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David Elliott, the director of the new Moderna Museet in Stockholm, talks to Andreas Gedin, artist and editor, about art, sponsors, politics and Wounds.

by ANDREAS GEDIN, M - Moderna Museets Vänners tidskrift nr 4/97 & 1/98



Andreas Gedin: You became director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford quite young and stayed for many years. This must have allowed you not only to control the exhibitions but also the activities in the museum as a whole. Now, Moderna Museet is larger, and you will have to delegate a lot of the work. What does this mean concerning exhibitions?

David Elliott: Do you mean that I did not delegate in Oxford! I had a staff of over thirty people there and there was no way, when producing between twelve and twenty shows a year, that I could do everything on exhibitions myself. But I do feel strongly that the Director of a museum should lead from the front – by example – not from behind. It is true that Moderna Museet is larger than Oxford and has operated within a more bureaucratic climate and this is necessary, to an extent, as MM is a national institution rather than an independent Museum. My job is to introduce the flexibility and rapid response of the independent sector into the bureaucracy – much of which of course is necessary. Like Candide I want »the best of all possible worlds« and in this case do not see why I should not be able to achieve this.

"But I do feel strongly that the Director of a museum should lead from the front – by example – not from behind."

AG: Which part of them do you plan to curate yourself, and which part will be exhibitions curated elsewhere or by the curators at the Museum?

DE: I intend to shape the ways in which the collections are displayed and to offer different options and approaches over a period of time. I am also very concerned about the way our work is mediated to the public both through the Education programmes and more generally through other media. I will very much be involved in planning the exhibitions, film, video and events programmes and some of these I will directly organise myself or at least head the team which is working on these projects. As there are so many different demands on my time it is very unlikely that I would be able to see a large exhibition through from beginning to end by myself. In the case of large projects it is often better to work in a small team with clear direction. So, with the inaugural exhibition Wounds: from democracy to redemption in contemporary art, Pier Luigi Tazzi has been the guest co-curator and I have found this a very good and stimulating way of working – I hope that he feels the same way – and we have planned the exhibition on an equal basis, each of us bring our own particular interests, specialisms and skills to the project. After the Wall will take place in autumn 1999 to celebrate the emergence of a new generation of artists in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and former Yugoslavia in the decade since perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The chief guest curator of this is Bojana Pejic' and Maria Lind, one of the new curators at the Museum, will also be closely involved. On top of this we have an advisory board spread across many of the countries involved and I will act as a kind of Godfather to the project and be co-editor of the catalogue. And then, of course, the Museum's curators are developing exhibition projects which they will organise themselves: Leif Wigh is working on a Oskar Gustave Rejlander exhibition, Cecilia Widenheim on an Ulrik Samuelson one man show and on a project devoted to the development of Modernism in Sweden, Maria Lind is looking at the development of a project room and so on.

AG: One of your specialities is, I believe, art from Russia, or the former Soviet Union? Do you yet have any plans to manifest this in a future show?

DE: Yes. It will figure in After the Wall. Also we have recently bought for the photographic library an almost complete run of the seminal photographic magazine USSR in Construction (1931–1941) which was designed by all the best avant-garde typographers, as well as vintage prints of photographs by El Lisitsky and Gustav Klucis. I was amazed that Russian/Soviet photography was hardly represented in the collections and felt that this should be rectified (German photography of the 1930s and 1940s is much better represented). Also there is hardly any work by the incredibly creative Baltic photographers who have flourished from the early 1960s through to the present. It is vital that we make an exhibition of this work and also add significant items to our collection. Lastly we are planning to take the Alexander Rodchenko show from New York MOMA at the beginning of 1999 – that is if we can find a sponsor for the show! The last large Rodchenko show was in 1979 at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford.

"Let's say that I am a very bad joiner of groups and organisations and was not at all a supporter of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s."

AG: Does your interest in Soviet art have its origins in you being a Marxist in the seventies? (Weren't you?)

DE: No. Some people perhaps thought I was a Marxist because I have always insisted that art is inextricably linked to its own times and circumstances, and that economic factors can play a part in this which is not to say that art cannot be timeless as well. I have also worked intensively on the different manifestations of art at times of revolutionary acute social stress and have been fascinated by the relationship between modern art (and artists) to ideology. This was a project on which I was working on and off for 25 years between my first exhibition Germany in Ferment: art and society in Germany 1900–1932 which took place in 1970 and the large Council of Europe exhibition Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators 1930–1940 which was shown in London in 1995. You seem to be interested in my politics which I think are my own private affair.Let's say that I am a very bad joiner of groups and organisations and was not at all a supporter of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

AG: Is Wounds an exhibition which deals with moral issues instead of politics and that the idea of morality here includes politics among other things and therefore fits better into the world of the late nineties? Or is Wounds more about aesthetics?

DE: Wounds deals with the idea of modern art being an ethical or moral field – almost to the extent of it being an ideology in itself which has superseded the crude dialectics of right and left. The field of aesthetics as defined by Kant is moral in its origin and I think has continued to be so to the present. This is one of the points that Wounds makes rather strongly.

AG: When you, together with Pier Luigi Tazzi, choose to curate a show with as many artists as seventy, the main statement is put forward by you, the curators, and not by the artists. On the other hand, you have created a context in which the artist is regarded as capable of dealing with complex, intellectual issues, and not as lovable savages, which often is the case. This reminds me a bit of Documenta. Do you feel close to the way Catherine David curated Documenta X?

DE: Not really because I feel that the underlying ideology of the last Documenta was a sixties French version of discourse and dialectic which, I feel, simplifies and brings everything down to the same level. One felt almost that media (discourse) were more important than art and while you can't really separate them, neither should you confuse them. That said, she did make some very interesting statements about the ideology of urban and architectural spaces as both utopias and dystopias.

AG: The art world must be one of the toughest areas of market economy. The competition is very hard, art works by the »stars« are handled like stocks on the stock market, there is no »social security«, no pensions, etc. Do you agree upon this view?

DE: Life is hard.

AG: Though a museum is not commercial, it is a part of the game: what do you think the role for museums is in this hard world?

DE: Museums must use what power they have responsibly and independently and should not be led by the market. Ideally they should anticipate it and they should have or develop the intellectual, human and research sources to do this.

"I have no doubt that sponsorship is going to become increasingly important to the Museum and we must be very clear about what it is we are offering."

AG: What do you think about relations to the sponsors? How dependent will you be on them? What are they allowed to do, and what not? Or, to put it in another way: what are they buying, and what is Moderna Museet selling?

DE: We want to continue good long-term relationships with a number of sponsors at different levels and they have to be the right kind of sponsor – organisations that reflect well on the Museum. I have no doubt that sponsorship is going to become increasingly important to the Museum and we must be very clear about what it is we are offering. Firms would want to be associated with our good reputation and standing, as well as with our international contacts and reputation for forward thinking and innovation. We also offer publicity and opportunities for entertaining and education in exclusive surroundings.

AG: There will be large exhibitions but also spaces for smaller projects. What will it look like? Will there be any room for improvisations?

DE: There will be a project room in one of the studios opposite the entrance to the Museum as well as accommodation and space for an artist in residence. It's much rougher space than the interior of the Museum and also more flexible in its programming.

AG: Even if there are going to be fantastic exhibitions, a museum is a social institution which also needs to be a place for other social activities to stay alive. This means everything from having a coffee or buying a magazine to watching a performance or listen to a concert. Which are the plans for this kind of activities?

DE: I agree. There will be a fantastic book shop, an excellent restaurant and cafe, a small studio cinema, a library, workshops and education rooms, video viewing facilities, possibilities for consulting the photography and prints and drawings reserve collections and a large auditorium for lectures, symposium, film shows and performances. That is not even mentioning the temporary exhibitions and permanent collections! On top of that the island of Skeppsholmen is itself virtually an outdoor sculpture park and some works will be resited and added to this.

AG: Only one of the curators, Maria Lind, is specialised in Swedish contemporary art. Is she the one who is supposed to take care of the relation to the Swedish contemporary art scene?

DE: No. Curators work in a team and although they have specialisms their influence and interest is not confined to these areas.

"Every exhibition I make is a dream exhibition."

AG: The Museum could be of great importance for the Swedish art scene. It has developed, well, during the nineties without any strong relation to any institution, but I think that there now is a longing for a stronger relation to the Museum. There are expectations not only on exhibitions with Swedish artists involved but also on an atmosphere where the Museum is a part of Swedish art life, that you invite us, so to speak. Do you agree upon this view? And if you do, have you planned for this?

DE: Yes.

AG: Will I be able to make an interview with you in Swedish in the end of next year?

DE: Probably. I intend to do one hour a day study of Swedish once the Museum is open. I then intend to learn Tibetan.

AG: Do you have any »dream exhibition«, the one you would curate if you had all the money needed?

DE: Every exhibition I make is a dream exhibition. If it was not I would not do it. I dream different things every night and work in the real world. This is not a compromise, it's purely a professional way of working.~