the exhibition is not only composed of works from the collection, but also narrates the latter’s origin in a self-reflective manner. In accordance with the curatorial approach of metamuseology, the museum explicitly references its own history and allows the visitors to discover how and when the exhibits entered the collection. Importantly, Cotter claims that this approach is a particularly useful means “to highlight the distinctiveness of [… a museum’s] collection.”117 A
number of exhibitions of the collection has already been organised over the past twenty years, however, “there have never been any strong narratives about what this collection means.”118 The
museum professionals, politicians and public have “not really taken time [yet] to really look at
114 Suzanne Cotter, interviewed by Jamie Kay Armstrong, Luxembourg, 15th November 2018, audio, 26:41,
University of Amsterdam.
115 Céline Coubray, and France Clarinval, “‘Je suis pour l’intelligence,’” Paperjam.lu (24th October 2017),
http://guide.paperjam.lu/news/je-suis-pour-lintelligence (accessed through the Mudam press archive).
116 The following sentences of this paragraph are based on Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November
2018.
117 Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November 2018. 118 Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November 2018.
18 this [the history of the collection] and […] get to know it.”119 As a result, it is on Cotter’s
agenda “to start writing some of those narratives,” not least because the broader public is interested in why the different pieces form part of the Mudam Collection.120 Indeed, this
metamuseological narrative is an imperative in the context of Luxembourg, “people want to know why are these choices made and how.”121 The curator’s choice to highlight the history of
the collection in a series of exhibitions thus emerges from a need, both from the museum’s as from the public’s perspective.
The importance of this narrative prevails already before entering the exhibition. The introductory text, which is situated on a diagonal wall prior to the gallery, explains how the exhibition feeds from two interdependent narratives: The origins of the collection and the state of painting after pop and conceptual art in the late twentieth century. Already the first sentence reveals that the exhibition series is dedicated to the collection.122 Accordingly, the short text not
only suggests brief interpretations of the artists’ approaches to painting as a medium but also invites the visitors to engage with the collecting practices of the time. Arguably, by indicating that the paintings acquired in the 1990s were mostly from male European or American artists to which the Luxembourg Tina Gillen was an exception, the text encourages the visitor to identify more threads in the museum’s acquisition policy.
Indeed, the exhibits illustrate the acquisition policies, which mark the three stages of the collection’s history in the pre-museum moment: The acquisitions made by Focuna around the mid and end 1990s; the first works acquired after the establishment of the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean Foundation in 1998; and the opening of the museum in 2006. The labels that accompany the paintings not only remind the viewers that they are looking at a work from the Mudam Collection, but also provide information on when the piece was acquired and how it entered the collection, for example though the supply of Focuna, acquisition by the museum foundation or a donation (Fig. 2). Thereby, the exhibition also shows how objects can enter the collection in different manners, namely though acquisition or donation – only the manner of deposit is without example in the exhibition.123 Interestingly, the importance the curator ascribes
to the narrative of the collection’s origins is emphasised by the fact that these pieces of information are stated on the labels and, thereby, proceed any interpretation of the works.
119 Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November 2018. 120 Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November 2018. 121 Cotter, interviewed by Armstrong, November 2018.
122 Wall text Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s: Mudam Collection.
123 The collection does not hold a painting from the 1980s or 1990s that was given by donation (Lisa Baldelli
19
Fig. 2 Example of a label in Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s.
As mentioned above, the works collected in the mid 1990s were mostly by European and American male painters. Accordingly, the curator translates this thread in early acquisition policy quite literally into the exhibition by creating a display of works mostly painted by male artists from the named parts of the world. In other words, by exhibiting paintings by Günther Förg from Germany, Jonathan Lasker or Julian Schnabel from the United States, amongst many others, she creates an analogy between the history of acquisition policy and the display. In fact, this display presents twelve paintings by as many artists, of whom only two originate from continents other than the North American and European continent, these being Guillermo Kuitca from Argentina and Fiona Rae from China. Likewise, Rae and Tina Gillen from Luxembourg are the only female artists represented. Conveniently, in this selection, the names of the artists reveal their gender, with the exception of the artist group General Idea. As a result, this information is also provided by the label and thus accessible for the visitor. Hence, also at the level of gender, the display reflects the acquisition policies from the 1990s and even beyond, as female artists still represent less than a quarter of the works in the overall collection.124
Due to the prevailing interests for acquisitions in the mid 1990s, it seems no surprise that Rae’s Evil Dead 2 from 1998 only entered the Mudam Collection through the foundation in 2000 (Fig. 3).125 Her artwork forms the closing of the exhibition – if the other aperture near the
introductory wall text is considered the entrance – and is surrounded by paintings by male artists Juan Uslé and Kuitca. Her piece reveals two opposing vocabularies, one strongly geometricised, which suggests solid swathes of colour and one more abstract, executed by visible brushstrokes, which echo the self-conscious gestures of the mostly white male artists adhering to Abstract
124 Marie-Laure Rolland, “Le Luxembourg à l’avant-garde?“ Luxemburger Wort, 8th March 2014.
In 2014, 23% of the works from the collection were created by female artists. In this exhibition, 17% of the exhibits are paintings by women.
125 Focuna collected in prospect of the museum foundation between 1996 and 1999. As Rae created her work
only in 1998, Focuna would have had to react very quickly to buy it. This might be a reason why Focuna did not acquire the work. However, the fact that Focuna did not buy the work can also have to do with the artist being female and Chinese, not fitting in line with the other works.
20 Expressionism.126 Both registers, however, suggest complete control and the superimposed
gestures and creation of depth “endows this abstract painting with a surprisingly narrative richness.”127
Fig. 3 Fiona Rae, Evil Dead 2, 1998.
As this example has shown, the exhibited artists’ treatment of painting as a medium is a narrative that accompanies that of the history of the collection. To some extent, the different stages in the museum’s prehistory each entailed the collecting of specific approaches to the medium: A number of works collected by Focuna in prospect of the museum foundation formally expand the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, exemplified in the exhibition by Günter Förg’s Untitled n° 41/92 from 1992 or Helmut Federle’s Untitled (September) from 1996, for which, however, the reference to mid-century painting can only be made at a formal level (Fig. 4). Thereby, these contemporary paintings also enter into dialogue with art history.128
Philosophically, Bernard Frize’s painting Extension 2 from 1990, also collected by Focuna, references this particular art history as, similar to the Abstract Expressionists, “Frize explores all
126 Wall text Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s: Mudam Collection.
127 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Fiona Rae,”
https://www.mudam.lu/en/le-musee/la-collection/details/artist/fiona-rae/.
21 the technical and aesthetic possibilities in great methodical diversity until he considers them exhausted” (Fig. 5).129
Fig. 4 Works by Günter Förg (left) and Helmut Federle in Paintings from the 1980s and 1990s.
129 Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, “Bernard Frize,”
