Framing “contemporaneity” in public museums of art and visual culture in the 21st Century

A study of the impact of acquisition policies of the Moderna

Museet and M+ through the lens of actor-network theories

Lam Chi Hang, Jims

Department of Culture and Aesthetics

Degree: Master’s thesis, 30 HE credits

Subject: Curating Art

International Master’s Programme in Curating Art, including

Management and Law, 120 HE credits

Spring term 2021

Supervisor: Eva Aggeklint

Framing “contemporaneity” in public museums of art and visual culture in the 21st Century

A study of the impact of acquisition policies of the Moderna Museet and M+ through the lens of actor-network theories

Lam Chi Hang, Jims

Abstract In the 21st century, public museums who are collecting contemporary art has simultaneously begun to reframe the role of museums in society. Two museums – the Moderna Museet of Stockholm and M+ of Hong Kong that have completely different historic and geographic backgrounds, as well as operating models are now working closely with their acquisitions and collections to draw audience of old and new closer to them. These two museums that are located in the center of two well-defined cultures – geographically representing the west and the east, play vital roles in their respected social and cultural spheres. In view of how these two museums are responding to the present time by deploying art that are seemingly different in terms of theme and discipline, the immediate distinction that this study aims to frame is how the Moderna Museet, established in the 20th century and still prevailing in the present differ from M+ that comes from a younger generation of museums who proclaims itself as a museum of visual culture, and not art. Instead of analyzing their exhibitions, this study focuses on their policies of acquisitions, thus offering a perspective including many varying actors and networks. Hence Bruno Latour’s actor-network theories have been introduced to unfold the highly entangled networks of these two museums. Two important actants, the so-called acquisition policy and the institutional curators are taken into consideration in order to outline what constitute as acquisition policies of these two museums and investigate if the benchmarking of contemporary art, and in addition, if the notion of contemporaneity can be identified from written documents. Furthermore, this study is based on interviews with curators employed at the two museums to find out how the professionals have understood these policies and used them accordingly to justify their practices while fulfilling the museums’ missions. This study has found out there are many crucial relationships between these actants and that they are constantly interacting with each other. The strength and interaction of these relationships fostered the positioning for these two museums today and also determined how the knowledge of art can be shaped and dispensed to the public. Looking from the point of view of the history of museums, practices of donation and acquisition, late-capitalism, cultural differences between the west and east, this study provides a pragmatic explanation of how collections may transform the landscape of a museum, and in turn how a museum may perhaps alter the meaning of art.

Keywords ANT, Contemporaneity, museology, late-capitalism, postmodernity, acquisition policies, contemporary art

Contents Chapter 1, Introduction .......................................................................... 1

1.1 Aims and research questions ......................................................................... 6 1.2 Theoretical approach .................................................................................... 7

Dealing with the entanglements: Actor-Network-Theory ...................................... 7 Actors ........................................................................................................... 8 Networks ....................................................................................................... 9

1.3 Material and method ................................................................................... 11 Method: Following actors and circulations ......................................................... 12

1.4 Previous research ........................................................................................ 14 1.5 Demarcations, term and disposition ............................................................... 21

Chapter 2, The backgrounds ................................................................. 23 2.1 A brief history of state art museums .............................................................. 23

National museums of Sweden and China in the late 20th century .......................... 23 The implementation of museums in Hong Kong ................................................. 26

2.2 Collections and collecting - a brief history ....................................................... 29 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 31

Chapter 3, Tracing the “contemporary” in museum policies .................. 33 3.1 The general good practice ............................................................................ 33 3.2 The practice of the Moderna Museet .............................................................. 35

Using donations as a method .......................................................................... 35 The acquisition campaigns .............................................................................. 36

3.3 The governance and acquisition policy of M+ .................................................. 38 The acquisition policy and vision of M+ ............................................................. 39 A mixed model for collecting art ...................................................................... 41 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 43

Chapter 4, The museum from the Inside – following the actors of the networks .............................................................................................. 44

4.1 Contemporary art and contemporaneity ......................................................... 45 4.2 Institutional relationships ............................................................................. 51 4.3 Acquisition policies ...................................................................................... 56

Conclusion .................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 5, Final Discussion ................................................................... 62 Bibliography ......................................................................................... 70

Publications, journal articles and report documents ............................................... 70 Interviews ....................................................................................................... 71 Websites ......................................................................................................... 71

Image ................................................................................................... 73

Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................ 73 Appendix .............................................................................................. 74

Appendix 1: Transcribed interviews ..................................................................... 74 Doryun Chong. Deputy director, curatorial and chief Curator of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 17th December 2020. ......................................... 74 John Peter Nilsson. Communicative museum strategist of the Moderna Museet, Sweden in conversation with Jims Lam on 11th December 2020. ......................... 79 Lars Nittve. Former executive director of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 14th December 2020. ......................................................................... 83 Isabella Tam. Associate curator of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 30th December 2020. .................................................................................... 89 Anna Tellgren. Curator of photography of the Moderna Museet, Sweden in conversation with Jims Lam on 16th December 2020. ......................................... 94

Appendix 2: Questionnaire ................................................................................. 98

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Chapter 1, Introduction In my eyes, interactions and mutual influences between cultures are very important. “West”, “East”, “I”, “Other” are not fixed concepts; they can shift. I was very interested in the West when I was in China. I considered it as something outside me and it provided a source for my imagination. On the contrary, I talk more about China now that I am in the West. This is probably because of the Western context. -Huang Yongping (Paris: 1993)1

Known as a self-taught artist, Huang Yongping (b.1954-2019), a prominent figure of the

Chinese Avant-garde movement of the 1980s went through a major shift of subjectivity upon

his contact with the western practice of art. He had given himself the permission to review his

own culture critically. However, showing criticality against a culture is not always an inherent

practice, and most definitely not in China. It wasn’t even known to Huang as an option until

he was able to consciously re-examine the east after absorbing the perspective of the west.

As a postmodernist who immigrated to France after the violent crackdown on Tiananmen

in1989, Huang originally expressed the quotation above to underpin the role of Chinese art

within the western and Eurocentric cultural sphere. Huang, in very simple wordings, revealed

a mode of thinking that defines cultural identity as an open model. Hou Hanru, the curator, in

conversation with Huang further commented, the term “shift” was a key strategy that many

Chinese diaspora artists had in mind when they relocated themselves in the west, so that they

could critically review their own identity problems in a wider perspective,2 as in accordance

with culture as a dynamic process.3 This shift of subjectivity does not only break down

historical boarders and national limitations, it has also demonstrated subjectivity as a fluid

concept that is not locked in to ones’ identity. This view of difference brings out radical

meaning of art that could not have been known otherwise. By adopting Huang’s mode of

thinking, this study is interested in finding out what kind of ideas the two public museums in

1 Huang Yong Ping in conversation with Hou Hanru for his publication in “Le Plaisir Du Texte - Zen and

Chinese Contemporary China, ” Flash Art International, December 1993. 2 Hanru Hou and Hsiao-hwei Yu, On the Mid-Ground (Hongkong: Timezone 8, 2002), 74-89. 3 Situating oneself in multiple cultures, in a Third Space, as an open and dynamic process. Using different

cultures as artistic material as mimicry is not seen as an imitation, but as new product that is empowering in its own right. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge Classics (London; New York: Routledge, 2004). See also Eva Aggeklint, “Bridal Couples”: On Hybridity in Conceptual Chinese Photography 1995-2009, Ph.D thesis (Stockholm: Dept. of Oriental Languages, 2013).

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Sweden and Hong Kong4 – the Moderna Museet and M+ are dealing with when it comes to

defining different subjectivities of the 21st century art.

Nowadays, public art museums have begun to define themselves more carefully. They loom

larger than they ever have before as they are more socially and economically vital in the era of

privatization and capitalism. The logic of the market continues to interplay between arts,

artists and institutions on a global level. Older institutions that have traditionally been

handling the history of 20th century art, are now trying to become an all-involving and all-

encompassing 21st century art institution; whereas newly founded museums are finding

audiences in communities and nations where they were not previously significant. Either way,

the museums are bringing in plenty of historical events and cultural interactions into their own

territories. The obvious challenge lying on their way forward is to become relevant to the

people of today while securing enough capital to support their long-term visions. This would

require the museums to engage with a wider range of audience groups and the global market

at the same time.

An encyclopedic approach has over time built an adequate arena based on the western

periodization of modern art but with contemporary art it is different. Since it is produced in a

more globalized time with digital culture and new market associations entering people’s

consciousness, the need to experience physical collections may make museum visits seem less

eventful. Hence, museums that have long been functioning as the “care takers” of history are

struggling to reidentify their roles. Meanwhile, contemporary art from all over the world is

swiftly circulating into collections of museums and modern art institutions. In an approach of

rethinking the category of “the contemporary” of a museum,5 art historian Claire Bishop

(b.1971) urged for a contextualization of contemporaneity that works specifically in the

context of museums of contemporary art. As different nations and communities define

contemporary art in different manners, this brings forth the necessity to discuss a type of

contemporaneity that does not convey a designated style or period.

4 Official name, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, which was

a colony under the United Kingdom between 1841-1997. 5 Claire Bishop, Radical Museology or, “What’s Contemporary” in Museums of Contemporary Art?, 2., rev.

ed (London: Koenig Books, [2013] 2014).

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An immanent change in public art museums can already be observed. In the wake of this

movement in addressing contemporaneity in art museums today, new themes and

categorizations, seek to find their positions and to get anchored in the museum collection.

Working strategically with collections through the lens of contemporaneity reaffirm the

museum as a site where knowledge is shaped and dispensed in our own time – now – and this

would inevitably lead to a pragmatic question of which came first: the objects, or

contemporaneity?

The answer to this question requires a mapping of the network of international museums to

find out how they and their curators actually work with the acquisitions of art. Today, it is

considered as a fairly standard procedure for public art museums to release information that is

equivalent to an acquisition policy. The Irish Museum of Modern Art has a policy document

that aims on the exploration of modernity in Irish visual culture.6 Another one from the

National Gallery of Australia outlines rigorous, ethical and accountable standards of

acquisitions.7 For the National Gallery of Canada, the policy divides its collecting area into

eleven sections with different geographical concerns and a chronological timeline ranging

from 1867 to post 1980.8 Therefore, in order to understand the entanglements that makes

contemporaneity vibrant, this study will compare the so called acquisition policies of the

Moderna Museet and M+, the older institution of modern and contemporary art in Stockholm

and the newer institution of visual culture of the 20th and 21st century in Hong Kong.

6 Irish Museum of Modern Art, “Strategic Collection Development Plan 20170-2022”, accessed May 8,

2021, https://imma.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/The-Strategic-Collection-Development-Plan-2017-2022.pdf.

7 National Gallery of Australia, “About the Collection: Acquisitions Policy,” accessed May 8, 2021, https://nga.gov.au/collection/acquisitionspolicy.cfm.

8 National Gallery of Canada, “Acquisitions Policy,” accessed May 8, 2021, https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/documents/policies/acquisitions_e.pdf.

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1. Marysia Lewandowska, excerpt from Museum Futures: Distributed,

2008, 32’, courtesy of the artist.9

The motivation of analyzing acquisition policies stems from my hypothesis that when

discussing a museum of contemporary art, one should look at its source. A film made by the

artist Marysia Lewandowska (image 1, p.4) that was commissioned in 2008 by the Moderna

Museet as part of its 50th anniversary celebration has demonstrated a similar idea in

approaching museums of contemporary art. Lewandowska’s film Museum Futures:

Distributed sets stage of a virtual interview in 2058 with a fictional character named Ayan

Lindquist who is the appointed executive director of the Moderna Museet version 3.0. In the

interview, she describes three stages of development of art practice that had taken place in the

Moderna Museet. At the first stage, she says that “Moderna v1.0” was a typical idealistic

construct that collected global heritage of the 20th century. “Moderna v2.0” was characterized

by artistic collaborations and innovative displays, mutated through 1.0 because the museum

needed a breakthrough in order to catch up on the art of the 21st century. In the end, as

Lindquist continues, “Moderna v3.” has decided to take over the role of theorist and producer

as a creative agent by actively and consciously funding research and producing projects that

would establish the museum as an independent voice. The video, despite being fiction,

actualized the possibility that an art collection may transform a museum, and in turn museums

may transform art. This idea has led us back to the shifting subjectivity of Huang Yongping,

9 Museum Futures: Distributed created by Lewandowska is a commissioned work by the Moderna Museet

for its Jubilee in 2008. Marysia Lewandowska, “Museum Futures. Distributed,” accessed May 8, 2021, http://marysialewandowska.com/museum-futures/.

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as this film focalize that the chooser has replaced the creator. By analysing how the Moderna

Museet and M+ with their different backgrounds are acquiring art within the vision of

contemporaneity of the 21st century, while acknowledging the presence of networks made of

government regulations, their collections, their policies, and their staff, this study is interested

in how museums intend to move forward and make sense of our world today and in the near

future.

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1.1 Aims and research questions

The aim of this thesis is to analyze acquisition policies of museums in order to find out

whether or not there is an incarnation of contemporaneity in a museum’s way of collecting

and if yes, how the meaning of contemporaneity may have changed over time. Statistic data

from annual reports can indicate growth, management and distribution of collections in a

public art museum. Still, data does not reflect how decisions of a museum are made

collectively where the interest of directors, curators and stakeholders all come together.

Today, there are networks made by international museums, in which museums can be seen as

actors and function as intermediaries among others. Therefore, by comparing the use and the

design of the acquisition policies between the Moderna Museet and M+, this thesis engages

critically with the entanglement embedded in institutionalized structures in order to

understand how museums discuss contemporaneity in the 21st century. The hypothesis is that

their prevalent logic towards contemporaneity has led to the advocacy of a certain artistic

expression, value creation and the mapping of a modern arts history.

In order to raise the awareness of what contemporaneity is, in which this study presumes

modern and contemporary art museums work in accordance with, it poses the following

questions:

1. How are museums of the 21st century different from the previous generation of the 20th

century?

2. What constitutes an acquisition policy of the Moderna Museet and M+ respectively?

3. How do institutional professionals understand these policies and use them to create an

adequate context for displaying art in the museums?

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1.2 Theoretical approach

Dealing with the entanglements: Actor-Network-Theory10

To identify the concept of contemporaneity of the two museums, diving deep into their entire

range of exhibitions and programs would be inappropriate because the Moderna Museet

already has a long historic profile whereas M+ is still a very young museum. Therefore, this

study has turned to a theoretical approach, the actor-network-theory (henceforth ANT), as a

solution. Developed by sociologist Bruno Latour, ANT has been mostly used in the field of

science and information technology to explain the process of innovation and adoption such as

mobile communication. This study argues that as a multi-faceted theory, ANT’s definition of

two terms, actors and networks, are particularly apt for the identification of contemporaneity

in museums who work with 21st century art. As a first step, actors and networks are not

definite units, ANT considers that a network is made of actors and these actors also derive

from different networks. Hence, the expansion of networks is, in theory, limitless. However,

the key of ANT is not about writing a formula that seeks to delineate all possible networks

and actors, rather it focuses on selecting actors and networks which interact the most

vigorously with each other. Thus, the fluidity of ANT in this study is the key to raise

awareness and broaden perspectives that would allow a person to grasp hold on the

entanglements of art and museums.

As a method, ANT tells stories about networks of actors who lead to the establishment of a

specific outcome. In this study, that would be the constitution of contemporaneity. From an

ANT user’s perspective, contemporary art is not just objects that are seen neutral or external

to a museum who collect and display them. When art objects enter a museum collection, they

bring in the histories that are in-related to their productions and interactions that are

associated with their creators. These linkages are then enrolled into the network of museums.

Therefore, the use of ANT is to provide an alternative explanation of how collecting

contemporary art is a process of accepting and internalizing contemporaneity in cultural

institutions. Historically speaking, a shift of artistic movement is often an outcome of a

stylistic breakthrough or a technological innovation. But the emergence of a new shift does

not always guarantee a social and institutional acceptance. In particular, whether a new shift

10 Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Clarendon Lectures in

Management Studies (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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would anchor itself in a museum depends on its network that is in accordance to the degree of

usefulness and social perception. The number of users have to grow to a critical mass for a

shift to reach a state of stability.11 If the network of a shift is unstable, it succumbs, and the

movement disappears eventually.12 Thus, using ANT as a methodology for describing artistic

movements requires the tracing of actors’ interactions, expertise and their perceptions of art.

In other words, ANT here presents the tool to capture how museums make sense of artistic

movements in the 21st century.

Actors

According to ANT, both humans and non-human entities are potential actors. Therefore,

Latour who prefers the word actants over actors, has claimed “anything that does modify a

state of affairs by making a difference is an actor.”13 ANT defines actors as stakeholders, and

they have the ability to shape and influence on one or several networks simultaneously.

Actors in this study are hence not limited to museum directors, curators and patrons, but

includes also acquisition policies, as well as modern and contemporary works of art. Despite

the notion that some actors are more immanent in an institution, others can be less visible but

still important to the development of an actor-network. The principle of ANT is to give an

equal amount of value with agency to all actors. The interactions of actors are being traced

impartially assuming there is no differentiation between the human and material or the social

and the natural.14

As mentioned above, actor-networks in ANT are dynamic in nature which require

stabilization, and a principle to stabilize an actor-network is to align the interests of actors.

The interests of the actors may vary immensely, and this would require an ANT user to

translate the differentiations into a common interest, which leads to the resulted “outcomes”

11 Neil McBride, “Actor-Network Theory and the Adoption of Mobile Communications,” Geography, Vol. 88,

no. No. 4 (October 2003): 271. 12 Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, 11. print

(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press, [1987] 2003). 13 Latour, Reassembling the Social, 71. 14 Jonathan Murdoch, “Towards a Geography of Heterogeneous Associations,” Progress in Human

Geography 21 (1997): 321-37.

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of the actor-networks.15 The identification of contemporaneity and how art museums handle

contemporaneity is the desired outcome of this study. ANT is a neutral tool. A stable actor-

network would advocate contemporaneity, whereas an unstable one would constrain or even

prohibit the use of it. One of the attempts in this study that aligns interests is the focus on

acquisition policies of art museums. Acquisition policies are distilled documents that are

created by negotiations, translations and inscriptions among individuals or groups of

stakeholders.16 As of particular importance, an acquisition policy that literally defines

standards and protocols is already a demonstration of how interests in art museums could be

aligned. Therefore, potential actors inside the networks have to be identified and profiled, this

includes the studying of their perception and interest of art and culture.

Networks

ANT requires a study of information flow within the networks that are based on actor-to-actor

interactions. This, unlike the development of mobile communication where technique could

be transported without out any interactions,17 the understanding of contemporary art and

hence contemporaneity are often subjected to variations after being transferred from one

network to another. For example, a museum and a government do not identify the same

amount of value out of contemporary art. In ANT, the degree of such variations affects the

complexity to align a common interest of the users. Therefore, the network that supports the

understanding and usage of art could be a stable or unstable one, and a physical or symbolic

one.18 To establish contemporaneity, networks in ANT are responsible for facilitating the

actors’ interactions by providing time and space for development.19 Based on ANT, networks

are not hierarchical by design, with no clear definition of one network which would dominate

the other.20 With no one determining a network, all networks are assumed to be independent

15 Neil McBride, “Actor-Network Theory and the Adoption of Mobile Communications,” Geography Vol. 88,

no. No. 4 (October 2003): 271. 16 Ibid. 17 This statement refers specifically to the use of ANT in the fields of geography and sociology which

focuses on the happening of telecommunication technology. McBride, “Actor-Network Theory and the Adoption of Mobile Communications,” 273.

18 McBride, 268. 19 Ibid. 20 Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan; or How Actors Macrostructure Reality,

and How Sociologists Help Them To Do So?,” in In K. Knorr et A. Cicourel (Editors) Advances in Social Theory and Methodology (Boston Ma: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Londres, 1981).

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and dynamic at the same time. This would allow the discussion of contemporaneity in

museums to move away from the dichotomies of global versus local and west versus east. For

example, in the case of the Moderna Museet and M+, the network of actors would include

artists, collectors and art communities and how they interact and grow big.

In terms of geography, the significance of a network depends on the position such as what

country and which continent a museum is located in. The threshold of the geography network

determines how art is obtained and distributed by a museum. For instance, the Moderna

Museet would have higher accessibility to Nordic art compared to museums outside the

Nordic region. Consequently, the programs of Moderna Museet would probably match

audiences who are more familiar with the European context and western histories. However,

the significance of this network becomes a lot more complex when other actors such as the

founding missions of the museums and their acquisition policies are being taken into

consideration. The complexity could extend also to actors such as the level of technological

development and the historical profile of the city that the museum is based in. Therefore, one

important aspect of a geography network is to think of its role and function within a flat

ontology of one organized world. By tracing the interactions thoroughly to where and when

they take place, what seems to be global can therefore be localized. This is also how Latour

avoids the dualism of the micro and macro perspective, in which he breaks down a gigantic

concept like the notion of global phenomenon into many local interactions.21

21 Local translations of the global varies in time and space. In turns, it acts upon the global and constitute

as part of a larger whole. Gabrielle Durepos, “Book Review of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory,” 2008.

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1.3 Material and method The materials for this study were collected directly from the Moderna Museet and M+. In

total, three types of material were used in this research: acquisition policies, annual reports

and interviews. The selected materials are of different nature and their time frame range from

2013-2018, together the material provides an analysis of the two museums, giving both an

outside and an inside perspective. The policies and reports are official documents designed to

communicate with the public and therefore they constitute the external façade of the

museums. Other than that, the interviews with current and former museum staff open up the

study to look at the museums from the inside. These materials were used to reveal the

interactions between curators, directors, patrons and board members, and the focus extend

also to less visible actors such as government regulations, national identity and visions of the

curators.

Acquisition policies

The acquisition of art accounts for the accumulation of objects in museums. This could be

considered as a way for museums to increase their asset and total value. A well-designed

acquisition policy governs how art should enter the museums by providing information about

collection strategies and procedures. Departing from a global perspective, this study looks at

the information that is provided by different international museum organizations. These

organizations that give out universal principles and guidelines include the International

Council of Museums (ICOM) and its sub-ordinate organization, the International Committee

for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM). In 1986, ICOM established the

ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums. This manifesto was endorsed by ICOM’s museum

members, including the two model museums of this study. An existing M+ acquisition policy

and an M+ collection management policy were obtained from the museum’s website. These

materials provided a comprehensive idea about the goals that M+ are trying to achieve,

whereas, in the case of the Moderna Museet, an official acquisition policy does not exist.

Annual reports and other materials

In view of the absence of acquisition policy documents from the Moderna Museet, the study

extracted information from the museum’s annual reports and from its website as substitutions.

The idea is to formulate a general concept of acquisition strategies by reverse engineering the

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museum’s annual reports from 2018 to 2013. These reports were scrutinized for

understanding collecting behavior and statistical data. With this approach in mind, other

materials such as performance reviews from the Moderna Museet and M+ have been taken

into consideration. In short, these materials summarize and present the different topics that are

currently being discussed in these two museums.

Interviews

The key part of the research material is based on the interviews conducted with current and

former museum professionals from the Moderna Museet and M+. A total of ten open-ended

questions revolving around acquisition policies were posed to reveal how contemporary art

and contemporaneity are being discussed in these two public art museums. Three curators

from the Moderna Museet were contacted for an interview, and since the curatorial team of

M+ is bigger in size, seven curators of M+ were invited to take part.

In the end, five interviews were conducted. Out of five interviewees, four of them have over

ten years of professional experience working as curators in the museum field, and one

participant has seven years of experience as an associate curator. At the Moderna Museet,

John Peter Nilsson, the communicative strategist and Anna Tellgren, the curator of

photography and head of research responded to the questions, whereas at M+, Lars Nittve the

former M+ executive director, Doryun Chong the chief curator of M+ and Isabella Tam,

associate curator with a focus on Chinese art (M+ Sigg Collection) answered the questions.

Nittve worked as the director of the Moderna Museet in between 2001-2010 (9 years), and his

more recent experience as the CEO and visionary leader of M+ for the period 2011-2016 (5

years) would render him as a knowledgeable informant of both museums in this study.

All interviews took place individually in the format of video conferencing and each lasted for

a hour. The transcription of each interview is enclosed in the appendix.

Method: Following actors and circulations

The use of ANT has provided more than a model for epistemological thinking, it also guided

the selection of materials and the approach towards conducting qualitative interviews in this

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study. As discussed above, ANT only prioritizes the productivity of actors, and as an open-

interpreted term, actors could be defined as history, hence pointing at people who were active

in the past. Therefore, the tracing of interactions can date back beyond present time. This

study gives equal attention to actors that are in general less visible, for example the actors

connected to the historical background of the Moderna Museet and M+. The influences of less

visible actors lie within the public perception of art museums and art collections. A strong

focus has been placed on the differentiations of meaning between cultural perceptions of the

west and east. For example, both the west and east have had a long history of building private

collections containing arts. However, if one takes a closer look and compares their definitions

of the term art in recent history, it becomes clear that the meaning of this umbrella term

actually varies widely between the two cultures. Consequently, the type of objects preserved

were also completely different in terms of disciplines and categorizations as well. This study

is interested in finding out how these differentiations have been perpetuated into the

contemporary art museum landscape. How the less visible actors have been setting the stages

for performing contemporaneity in Stockholm and Hong Kong is essential to discover.

Another grouping of actors that was analyzed as a next step were the museum’s acquisition

policies. In this study, they are categorized as the immanent actors, in which they often have

an executive and influential role in an art museum. Therefore, to identify the potential

interests of using contemporaneity in art museums, this study has followed the actions of the

different actors thoroughly. This was done by interviewing professionals, who have solid

experiences of working in an art museum and analyzing official documents. Following the

actors, particularly by learning how curators have used, interpreted and addressed the

acquisition policies, this study seeks to reveal the usefulness of contemporaneity in art

museums today.

Furthermore, the relationships between the actors are examined as this could influence the

stability of the artistic and geographic networks. The hypothesis of making use of ANT is that

the strength of their relationship may lead to the production of specific types of exhibitions or

the endorsement of certain acquisitions in a collection. The actor-networks have no clear cut

boundaries, thus the purpose of adopting an inside and outside perspective is to identify the

interactions among immanent and less visible actors. Tracing the actors to find out how the

concept of contemporaneity is circulating in and out of a museum entails the capability of an

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art museum to adopt contemporaneity. Thus, the level of complexity of the actor-network

represents the level of eagerness for a museum to work with contemporaneity. This would

have an influence on strategies for creating desired outcomes.22 For example, the deployment

of acquisition policies may involve reducing the concept of contemporaneity since the more

complex it is, the more difficult it is to apply in reality.23

1.4 Previous research This study brings together a multidisciplinary perspective by looking at several strands of

knowledge such as modernism, postmodernism, contemporaneity, globalization, museology

and policy studies simultaneously. Research on modern and postmodern art is plentiful,

whereas research on the association of contemporary art and its contemporaneity is for natural

reasons more limited in scope. The literature on postmodern art and its advocators were

considered both radical and critical when these materials first presented themselves in the

1980s, nevertheless they still play vibrant roles in the discourse. Due to globalization, the

proliferation of museum of contemporary art in different nations during the 21st century have

created literatures and research that presents views of key differences of art genealogy in the

western and eastern cultures.

In the 1980s Fredric Jameson (b. 1934) offered a critique of both modernism

and postmodernism from a Marxist perspective. His book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural

Logic of Late Capitalism of 1991, began as a 1984 article in the New Left Review.24 In the

book he expressed the weakness of an increasing dependency on a capitalist economy. He

argued that the cultural industry adopted the mode of commodifying their productions, in

which new “products” like movies, exhibitions and even “newer” arts are constantly desired

by the mass market.25 This aroused a mode of thinking that culture has to constantly supply.

As a result, Jameson understood that this phenomenon has provided the room for capitalists to

22 McBride, 247. 23 Eric Monteiro and Ole Hanseth, “Social Shaping of Information Infrastructure: On Being Specific About

The Technology,” Orlikowski. Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, 1996. 24 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 2. print. in pbk., [Nachdr.]

(London: Verso, [1989] 2007), 56. 25 Jameson, 56.

15

extended their influence on the cultural sphere.26 Overtime, he adapted the term cultural logic

to describe the changing landscape of the cultural sphere around the globe.

Jameson’s attempt to create a theoretical framework in order to situate the radical happenings,

such as Andy Warhol and the pop arts27 of the 1990s in the art field was further developed by

Rosalind Krauss (b. 1941).28 In her essay, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalist Museums,

Krauss expanded the usage of the term culture logic as a power that is acting upon the

institutional standards and also the ways of organizing museums.29 Museums became more

dependent on the support from the private sector,30 and hence, this has created even more

opportunities for the private sector to step into the cultural sphere via formats of art

foundations, sponsorships and different types of patronage.31 This has explained why world

class museums, such as the Guggenheim museums and the Louvre museums, nowadays look

gigantic and often show a corporative way of thinking in their operation and management.

Referring to Jameson’s book Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,

Krauss in her turn argued that museums of contemporary art would go through the process of

industrialization as they are driven by a society that is dependent on capital. According to

Krauss, an industrialized museum pays a stronger attention on both the mass market and the

capital market. She compares an industrialized museum to the model of a theme park,32 in

which the infrastructures are something that can be molded and distributed in numbers.33

26 Being well-known as a Marxist believer, Jameson’s choice of the word ‘Late’ was used to indicate a

continuation of postmodernism and capitalism permeating from the 1990s up until today. The free flow of capital facilitated the birth of a global market and also the spread of cultural logic. From Jameson’s perspective, postmodernism is not a style, but rather an ideology that enables the presence and coexistence of different cultural and aesthetic productions such as art, film and architecture

27 Jameson, 54. 28 Rosalind E. Krauss, “The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum,” The MIT Press 54 (October

1990): 3–17. 29 Krauss named her essay by borrowing the title from Fredric Jameson’s research of cultural logic. 30 Such phenomenon is particularly prominent in the United States where Krauss’ observation had been

largely based on, the government support in cultural sector has always been non-existence. 31 Jameson, 56. 32 Krauss used Disneyland as a reference model in which this industry deal with the mass market and is

about leisure and entertainment. Krauss, 17. 33 Ibid.

16

Similar to the division of labor in a factory, the so-called “complete curator”34 would be

decentralized into different roles that have specific tasks such as a researcher, writer, director

and producer.35 Lastly, since the influence of a private market was inevitable (as Krauss was

based in the US), she also foresaw the building of collections as asset accumulations, in which

collections could be circulated back into the market through deaccession.36 In short, these

societal conditions have jiggled the traditional concept of modern art, questioning the role of

the museum as a guardian of cultural heritage. The museum of contemporary art was born in

light of this phase of transformation, presenting a radical museology indeed.

The force of the market certainly began its process of radically reprogramming and recoding

the work at museums. One specific transformation that Krauss was anticipating was a switch

from diachronic to synchronic.37 An encyclopedic museum presents selected objects that tell

the stories of history in a forwarding narrative, but a synchronic museum would replace the

narrative with an intensified personal viewing experience, often achieved by involving a well-

designed museum display or an extraordinary museum architecture. Looking at the museums

of contemporary art constructed in the 21st century, distinct examples includes Zaha Hadid’s

MAXXI in Rome, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in the

United Arab Emirates; a similar situation can also be found in Hong Kong such as the Tai

Kwun Contemporary and M+, both of which are designed by the architecture firm Herzog &

de Meuron, who also built Tate Modern in 2000. However, this is not to diminish the

commitment of these museums, but only to validate what Krauss envisioned in the 1990s, that

the function of an industrialized museum would have a stronger focus on leisure and mass

entertainment than before, which may indicate that her radical views still have an impact on

the development in the 21st century.

In the beginning of the 2000s, Hans Hayden (b. 1965), who is based at Stockholm University

published his book Modernism as Institution: On the Establishment of an Aesthetic and

34 The complete curator is a person who foster new models of art and critic contemporary art as an

advanced area of study and museology. Liam Gillick, “The Complete Curator,” in Industry and Intelligence: Contemporary Art since 1820, Bampton Lectures in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 71-77.

35 Krauss, 15. 36 Krauss, 17. 37 Krauss, 7.

17

Historiographic Paradigm. In the study he defined contemporaneity as a period that is based

on art history, an aspiration from modernity of which he considers that contemporaneity is the

“newness” that was once pursued by the avant-gardes of the late 19th century.38 Another

important contribution to the field of defining contemporaneity is Dan Karlholm’s (b. ? )

research on contemporaneity. In his book Kontemporalism: Om samtidskonstens historia och

framtid [Contemporalism: About the history and the future of contemporary art]39 and essay

After Contemporary Art: Actualization and Anachrony,40 in which he argued that the concept

of contemporaneity has been obsessed with time, in the form of history. As opposed to an

historical approach and also in an attempt to move away from the notion of modernity,

contemporaneity has been used to signal the exchange of knowledge between various national

territories. It is the accessibility and participation that defines the basic features and imaginary

of contemporary art. Therefore, contemporaneity may have multiple meanings that is largely

depending on its users.

In 2013, another important contributor in the field of contemporary art history, Claire Bishop

(b. 1971) published her book Radical Museology.41 Bishop based her study on Fredric

Jameson’s and Rosalind Krauss’ research and argued that the role of museums and their

collections of today have become so economically and socially vital, that they actually

enhance the values and social status of private collections.42 Thus, this has further stimulated

the private sector to establish themselves in the museum industry. In Europe, public funding

for cultural development has been on a decline to deal with economic downturns and cultural

institutions have to find funding from donations and sponsorships.

In view of the proliferation of museums of contemporary art, Bishop presented her version of

cultural logic (i.e. a market driven logic of culture) which means that the museums and the

private markets are not mutually exclusive. In a way they desire the presence of each other.

Therefore, it is important to address the concept of a market driven culture (cultural logic) as

38 Hans Hayden, Modernism as Institution: On the Establishment of an Aesthetic and Historiographic

Paradigm, 2018, https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=fulltext&uiLanguage=en&rid=31494. 39 Dan Karlholm, Kontemporalism: om samtidskonstens historia och framtid (Stockholm: Axl Books,

2014). 40 Dan Karlholm, “After Contemporary Art: Actualization and Anachrony,” The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics,

no. 51 (2016): 35–54. 41 Bishop, Radical Museology. 42 Bishop, 61.

18

an actor of the actor-network as it could be used to explain how the interest of the museum

and the market are aligned.

Furthermore, Bishop has suggested the need for developing a “dialectical contemporaneity”

as a strategy for museums to revitalize their art collections and to allow museums to have

better leverage with the private sector. This model of contemporaneity that Bishop attempts to

foster is neither an epoch nor a philosophical way of understanding art. In fact, it could be

summarized as a strategic use of perspective. When it is put to work, it activates a collective

reflection of what we now consider important when turning our heads to look at the past.

Bishop stated that “dialectical contemporaneity” is not limited to time or periodization

because it extends to an infinite period,43 which implies a date back system. Thus, according

to Bishop, contemporaneity does not only come from the living artists. It focuses on an

interplay between multiple and overlapping timelines.

In terms of research on museology Eileen Hooper Greenhill’s (b. 1954) book Museum and the

Shaping of Knowledge of 1992, reveals that museums today are an outcome of a historical

construct. According to her rather negative view, the selection, possession and organization of

collections in museums are as deemed as the production of “truth” and “knowledge.” 44 As a

strategy for museums to move forward, Nicholas Thomas (b. 1960) has in his turn, pinpointed

and unfolded a new understanding of curiosity for museums that is distinguished by an

eagerness to encounter what is new or unfamiliar in his study The Return of Curiosity: What

Museums Are Good for in the 21st Century of 2016.45 Thomas refers back to the days of the

curiosity cabinets and how curiosity may indeed enrich our approach to museum objects

today. A master thesis from the Uppsala University written in 2020 builds on the same

concept. Anneli Stray’s Den livsviktiga oredan Kuriosakabinettets integrering med 2000-talet

[The vital disorder: The curiosity cabinet's integration with the 21st century] argues that

modern museums could apply the concept of the old curiosity cabinet to get the attention of

43 Bishop has referred to Boris Groys in “Comrades of Time,” in Going Public, Sternberg Press, Berlin,

2010. Of which contemporaneity is marked by “a prolonged, potentially infinite period of delay.” Bishop, 18.

44 Eileen Hooper Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1992), 191, http://site.ebrary.com/id/10060851.

45 Nicholas Thomas, The Return of Curiosity: What Museums Are Good for in the 21st Century, 2016, http://site.ebrary.com/id/11231794.

19

new audiences.46 Her research raised a pragmatic strategy for reorganizing museum

collections in a more colorful and disorderly way. However, she also pinpointed a potential

risk of repatriation, when insufficient attention was given to the historicity of the objects.

To supplement the research of contemporaneity and museology in the west, it is also

important to understand the development of museums in Hong Kong and Mainland China

since the late 19th century. The American Chinese art historian Wu Hung (b.1945) is

considered as one of the pioneers in the field of contemporary Chinese art. According to his

definition, contemporary Chinese art became an independent discipline after the death of Mao

Zedong, in the mid 1970s, during the period of the post-Cultural Revolution, and is not a

purely temporal concept. In brief terms, “it refers to art that self-consciously distinguished

itself from official art, mainstream academic art, and traditional art, although also interacting

with these categories.”47 Hence, the concept of contemporary Chinese art has its own itinerary

and has moved away from a western art chronology and construction, despite a part of it still

interacts with western modernist art. Therefore, Wu’s research has in a scholarly way

facilitated the categorization of the Chinese art world of the late 20th century.

Two thoroughly written essays that discuss the first Chinese-sponsored public art museum in

China were used in this study, they are Exhibiting Modern: The Creation of the first Chinese

Museum, 1905-1930, published by Qin Shao in 2004 and Zhang Jian and China’s First

Museum, published by Lisa Claypool in 2005. In Hong Kong, the first public art museum was

sponsored by a well-established Chinese businessman Fung Ping Shan. Today, the museum is

still active and has been integrated as part of the Hong Kong University. Museums in the east

were developed under the western framework in the early 19th century. Although their

infrastructures may look similar, the social and economic functions in the west and the east

could vary in different manners. In addition, the concept of a yellow cube, the Chinese

approach in collecting and displaying of modern age, was developed in Inside the Yellow Box:

Cultural Exceptionalism and the Ideology of the Gallery Space by Paul Gladston and Lynne

46 Anneli Stray, “Den livsviktiga oredan Kuriosakabinettets integrering med 2000-tale,t” (Sweden, Uppsala

Universitet, 2020), (ISSN 1651-6079). 47 Wu Hung, Peggy Wang, and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), eds., Contemporary Chinese Art:

Primary Documents (New York : Durham, N.C: Museum of Modern Art ; Distributed by Duke University Press, 2010).

20

Howarth Gladston, presenting itself as a resistance to the international dominance of the white

cube.48 It contributes greatly to the act of diversifying the meaning of art between the west

and east.

Nowadays, in Asia, most museums that are well-known for their contemporary art collections

are privately owned such as the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and The Samsung Museum of

Art in Seoul.49 Even for the setup of M+ in Hong Kong, being a project kick-started by the

government, the museum has endorsed a board of members who are land developers from the

private sector of Hong Kong.50 This indicates that the development of museums in the modern

time is still deeply connected to private sectors.

Lastly, this study also analyzes acquisition policies of different museums, and it is worth

highlighting a particular policy which is called Rapid Response Collection, established by the

Victoria & Albert Museum in London.51 In 2014, this collection policy was introduced to the

museum by Kieran Long, the Senior Curator of Contemporary Architecture, Design and

Digital at the time. According to his speech in 2013 during the conference M+ Matters-

ARTWORKDOCUMENTATION: Rethinking the Categories of Art and Documentation,52 the

aims of this policy is to allow the museum to quickly source for innovations in the field of

design. The goals of this policy are to decentralize collecting decisions that were often

subjected to the curators’ individual expertise; and to provide its audience hands-on

experiences of the latest products of material culture in a timely manner. The first item that

was acquired using this policy was a 3D-printed gun produced by Cody Wilson.53 Despite the

V&A’s policy being unique in its own way, this study finds it difficult to adopt this policy in

48 Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston, “Inside the Yellow Box: Cultural Exceptionalism and the

Ideology of the Gallery Space,” Journal of Curatorial Studies 6, no. 2 (October 1, 2017): 194-211, https://doi.org/10.1386/jcs.6.2.194_1.

49 Bishop, 11. 50 The structure of the board of M+ in 2019, based on its annual report, consist of 10 out of 22 members

with a noticeable background or connection to the private sector. M+, “M+ Review,” 2019, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/m-review.

51 Victoria and Albert Museum, “V&A · Rapid Response Collecting,” accessed January 4, 2021, https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/rapid-response-collecting.

52 “M+ Matters,” M+ Matters | M+思考," accessed December 26, 2020, https://www.mplusmatters.hk.

53 M+ Matters- ARTWORKDOCUMENTATION: Rethinking the Categories of Art and Documentation, 2016, 6:11, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLl3nDGey34&list=PLqLUImFXx2jPK5juWuOIy-SAEfsZzNCCD&index=3&ab_channel=WestKowloonCulturalDistrict.

21

the context of modern and contemporary art museums. The Victoria & Albert Museum in

principle is a design museum. Even though its collection consists of fine arts such as paintings

and sculptures, the museum does not collect art after 1945.54 Thus, this study would rule out

the use of this policy in a modern and contemporary art context.

1.5 Demarcations, term and disposition

Demarcations The time frame of this study is limited to the period between 2012 to 2019 because M+

officially began collecting in 2012.55 Therefore, the select materials of the two museums were

chosen within this time frame. M+ is a museum being constructed in the 21st century, and it is

impossible to map out its profile without considering the co-existence, and sometimes clashes,

of values between the west and east that are inherent from its colonial past. Another external

factor that may problematize the understanding of M+ is the role of Chinese art and its

relation to Hong Kong and the PRC. The significant and prominent value of especially

contemporary Chinese art could sometimes overshadow the role of Hong Kong art. This

brings out a political question whether M+ is established to tell histories outside of Hong

Kong with internalized beliefs and values of China at large. Therefore, this study ties the

perspectives of Hong Kong and Chinese art together for analysis. Moderna Museet has always

been regarded an international museum and its main focus areas has until now been Sweden,

the US and Europe. Above all, in this comparative research, it excludes materials that were

formulated outside of this time frame and geographical limit. The primary interest in this

research is to understand the logics of contemporaneity in the two museums by studying their

acquisition policies and therefore, the temporary exhibitions and the display of art in general

have not been taken under consideration.

Term Acquisition Policy

Public museums, whether they are run by the state or private institutions, do not necessarily

54 Ibid. 55 WKCDA, “M+ Collections,” 2020, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/about-the-m-collections.

22

process or publish an acquisition policy. Therefore, the term acquisition policy in this study

does not conform to one specific type of document. It can be a physical document or an

ideological positioning, which is why it is here referred to as an umbrella concept. It

comprehends all information including but not limited to policy documents, annual reports,

performance reviews, websites and expertise of museum staff.

Disposition This study is divided into five chapters. By using ANT as method, chapter one presents an

introduction to the aims of this study together with a discursive background, whereas chapters

two to four will present an actor-network that could unfold the understanding of

contemporaneity in the two model museums. To begin with, chapter two briefly introduces

the history of public museums in Sweden, mainland China and Hong Kong. The third chapter

summarizes the acquisition policies and annual reports to outline a general parameter which

situates the presence of contemporary art and contemporaneity of the two museums. The

fourth chapter comprises five interviews. It is also an analytical part of this study as museum

professionals were asked to elaborate on how they value art, museums and acquisition

policies. Lastly, chapter five presents a final discussion that evaluates the use of ANT and

discusses the relevance of contemporaneity in the two museums. Finally, this study includes

two appendixes: A) Transcribed interviews and B) Questionnaire.

23

Chapter 2, The backgrounds Introduction

This chapter provides a background to situate the actor-network that will emerge in depth in

later chapters. It outlines a brief history of the establishment of public museums in Sweden

and China in order to find out how the museum has been traditionally understood by the

peoples of these different places. It explores the motivation and vision of building museums in

both places from both western and eastern perspectives. Thereafter this chapter looks at the

implementation of museums in Hong Kong and their effect on the constitution of a cultural

identity that is unique to Hong Kong. Lastly, it compares the collecting methods of the west

and east at a period of time before museums were invented. The aim of this chapter is to

formulate a background that can facilitate the understanding of the analysis of the usage of

policies to frame the work with contemporaneity in art museums today.

2.1 A brief history of state art museums The late eighteenth century marked the age of state art museums. Following the French

revolution of 1789, cultural and artistic heritages that were previously held private by the

royal families were liberated and became accessible to the public. Royal palaces that

originally used to keep these heritages were in a democratic way transformed into art

museums for public display. This type of museum was deployed by the state and used to

facilitate the building of national identity by moderating a colonial past, and to validate the

present. Similar cases can be found in other European countries such as Italy and Spain.

However, this was neither the case for Sweden nor Hong Kong. In these two places, state art

museums were established for the benefit of the people and funded by the government as

cultural hubs.56

National museums of Sweden and China in the late 20th century

The first national museums in Sweden including the National Portrait Gallery, the National

Gallery, the Museum of Scandinavian Ethnography and Cultural History, Skansen Open Air

56 Greenhill, 25.

24

Museum, and the Museum of National Antiquities were all established in the 19th century.

The majority of them have existed as public museums and were later made into state financed

public museums, for the support of a nationalist movement.57 State financed public museums

bear a greater responsibility to the general public compared to the public museums that are

run by private entities. In the early 20th century, there was already an urge from the society of

Sweden for having a new museum to display the latest art. The collection of this museum

should be distinguished from the royal collection that were displayed in the National

Museum. Therefore, when the Moderna Museet was inaugurated in Stockholm in 1958, it was

a museum designed specifically to displaying new art collections that were created by the

living artists of that time.58

Already in the 1960s the Moderna Museet had forged a number of historical exhibitions.

Under the leadership of the director Pontus Hultén, these exhibitions presented prominent

artworks including Pablo Picasso’s (b.1881) Guernica and numerous world class figures of

contemporary art such as Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol and Edward Kienholz.59 During the

event of the exhibition “Önskemuseet” (The Dream Museum) in 1963-64, the museum

secured a huge lump sum from the government to establish a collection that could serve as the

foundation of the museum. This had rendered the Moderna Museet as a cultural institution

that simultaneously displays and collects the latest art of the present, including both American

art and European art. The Moderna Museet was not established for the purpose of

nationalism, but rather as a cultural institution that can stand at the forefront of art.

The first Chinese owned, and managed museum is the Nantong Museum that was inaugurated

in Jiangsu Province in 1905. The founder of the Nantong Museum was an industrial

entrepreneur and a social reformer named Zhang Jian. Situated adjacent to the seaport city

Shanghai, the original concept of a Chinese museum was closely associated to western

influences. At that time, a large part of Shanghai was used as a base by different powers of the

west, and therefore, it became one of the most modernized cities in China at that time. In fact,

57 Per Widén, “National Museums in Sweden: A History of Denied Empire and a Neutral State,” in European National Museums: Identity Politics (Building National Museums in Europe 1750-2010., Bologna, 2011), 1-22.

58 “History,” Moderna Museet i Stockholm," accessed on January 4, 2015, https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/2015/01/04/historia/.

59 Ibid.

25

this was the reason why in the late 19th century, citizens of Shanghai were already being

informed by the concept of museums. Two natural history museums, the Siccawei Museum

owned by the French and the Shanghai Museum owned by the British were established in

Shanghai prior to Nantong. These two museums were well-acclaimed by the people of

Shanghai.60 The financial and social activities that had supported these two foreign museums

could be traced to port cities of southern China such as Tianjin, Canton and Hong Kong.61

This suggested that the concept of a Chinese museum was transported to Hong Kong, and

partially contributed to Hong Kong’s cultural development in the long-run. Zhang Jian who

based his observation of these westernized museums, had later become the first person to

propose to the Qing court, the last dynasty ruler of China to create an original Chinese

museum. His proposal was regarded as one of the earliest documents that had systematically

outlined the essence of a museum which was based on a western framework.62 To have a

Chinese museum to Zhang was a manifesto of a modernized China.63

To Zhang Jian, the plan for the first Chinese museum had to resemble the Louvre, in which

his aim was to establish a national institution that could play an influencing role in the

constitution of the public life in the capital city.64 It also represented the efforts by the local

elites who attempted to modernize their community and to gain a reputation. When the

Nantong Museum first opened its doors to the world, it had several names but none of them

could be directly translated into the western terminology of “museum.” In 1906, it was given

a name called bowuyuan,65 where yuan in this context means garden. Gardens in ancient

China were merely a decorative space and an extended area of a house. Chinese gardens were

once considered as a space where all the most important social elites, official rulers of ancient

China would come to gather for all sorts of social activities. It was also a space of cultural

construct where the literati would display and appreciate cultural heritages such as calligraphy

60 In 1896, the curators of reported the number of Chinese visitors were uniformly large. The museums

had to conduct crowd control measurements. Lisa Claypool, “Zhang Jian and China’s First Museum,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Aug., 2005, Vol. 64, no. No. 3 (August 2005): 574.

61 Claypool, 574. 62 Shao Qin, “Exhibiting the Modern: The Creation of the First Chinese Museum, 1905-1930,” Cambridge

University Press on Behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies, the China Quarterly, no. No. 179 (September 2004): 691.

63 In 1905 China was indeed reformed. The Imperial Examination system was replaced with modern educational system.

64 Qin, 691. 65 Instability of language made the establishment of the first Chinese Museum difficult. Claypool, 577.

26

and paintings. This demonstrates another adaption of museums in China. To Zhang, museums

were a symbol of modernization and his attempt to build a Chinese museum was to revitalize

the prosperity of China.

The implementation of museums in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, it wasn’t until the mid of the 20th century that the first privately funded

museum, the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) of The University of Hong Kong

became available to the public in 1953.66 The state-run Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA)

was inaugurated nine years later in 196267. The late arrival of state art museums was due to

the highly entangled background of Hong Kong as a transcultural political state.68 Namely,

the early migrants were mostly refugees who fled from the PRC. Therefore, in the beginning

of the British colonial period, migrants did not really see Hong Kong as their home. The

British colonial government of the time also did not want the colonists to pursue a sense of

local identity and naturally little attention was given to develop the cultural sector in Hong

Kong.69 The Hong Kong art historian Oscar Ho has hence in 1991 launched the Hong Kong

Culture Series of exhibitions, investigating whether there were specific Hong Kong cultural

traditions before the 1960s.70

In the 1950s Hong Kong encountered its first baby boom. The outcome was a generation of

people who were born and raised in the British colony who felt little connected with the PRC.

In view of the British in 1984 agreeing Hong Kong would be returned to the Chinese rule in

1997, the Hong Kong-born generations discovered a complex emotion. Knowing that the

Chinese regime was completely different from the democratic government of Hong Kong,

they have little to identify their nationality as Chinese people. Furthermore, a turning point

truly came after the violent crackdown that crushed China’s democracy movement at

Tiananmen Square in Beijing June 1989. A sense of anxiety grew among the people of Hong

66 The University of Hong Kong, “University Museum and Art Gallery - The University of Hong Kong,”

accessed March 7, 2021, https://www.umag.hku.hk/en/about_us.php?id=921476. 67 Hong Kong Museum of Art, “About Us | Hong Kong Museum of Art,” accessed March 7, 2021,

https://hk.art.museum/en_US/web/ma/about-us.html. 68 Oscar Ho, “Hong Kong: A Curatorial Journey for an Identity,” Asia Art Archive, September 10, 2020,

https://aaa.org.hk/en/ideas/ideas/hong-kong-a-curatorial-journey-for-an-identity. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid.

27

Kong in fear of being dominated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). An immediacy to

establish their original culture as a belief and as an identity had for the first time become

important or clear to many cultural professionals of Hong Kong.

The paradox of a transcultural political state can explain in large why state art museums in

Hong Kong came at a later point of time. Despite Hong Kong had regained prosperity fairly

soon after the Japanese Occupation (1941-1945), the desire to search for a cultural identity

fueled the opportunity both socially and economically for building more state art museums,

but it has also problematized the operation of these museums as the viewpoints on cultural

identity have always been fragmented and as of today it has become highly polarized.

Comparing to the Moderna Museet which was inaugurated in Stockholm 1958 to M+ which

will be opened in Hong Kong 2021, it is important to know what truly connect the museums

of Stockholm and Hong Kong, they are venues where people make sense of their cultural life

and history, and to gain an idea of the future.

Although there has been an absence of a determining voice of the cultural development in

Hong Kong, traces of a Hong Kong cultural identity can be observed in a different historical

period. Living under an uncertain future, the Hong Kong-born generation are constantly in

transition between locations and in negotiations with values between the east and the west.

Exhibitions and collections in state-art museums are methods to make sense of cultural

identity. However, the intrinsic value of this concept is exactly the entanglement itself, and

this has made cultural works increasingly complicated for the museums to grasp hold on.

Long before 1997 the people of Hong Kong spoke of themselves as 不中不英 [neither

Chinese or English, neither East or West]. Just as how the Hong Kong cultural critic Leung

Ping-Kwan had elaborated in 1995, “A Hong Kongese is certainly a Chinese comparing to a

foreigner. However in front of someone from the mainland or Taiwan, he seems to be more

influenced by foreign culture.”71 In a similar sense, a series of cultural exhibitions72 led by

Oscar Ho in 1995 summarized the message as "Yes, we are Chinese, but we are very different

from the Chinese in China."73 In June 2020, with the implemented Hong Kong national

71 Leung, Ping-Kwan. Urban Culture, Hong Kong Literature and Cultural Criticism, 1995, 45. 72 Hong Kong Culture Series, exhibitions at the Hong Kong Art Centre in 1991. Ho, “Hong Kong: A

Curatorial Journey for an Identity.” 73 Ibid.

28

security law by the Chinese authority, any discussions of cultural identity would only be

polarized into two extremes.

In short, the establishment of art museums in Hong Kong in the 20th century was by large an

appropriated idea from the west, in which a museum was considered as a tool to construct

national identity and a symbol of modernization that is closely associated with the private

entrepreneurs. In reality, most of the state-owned museums of Hong Kong were, as a matter

of fact, set up by the colonial government in the second half of the 20th century, and the

majority of the museum staff were Hong Kong people who had either received western

colonial education or were brought up in the west. Despite the original idea of M+ was

developed after the handover of Hong Kong, a similar setup still applies in its structure. The

boards of M+ have a fair number of westerners and more than half of M+ curatorial team was

assembled by people who are associated with either American or European background.74 As

M+ seeks to explore the perspective of Hong Kong in depth, the museum staff is working

with the understanding of displacement and transition that play a core part of Hong Kong

identity. It is dysfunctional to subordinate the cultural identity of Hong Kong entirely under a

western or eastern ideology. Any attempt to define cultural identity into a single narrative

would only arouse severe backfiring from the people of Hong Kong.

The current political situation of Hong Kong has indeed accelerated into an unprecedented

direction. The paradox of Hong Kong in Hou Hanru’s opinion is the aftermath of how every

country in the world is responding to the era of the great mutation of globalization.75 With or

without a colonial past, tensions of society were aroused when historical conditions clash with

futuristic visions. Social changes are accelerating in every country and particularly in

metropolitan areas. This means that the difficulties of constructing a cultural identity for Hong

Kong citizens can be seen as one of the many possible outcomes towards a universal future.

The building of a cultural identity as of today is a double-edged sword for museums.

Preserving the past and connecting it with the present is one way to build up a cultural

identity, and public art museums are needed for this obvious reason. However, this vantage

point of the museums has been gradually degrading as the idea of contemporary life is being

74 “M+ Review 2019,” 162-85, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/m-review. 75 Hou and Yu, On the Mid-Ground, 169.

29

constantly re-defined, A cultural identity today is constituted of a wide range of needs and

interests of the people that transforms over time. As we now know, museums recognize

themselves not only as a space of tolerance, but also a new “forum” to revitalize public life

that revolves around pluralism.76 In order not to lose sight of the complexity of the world, we

would have to adopt multiple perspectives simultaneously.

2.2 Collections and collecting - a brief history What does art collecting mean? Collecting is an action that all of us intuitively understand to a

certain degree. On a basic level, the act of collecting may account for an attachment that

satisfy emotional needs such as ownerships and embodiments.77 However, it is only when a

collection grows to a certain size and endures a higher value, it becomes an ideological

representation of the collector.

In the west, for those who collected arts and objects from other cultures it was a form of

conquering other cultures, whereas the prestige in the eastern context was about a reverence

for the masters of the past. Early collectors, who created the cabinets of curiosity were

explorers who could be princes, scholars and merchants. The symbolic display of the

magnificence of the world inside a designated cabinet was a means to demonstrate power and

prestige that were entitled to their social status.78 In a similar fashion, the display and

appreciation of collections of art among neo-Confucian scholars79 in ancient China were also

considered as a prestige of the social elites.80 Throughout the imperial history of China, to

become a Confucian scholar was considered as the only way to enter the administrative

76 Here Hou used the ancient forum of Roman as an example of the prototype of a democratic society, as

oppose to the Roman forum today which is a tourist resort or a consumer product. Yu Hsiao Hwei, “Why Do We Still Need Museums? An Interview with Hou Hanru, Artistic Director of MAXXI, National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome,” Yishu Vol. 14, no. No. 2.

77 André Gali et al., eds., On Collecting, Documents on Contemporary Crafts 4 (Stuttgart: ARNOLDSCHE, 2017).

78 Greenhill, 23. 79 Neo-Confucians were imperial China’s elite scholar-gentry class who, from the Han dynasty (206-20 BC)

until the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), served as government officials both at court and throughout the empire. Neo-Confucians were regarded as the only type of literati, and they were not only expected to have extensive knowledge of classical Chinese literature but also highly developed skills in, among other things, painting and poetry writing/calligraphy. Gladston and Gladston, 199.

80 Ibid.

30

system of the government. During the Song Dynasty, Confucianism had reconfigured itself as

neo-Confucianism, one distinction of the reformation was the conducting of literati gathering.

The private gathering was in a way similar to the practice of the display of cabinets, as it also

took place in personal household. Within a confined space, a wide range of objects including

numerous collections of calligraphies, poems and paintings, objects were shown for peer

appreciation. However, it is crucial to point out that in China, the system that values art is

fundamentally different from that in Europe. In China the genealogy of art has remained

largely consistent for at least the past 2000 years.81 In this period of time, the greatest value

and pride has been given to the art of calligraphy, which is the writing of Chinese scripts, and

paintings could only come second until the Song Dynasty (960-1279).82 However, from a

western perspective, the field of study often places the importance of paintings over

calligraphies. This is due to the western tradition that painting is “the apex of (art) hierarchy

in European terms.”83 Another example of view of differences in art is that architecture and

sculpture, two of the traditional European fine art elements has not, until the past century,

entered the art system of China.84 Comparing the act of collecting between the neo-Confucian

scholars and cabinet owners, though with different motivations, it represented not only their

curiosity of knowledge, but also revealed two entirely power systems that have been assigning

meaning and values to art in the past. One system that glorified the conqueror and one system

that glorified the past.

Therefore, looking from the perspective of today, the different acts of collecting in the past

was not only about building a treasure box, rather the goal was to establish an archive of

knowledge that can be shaped and dispensed. What could be learned nowadays, as for

instance, when building new knowledge, it is crucial to look back at the ancient hierarchy of

art and power. Although the cabinet of curiosity in the west is in general regarded as the

earliest form of “art collection,” Greenhill has argued that the category of “art” that is used in

this circumstance is too much confined by the definition of fine art in the European standard.

81Criaig Clunas, “What about Chinese Art?,” in Views of Difference: Different Views of Art, ed. Catherine

King, Art and Its Histories, bk. 5 (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Open University, 1999).

82 Paintings with writings on top have always been considered more valuable compare to those with the absent of writings. Clunas, 123.

83 Clunas, 122. 84 Clunas, 124.

31

The fine art category is obviously inadequate to explain the aim, content and the motivation in

organizing collections that were once used to satisfy the curiosity of the world. The curiosity

cabinet and the literati gathering have demonstrated alternative approaches that could have an

influence on the act of collecting by the museums of today.

Conclusion

This chapter brings together the motivation and different stages of development of museums

in Sweden, China and Hong Kong. It has revealed that the role and function of public

museums could vary differently depending on the time of epoch. In the late 19th century,

museums in Europe were deployed for nationalistic purposes, while in China, museums were

still a new concept. It played an important role in terms of modernization, as the Chinese

people were building a new nation after the fall of China’s imperial period. Therefore, when

the first museum opened in China, it was a borrowed concept and had a western framework.

More importantly, the representation of a museum was being considered as a symbol of

modernization. In the mid of the 20th century, new museums were built in the west in order to

display and handle modern and contemporary art, which were objects of the present time. For

Hong Kong, due to its historical background of colonial history and its relationship to

mainland China, it has always been a place of transition and displacement. Therefore, it

consists of museums from various ends of the spectrum.

In Radical Museology Claire Bishop argues that museums who only present temporary

exhibitions are not so much of a difference to kunsthalles.85 This, because naturally, museums

that do not withhold an acquisition policy lack a grounding that can be used to situate art. As a

result, they are most vulnerable to the influence of the market. Looking back at the period of

time long before museums were invented, this chapter explored how art was being

systematically categorized in the west and east. The curiosity cabinets and literati gardens

were invented for completely different reasons, in which the curiosity cabinets were exotic

spaces that encompassed the world in the mentality of domination. The literati gardens that

focused on the dynamic of power and philosophy looked back in time and reasoned from

history through the objects, and hence, their collections were utterly opted for internal

85 Bishop, 11.

32

reflections. Nevertheless, they represented a period of time when people organized artworks

without the inception of the market and museums. Knowledge about how people in the past

handled art formulates the general impression of what museums were supposed to be used for,

and ever since it has been passed on to further generations.

33

Chapter 3, Tracing the “contemporary” in museum policies Introduction

This chapter introduces an actor-network created by a grouping of international museums. It

explores how a network can be sustained by actors. The presence of an international museum

network has demonstrated various actor-to-actor interactions including shared knowledge and

exchange of resources in the formats of arts and exhibitions. Furthermore, it has been

indicated that museums nowadays do not work alone, either they reference each other or they

collaborate to enhance productivity. In this network, the bigger the museums are the more

determining roles they play. This is because they render a deeper influence on the others, and

they have an advantage in terms of determining meaning and value of art.

Actors who are connected in the same network are constantly informing each other. If the idea

of contemporaneity was of interest to other museums, then more actors would likely adopt

this concept and apply contemporaneity in their own museum environments. Actors would

also encourage potential newcomers to take up the same idea and thereby, enrolling more

actors into the network. After analyzing the international network, the focus of this study

turns to the empirical materials of the two museums. The design and strategic use of

acquisition policies are scrutinized to find out how contemporaneity is used at the Moderna

Museet and M+; the aim is to evaluate how the concept of contemporaneity may be

appropriated and then contextualized in order to facilitate the building of museum collections

of and about our own time.

3.1 The general good practice Today museums from different nations take reference from ICOM, the International Council

of Museums, when they develop, expand or reorganize their roles and functions. In order to

gain access to ICOM’s information, museums would have to become part of this exclusive

museum network. Not only the Moderna Museet and M+ are connected to ICOM, they are

34

also closely associated to ICOM’s affiliated organization called CIMAM - the International

Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art. CIMAM runs a more focused global

network that consists of modern and contemporary art museums only. In addition, CIMAM

has also shown a stronger leadership in the museum industry as it conducts more activities

such as forums and conferences compared to ICOM. Ann-Sofi Noring who was the former

acting director of Moderna Museet and Suhanya Raffel the current executive director of M+

are both active board members of CIMAM for the period of 2020-2022. Therefore, it could be

said that the two museums play distinguished roles in this global network, and it would also

be affirming to say that they share and support the visions and goals of ICOM and CIMAM.

ICOM and CIMAM set standards for the operation of museums. The ICOM Code of Ethics

for Museums is shared and affirmed by its members and it is essential that this document is

not a legal document. Further, it provides guidelines of what is regarded as professional and

good practices in the museum world. In this document, under section 2.1 document, ICOM

states its viewpoint about acquisition policies, “the governing body for each museum should

adopt and publish a written collections policy that addresses the acquisition, care and use of

collections. The policy should clarify the position of any material that will not be catalogued,

conserved, or exhibited.”86 This brief statement indicates that the acquisition policy is a

document that should be published by the museum. The document should address the

relationship between the collection, collecting process and policies of the museum. It should

also describe the museum collection management and its acquisition procedures in detail.

Although, the rules are open for interpretation, museums are encouraged to relate to them.

Subjected to different cultural contexts and societal backgrounds, museums could adopt the

guidelines and carry out measures that suit best in their individual scenarios.

The Moderna Museet does not give out any document that entails their acquisition policies,

but M+ has published two densely written documents, M+ Acquisition Policy and the

Collection Management Policy. Since it was first released in 2012, M+ acquisition and

management documents have been reviewed every two years. The latest version that was used

in this study was published in 2019. Given that M+ is a young museum, an amending policy

86 “Code of Ethics,” ICOM, accessed May 21, 2021, https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-

guidelines/code-of-ethics/.

35

suggests that the museum is in the midst of adjusting its role in Hong Kong. More

importantly, this has indicated that an acquisition policy is not a static document but can be

changed according to actual needs.

3.2 The practice of the Moderna Museet In view of the absence of an actual policy document from the Moderna Museet, this study

carried on to search for related acquisition information based on the guidelines of ICOM. One

source of information is the museum’s annual reports, Moderna Museet årsredovisningar.

Among the reports that range from 2013 to 2018, section 2.3.3 is about acquisitions

(förvärv).87 The use of language in these reports is standardized and also the design of these

reports follows the same structure. This makes comparison between these reports fairly

straightforward. As a result, it is possible to extract a number of long-term acquisition

strategies by summarizing information from these reports.

Using donations as a method

Rather the annual reports show evidence of a strategy for building the Moderna Museet’s

collection revolving around two input sources – acquisitions and donations. From 2013 to

2018 the total number of donations were 546 and acquisitions were 432.88 The majority of

objects that have entered the collection thus came from donations rather than acquisitions.

The same conclusion still applied even when traced further back to the report of 2009.

Although no written regulations have been found, on how to distinguish the two inputs

(donations and acquisitions) in terms of functions and focused area. The works of art that

were added to the collections through the two inputs respectively show different properties

such as geographical representation and market value.

Private donations and gifts in general are for natural reasons subjected to the donor’s personal

taste. However, given that the museum only worked with select proposals of donations, the

87 “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning,” 2013-2018. 88 The two figures come from summarizing of the total amount of new acquisitions based on the annual

reports. Moderna Museet, “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning,” 2013-2018.

36

objects that were chosen in the end must be inherently filtered by the museum staff. Hence,

the selections would reflect a certain institutionalized process.

Summarizing from the reports, the accepted donations have resulted in formulating a

noticeable American and European centered art collection. The frequency of works that came

from these two areas are fairly even and this indicates that an equal priority was given by the

museum. It is also worth pointing out that the donations tend to be highly valued objects and

that the majority of them were works of art representing modernism and postmodernism,

some highlights were works of Louise Nevelson, an important artist of 20th century American

art, donated in 2017 by the Fondazione Marconi and other were works of famous postmodern

artists On Kawara and Andy Warhol donated in 2015.89 These artworks are no doubt

extremely valuable objects to a public art museum. As a national museum that works with a

yearly budget, it faced witth the risk of being priced out of the art market if the same objects

were to be obtained and purchased. Therefore, based on the information of the annual reports,

it is possible to assume the strategic use of donations was a way to build a larger cornerstone

for the museum at a rapid rate. The donations recorded were basically deals that are too good

to be rejected. All reports would have mentioned the same reasons for such frequent donating

activities. This, because of the long history of the Moderna Museet being a modern art and

contemporary art museum, and its internationally acknowledged performance in the display of

art.

The acquisition campaigns

Apart from donations, the second source of input would be the deployment of acquisitions.

The records from the annual report reflects some clear objectives that can be understood as

different acquisition strategies. First of all, it is obvious that when the Moderna Museet

acquires new art pieces, the decisions are always reflecting an active campaign which is

organized by the museum itself. The Second Museum of Our Wishes is a good example of

such a campaign. It was initiated by its director Lars Nittve in 2006, to settle an observed

gender imbalance of the collection. Apart from bringing a subsequent number of female

artists and their artworks into the museum collection, the campaign was used to raise the

89 “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning 2015,” 12.

37

awareness about gender inequality in a museum environment. Today the museum has further

internalized the campaign as a strategy when acquiring.90 For example, in 2018, it was

reported that the gender balance in terms of the number of female and male artists was almost

equal. In fact, all of the reports between 2013 to 2018 contain a section that provides an

overview of the gender representation of the museum collection.91

In the annual report of 2014, one can read that the Moderna Museet was working on a new

campaign, this time to address the global art world. The project – Third Museum of Our

Wishes was first mentioned as a working campaign with an aim to bring more global art into

the collection and this would allow the museum to become more representative in the global

art world.92

In 2015, an interview with the directors published by the Moderna Museet, called 5 years with

Daniel Birnbaum & Ann-Sofi Noring, summarizes their curatorial work at the museum

between the years 2010 to 2015. Birmbaum and Noring confirmed that the museum was in the

midst of planning a project that engages the global art world.93 The actual building of a

collection of recent history can be traced back to a number of donations in 2013.94 From that

year onwards, together with the announcement of the campaign in 2014, the representation of

contemporary art in the museum collection has expanded. International art or global art of

different nations have been entering the museum via the method of acquisition. This indicated

that the museum was showing a more open attitude in the collecting of contemporary art at

the time. Despite a massive fundraising campaign had yet to take place, the Third Museum of

Our Wishes apparently instrumentalized itself into another pillar that focuses on global art and

a wider geographic representation of the Moderna Museet’s collection.

90 “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning,” 2013-2018. 91 See section 2.3.3 of all annual reports. “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning,” 2013-2018. 92 “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning 2014,” Annual Report, 2015, 15. 93 “5 Years with Daniel Birnbaum & Ann-Sofi Noring,” November 2, 2015, accessed on the 19th May, 2021.

https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/2015/11/02/5-ar-med-daniel-birnbaum-och-ann-sofi-noring/.

94 Moderna Museet, “Moderna Museet Årsredovisning 2013,” Annual Report, 2014, 11.

38

The last pillar that can be identified from the reports is the focus on Swedish and Nordic Art.

The origin of this category can be traced back to the early period of the Moderna Museet,

when Nordic Art was listed together with the French-oriented modernism, and American art

from the 1950s and 60s as the three major collecting categories.95 Yet, this method of

categorization doesn’t exist in the selected material of this study. Except the area of Nordic art

that has stood out as an independent category. So, for natural reasons, this category has the

longest history of development. However, it is worth mentioning that in the reports between

2013 to 2018, new Nordic arts were only added into the collection via acquisitions, of which

purchasing activities were particularly high in 2015, 2017 and 2018. In view of the damage

that the pandemic has done to Sweden’s cultural industry, the current director Gitte Ørskou in

September 2020 announced the reception of a financial support of 25 million Swedish kronor

from the government for acquiring contemporary Swedish art for the collection.96 Therefore,

it can be foreseen that more Swedish art will be entering the collection via acquisitions in the

near future.

3.3 The governance and acquisition policy of M+ On the 14th of April 2016, M+ established its profile as a “wholly owned subsidiary of the

West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA).”97 The WKCDA, owned by the Hong

Kong government, supported the establishment of M+, but unlike the origin of the Moderna

Museet, in essence M+ is not a state-owned museum. M+ does not have a governmental

structure and it does not report to the Hong Kong government. However, M+ was initiated by

the government of Hong Kong and like other public museums which are state owned, it shares

basic responsibilities such as serving the public and developing cultural activities and

management of the cultural heritage. Apart from this duty, the goal of M+ is to become a

world class institution. As stated in the outline of the acquisition policy, “M+ is currently

building a world-class collection representative of the 20th and 21st century visual culture

95 “A Museum for the Future | About Moderna Museet in Stockholm,” Moderna Museet i Stockholm,

accessed January 4, 2021, https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/about/. 96 “Swedish Acquisitions 2021,” Moderna Museet i Stockholm, March 15, 2021, accessed on May 8, 2021,

https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/2021/03/15/swedish-acquisitions-2021/. 97 The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Ordinance is governed by the Hong Kong government. “M+

Review,” 2019, 162, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/m-review.

39

with a global vision from Hong Kong,”98 which is why the M+ Board of Directors and M+

Acquisitions Committee were established to ensure that M+ was working towards this goal.

M+ has like all other museums before them to build their collection from the ground. To

kickstart the project, M+ was given a budget from the WKCDA for “Collection and

Collection related costs,”99 in which half of the budget was expected to be used for “initial

acquisitions” with an aim to establish a rich foundation.100

The acquisition policy and vision of M+

The first acquisition policy was endorsed by the WKCDA Board on the 12th of June, 2012.101

The establishment of the policy was based on a report of the Museums Advisory Group’s

(MAG) to WKCDA on 23rd of November, 2006, in which the acquisition policy of M+ states

the following at the very start of the document: “The collection may focus on 20th and 21st

century visual culture, beginning with visual art, design, moving image and popular culture

from Hong Kong, expanding to other regions of China, Asia and the rest of the world.”102

M+ defines its collection as a multidisciplinary representation of the 20th and 21st century

visual culture with a global vision from the perspective of Hong Kong.103 The scope of visual

culture is composed by four disciplinary areas and they are: Design and Architecture, Moving

Image, Visual Art and Hong Kong Visual Culture. In particular, the Hong Kong Visual

Culture includes the three other mentioned disciplines and also extends the focus to look

specifically into ink art and materials related to popular culture, vernacular culture, print

culture, and media culture. In principle, these disciplines are designed to be broad and general

so M+ could be more all-encompassing and all-involving on a global level during the early

stage of development. However, it is clearly stated in the policy that of utmost importance, the

four disciplines should build a collection that “looks at the world from a Hong Kong

98 “M+ Acquisition Policy,” July 12, 2019, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/collection-strategy-

2803. 99 A sum of HKD1.7billion, roughly 178million in Euro was allocated as M+ acquisition budget. M+, “M+ Acquisition Policy," 4. 100 Ibid. 101 "M+ Acquisition Policy," 3. 102 The quote came from the Museums Advisory Group which was reported to the Consultative Committee

on the Core Arts and Cultural Facilities of the West Kowloon Cultural District of 23 November 2006. “M+ Acquisition Policy," 4.

103 Ibid.

40

perspective.”104 This means that the four disciplines should echo each other and do not

operate independently.

The acquisition policy of M+ also addresses its ideological approach towards the concepts of

time and geography. In terms of time period, M+ has decided to not follow the chronology of

art history, which is in contrast to many modern and contemporary art museums in general.

The acquisition policy of M+ urges the museum to be more flexible in the representation of

time within the 20th and 21st centuries. As an alternative approach to chronology, a strategy

named the Perspective of Now was introduced into the policy. In practice, the use of the

Perspective of Now is to create an awareness of different networks that could underline a

multifaceted acquisition.105 It established multiple networks between an acquired object and

its emerging development of the past, present and future in cultural production. The strategic

use of the Perspective of Now is to ensure that the acquisitions meet the museum’s goal of

becoming a world class institution that is based in Asia, Hong Kong.106

In terms of geography, the WKCDA and M+ Board of Directors have agreed to the

arrangement in M+ acquisition policy of dividing the world into three geographical zones, in

which each zone was given a different priority, profile and mission. The acquisition policy

used concentric circles as a diagram to illustrate the profiles and functions of these different

zones. At its core was the geographical zone of Hong Kong that had a focus on the city’s

locality.107 The term locality that was used in the policy referred to the transnational and

interdisciplinary nature of Hong Kong and the expressions should emphasize on physical,

visual and cultural identity.108

In contrast to the focus on locality in the first zone, the second and the third zones employed

an increasing global perspective. Moving outward from the core of Hong Kong, the second

layer of the concentric circle was the geographical focus on mainland China and other parts of

104 The Hong Kong perspective covers global developments of visual culture that are filtered through the

lens of what deemed relevant to Hong Kong. "M+ Acquisition Policy," 5. 105 "M+ Acquisition Policy," 6. 106 Ibid. 107 "M+ Acquisition Policy," 7. 108 Ibid.

41

Asia. The collection of the second zone should represent the international level.109 The third

zone is basically the rest of the world. The policy does not give a clear definition of global.

But as examples, works of art from diasporas connected to Hong Kong and its surrounding

regions were considered possible acquisitions. Objects that have strong influence on the

constitution of visual culture in aesthetic, formal, and philosophical levels were considered

valid as well.110 Consequently, it was seemingly more difficult to bring in objects from the

third geographical zone. Therefore, it had the least priority when compared to the two others.

Although the third zone could be seen as supplementary to the second, the overall use of

geography in M+ acquisition policy was a strategy to distinguish the dichotomy of local (the

first zone) and global (the second and the third zones) of M+.

A mixed model for collecting art

The model for building M+ collection consisted of a mixed use of donations and acquisitions.

In particular, the policy endorsed a specific type of transaction between modern art museums

and private art collectors. Donating a collection to the museum could take place in some

forms of transactional exchange. It took references from historic events involving the famous

modern art collector Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. His transaction with the Museum of

Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1984 and the Guggenheim Museum in 1991 were

generally regarded as the earliest models of transferring a collection from a private collector

to a public art museum. In both cases, the museum paid an estimated of 20-25% of the market

value of the acquisition to the collectors.111 In a similar fashion, M+ could use part of the

acquisition budget in soliciting donations from private collectors and foundations. A well-

known example would be the establishment of M+ Sigg collection in 2012, in which this

transfer consisting of 1510 works made by 325 artists, came from the private collection of Dr

Uli Sigg, the world's leading collector of contemporary Chinese art who was born in

Switzerland and educated in the west.112

109 “M+ Acquisition Policy," 8. 110 Ibid. 111 "M+ Acquisition Policy," 24. 112 “Major Collection Donation to West Kowloon Cultural District. M+ Receives World’s Best Collection of

Chinese Contemporary Art from Uli Sigg,” accessed January 10, 2021, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/the-authority/newsroom/major-collection-donation-to-west-kowloon-cultural-districtm-receives-worlds-best-collection-of-chinese-contemporary-art-from-uli-sigg.

42

Establishing M+ collection by incorporating a mixed model, the Sigg collection, has shown

pros and cons. On one hand, the value of M+ collection proliferated. On the other hand, M+

Sigg collection consisted of artists predominantly from mainland China, only a fraction of

them were from Hong Kong. The difference in distribution suggested more resources and

attention would likely be put into the development of storylines with the inception of

contemporary Chinese art. Therefore, arts from mainland China and not Hong Kong. A good

chance that the use of Hong Kong art would affiliate to these developments. In addition, M+

Sigg collection which claimed itself as a comprehensive representation of contemporary art in

China was in essence a selection made by a European collector whose knowledge of art was

based fundamentally on western genealogy. When asked to explain his thoughts on his

collection, Uli Sigg said “every collection is a process materialized; it is a distillate of the

collector’s vision, imagination, intuition and passion, of research efforts, of the opportunities

seized, of the resources made available, of hard work, and of the lack thereof.”113 There seems

to be a realistic need for M+ to examine the personal network of Uli Sigg in China with an

actual Chinese perspective. In view of the ongoing mainlandization of Hong Kong, these are

some of the potential challenges that M+ would have to tackle in the future when deploying

the M+ Sigg collection.

In response to the question of when to acquire, M+ leaned towards the concept of buying

early rather than waiting for historic validation. With the belief that acquired objects will

emerge in the future, it has allowed the museum to invest with a foresight.114 When

considering buying early, whether they were donations or acquisitions, the decision should be

supported by the above mentioned geographical and inter-disciplinary concerns. Being able to

acquire objects with various degrees of potentials gave M+ more autonomy in the stories that

museum intends to tell. The flexibility reflected by M+ acquisition policy also means that

museum could be more involving and encompassing in the representation of culture, and

hence rendering a more influential role. Looking into the future, with the recent political

climate change in Hong Kong, self-censorship would seemingly be inevitable in a cultural

institution and this will raise a lot of new questions.

113 “Major Collection Donation to West Kowloon Cultural District.” 114 "M+ Acquisition Policy," 6.

43

Conclusion

This chapter has explored and compared the acquisition policies of the Moderna Museet and

M+. The annual reports of the Moderna Museet were the closest equivalent to an acquisition

policy, whereas in the case of M+, the acquisition policy was a densely composed document

with a great deal of written details. After analyzing their policies, it becomes obvious that the

two museums are keen on establishing their own voices of the 21st century art. The people

behind these visions and the policy need to be discussed further. On top of that, what more

could be identified from the analysis was various methods used to contextualize the narratives

of contemporary art. In order to make them applicable in the documents, the concept of

contemporaneity has to be simplified and reduced into principles that could synchronize with

the interest of the stakeholder groups, prominent actors of the network. As a result, the

incarnation of contemporaneity in these policies is discursive; it includes the usage of

different campaigns and themes such as the division of gender and the organization based on

different disciplines. The establishment of contemporaneity in these respected documents

could be roughly understood as the Museum of Our Wishes in the Moderna Museet, and the

Perspective of Now in M+ Museum.

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Chapter 4, The museum from the Inside – following the actors of the networks Introduction

This chapter pushes the analysis of contemporaneity deeper by looking at the two museums

from the inside. It presents five interviews including four curators and a former director of the

Moderna Museet and M+. The idea of using open-ended questions during the interviews is to

stimulate a discussion that would map out how various actors interact with each other. The

information obtained from the interviews has been organized in three sections.

4.1 Contemporary art and contemporaneity (questions no.1 – 3 of the questionnaire)

4.2 Institutional relationships (questions no.4 – 7 of the questionnaire)

4.3 Acquisition policies (questions no.8 – 10 of the questionnaire)

The first section (4.1) focuses on the interviewees’ individual expertise, in which their values

and interests in contemporary art are considered. In this section, the study argues how

specificities of personal expertise can influence the ways contemporary art is being collected

and handled in a museum environment. The next section (4.2) maps out various relationships

extending from the museums to other actors; some of them are not cultural actors. The

strength of these connections could affect the museum’s openness in collecting contemporary

art. Lastly, the objective of the third section (4.3) is to search for a deeper relationship

deriving from how the curators interpret the acquisition policies. The aim of this chapter is to

listen to the voices from the inside of the museum to find out how they discuss and understand

contemporaneity when working with acquisitions.

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4.1 Contemporary art and contemporaneity The discussions of contemporary art and contemporaneity with the five museum professionals

are no doubt multi-faceted, however one immediate conclusion that link them together is that

the usefulness of the term contemporary art is very low, and in reality, the discussion of

contemporaneity in a public art museum is almost non-existent. Even so, the two terms are

still important in the discourse of contemporary art and they are understood by the

interviewees understood as inseparable concepts. When combined, contemporary art and

contemporaneity becomes fluid concepts, in which contemporary art refers to objects that are

the medium for storytelling involving the present. Whereas, contemporaneity is the handling

method that connects the audience to specific periods of histories, which can be either present

or past. The communicative strategist of the Moderna Museet, John Peter Nilsson used the

current exhibition Giacometti at the Moderna Museet as an example. He explains that one of

the ideas behind the Giacometti exhibition was to showcase how the artist Alberto Giacometti

established his artistic network and how that is important now. Nilsson says:

All staff in the museum want to feel that we are in the now. The current show, there is a take on that exhibition that tries to disturb the image of the artist as a loner. He was very involved in things that were happening in the 30s, 40s. An art historian takes on this. To show people we can look at history in a different way. To show history is not static. We see the past in a different way and from a different angle. This is a contemporary thing to do. It is a question we have to deal with in the museum every day. Choose the right weapon. Global and Local? Global perspective is gone. We are connected to everywhere. The “-ism” has been united. But run by google. To think global and act local. At the museum we need to communicate to our visitors. We can show opinions, stands and supports but we can’t change things. We can plant questions.115

Associate curator of M+, Isabella Tam highlighted a work of performance art from M+

collection, Art/Life One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) created by Tehching

Hsieh and Linda Montano.116 Despite the fact that the work was made in 1984, it is still being

considered as a relevant informant of the present life. Tam states the importance of

[…] how you, as an institution, as a curator can expand your understanding of an object, how to make the object to become more relevant to current time. This is the responsibility or how an institution can contribute to contemporaneity of this time.117

115 John Peter Nilsson, Discussing contemporaneity in public museums, December 11, 2020, 80. 116 Two artists Hsieh and Linda spent an entire year bound together by an eight-foot rope that was tied

around their waists. “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) (1983-1984/Printed 2000) - Tehching Hsieh, Linda Montano - M+ Collections Beta,” accessed April 18, 2021, https://collections.mplus.org.hk/en/objects/art-life-one-year-performance-19831984-rope-piece-2013465.

117 Isabella Tam, Discussing contemporaneity in public museums, December 30, 2020.

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Furthermore, Tam adds, “it [the One Year Performance] is still contemporary in a sense that

addresses contemporary issues like migration, imperialism or even like the situation in 2020

like distancing and isolation.”118 The two examples above exemplify how the Moderna

Museet and M+ respectively elaborate with storytelling in regard of the two concepts

contemporary and contemporaneity. Despite, the fact that the two terms are seldom being

deployed in museums nowadays, it is apparently still an institutional curator’s job to connect

or reconnect these fluid concepts to the museum audiences, since it would give an air of being

both adequate and being in the now, something that would attract visitors – old and new.

In the most basic sense, the term contemporary art, as agreed by all interviewees refer to “of

the present.” When it is being examined from an art historical perspective it is a construct that

has been informed by modernists and postmodernists. The implication is based on the belief

that with the advocacy of contemporary art, the discussion of art could be separated from the

ideological positioning of modernism and postmodernism. According to the former executive

director Lars Nittve (MM and M+), contemporary art to a certain extent has succeeded in

categorizing artistic movements after pop art and minimalist art, but in reality, he states “there

is no break. Just a matter of perspective of what part of the 20th century you deem important

and productive in the present.”119 Therefore, contemporary art on its own is a cluster of

perspectives that take its initial shape in the field of art during the 20th century.120 In fact, all

interviewees have agreed that there is no clear cut of artistic movement in reality.121 Since the

word contemporary advocates the idea of living in the present; particularly when its

implication includes working with living artists, it thereby makes this category of art all-

encompassing and all-involving. For a museum who wishes to present itself at the forefront of

society, the adoption of the term contemporary art is apparently inevitable. However, the term

itself is not very useful because in reality social issues are more complex and its

entanglements may be controversial. Furthermore, each nation certainly defines what is most

important in the present based on their own interest. As a result, when contemporary art enters

a museum that is focused on history, the usefulness of this category plunges drastically

118 Tam, 90. 119 Lars Nittve, Discussing contemporaneity in public museums, December 14, 2020, 83. 120 See theories of Hayden and Karlholm. 121 Interviews, 74, 79, 84, 89, and 94.

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because different nations of power, hence different art systems, are defining objects on their

own as contemporary, thus making the boundary contemporary art deceptive.

Art museums usually contextualize a timeline when presenting arts. This same strategy

applies for both the Moderna Museet and M+, which indeed requires them to establish a point

of departure for contemporary art. In practice, the Moderna Museet and M+ have both

demonstrated two different viewpoints regarding the timeline for contemporary art. For the

Moderna Museet, it seeks to contextualize the period of contemporary art from 1989 until the

present.122 The period that marks the end of the cold war and the downfall of communist

ideology in many parts of Europe. This split could be reflected by the structure of its

curatorial team, of which two curators of the Moderna Museet with a focus on international

art are assigned to handle acquisitions before and after 1989. The curator of photography

Anna Tellgren explains that this is due to the fact that the Moderna Museet is working with its

collection in different time periods. With the first part presenting art from late 19th century to

1920s, the second from 1930s to 1970s and the third part from 1980s to the present, which

includes its most recent acquisitions that are contemporary art.123 From 1989 and onwards,

artistic expressions have shifted drastically, making contemporary art relatively more

distinguishable. Therefore, Tellgren believes 1989 is an appropriate point of departure for the

Moderna Museet to discuss contemporary art.124 She adds,

you could also say, contemporary art is with living artists. Living artists who make art, that is contemporary. And that is not the same thing as the artists who are the latest and hottest. […] I think this year 1989 is important because after that you can see another kind of art. It is easier to talk about contemporary art.125

Tellgren mentions, between the lines, the importance of working with local artists in Sweden

now, also those who are not necessarily popular on the global art market but still very much

relevant to the Swedish context.

For M+, contemporary art is more broadly defined; it is neither about its connection to global

nor international arts.126 But rather, contemporary art is a topic that is subordinated under the

122 Moderna Museet, “A Museum for the Future | About Moderna Museet in Stockholm.” 123 Anna Tellgren, Discussing contemporaneity in public museums, December 16, 2020, 94. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Doryun Chong, Discussing contemporaneity in public museums, December 17, 2020, 74.

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disciplinary area of visual art, which is only one out of the three categories that are used for

defining visual culture by M+. The two other disciplinary areas are design and architecture,

and moving images, whereas the Hong Kong visual culture is being handled independently as

a thematic and interdisciplinary area with no clear division of discipline.127 When asked to

define contemporary art in a chronological way, deputy director and curatorial chief curator

Doryun Chong points out that M+ defines it in a very straightforward way.128 It beings around

1945 – 1949, after the end of World War II and the founding of the PRC.129 It covers the

beginning of the period that marks the end of western imperialism, and also the period of the

beginning of the cold war with the rise of communist regimes in different parts of the world.

As a visionary leader of M+, Chong elaborates on the meaning of the word contemporary.

I think more about the meaning of contemporary in a large cliff, the origin of the word. The “con” as in Latin, con plus tempo with time - this time. The word contemporary simply means of our time. Then, the question is how long is our time, is it one year, is it a decade? Is it three decades? A decade is a good marker because we are so used to thinking about changes happening in decades. We like to think of ten years as a unit. A decade is our time. Then if that is the case, then contemporary art would simply mean only the last ten years. But I don’t think any museum does that really. 130

Above Chong visualizes the meaning of contemporary in a philosophical way, presenting it as

a “large cliff,” which is interesting. This rather symbolic idea gives associations to the

Chinese arts perspective in which landscape paintings indeed presents monumentality, thus

implying that the contemporary would be of monumental importance. However, as an Asian

American he has access to both worlds, and continues adding the etymological perspective

elaborating that the original word really derives from Medieval Latin, meaning occurring

time. Eventually Chong settles by concluding that the word simply means “of our time.” The

question, however, is how long this period of time is. He points out the importance of the

incarnation behind this question and considers that it is within the museum’s responsibility to

define it clearly. When he defines contemporary for his colleagues, it would be “roughly the

last 70 years is contemporary, and people understand it.”131 The timeline in the Moderna

Museet covers the past 30 years, whereas for M+ the period involves the past 70 years. The

127 Chong, 74. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid. 130 Chong, 75. 131 Ibid.

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above discussion shows that the concept of contemporary art in museums is rather loosely

defined.

Regarding the discussion on contemporaneity, the interviewees are rather reluctant in

associating it as a side-product of contemporary art. The curators from the Moderna Museet,

Nilsson and Tellgren, plus Nittve tend to think of it as a philosophical term that was informed

by contemporary art critics and art philosophers such as Terry Smith and Dan Karlholm. On

the one hand, when perceived by art professionals, it involves a complex idea about

anachronism overlapping into modernism,132 in which Nittve says that the concept of “the

present” varies on “who you are in time and what sort of time you are in.”133 On the other

hand, since the literal meaning of contemporary art, “of the present” is relatively simple and

broad at the same time, it could easily mislead the wider audience of art, in which it limits the

understanding of contemporaneity as the same as the present. One observation from Nilsson is

that, “the challenge is to present something controversial, but we back ourselves up with a

standpoint. No museums are doing this right now. We are still presenting the winning idea of

democracy, human rights for example.”134

Due to the instability of this term, institutional curators are hesitant in using it on a

professional basis, since it seems to restrict rather than develop ideas in a dynamic way.

Instead of associating contemporaneity as a kind of philosophy, the curators at M+ tend to

think of contemporaneity in relation to contemporary art as a descriptive term, such as the

Perspective of Now. Chong explains in detail that the key differentiation of “being modern” in

Asia in the late 19th and early 20th century was an ideological as well as political

positioning.135

Contemporary literally means our time, it is a descriptive term. It doesn’t say what is contemporary. It simply says of our time as opposed to Modernism that says it is a break of the past and look forward. That’s a very

132 Nittve, 82. 133 Nittve, 83. 134 Nilsson, 80. 135 Chong, 75.

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different position. But that idea sort of got lost and contemporary became kind of late modern or postmodern.136

In the west, different positionings appear to be options to live one’s life, and the options are

opened to both acceptance and rejection. In Asia, people define themselves as modern very

consciously. Nowadays being modern is heavily associated to individuality and with the

growth of a consumer society. Therefore, it is a term about self-definition and status.

Modern used to be an ideological term. Modern means I reject the past. I reject the tradition; we are in the new time period. We need to make a radical break from all the western tradition. Also, in Asia, we define ourselves very consciously as modern. A term of self-definition. Contemporary art never has that kind of very conscious ideological self-positioning. Andy Warhol and other artists did not want to be called contemporary.137

However, Chong thinks contemporaneity never has the same level ideological self-positioning

when compare to being modern, for example, pop art artist Andy Warhol refused to be

categorized as contemporary.138 Hence, contemporaneity could sometimes be seen inseparable

or even subordinated to the late modern or post-modern. By introducing contemporaneity in

M+ as the Perspective of Now, the museum uses the current perspectives as a tool to

distinguish itself from the different epochs that are formulated in the west. Thus, at M+,

contemporaneity is not a benchmark of contemporary art. Contemporaneity is rather a concept

that allows the museum to reexamine the past and revitalize the present. Tam says

contemporaneity in M+ is the way it collects and presents stories with the Perspective of

Now. “It informs the tendency that is emerging at the moment,”139 and according to Tam, this

tendency could be a shift in artistic movement or a topic that is being tackled by many artists.

We have to make sure the work does not only speak to one specific geography. If you come see our collection, you can tell you are coming into an international museum, an Asian museum that you see work by makers from Asia, from Hong Kong, Japan. But at the same time, there is sort of an international conversation that is happening […]We should not limit the narrative of the objects from one specific local perspective. But that object can tell a broader geographical context. 140

In this case, contemporaneity is flexible in terms of time and geography.141 Instead of

focusing on when the objects are made, it is the ability to communicate to the immediate

audience and to inform them about situation of now that matters most.

136 Chong, 75. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid. 139 Tam, 89. 140 Tam, 90. 141 Tam, 89.

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Today, the notions of contemporaneity and contemporary art in general have been accepted

globally without questioning how it works. Therefore, as it now appears no longer exciting or

new, Chong urges for a revitalization that “there is no one definition of contemporaneity.”142

Chong further argues in East Asia the concept of a global world has only been recognized in

recent decades, where people are interconnected, but before that local and cultural differences

between countries define contemporaneity in various ways.143 Thus, he uses the demography

of East Asia to demonstrate how the connections between nations can variate radically.

Hong Kong and China. China and Taiwan. North and South Korea. Japan and the rest of East Asia. All of them are so close to each other but until recently they are so far from each other. So, in that sense the whole idea about contemporary, in a conventional way, in our museum where we define contemporary as the last 70 years […] We remind people how contemporary is a complex and even a confusing term.144

In M+, contemporaneity is about showing how people were living in different time periods

and geographical zones which altogether they account as part of the global. Timelines do not

necessarily need to be presented chronologically but can be elastic instead. Chong elaborates

the meaning of an elastic timeline based on how cultural development can be intertwined with

economic development,

when China overtook everybody else in terms of economic development and the index of capitalist development. So of course, art and culture are very much part of that. It drove inspiration from that. So what mainland China has been experiencing in the past 70 years, is an incredible sort of almost elastic timeline. An elastic sense of time.145

The contemporaneity in M+ museum reminds both local and international audiences that

timelines and histories should be written in plural, and it does not always have to be subjected

to a western perspective.

4.2 Institutional relationships Since the two museums are at different stages of development, the perceptions of how to work

with acquisition policy documents in regards of reaching their goals and missions varies

immensely. These differences can also be identified in the relationships between the actors

142 Chong, 75. 143 Chong, 76. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid.

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including directors, curators, donors, and government bodies. For instance, the Moderna

Museet is looking for arts and artists to complement their collection which started in 1958.

Whereas, M+ is in the midst of constructing a public and authoritative cultural institution now

in the period of a wider globalization. The different approaches of how to work with

acquisitions has indicated how perceptions can influence the value of art in these respected

museums.

The curators of the Moderna Museet do not work with a published document as acquisition

policy. They consider the role of their current acquisition policy as a loose framework, which

they are given the authority to interpret it freely. Tellgren says that, “from the government,

there are some rules related to our mission, but the government has no involvement in what

we should buy and our operation. Our director is in close communication with the cultural

department. We have a close relationship with the department, but they do not interfere.”146

M+ considers its policy as an important published document, in which at the same time it

should be lively and dynamic. The loose framework of the Moderna Museet is used to

empower its existing collection, whereas for M+, a live document gives the museum

flexibility in establishing a foundation. Although their aims of having a policy are different,

the use of it is for both museums to establish trust and a transparent relationship between the

museum and the public because of the funding of these museums. Instead of using the word

strategies, Nilsson describes the constitution of the acquisition policy at the Moderna Museet

as a number of “pillars” and the idea behind the design of these pillars are “human based.”147

Namely, this includes the building of a strong Swedish art collection and to balance artistic

representation of gender, in which the curatorial team together with the director in a non-

bureautic way to decide what are good to acquire.148 Nittve recalls the period of time when he

was the director at the Moderna Museet.

When I was at the Moderna Museet, we worked up a vision for the museum, a key thing, to embrace the friction between the idea that a museum is a place where you collect and order history, and the expectation that a modern museum or museum of 21st century art is a paradox. Because it is a contemporary arena and a historical construct, a changing historical construct.149

146 Tellgren, 95. 147 Nilsson, 80. 148 Ibid. 149 Nittve, 87.

53

It is apparent that the landscape of the museum has changed since he left the Moderna

Museet. Today, given with the additional support of 25 million SEK from the Swedish

government in 2021, one of the criteria that the curatorial team has been exploring is what

constitute as Swedish art. Nilsson mentions that one of the challenges in their discussion is the

difficulty in defining Swedishness at this current moment; “a Swedish who left Sweden for a

very long period of time, would this person still be considered as producing Swedish art?”150

Instead of embracing the paradox, the Moderna Museet is being puzzled by it. Therefore, a

written document as an acquisition policy could perhaps be useful for the curatorial team in

this circumstance of rethinking contemporaneity.

At M+, the acquisition policy is being perceived as a “public document” that is visible and

open for scrutiny.151 The document does not only outline the vision of the museum, it also

states clearly that under what circumstances and procedures would involve the role of the

government. M+ is not subordinated under the governance system of Hong Kong and has

complete control of its operation. The core of M+ has a mixed model of private and public

bodies. In particular, M+ is responsible for answering to different boards and these boards

have the ability to influence the design of acquisition polices. At M+, the acquisition

decisions are most often made by the director and members of the acquisition committee.

Therefore, Nittve points out that the minimum work of an acquisition policy is to allow the

decision makers of museums, especially those who do not have an art background to

understand what the museum is acquiring and the motivations of doing so. This is to establish

a sense of security, trust, alongside with due diligence.152 In short, the relationships that could

be unfolded from the acquisition policy of M+ are relatively diverse and vast. It facilitates the

operation of a museum network in two ways. It explains the work of M+ to the general public

and also, it aligns and balances the different interests among the curatorial team, board

members and other stakeholders.

Relationships in accordance with government regulations

150 Nilsson, 80. 151 Chong, 76. 152 Nittve, 85.

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Overall, the government has no involvement in the ways the two museums operate and what

art that they should acquire. There isn’t a big difference between the Moderna Museet and

M+. Although curators do not discuss the government at work, the connection still exists.

There are recommendations from the Swedish government for the Moderna Museet, which

concern the basic function of a museum. Nilsson says the curatorial team is “free to interpret

what the government wants.”153 However, minimal influence does not necessarily eliminate

the relationship between the museum and the government, the director of Moderna Museet,

who represents the museum is responsible of communicating with the Cultural Department of

Sweden.154 Lately, the new director, Gitte Ørskou and the curatorial team are working on a

new policy, a document that can give more strategies for how to work with acquisitions.

Tellgren re-affirms that the Moderna Museet is a national museum (state-owned museum) and

the responsibility is to be more inclusive of Swedish art, but for international art, “we are

looking for art and artists that can be a good complement to our collection. Or something that

we have not been collecting before so that we can enrich our collection.”155

Apparently, it is the director’s duty to maintain a close relationship and communication with

the government. Similar condition applies for M+ as the director sits in the board with

WKCDA which is a committee directly tied to the Hong Kong government. Although, M+

was a project initiated by the Hong Kong government, in which it received a onetime

instalment to establish a founding collection,156 Chong says that the staff of M+ are not civil

servants157 of the Hong Kong government. This mean M+ has the advantages and

disadvantages of being both a private and public body at the same time. M+ has “complete

power” over its acquisition policy.158 However, the entangled relationship between M+ and

the Hong Kong government suggest that it is not possible for M+ to completely cut ties with

the government. In fact, the government may still put in a veto in the process of decision

making. Therefore, the strength of the connection between the government and museums

could affects the flexibility in collecting contemporary art. Generally speaking, the stronger it

153 Nilsson, 81. 154 Tellgren, 95. 155 Ibid. 156 Chong, 76. 157 Civil servant is a common term in Hong Kong that refers to workers who are hired by the government.

These people are subordinated under the same administration system and could be seen as one entity. 158 Chong, 77.

55

is the more flexible a museum could be in the acquisition of art. However, in terms of the

most recent political development in Hong Kong, the flexibility may change over time.

Although Victor Lo, who is the chairman of the WKCDA board in recent times has spoken

highly of M+ as a museum that “follows the highest international standards for museum

operations and governance,”159 he avoided sensitive topics such as censorship and

consequences of the displaying arts that may appear hostile to the CCP government in

Beijing.

At M+, a single acquisition has to be approved and endorsed by different tiers of authority

based on the purchase price of the artworks. At the top tier of authority is the board of

WKCDA, in which the current Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam is the chairperson,

and she has a determining power in decision making.160 Therefore, once the amount reaches a

certain high level, the involvement of the government is inevitable. Naturally, this could

happen when M+ is considering a very high-priced acquisition that is seen very meaningful to

them, but less so to the government for political reasons. For the Moderna Museet, the

government does not interfere its decision of acquisition, whereas at M+ the government may

at times interferes because of the bureaucratic procedures and with board member whose

interest is aligned with the government.

The acquisition policy of M+, states clearly that in the case of considering a high valued

acquisition exceeding HKD5,000,000 (SEK 5,354,725), the decision making will escalate to

either the WKCDA Board or M+ Board, in which the former consists of representatives from

the Hong Kong government and the latter consists of mostly land developers, people who are

also heavily in connection with the government.161 As mentioned, the most crucial decisions

involving some of the most valuable acquisitions are ultimately decided by the government,

and the decision makers are people who do not necessarily come from an art background nor

do they have interest in art and culture. Nittve mentions that in this scenario, “they focus on

159 The Art Newspaper. “Why Culture Is Key to Hong Kong’s Future as a World City,” the Art Newspaper,

accessed April 26, 2021, http://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/why-culture-is-key-to-hong-kong-s-future-as-a-world-city.

160 Nittve, 86. 161 “M+ Review 2019,” 162.

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money spent. It was a paradox,” 162 the standards of examination would then shift from

discussing aesthetic excellency to justifying how these acquisitions can be worthy of the

expenditure. As discussed in the previous chapter the development of museums in Hong Kong

has a short history and the perception regarding the role of museum in large is adopted from

the west. This would suggest the strength of the relationship between the government and the

museum is actively mediated. As Nittve recalls from his past experience with the Tate

Modern, where directors and curators were given much more trust by the government during

its initial period of development. This mostly, because of the long history of Tate and its

active role of conserving and displaying art in England.163 “In Hong Kong, you are always

guilty until you are proven innocent. It was like a reverse ordering. And actually, as a director

or as a curator in Hong Kong, there is always a suspicion that if you came with a certain

suggestion there must be a hidden agenda.”164

In comparison with constructing M+ in Hong Kong, the government has proven to be much

harder to convince, as the people represent networks tied to other fields of interests than arts.

Their primary interests are not rooted in the museum sector but rather in politics. Given such

circumstances, the existence of an acquisition policy that was created by M+ management and

endorsed by the boards of M+, the policy document has become very important in the

process. Since it is mutually agreed by all parties, this document aligns different interests and

helps sustaining the independence of M+ in the long run.

4.3 Acquisition policies Within the policies, it is possible to trace how the museums are working while updating their

collections, therefore regarding specific themes, parameters of geography and also

chronology. Whether the design of a policy is an open framework or a robust one, it

consolidates opinions from a wide range of actors and turn them into an aligned interest.

Chong says, “it states [in the document] every two years we are required to review, to revise it

if necessary.”165 The sections above revealed to this study that an important function of an

162 Nittve, 86. 163 Nittve, 86. 164 Ibid. 165 Chong, 76.

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acquisition policy is to give room, as a buffer zone, for curators who in the process of

acquisitions could interpret what art best fits the interests of the museum. In reality, an

acquisition policy entails what kind of art is right to collect, whereas policy users including

museum directors and curators decide what arts are good to acquire. Hence there is an

obvious interplay between the policies and over time.

In that sense, the room for interpretation needs to be examined as a last step, as this is the

space where all kinds of entanglement come into distillation. The outcomes of this analysis

are the interplays of the acquisition policy and the interpretation from its users altogether. The

inscription of an interplay accounts for the acquisition of specific artistic expressions that are

considered important and productive for the development of a museum. And therefore,

identifying the process of interplay at the Moderna Museet and M+ respectively would

provide a clue to the understanding of contemporaneity in these two museums.

The interplay with artistic excellency

In the fine arts area, an artist’s original still plays a crucial role in the collecting of 21st century

art, and therefore, the basic inscription of an interplay revolves around the notions of

authenticity and originality. All current curators have agreed to the fact that the collecting and

presenting of artist originals are still a strong attracting factor to draw audiences into the

museums. An important point of view from Nilsson who thinks about nowadays, “every

information can be found on the internet easily, so they have the questions and answers

already in hand. This raises the question of why we need to go to a museum, and this raise the

importance of seeing the real object.”166

For M+, the measurement of such artistic qualities, according to Chong and Tam, includes the

possibility to secure authorship, copyright and intellectual property right.167 On top of that,

M+ has demonstrated a particular interest, and has collected social documentations from

various political movements.168 Chong points out that “we are flexible. We are not an art

166 Nilsson, 82. 167 Chong, 77. 168 In this study, the definition of social documentation is opposed to the fine art. It is not art object and

authors are anonymous.

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museum; we are a cultural museum in which art is one of our areas.”169 The standard for

collecting social documentations at M+ is to “look at political movements through the lens of

visual culture.”170 Tam reminds us that it is important for a museum to take an objective

stand, in which the acquisition of social documentation should take place when the

movements have settled down and the stories that are represented by the social

documentations have cemented.

The Moderna Museet does not collect social documentations. However, Tellgren considers

collecting the originals as a crucial part in her focused area, that is the photography collection.

She describes the most ideal scenario as “if we buy from an older photographer, the idea is to

have vintage prints made and signed by the photographers, at the time that the photography

was taken.”171 This collecting approach may sounded obvious, but the implication has

demonstrated a mindset towards how art should take shape. This information is also useful

when communicating to stakeholders of the museum who do not have a primary interest in

art. Nilsson agrees, “the interest of museum patrons need to be considered,”172 because the

objects that are used to construct a museum collection could potentially enhance the value of

other private collections, given that they all acquire from the same artists. Following after, he

adds, if the Moderna Museet were to collect a work from a young artist, it raises the market

price of the works of the artist173 and also “we have had a strong US connection since the

beginning of the 60s. It is something in the DNA of the museum.”174 Tellgren claims that

collecting contemporary art is a combination of knowing how much a museum can afford

while being aware of what is happening in the art world.175 She points out that artists who

have been represented in the museum exhibitions with their works are often easier to include

into the collection.176 This brings out another aspect of museum collecting activities; that is

the relationship between the museums and the artists. All decisions of acquisitions have to

find its ideological positioning based on the mission or vision set by the museum and its

169 Chong, 78. 170 Ibid. 171 Tellgren, 96. 172 Nilsson, 81. 173 Ibid. 174 Nilsson, 82. 175 Tellgren, 96. 176 Tellgren, 95.

59

current staff. Tellgren mentions, “institutions like us cannot buy everything, even if these

things are appeal to the public.177 Therefore, bureaucratically speaking, it is important to have

a policy that can properly justify acquisitions made by public institutions.

The interplay of the museums and acquisition policies

The determining factors that can affect the strength of the relationship between the museums

and their acquisition policies is the history of the museums and their governance. Nittve

points out that private museums that are subjected to personal taste do not need an acquisition

policy at all. However, for museums that receive public scrutiny, he says “the minimum is to

lay out, externally to decision makers of museums, to make them understand the basic

parameters in terms of what you are acquiring and what drives your decision.”178 Nittve

mentions Hong Kong, where the governor places limited trust to museums, he envisions “it is

unavoidable and it plays a less important role over time. At the end, to a large extent, though

not entirely, the existing collection that you have would drive future collecting and it sort of

sets the agenda.”179

This, because he adds, “the existing collection becomes the acquisition policy on a symbolic

level.”180 The current chief curator, Chong says that M+ collection now consist of 8000

objects which is only the foundation of the museum. When he speaks about the future agenda

of M+ adding “there has not been a collection like M+ in all of Asia, that looks at the last 70

years of all these disciplines but also transnationally and internationally.”181

Therefore, the future knowledge that will be dispensed by the museums is largely dependent

on what the museums have been collecting in the past and henceforth, what they are

collecting at the moment. Nilsson also mentions that the acquisition policy is the history of

177 Tellgren, 96. 178 Nittve, 85. 179 Ibid. 180 Ibid. 181 Chong, 78.

60

the institution itself, “we have to look at what we have been buying in the past and what it is

saying to us and the visitors.”182

By analyzing the relationship of the acquisition policies and museums with the technique of

actor-network theories, it demonstrates that a museum is a place where old and new

knowledge of art can be shaped and dispensed. Together, the acquisition policy and collection

can indirectly define the role of a museum. Subsequently, as the museums continue to

contextualize the different definitions of art, a determining system that can assign objects with

the meaning and value of art would be formulated. As opposed to the protocol of the Moderna

Museet, when curators of Hong Kong were asked about their preferences on collecting

documentation of social movement, none of them have rejected this approach, but have all

raised the question of whether M+ is the best place to keep the social documentations. As for

example, Nittve considers some of the objects that were created in the Hong Kong’s umbrella

movement in 2014 to be relevant to M+, but he believes there are other places that can better

preserve and display social documentation in general.183 For Chong and Tam, the key

question is whether these objects could convey the meaning of the Perspective of Now. “We

have a very specific and expansive parameter formulated in our acquisition policy. We are

supposed to be the 20th and 21st century museum of visual culture. We have to define visual

culture in a very particular and an open way.”184 Therefore, the Perspective of Now in M+

does not necessarily target objects that are produced now in the present, because the meanings

of these objects are still dynamic. Thus, collecting only objects of the present do not

necessarily guarantee a neutral position that M+ would like to enact. But rather, M+ would

often look back in past history to trace objects that can fulfil M+’s definition of

contemporaneity.

Conclusion

This chapter has analyzed the acquisition policies as living documents regardless in what

format they were constructed in the first place. Institutional curators attempt to delineate the

institutional landscape by stating their preferred chronological and geographical directions

inside these polices. The policies and their users have provided us with an insight of how

182 Nilsson, 81. 183 Nittve, 88. 184 Chong, 78.

61

museums are planning to position themselves in the present time. Therefore, museum visions

and goals are inscribed into the polices. The deploy of contemporary art that are decided by

curators constitutes a large part of how museums understood and unfold contemporaneity.

Furthermore, the interviews have clarified that the discussion of contemporaneity in public art

museums could actually take place without the necessity of connecting it to contemporary art.

In the perspectives of these two museums, contemporary art simply means works of art that

were produced in the past three decades or seven past decades, and therefore, inevitably, the

time period of contemporary art would overlap into late-modernism and postmodernism,

rendering that the efforts in the contextualization of 21st century art in a museum environment

is always inefficient. The use of contemporaneity, however, is clearly more productive as it

perpetuates the limits of time period and geography. The notion of contemporaneity therefore

unfolds to us larger than contemporary art. What matters most is its ability to inform the

present with the past. As a result, with an acquisition policy that is wisely composed, young

museums like M+ has managed to maintain a distance from contemporary art by deploying

the Perspective of Now as an equivalent to contemporaneity. In this chapter, the interviewees

have revealed that contemporary art is an historical construct and museums are arenas with

many actors at play simultaneously. The global network, the governments and the art markets

are not excluded from this arena as they too are actors who constantly influence the meanings

of art.

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Chapter 5, Final Discussion

This study sets out to analyze two museums of completely different historic and geographic

backgrounds that are both, nevertheless, equally ambitious in establishing their leading voices

in the museum industry. What makes this study special is that instead of using their products,

the exhibitions, as a point of departure, it compares their acquisition policies to find out

precisely how they are working to be up to date. This would raise the question on how they

are handling contemporary art as well as perceiving contemporaneity at the same time.

In the world of museums, the two museums possess advantageous positions in terms of

managing extraordinary collections. Apart from their main galleries they also administer

satellite showrooms, such as the Moderna Museet Malmö and M+ Pavilion to extend their

influences. The scope of works suggests a complex entanglement that would require a theory

that is sophisticated enough to break down the institutions into human actors and non-human

actors, and hence the use of the ANT theory has proven to be a good fit in the search for how

these museums work with contemporary art and contemporaneity. The deployment of ANT is

sometimes subjected to the shortcoming of oversimplifying complex phenomena. Even Bruno

Latour has urged for reexamining the use of his research as an alternative social theory.185 To

avoid such criticism, this study has taken into account the existence of the capital and the

mass market. This study has shown how governmental financial support may influence the

decision-making actors who are employed by the museums, and in the end, it is all about how

to connect with museum visitors of the present. This is where working with contemporaneity

comes in and becomes a relevant actor.

In the theory of ANT, there is the notion of irreversibility. Generally speaking, the theory

refers to the firm establishment of a new technology that has grown to reach a critical mass

(users), and therefore, it would become impossible to reserve to not using it, which is also

why ANT has proven to be very useful in the analysis. This irreversibility of ANT also

applies to contemporary art. The problem with the notion of contemporary art appears today

when its usage has become universally and firmly established in different industries, partially

185 Bruno Latour, “On Recalling ANT,” 15-25.

63

depending on the oversimplified meaning of the word “contemporary” which means no more

than “of the present.” For the broader audiences, it is often being thought of as all-involving

and all-encompassing. Nittve mentions that “contemporary art is an extension of a modernist

construct. It is based on the idea that there is a new set of ideas or artistic strategies that

suddenly came out of modernism in a way.”186 Therefore, in a sense, the acceptance of

contemporary art can be unquestioned by the museums as there isn’t really a way for them

who work with art of the 21st century art to completely avoid using this term. Museums can

always deploy exhibitions to challenge the definition of the contemporary from time to time,

but the usage of contemporary art can hardly be reversed. As the number of museums of

contemporary art rises in many nations, the deployment of contemporary art seems to have

become routine-based, and this has provided more room for the private sector to step into the

museum industry. The framing of contemporaneity in this study attempts to break through

these thresholds that has already been internalized inside the framework of museums. The key

step to establish contemporaneity in art museums is based on how the interest of different

actors can be aligned together.

The staff of the Moderna Museet tend to think of contemporaneity as an art theory that is

associated with philosophy. This may be due to the fact that they are potentially subjected to

western influences. Whereas in Asia, many nations and cities, including Hong Kong have in

recent decades dedicated much effort in post-war reconstruction and decolonial activities. The

staff of M+ would, therefore, think of contemporaneity as an epoch that is based on a time

period and historical events par excellence. In order to deploy contemporaneity, these two

museums have allocated alternative names for this concept. For the former (MM), it falls

under the campaign series, the Museum of Our Wishes; for the latter (M+), it has been

contextualized as a filtering lens called the Perspective of Now. The perception of

contemporaneity for these two museums is still affiliated to the expertise of museum directors

and curators. They are the determining actors who can seemingly dictate its final appearance

or format that will be presented to the public.

In the process of assembling a background for the actor-network, this study has found that

scholars of art (in the 1980s and 1990s) initially tend to show a pessimistic view towards

186 Nittve, 83.

64

museums that are under a strong market influence. Krauss argued that markets degrade a

museum, transforming it from an institution of culture to a theme park. Bishop pointed out

that the increasing reliance on private financial support would make the museums more prone

to external manipulation. This would eventually render the museums into a vault of

“philanthropic narcissism.”187 However, when analyzing materials through the actor-network

theories, moral judgments are less crucial. The focus of the theory is instead to find out, in

depth, and discuss the relationships between the actors to understand the dynamism of the

work. This, because one could also argue, without the support of the private market in recent

decades, contemporary art might not be one of the fastest growing subjects in the academy,188

and world of museums.

Furthermore, this study used the development of modern museums in the west and east as a

background. Museums were introduced to China as a western construct in the late 19th century

and the first domestically developed museum in China opened in 1905 by the industrial

entrepreneur Zhang Jian. The first Chinese museum resemblances, to some extent, of the

literati garden of ancient China. The idea behind this Chinese museum was to modernize the

country as well as its cultural activities that was once conducted by the social elites during

Imperial times. In China, since the idea of museums is appropriated from the west, it doesn’t

carry the historicity and responsibility of what a western museum is supposed to be good for.

In the process of developing museums, the Chinese people gained access and adapted what

was valuable to them. Ever since, they have been reconstructing the role of museums

throughout history, and therefore, in an alternative way, the Chinese museums are liberated

from the western construct. Although there are only a limited number of museums of

contemporary art that are owned by the state, these museums also have to be good for

imposing the ideologies and the history that is showing the leadership of the CCP in the best

way. As Nittve mentioned during the interview, “nothing is neutral, nothing an institution

does is without meaning.”189 This proves that museums are political places indeed.

187 Bishop, 61. 188 E-flux, “Art without Market, Art without Education: Political Economy of Art,” accessed March 6, 2021,

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/43/60205/art-without-market-art-without-education-political-economy-of-art/.

189 Nittve, 84.

65

Private art donations to museums are more than just a transfer of objects from one rightful

owner to a public institution; they take up more than a passive role in shaping the landscape of

a museum and hence extending their influences to the art world. Art collectors who donate to

public museums seek to anchor themselves into the history of art and to establish a legacy of

their own. The idea of a donation to a museum is strong in both western and eastern culture.

M+ Sigg collection which was originally the private collection of the Swiss collector Uli Sigg

has successfully rendered M+ as the icon and delegate of contemporary Chinese art. But at the

same time, Hong Kong art has in regard of the Sigg Collection been subordinated to the larger

concept of contemporary Chinese art which most commonly refers to arts of the PRC. An

interesting twist to the Sigg collection is that partially, it is based on Sigg’s idea of modern

art, which is why this particular collection may be closely connected to the collections of the

Moderna Museet. This would certainly render entanglements in regard of exhibiting in the

future.

Pontus Hultén’s personal network with art patrons and close relationships with many

American and European artists determined the basic tone of the Moderna Museet at an early

stage. Naturally, this relationship has fostered a strong openness of the Moderna Museet

towards American and European arts. After decades of working with its patron and donation

program, American art has since long become part of the “DNA” of this European art

museum.190 Therefore, upon receiving gifts, whether it is a sponsorship or a donation, the

museums are actually sort of in debt to the person who provides art for donation. This would

suggest that the two museums need to pay an effort in sustaining their environments as both a

favorable and welcoming place for art patrons. With no doubt, this includes being mindful to

the way they unfold their stories of art.

However, if museums acquire objects on their own, they are not in debt to anyone, and they

can use the acquisitions however they want. The policy document identifies the deployment

of the acquisition policy as an effective tool of resistance. This document outlines what a

museum can and cannot do, and thereby creating a space for negotiation between different

actors. While the Moderna Museet uses donations to source for objects that are highly valued

at the market, acquisitions are used to empower the collections that exist historically. The

190 Nilsson, 82.

66

campaign series, the Museum of Our Wishes is an example of how acquisition policies have

changed over time to cope with social urgencies.

After scrutinizing the acquisition polices, it was found that the two museums do not define

contemporary art and contemporaneity at all. Not only have the two terms been left out in the

written documents but they have also been absent in the oral discussions when it comes to

designated time periods and artistic attributes. The policy of M+ justifies contemporaneity by

laying out an ideological grounding that is associated to the geographical positioning of Hong

Kong and mainland China.191 In the case of the Moderna Museet, the justification is much

more based on personal expertise as six of the curators, each have their own area of interest;

these curators are specially designated to look for arts of specified periods.192

Even so, when judging from the influential roles played by the Moderna Museet and M+ in

CIMAM, it is fair to say that both museums are eager in becoming more authoritarian in the

era of contemporary art. Hence, the two museums will have to keep on contextualizing their

acquisition policies as we are moving through time and into the future. If the desired outcome

of a museum is to grow bigger in the field of contemporary art, the importance of having a

more comprehensive acquisition policy would be a key for them to create their own territory.

The design of an acquisition policy should be broad and straightforward, so other museums

can easily learn from it. Once other museums begin to endorse a similar policy, hence a

similar method is being used to define contemporary art, it would result in the establishment

of a stable actor-network where the same kind of contemporaneity can be found. Although in

theory, the actor-network urge for the synchronization, the approaches and comprehensions of

the museums in different parts of the world can still differ from each other. This, because the

museums would also want to be original. Strategies and areas of focus of museums varies

accordingly to their demography and history.

Museum professionals have confirmed that acquisition policies are open-ended documents

that are subjected to users’ interpretations. An acquisition policy pinpoints the directions for

191 The Collection Geography, “M+ Acquisition Policy,” 7. 192 Tellgren, 95.

67

art collecting, and subsequently curators decide what are good to acquire. Thus, the polices

and the users together are the inherent filter of a museum collection. Once the foundation of a

museum collection has been firmly established, an acquisition policy would loosen its initial

usage and importance because decisions of future acquisition will be based on existing objects

in the collection. This could explain why the Moderna Museet only has a few protocols as its

policy. Whereas, a young museum like M+ tends to rely more on an acquisition policy

because it is still in the midst of establishing a network and working in a postcolonial time.

Hong Kong in particular that has an extraordinary political landscape may complicate the

acquisition process in the near future.

The five interviewees presented different ways to understand contemporaneity. Their different

personal views of contemporaneity revealed a direct correlation between the level of

complexity and usefulness, the more complicated they believe contemporaneity is, the less

willingly they would apply it directly in the museums. Therefore, the notion of

contemporaneity is reduced or diluted into marketing campaigns and strategical trajectories.

The conclusion of this study is that the larger the modification is, the more universal and

encompassing contemporaneity will become.

After summarizing the interviews, this study has realized that the two subjects, contemporary

art and contemporaneity, despite being closely interrelated, could be discussed and handled

separately. On one hand, contemporary art is bound by a fixed time period that is defined by

the museums. As the interviewees has mentioned that would be periods of the past three

decades in the Moderna Museet and the past seven decades in M+. Therefore, contemporary

art shall always live under the shadow of postmodernity. On the other hand, contemporaneity

is a two-way communication, in which it first examines the past by using today’s perspective,

and then using this result to re-inform the present. In the eyes of Hou Hanru, the director of

MAXXI, the national museum of 21st century art, contemporaneity provided a method to

search for a set of terms that can allow a museum to cope with the present. It is a long term

solution that allows him to continue the work of attracting new audiences to the museum.193

By borrowing the mode of thinking of the avant-garde artist Huang Yongping, the words past

and present are not fixed concepts. When the subjectivity shifts, new relationships can be

193 Yu Hsiao Hwei, 42.

68

formed. In other words, contemporaneity can be liberated from the limit of a time period, in

fact it can be considered to be an infinite date-back function, which is similar to the so called

untimeliness put forward by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben.194 This concept of

untimeliness has been, subsequently, incorporated as part of Bishop’s theory of dialectical

contemporaneity. As a result of framing how museum curators work with contemporary art

and contemporaneity today, it becomes clear that the usual encyclopedic approach may be a

bit dysfunctional because no museums would have the capacity to encapsulate everything.

As opposed to one of the general perceptions of museums being storerooms of cultural

treasures, looking at the literati gardens and the cabinets of curiosity with today’s perspective

has entailed how the effort in constructing a collection can on one hand preserve objects, and

on the other hand, assigning new meanings and adding values to these objects while actively

reorganizing and reframing the objects.

The research questions have explored the various functions and roles of museums of the past

and present, and ultimately, the outcomes re-affirm the fact that museums can be places where

systems of art are forged and dispensed to the public. The Perspective of Now and the

Museum of Our Wishes are different strategies for development, nevertheless, they are

extended concepts branching out from the notion of contemporaneity. Furthermore, after

following the actors of the museums, this study frames contemporaneity as a methodological

thinking that can be used to handle art and visual culture, in which it is more productive than

strategies. The challenge of articulating cultural meaning to objects requires the museums to

rethink what does contemporaneity mean to them and how to use it accordingly to unfold

potential relationships between their collected objects and the audiences. From the standpoint

of the audience, and also partially due to the irreversibility of ANT, it may be difficult for the

audience to recognize these different strategies that are deployed by the museums as variant

forms of contemporaneity. Still, the audiences become a part of contemporaneity as they

consciously choose to participate or not to participate in events and exhibitions of the

museums, including the process of making meaning of artworks. It is in that sense; they

194 See contemporariness as Agamben defines as “that relationship with time that adheres to it through a

disjunction and an anachronism.” Giorgio Agamben, “What Is an Apparatus?” And Other Essays, Meridian, Crossing Aesthetics (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2009).

69

contribute to the current and future developments and this would explain why museums have

to reflect on the present in order to lure audiences with new exhibitions.

After analyzing the approaches towards 21st century art through the lens of ANT, this study

understands that the deployment of acquisition policies would become seemingly important

for public museums. Well-resourced museums who are ambitious would be eager in

promoting their definition of contemporary art within the international museum network, for

example creating more traveling exhibitions, which could be planned out before the

exhibitions are actually produced. This could allow these museums to gain a reputation of

being global. In addition, they could expand their influences in the different territories of art,

for example Chinese art, Indian art and so forth by hiring more curators and researchers from

these respected countries, who have super-star profiles and extraordinary personal networks,

as they have been doing at Tate.195 The framing of contemporaneity is all in all beneficial to

museums because it provides an alternative way of discovering unexpected narratives that

constitute new relationships over geographical borders and timelines. The curiosity, an

eagerness to encounter a new and an open attitude to difference is probably the key to make

museums of the 21st century remain appealing to the public in the long-term perspective.196

Contemporaneity, even though being a complex concept, seldom mentioned and discussed at

museums, has nevertheless been important for the constitution of acquisition policies. How

the discourse around the contemporary and contemporaneity will evolve is for future research

to find out.

195See research centers of Tate. Tate, “Research Centres,” Tate, accessed May 19, 2021,

https://www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres. 196See Nicholas referring to Burke Edmund’s explanation of curiosity. Thomas, 15.

70

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https://nga.gov.au/collection/acquisitionspolicy.cfm. Ho, Oscar. “Hong Kong: A Curatorial Journey for an Identity.” Asia Art Archive, September 10, 2020.

https://aaa.org.hk/en/ideas/ideas/hong-kong-a-curatorial-journey-for-an-identity. Hong Kong Museum of Art. “About Us | Hong Kong Museum of Art.” Accessed March 7, 2021.

https://hk.art.museum/en_US/web/ma/about-us.html.

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E-flux. “Art without Market, Art without Education: Political Economy of Art.” Accessed March 6, 2021. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/43/60205/art-without-market-art-without-education-political-economy-of-art/.

M+. “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) (1983-1984/Printed 2000) - Tehching Hsieh, Linda Montano - M+ Collections Beta.” Accessed April 18, 2021. https://collections.mplus.org.hk/en/objects/art-life-one-year-performance-19831984-rope-piece-2013465.

M+. "(Part 3) M+ Matters- ARTWORKDOCUMENTATION: Rethinking the Categories of Art and Documentation," [2016]. Accessed April 18, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLl3nDGey34&list=PLqLUImFXx2jPK5juWuOIy-SAEfsZzNCCD&index=3&ab_channel=WestKowloonCulturalDistrict.

Tate. “Research Centres.” Tate. Accessed May 19, 2021. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres. The University of Hong Kong. “University Museum and Art Gallery - The University of Hong Kong.” Accessed

March 7, 2021. https://www.umag.hku.hk/en/about_us.php?id=921476. WKCDA. “M+ Collections,” 2020. https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus/about-the-m-collections. Zdenka, Badovinac. “Contemporaneity as Points of Connection.” Journal, December 2009. https://www.e-

flux.com/journal/11/61343/contemporaneity-as-points-of-connection/.

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Image

Chapter 1 1. Marysia Lewandowska, excerpt from Museum Futures: Distributed, 2008, 32’, courtesy the

artist. http://marysialewandowska.com/museum-futures/ (2020-12-10)

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Appendix

Appendix 1: Transcribed interviews

Doryun Chong. Deputy director, curatorial and chief Curator of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 17th December 2020. About contemporary art:

1. How does your institution define “contemporary art”?

Doryun Chong: In a sense, M+ do not define contemporary art. It defines it at all in a very straightforward way, which is chronological. M+ is not a contemporary art museum and it is not a modern art museum. We call ourselves, museum of 20th/21st century visual culture. The second part of that sentence is rooted in Hong Kong with global perspectives. We say visual culture because we are not an art museum. Visual Art is one of the three main disciplines. The other two are design and architecture and moving images. According to our acquisition policy, there is a fourth area, but it is not a discipline. We call it thematic area, and that is Hong Kong visual culture which is interdisciplinary. Doryun: Our documents of the collection and the acquisition policy are actually very clear in terms of disciplines and areas, as I said earlier 20th/21st century 1900–2020. We are mainly talking about the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Why the second half of the twentieth century? A very typical time marker around the world is the end of WWII 1945. We pretty much adopted that but actually specified it a little bit more in the context of the greater China from 1949, the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In the beginning of the period that marks the end of western imperialism, and the period of nation building. But also the period of the beginning of the cold war with the rise of communist in different parts of the world. So, we do not define contemporary art, we just define art as one of the disciplinary areas, broadly defined, visual art as comprises many different genres and mediums. Contemporary art is used to define more of our chronological frame from the end of 1940s to the present. So that is for us contemporary in a sense. So that it is a very broad definition of contemporary but actually not unusual either. Doryun: At MOMA, when you talk about the history of modern art that is the Museum, that is the textbook museum. According to the museum, the history of modern art is somewhere between 1870s - 1880s to somewhere around 1950-60s, emerging art forms that were departing from the history of modernism and avant-gardes. The MOMA has been debating this the whole time...where is modern and contemporary...but the line falls somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s, that has become the general understanding within the field of art and culture that contemporary art begins in the second half of the 20th century. So that's what we have adopted. Is there even a definition? I don’t even know. It is one fairly substantiated definition.

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2. What do you understand by “contemporaneity”? Doryun: I think more about the meaning of contemporary in a large cliff, the origin of the word. The “con” as in Latin con plus tempo with time- this time. The word contemporary simply means of our time. Then, the question is how long is our time, is it one year, is it a decade? Is it three decades? A decade is a good marker because we are so used to thinking about changes happening in decades. We like to think of ten years as a unit. A decade is our time. Then if that is the case, then contemporary art would simply mean only the last ten years. But I don’t think any museum does that really. Many museums define our time so narrowly. Doryun: Contemporaneity in relation to contemporary art. When Kunsthalles were established in the UK and the US, they used to be called institutes of modern art. As for instance in the US, on the east coast there is the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston / Philadelphia. When they first started, they used to call themselves the institute of modern art. But when they entered the 60s, they did not change their names. Modern used to be an ideological term. Modern means I reject the past. I reject the tradition; we are in the new time period. We need to make a radical break from all the western tradition. Also, in Asia, we define ourselves very consciously as modern. A term of self-definition. Contemporary art never has that kind of very conscious ideological self-positioning. Andy Warhol and other artists did not want to be called contemporary. But being modern from the late 19th / early 20th century was a consciously ideological, political position. So, in that sense, the old term of contemporary is an interesting one, when I said that contemporary literally means our time, it is a descriptive term. It doesn’t say what is contemporary, It simply says of our time as opposed to modern said it is a break of the past and look forward. That’s a very different position. But that idea sort of got lost and contemporary became kind of late modern or postmodern. Doryun: We typically say the modern started in the late 19th century and then something else happened and became contemporary. Then contemporary became late modern or postmodern which is closer to our time. So that is actually in many ways a misnomer. In short, contemporaneity is the all of the above and it is a confused term. My angle as an institutional worker. I am straightforward, what is happening now is contemporary. And as a museum worker, in a collecting institution. I have to define what is contemporary for the worker. Roughly the last 70 years is contemporary, and people understand it.

3. How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective? Doryun: We will help the understanding by reminding our immediate and international audiences that there is no one definition of contemporaneity. We are in the perfect place. The border between HK and Mainland China is one of the most potent boundaries of temporalities. Even though we know all these histories, it is almost hard to imagine – what life must have been like in mainland China during the whole 20th century, after the Cultural Revolution. 1980s. In a sense, it was one of the most backward countries. Most isolated country, in the second half of the 20th century. And then when China overtook everybody else in terms of economic development and the index of capitalist development. So of course, art and culture are very much part of

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that. It drove inspiration from that. So what mainland China is experiencing in the past 70 years, is an incredible sort of almost elastic timeline. An elastic sense of time. Doryun: Compared to Hong Kong, Hong Kong is always much more open to the rest of the world. It did not follow the same procession. So, between HK and China there is a good total depth of catalyst of understanding history. Doryun: If we look wider out to East Asia. From the late 60s, 70s, 80s, the second half of the cold war years. What was happening in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan? South Korea and Japan were under military autocracy until the 80s. But then they were also capitalist countries. On the one hand, they were similar to HK in that they had a very liberal economy, except they were not colonies. Then in terms of certain autocracy they were closer to Mainland China. Look at Japan, it has the empire, but it was the most westernized it was most in sync with the western world. Within just eastern Asia, we have all these timelines happening. All these different political models. It is almost hard to imagine now what it was rooted in the 1980s. In the 1990s we traveled freely and cultural exchange took place easily. But it wasn’t like this in the 80s. So just in the last few decades, within east Asia there were different timelines that coexisted. It is easy to talk about contemporaneity as a condition that it is a share globally and understood globally. But actually, how that idea of anything can be understood globally is just a phenomenon that happened in the last 2 to 3 decades. Before that just you and me could be living in different time periods. Doryun: East Asia is a great example. Hong Kong and China. China and Taiwan. North and South Korea. Japan and the rest of East Asia. All of them are so close to each other but until recently they are so far from each other. So, in that sense the whole idea about contemporary, in a conventional way, in our museum where we define contemporary as the last 70 years. Within that period, there are so many different experiences of the same 70 years even within our region. We remind people how contemporary is a complex and even a confusing term.

About institution:

4. What constitutes the acquisition policy in your institution? Doryun: Our acquisition policy is a public document. As a publicly funded institution, of a very high visibility and under a lot of scrutiny. We have to make all of these things very transparent. It is a very good document. To understand the institution clearly.

5. Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how and when to change the protocol? Doryun: It is a document that can change. It is a robust document that talks about M+ collections both in terms of its philosophy, its political and social positioning, but it also talks very clearly about procedural things. Such as who approves what /How much/ Governance. There isn't that much to be changed right now. But it states every two years we are required to review, to revise as if necessary. The document was

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approved by WK in 2012, we have done three revisions. 2014, 16, 18. There are also little revisions along the way. But not major changes. Doryun: All the policies are written by the staff in the management (not the curatorial team). The acquisition policy goes to the acquisition committee. A sub-committee of M+ museum board. Now, M+ is a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority WKCDA, which is a public body. We are not governmental, we are legally established, semi-public. WKCDA has its own board. Any changes of this policy go through the cycle of this governance. It has to go to the acquisition policy committee, M+ board, then it has to go to the WKCDA board. It has to be thoroughly discussed. Approved and approved again. It is the big part of work in responsibility and accountability, as someone who is building a public and permanent institutions.

6. How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain

government regulations and by the museum? Doryun: We don’t talk about the government at all. There is a lot of confusion that we are part of the Hong Kong government, the LCSD. WKCDA is a public body, we have our own ordinance, we are established by the government. And operating from a one time in down payment that we received from the gov. But I am not a civil servant. Doryun: The way we practice our museum work is actually very different from other museums from LCSD. because they are civil servants. They sit under rules of government. But we don’t. Doryun: The Hong Kong government plays a role as someone who created this big piece of land and authority WKCDA. 2016 we form M+ under WKCDA. The HK gov created us and allowed us to exist. In terms of how we are growing ourselves, the government is not playing a role there. But we also consider the government of Hong Kong and their policies in decision making.

7. How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise on you as a curator and the museum as an institution? Doryun: Complete power. We have a robust policy, as it has very clear procedures that we have to follow. The acquisition policy lays out what disciplines are, what the chronology and geography is. But at the same time, it is a very loose and expansive document. Each discipline can have so many genres and meanings. We are a Hong Kong based institution where we look at south east Asia and the rest of the world as well. Chronologically, we say we are the 20th and 21st century museum but sometimes we go beyond that as well. There is a specificity and fluidity in the policy at the same time. And within that it is the curator’s job to interpret what fits those criteria. What the policy doesn’t show comes down to what artists what kind of works, a policy doesn’t define that. And the curator's job is within the parameters of the acquisition policy that has infinite possibilities. We go with these possibilities specifically because we based on experience and expertise that define these are the more important ones, for M+ and for M+’s public.

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About acquisition policies:

8. How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum, towards modernity/contemporaneity over time? Doryun: We are still a very young museum. We are at the stage that the policy and the museum are defining the direction together. Our acquisition policy can constitute the totality that we have put together. Starting a new collection has a lot of reporting. Now we have a collection of 8000 objects. We are filling the foundation. There has not been a collection like M+ in all of Asia, that looks at the last 70 years of all these disciplines but also transnationally and internationally. Doryun: By creating M+ and acquisition policy together, we are defining both the contemporaneity of what is the image of contemporary Asia in the world. Defining the modernity of visual culture of wider Asia. Again, contemporaneity as a time period and modernity is ideological innovations.

9. How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change

the policy in response to current trends? Doryun: Trend, as movement, tendency. Trend is a necessity in many ways. Video art was invented in the 1960s, people did not see it as art. It took decades including the museums to think you cannot disregard this new art form. The MOMA only began collecting video art from the 1980s.

Doryun: So, the museum has to change its policies. Identity, structure based on trends. Because the way people invent new mediums and expressions. Museum’s job is to respond to it by conserving, recording, displaying and interpreting.

10. Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for example, social documentations from various political movements that have significant cultural and historical value? Doryun: We are flexible. We are not an art museum; we are a cultural museum in which art is one of our areas. In the fine art area, the question of authenticity and originality still matters. This, because it is about authorship, copyright, intellectual property. The measurement of quality still matters. But in other areas like social visual matter that are about wider communication. We cover a whole range of spectrum.

Doryun: The original is important but that does not discount social documentation. We

have a huge collection of archives. We look at political movements through the lens of visual culture. We are not a national archive; we are not a research library of social movement. We have a very specific and expansive parameters formulated in our acquisition policy. We are supposed to be the 20th and 21st century museum of visual culture. We have to define visual culture in a very particular and an open way. Where should a piece of object belong? It is important that everything we do is documented as a public institution.

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John Peter Nilsson. Communicative museum strategist of the Moderna Museet, Sweden in conversation with Jims Lam on 11th December 2020.

About contemporary art:

1. How does your institution define “contemporary art”?

John Peter Nilsson: There is only one museum, Kanazawa museum in Japan, which says it is a 21st century museum so as to get away from the concept of modernity. From a historical point of view, who uses it nowadays? It goes with market economy and capitalism, to create something new every year (new product). In the 70s and 80s, with the postmodern discourse, there were criticisms of the concept of modernity. Samtiden, came in the lingo, that is to get away from the burden of modernism and postmodernism. (Contemporary art) in 2020-2021 is not about age and newness. Following how we see a contemporary life. As I see, we are living an anachronistic life. When I grew up in the 70s, I want a David Bowie record. I was a pathfinder. Museums are also pathfinders and they try to find what is new in our life. Newness was the key word. They present the future. But as we know, in the last 20 years, we wonder what is new? Newness can also be old. For me today, contemporary is how we look at oneself and society. And that could be an eighty years old artist. And we have to contextualize what is contemporary, before we can say what is art. So contemporary art for me is not newness. It is another way of looking at myself, the society and the art world. It has nothing to do with age, gender, race and geography. It is to understand who we are now and to find something to correspond to the now. Modernism is now and it tries to predict the future. We still live in the postmodern world. We want to define what it is to live now. John Peter: The future in the art world is not bright. Artists from all over the world that point out the problems of living today. If we go back to the 20th century. The only art movement that dealt with the future is a German artist, who dealt with the German defeat in the first world war. Also, we have the critical pop art that predicts the future that was not that bright. They are in a way contradicting all the high modernism days, when most artists believe they are producing something good. People believe by revealing the bad things today, change will happen. This is postmodernism, contemporaneous is a doubleness. When we deal with contemporary art, we deal with all topics and what is happening today. Things that have to be involved in the museum. Contemporary art is living now for both good and bad, and we have to react to it.

2. What do you understand by “contemporaneity”?

John Peter: If this was asked 20–30years ago, museum directors and curators will say they don't understand about it. We deal with history. Museums used to be an institution that reflected on the past. Today Museums want to be in the now. Right wings are criticizing political correctness. Like the Marxist theory, it is now that which defines history. As the wall falls, the question in eastern Europe is, should we keep the monuments? You take away the bad things and you only present the voice of the victory. Can we present something in an objective way? Can we present something like a Nazi painting, as if it is about now? The answer is no, because we (humans) are

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subjective. The challenge is to present something controversial, but we back ourselves up with a standpoint. No museums are doing this right now. We are still presenting the winning idea of democracy, human rights. The answer: what is our objectiveness (a neutral one) to contemporary life. A problem with the big donner in the MOMA. Harvard school took away his name from the building he sponsored. This is contemporaneity, it is about understanding the past. Understanding the craziness of the future.

3. How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective? John Peter: All staff in the museum want to feel that we are in the now. The current show, there is a take on that exhibition that tries to disturb the image of the artist as a loner. He was very involved in things that were happening in the 30s 40s. An art historian takes on this. To show people we can look at history in a different way. To show history is not static. We see the past in a different way and from a different angle. This is a contemporary thing to do. It is a question we have to deal with in the museum every day. Choose the right weapon. Global and Local? Global perspective is gone. We are connected to everywhere. The “-ism” has been united. But run by google. To think global and act local. At the museum we need to communicate to our visitors. We can show opinions, stands and supports but we can’t change things. We can plant questions.

About your institution:

4. What constitutes the acquisition policy in your institution? John Peter: Different pillars. We have to think about what we already have in the collection and how we can build on this. Lars made the second museum of our wishes to buy artworks made by female artists. Women artists have been neglected. That was an active acquisition policy. The museum director has a strong take. And we receive directions from the government that we should buy local art, international art, minority art. No one is following it up from the government. But the ideas are there. We have a role in buying Swedish art. In the end, we are not bureaucratic. It comes down to the people discussing what is good. John Peter: Next year, we got 25 million from the government to buy Swedish art because of Covid-19. We are in the middle of discussing what we should buy and asking what Swedish art is. For example, a Swedish who left Sweden for a very long period of time, would this person still be considered as producing Swedish art? So, the policy is a very loose framework. But luckily it comes down to a bunch of professional people. It is human based.

5. Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how and when to change the protocol? John Peter: We have a protocol, but we break it. We are an authority, but we have to be transparent to our decisions. Next year, we will scrutinize the Acquisition Policy. What we are buying? It is a hot topic.

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Everyone has the power to suggest something, but in the end the director makes the final call. We are also getting donations; we work with very wealthy people. We have a limited budget to buy art, so we need to rely on them. Therefore, it is important for us to understand their interest in this society. If we collect a work from a young artist, it raises the price of the work in the market. We are enrolled into many different levels of the art world. But the simple answer to that is we are a group of human beings who have to process all kinds of advice from the government and donors. We deal with human issues.

6. How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain

government regulations and by the museum? John Peter: There is no regulation but there are recommendations. But it is up to the institution to decide, it is up to us to interpret what to buy. It is a dialogue in a weird way, politics today is more about wanting the power to decide but not knowing what to decide. But we don’t need to go deeper into this now. We are free to interpret what the government wants.

7. How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise on both you as a curator and the museum as an institution? John Peter: Looking from a broader perspective. England had a colonial background, and the post-colonial thinking interferes in every level of the society. Tate wants to be global. They hire curators to cover different parts of the world. This could be said it is prolonging the colonial attitude, Tate decided what Chinese art is what Indian art is with the curators we hired from the different parts of the world. They want to maintain the authority to determine. John Peter: When I was at Malmö, we ran many lectures about how to deal with a global world in the local context. And everybody said you have to give up your authority. You have to invite other cultures even though that would put your authority at risk, it is difficult to do. How to deal with the authoritarian, the wealthy person decides how people should live. John Peter: There is no clear policy concerning these things. We have to define our local identity. And be clear about what you don’t understand in the art world. It depends on the person who is buying- for example why should we have African art. We need a reason to justify. Museums are still having a colonial attitude, and Black Lives Matter right now is changing that massively. I am very happy about what is going on. Not only black artists, artists who are not in the cannon of the western world. Globalism is a big mine field.

About Acquisition Policies:

8. How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum, towards modernity/contemporaneity over time? John Peter: Two ways. It is the history of the institution itself. We have a collection. We have to look at what we have been buying in the past and what it is saying to us

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and the visitors. We have to define what point of view. We have had a strong US connection since the beginning of the 60s. It is something in the DNA of the museum. The other way is the director. The museum world can be conservative and hierarchical. Being a director, is like 95% of being a CEO of a company that does nothing about art. But having a say in exhibitions and deciding what to buy is the way a director can make his or her own marks.

9. How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change

the policy in response to current trends? John Peter: Depending on how information is spread in the world today. If you look at art history, artists are sitting in the same cafe. Artists know each other and every -ism is interacting with each other at the same time. Until 70s art, it is not an upper-class thing. It is something you talk about over dinner. But through the expansion of information and knowledge that was not there 30 years ago. Digital world will be a changing factor. Wealthy people are profiting from information and therefore they are shaping the world. Traditional media has been slow and bad in confronting the world. There is a symbolic value, learning from the pandemic, with culture, people are so afraid of doing wrong things with culture. It's bad but it could be changed to something good, if decision makers can see an opportunity.

10. Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for example, social documentations from various political movements that have significant cultural and historical value?

John Peter: No, we are not collecting social documentation. We are collecting the originals. We do not have that on our agenda. But I see that the original artwork has become a market token. I believe it is still important to come see the art. To experience the real. How to communicate the real. Digital media should be used to create excitement that leads people to come to see the real thing. John Peter: The new generation is coming to the museum to look at the artwork but with a cell phone in their hands. Every information can be found on the internet easily, so they have the questions and answers already in hand. This raises the question of why we need to go to a museum, and this raise the importance of seeing the real object.

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Lars Nittve. Former executive director of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 14th December 2020.

About contemporary art: 1, How should an institution define “contemporary art”? Lars Nittve: Q1 and Q2 are linked together. Contemporary art is a modernist construct, it is a continuation of a modernist. It is based on the idea that there is a new set of ideas or artistic strategies that suddenly came out of modernism in a way. But the idea continued to develop. So, I personally try to avoid using contemporary art. For example, when I was writing the Acquisition Policy for M+, I tried to avoid using modernist and contemporary artists as a split. The reason is what has happened in post-pop or post minimalism. A lot of people think contemporary art starts somewhere there after the break of pop art and minimalist art. There is a break in between 60s,70s. But in reality, there is no break. It’s just a matter of perspective of what part of the 20th century you deem important and productive in the present. And of course, you can definitely see what Duchamp and many other surrealists are doing as a clear continuation of the 70s and onwards and into what was later deemed as postmodern art in due time. So that break is a fiction between modern and contemporary art. And this brings out the concept of contemporaneity. 2, What do you understand by “contemporaneity”? Lars: It is a catchy phrase in contemporary theory. But it is also a word that is very clear for a person who is not part of the art world. It opens up for confusion. It of course means in the present. But in theory, like Terry Smith, it is complex, and it is related to the philosophical concept of who you are in time and what sort of time you are in. Of course, it means periodization is in the past. And it's a sort of anachronism from modernism. But there are multiple presences, it is about different locations, different geography, different history and so forth. So, I have a problem with the word in a sense of the word, not in a theoretical way. I always have a problem with a word that can be understood by someone as a very simple concept but when in use with a certain concept it is much more complex. Destabilizing. Jims: Does this term sugar-coat the complexity of contemporary art that we are seeing nowadays? Lars: No, not really, but it does not facilitate the discussion of the Perspective of Now. And because it is a word that has a relatively simple meaning. In the Oxford dictionary, it means “of the present” and that's all. But when in used to pinpoint a specific concept it became super complicated. The meaning that we are capable of grasping only exists on the outer edge of understanding. Lars: Contemporaneity becomes important when you for example work with collections like at M+. There are many histories that are in play at the same time. American, Western and East Asian that is doubled in context because there is ink art that is distinctively different from western art. But also, the history in China, where there is another history after the Cultural Revolution. That is different from western history. So there are multiple presences in play at the same time. And they have

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different histories, and when you have a present perspective in Hong Kong. The Perspective of Now. You need to have multiple perspectives. And that’s when contemporaneity comes in. But I think the word is not so useful. We lack the right word to describe the current epoch. 3, How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective? Lars: To start with, whatever an institution does, it produces some meanings, some perspective and some types of understanding of both past and present in a way. Nothing is neutral, nothing an institution does is without meaning. Whatever it does it contributes. Of course, it can do it (things) in an unreflective way. And therefore, without showing awareness of issues that are at play. Do the opposite of facilitating for the wider audience or art practitioners for the sake, to sort of come to grasp with the present situation. It can at the same time oversimplify and not respect the complexity of every given situation. This, because when it comes to cultural production in general, and certainly in the case of art, we know that if you have a super complex concept for an exhibition. When you introduce art into the concept. It explodes completely because the complexity of each individual artwork is so high. So you sort of lost the plot completely. So in a way, what an institution can do is to strike the right balance by allowing complexity and richness to play out in its own right, and at the same time you will have to try to add a certain element of clarity, and sort of a deductive structure when you make exhibitions. Lars: The instruments are how we structure stories. How do you underpin or disturb these stories through the use of exhibition programs like talks and conferences? So, it is an interplay between all the tools that you have in a museum. To strike a balance between structuring, understanding, destabilizing that structure to respect the complexity of art in general. I don't think there is any simple solution. It requires a combination of good analysis and good footwork. Jims: Are there modes of thinking between global and local when designing exhibitions and policies? Lars: The world is both local and global and many things in between right now. As we are individuals as well, we have so many identities. You might carry multiple localities. It also depends on the profile of the museum. Jims: But the design of Acquisition Policies of many museums still focuses a lot on the banal division of global and local art. Lars: This is a result of political pressure and attempt to be at a flatten uninspiring position to be political correct. (A pressure to be global) It is a result of various political considerations. At the same time, everyone has heard you have to be global, so you have to contextualize that phrase. It is also too difficult for them to address the nuances in between (the multiple positions).

Lars: In M+, there was a huge pressure when M+ handled Hong Kong Art. And when Hong Kong art versus Mainland Chinese Art/ East Asian Art. There was pressure

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coming from localists, the semi old Avant-gardes of Hong Kong. At the same time, the museum was defined from the beginning to be a Global Museum and I think in our case, for M+ acquisition policy, we try to introduce other elements of multiple identity aspects into the narrative of the document. But there is a political pressure there.

About institution:

4, What constitutes the acquisition policy in an institution? Lars: It depends on the history of the institution to a large extent and its governance. Some institutions are private, and it is different from public institutions. Private in general, do not have acquisition policy but just the taste of the funders. When there is public scrutiny, the minimum is to lay out, externally to decision makers of museums, to make them understand the basic parameters in terms of what you are acquiring and what drives your decision. And to reasonably secure them with due diligence, checks and balance. Lars: In HK, there were decision makers who had quite limited trust in institutions and limited previous knowledge of museums, of how they collect and built collections. You have to lay out the process. To make it much more transparent. Also, the acquisition policy is unavoidable and it plays a less important role over time. At the end, to a large extent, not entirely. The existing collection you have driven future collecting and it sort of sets the agenda. Basically, what you do in reality when you build or continue to build a collection, you look at what stories that you can develop from the existing collections. You open up stories that were locked before this, because all works as we know carry multiple meanings and can play parts in different narratives and stories. When you add a work to the collection. You begin / open up new directions for works that already exist in the collection. The added work acts as a catalyst in a way for old works. The existing collection becomes the Acquisition Policy on a symbolic level. Lars: This is also a challenge, you can suddenly realize, in the case of an old institution, you have not collected properly too many male artists. Then you break the current model and move your direction of collecting. Like the Second Museum of Our Wishes, you cannot undo what was done in the past, but you can shift the balance. E.g. address as a new concept, new way of looking and new ideology.

5, Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how and when to change the protocol?

6, How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain government regulations and by the museum? (Answers to no.4/5 are combined below) Lars: Who decides? It should be the director and the curatorial team. But the decision-making power on these things vary between different institutions depending on their governance. For example, in Stockholm the Moderna Museet does not even have a board.

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Lars: Like Tate and Stockholm in the past. The government selects some people from them who are interested in art but with a different background to put together a group of people who have oversight on the operation and the making of the institution. Lars: In Stockholm (in the past), they only have a limited influence. They can have a say on budget decisions that had a really long-term impact. They could not say anything about acquisition and curatorial programs. But then the government decided that all decision-making power should sit with the director in 2005 – 2006, I was a bit skeptical about that as well. We had a great economy, great support from the outside and donors but if you have a problem, it is better to share it with the board. Say if you have to cut staff, also you lose the oversight if you had a bad director. There were directors who could be fired by the board. If you don’t have a board, it would take a longer time and hence more damage can be done. Lars: Yes, but who decides, should sit with the director and the curatorial team. This would not be the case in M+ and Tate. It will be a board decision. I am not sure if the board always has the knowledge to be the one who decided on acquisition matters. Lars: In the case of M+, there is an active acquisition committee which is a subcommittee to the board. M+ board is a subcommittee to the west Kowloon authority district board. So there are many boards. Lots of decision makers. Depending on what the type of decision is. And what type of monitoring value that this decision is linked to. It sits in different places. Oddly enough, the more expensive the work is, then the decision making moves up to a higher board hierarchy, which means it moves to people who know less about art. So, the really crucial decisions, expensive acquisitions are ultimately made by people who know much less than on a regular acquisition. They focus on money spent. It was a paradox. When I was there, these decisions went to the West Kowloon board, which means Carrie Lam has the final say. So, I think decision making should sit with the curatorial side. Jims: Is it more difficult to convince people on a higher level to make an acquisition decision? Lars: It is much easier to compare Tate Modern and M+. For Tate (because there was a much longer history in developing museums), there was much more trust in the director and the curators given by the government during the development. In Hong Kong, you are always guilty until you are proven innocent. It was like a reverse ordering. And actually, as a director or as a curator in Hong Kong, there is always a suspicion that if you came with a certain suggestion there must be a hidden agenda. There was a suspicion of some type of corruption, financial, intellectual and ideological or something. And you always have to prove that you were right. Of course, that would be comparatively easy when the acquisition board members are someone who share the same thought and knowledge with you. But it came up to a WKCDA level then you have people who care less about art and culture. They were there for all sorts of reasons. They were super hard to convince.

7, How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise on both you as a curator and the museum as an institution?

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Lars: Yes, I think there is a binding power, most likely, to the point that when the accountants check your acquisitions and your KPI (key performance index) that you actually acted according to the different sets of policy that you have established. They can definitely have a look at your acquisition policy to see the acquisitions that you have made have or are in accordance with the acquisition policy. And of course, you will have to be prepared to defend your decisions in relationship to the acquisition policy. In the case of Moderna Museet, it is much more open and much less detailed. Mainly some reminders of things that you shouldn't forget. E.g. there is more than one gender.

About acquisition policies:

8, How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum, towards modernity/contemporaneity over time? Lars: Hopefully, the acquisition policy encourages your ability to look at the present and history from the position of now. There is an interplay with what might be the vision and mission of the museum. When I was at the Moderna Museet, we worked up a vision for the museum, a key thing, to embrace the friction between the idea that a museum is a place where you collect and order history, and the expectation that a modern museum or museum of 21st century art is a paradox. Because it is a contemporary arena and a historical construct, a changing historical construct. Lars: At the core of the vision and mission. We should embrace and play with that conflict, to generate energy out of the friction between the historical idea of a museum and the idea of the contemporary arena. And put these two ideas in play with each other. That was a central aspect of the museum. And there should be reflected or at least not be hindered by the acquisition policies.

9, How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change the policy in response to current trends? Lars: Depends on how you use the word trend. It can be a consequence of market actions, more than an artistic sort of change of shift. General shift in direction. It has to be a live document. You have to be prepared to rethink and redo it. Aspects like conflict of interest should always remain. But everything else, one should always be prepared to reconsider or re-write. But the bigger and the older the collection it is, the harder it is to change an acquisition policy.

10, Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for example, social documentations from various political movements that have significant cultural and historical value? Lars: Sounds like a Hong Kong question to a larger extent than a Swedish question. I think there are two things. Is your museum the most relevant context for these materials? Or are there alternative, other contexts for these materials that would be more meaningful.

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Lars: Taking the first umbrella movement for example. Was M+ the natural context for that? Or say the Hong Kong museum of History? Are you a hardcore art institution? Are you, as in the case of M+, an art, design, moving image, a much wider collecting institution? At the end of the day, if you have a very strict definition of art and use that as part of the acquisition policy as well. That could be, depending under what context and what intention, these social documents have been made. Whether they make sense in the art museum or not. I think in the case of umbrellas, some of them do make sense for M+. Maybe. It also depends on what other alternative collecting institutions that you have in that context. If you have museums by tradition have collected similar types of material before. I think it has a lot to do with context. The more specific the collection and collecting remit that an institution have, where it would end up. It is open for interpretation. It is not given. I think it has to do with the institutions landscape on that site, which museum is the most meaningful home.

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Isabella Tam. Associate curator of M+, Hong Kong in conversation with Jims Lam on 30th December 2020. About contemporary art:

1. How does your institution define “contemporary art”?

Isabella Tam: Basically, for M+, we say that we are a contemporary institution of the 20th and 21st century visual culture museum. So for us, our definition looks into the post-war. The period that we look specifically into is after World War II, in 1945. Because from where we are in Hong Kong, our time looks from 1949 onwards, and I don’t think this is how we define contemporary. Contemporary is a relative word. So for us, we think about the contemporary time, our way to collect and exhibit, also following this timeline after the post-World War II 1945 onwards. With the specific situation and locality from where we are in Hong Kong. Isabella: So I think this is kind of a vague definition, which is not a setting stone. Because for us, we also know that contemporary art or contemporary also was informed by the modern time, by the early time. That’s when we are building our collection, our narratives, we will not have a clear cut of all these lines (historical lines). We will also occasionally tap into the earlier moment, like the 30s or 20s, but that would be depending on the cases and the narratives that we are trying to build. So, it is a very fluid concept, but in general principle, how we see our work is not necessarily fixed by this time frame of contemporary. But more from post-world war 1945 onwards.

2. What do you understand by “contemporaneity”? Isabella: Contemporaneity is how we collect and how we tell the story with the Perspective of Now. In that case, it is flexible in terms of time, how an object can actually tell about the current moment whether this object was made by “now” or a hundred years ago. It is a matter of the concept of the object that informs the situation of now. The Perspective of Now, or contemporaneity should inform about the tendency that is emerging at the moment. Jims: Tendency as in a shift of artistic trend or changes that may be found in everyday life? Isabella: It can be both. It can be a shift in artistic trend or a shifting topic that is being addressed by many other artists. In summary, contemporaneity is less fixated, it has flexibility in the addressing of time.

3. How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective? Isabella: There are many ways. For example, if we look at the one year rope project of Hsieh Tehching made in the 1970s. It is a historical work from the 70s, and how it can refer and speak of tendency or phenomena of that time and in 2020. I think it is the institution’s responsibility in using an object to tell that story. In the case of Hsieh

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Tehching, even though it is an artwork made in the 70s, it is still responding to the contemporary moment, it is still contemporary in a sense that addresses contemporary issues like migration, imperialism or even like the situation in 2020 like distancing and isolation. As an institution, it is about how you utilized your treasure, that is the collection. An artwork made from the 1970s does not only fit in that specific narrative (time frame). But how you, as an institution, as a curator can expand your understanding of an object, how to make the object to become more relevant to current time. This is the responsibility or how an institution can contribute to contemporaneity of this time. Jims: How to make Hsieh more relevant to the audience of Hong Kong? Isabella: He is a global and important artist, but I think sometimes to make him relevant to the audience of Hong Kong is important. His performances touch on isolation and migration that are relevant to Hong Kong and to the Globe. But is it necessary to be super explicit to relate him to an event in Hong Kong? I have some reservations about that. There is a risk to do so. The artist may not want to be put in a context like that. I think there are many other ways to talk about contemporaneity with a local and global perspective. You can always use two (sources) works, one work made by a global artist and one work made by a local artist. How they are actually addressing similar issues and put them together. Juxtaposing them, just we can see different perspectives. They are sharing similar wills.

About institution:

4. What constitutes the acquisition policy in your institution? Isabella: There are a few things. We have a policy. We have a foundation which is the Sigg collection as the core of our collection when we start building our M+ collection. Just like any other museums, you need a major backbone to develop it. The Sigg collection is the founding collection as our backbone. With this collection, we build our collection to tell the story of Chinese art and its connection to art from Hong Kong and East Asia. You should remember the concentric circle that we shared many years ago. Jims: Yes, I remember seeing it. Isabella: Yes, that chart is also addressing a different time period, with the Sigg collection, it is the core. We start building with that. We acquire with a sense of time. The time is not just about contemporary time. We also look into earlier moments that are relevant to our collection. We have works by Frank Lloyd Wright, from the 1930s to talk about how his architectural project in Japan can also inform later Japanese architecture and representation. The sense of time is also important, when we collect and display, we have to make sure the work does not only speak to one specific geography. If you come see our collection, you can tell you are coming into an international museum, an Asian museum that you see work by makers from Asia, from Hong Kong, Japan. But at the same time, there is sort of an international conversation that is happening. This is something that we have to remember when we acquire when we collect. We should not limit the narrative of the objects from one specific local

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perspective. But that object can tell a broader geographical context. This is something that we argue and discuss when we collect, when we are building our collection. Isabella: Our collection acquisition strategies were drafted only a couple years ago. Our policy only provides us a framework of what kind of objects apart from time geography that we should collect. The three disciplines and Hong Kong visual culture. After 7or 8 years working on the same framework, the world has changed drastically in the past years. So, in terms of our direction of collecting, we should also be aware of the content, the area, the content that we want to draw. So, we will also shift our narratives, perhaps we may be more interested in objects that address the notion of science and environment. These are topics that are relevant at the moment. Even though this is not written in our acquisition policy, we have to know that the acquisition policy is only a framework, how content is created is still evolving. It is a continuously evolving process. As I said from the beginning, this is how your collection process is related to contemporaneity. So, this is how I would say the thinking that makes up the acquisition policy.

5. Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how and when to change the protocol? Jims: I guess we have already touched base on some parts of the next question that I am going to ask. Isabella: The framework only just gives you a backbone. It doesn’t actually direct you to narratives that you have to collect works that talk about the environment. That you have to collect works that talks about transgender. The acquisition policy won’t inform you about things specifically. It would only give you an overall framework about the object, the area that you will have to touch upon. There is so much flexibility. It is not a static document. It evolves as the world changes. Isabella: But of course, if after 50 years, if there is an object that is no longer relevant to an institution. Then this object may need to be deaccessioning. But this is another story. But at the moment, we would assume everything that we acquire. We assume everything would stay, let’s just say forever. The stories that we are building will continuously evolve. Jims: Who gets to decide and when to change the policy document? Isabella: There is occasionally an update. We review from time to time. Like every two years but it does not necessarily mean a huge change. Updates are minor. Essentially, the policy has to be endorsed by the acquisition committee and by the board, our governing body.

6. How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain

government regulations and by the museum? Isabella: Our acquisition policy is formulated on an international standard. Based on international museum standards.

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7. How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise on you as a curator and the museum as an institution? Isabella: The acquisition policy is only a framework that entails what kind of institution that we are. There is still a lot of work that a curator can do. For me, I look after the Chinese art and photography. The policy does not tell me to collect Chinese photography work. But through your research you find works that are essential to build around the narratives that you have. So I would say this is the power that I have. The policy does not limit you as a curator. On a contrast, it gives you room to liberty to conduct your own research and to contribute to the knowledge of the museum.

About acquisition policies:

8. How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum, towards modernity/contemporaneity over time? Isabella: The policy has a section about the time period. This section gives a sense the collection has to reflect, has to respond to contemporary of the time. It gives a direction that whatever you collect, the object should give a sense of contemporaneity.

9. How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change

the policy in response to current trends? Isabella: For example, like science and environment are topics and themes that we can explore when we are acquiring. And these are not the things that have to be input into the policy. You don’t want to be limited by the policy. Ultimately, the policy is just a springboard. The work of a curator and the institution to build a collection are on-going efforts. That continuously responds to the time. There are so many possibilities and so many rooms that you can look at. This would be a curatorial question of how we want to focus on the collection building. Thematic topics should not be fixed into the document. Jims: Does curatorial ideas or goals need to be translated into the document? Isabella: Yes, the document is just a general guideline. What is informing our actions and acquisitions are our research. And these researches have to be re-examined over time.

10. Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for example, social documentations from various political movements that have significant cultural and historical value?

Isabella: For me, it is very important to collect the original. This is the reason you

want to come to the museum, to see the original. Occasionally, a work can be ephemeral that is hard to collect, you can only collect the reproductive. As a priority of the museum, it is important to collect everything that is original. Isabella: For M+, we are looking at all sorts of objects that came out of all the political movements that have value. But I think we would be really careful on what and when

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to collect these objects. Particularly when these movements are still on-going, when people are still responding to the situation, we have to look closer and not to jump into conclusion. The meaning of objects changes rapidly in these movements. We have to make sure the objects that we acquire should be most relevant. Isabella: There are so many things that have been produced but these are the physical objects but realistically there is a limited space to collect. If a museum once begins collecting these works, it has the responsibility to preserve them for a long period of time. The story that these works tell, should be enough to tell the movement in objective stands. We have to be rational when collecting objects from the movements. Isabella: What we can do is to continue to do our research. Knowing what are the things that are coming out and who are the makers. So, when the movement calms down, we can really look into it and to select the right objects for the collection. Jims: Is a museum a neutral place? Isn't whatever a museum does, it implies meaning politically? Isabella: Neutral means not to take a side. You can not only tell one side of the story. You have to tell both sides of the story. Ultimately, it is important for a museum to embrace liberty and it should be a place for free speech.

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Anna Tellgren. Curator of photography of the Moderna Museet, Sweden in conversation with Jims Lam on 16th December 2020.

About contemporary art:

1. How should an institution define “contemporary art”? Anna Tellgren: We have modern art, postmodern art and now we are talking more about contemporary art. Something that has been discussed from the beginning of 2000 and on. We are talking more about postmodern art. Our museum's main mission is to present, preserve and collect arts from the 1900s until today. Except for the photography collection, we have everything from the whole history from the 1840s until today. The mission for the museum is to work on collecting modern art in the beginning of the 20th century. The closer to the present we have come, the more we talk about contemporary art. We are at the moment, 6 curators who have responsibility for different parts of the collection. The six sections. The responsibility of Swedish and Nordic art was divided between two curators. One of them is responsible for the 1900s to 1974 and the other 1974 until present. But we also have another date that is important, that is 1989. One curator who is responsible with international art until 1989, and then we are waiting for a new curator. This person will be responsible for international art from 1989 until the present. After 1989, this is what we are thinking as still contemporary. Jims: So, 1989 is not considered as an extension of modernity? Anna: Everything is of course not clear cut. If we have to explain what we are working on. If it comes to the presentation of the collection, we have different parts, we have the early modernist, the first part with art from late 19th century until 1920s, and then 1930s to 1970s around. The first part of the presentation of the collection with art from the 1980s until today, the most recent acquisition that we have today. We have to deal with it (the existing collection) as a museum. But you could also say, contemporary art is with living artists. Living artists who make art, that is contemporary. And that is not the same thing as the artists who are the latest and hottest. What is happening in the global art market is contemporary, but it is everything. We work with artists who are not on the art market. They are working locally but also working with contemporary art in Sweden today. I think this year 1989 is important because after that you can see another kind of art. It is easier to talk about contemporary art.

2. What do you understand by “contemporaneity”?

Anna: It is a philosophical one. As I understand it, contemporary art is special on its own. Contemporaneity can be a lot of other things. It is not a term that we use often in the museum. It is not something that we are talking about a lot in the museum. Contemporaneity is a theory and contemporary is part of the theory but there can be a lot of other things.

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3. How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective? Anna: One main mission is to show the local audience the international contemporary art. To show important artists from the world to the audience. And we show Swedish art to international audiences, like biennale. Anna: The global, Europe and the US are what most being represented in our museum.

About institution:

4. What constitutes the acquisition policy in your institution? Anna: We are now rewriting the policy. We had a policy for many years. We feel the need to make it more of a working document. But now, we have focused on how we work with acquisitions. One very important praxis, we receive a lot of proposals and proposals for donation. We don’t say yes to everything. We discuss them in the meeting. We have acquisition meetings 3 or 4 times every semester.

5. Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how and when to change the protocol? Anna: As mentioned, we are working on a new policy. Our new director and we felt the policy did not work well with today. The document should give us some strategies of how to work with acquisitions. In the meeting there are the curators and their team, and the director. But officially the director decides everything. We look at external proposals and we have proposals we made and then we decide what to go on with and what to reject. It is meetings with strict protocol but also a meeting with a lot of discussion of what is good to collect. Anna: We are the national museum of Sweden; we have the responsibility to have a good collection of the Swedish art. But in terms of international art, we can’t have everything. But we are looking for art and artists that can be a good complement to our collection. Or something that we have not been collecting before so that we can enrich our collection. There are different strategies. We have to be more inclusive for Swedish art because it is feasible. But for international art it is more difficult. If you look back in the history of the museum, artists that have been represented in the exhibition. They are often included in the collection. It is easier to buy things from the artists who have worked with the museum.

6. How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain

government regulations and by the museum? Anna: From the government, there are some rules related to our mission, but the government has no involvement in what we should buy and our operation. Our director is in close communication with the cultural department. We have a close relationship with the department, but they do not interfere.

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7. How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise on you as a curator and the museum as an institution? Anna: It is teamwork to work with acquisitions. I don’t see this is a power play. We could decide what to buy. But the good thing is that we are a group of people who discuss, it is a long process before you can buy something. It is important to know we will be able to take care of it and preserve it for the future. As a team we are knowledgeable. The acquisition decisions are made in a very safe and good way.

About acquisition policies:

8. How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum, towards modernity/contemporaneity over time? Anna: The change is you see and find new artists all the time. Art changes and we have to try to follow it. It is difficult for our institution to be the most up to date all the time. We have bought from an artist who has been out for a while, so we can see this is someone who has experience. But in the past, we have collected interesting new work from young artists.

Anna: We play long term attention. We have acquisition projects to make collecting more rich in specific areas. Like the Second Our Wishes of Museum, the Nordic Collection and the project the Larger World.

Anna: Not changing the direction but to have a focus and a theme of special attention to make a change. In a way it has more to do with raising money.

9. How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change

the policy in response to current trends? Anna: When an artist becomes well known, then the work is too expensive for a museum to afford. It is a combination of being aware of what is happening in the art world. We should buy early, but not too early, because museum acquisition can amplify. Institutions like us cannot buy everything, even if these things are appeal to the public.

10. Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for example, social documentations from various political movements that have significant cultural and historical value?

Anna: We buy originals. In my focused area, we buy vintage prints, if we buy from an older photographer, the idea is to have vintage prints made and signed by the photographers, at the time that the photography was taken. If that is not possible, we buy prints or editions.

Anna: As I understand what you mean it is more about the documentation and archive.

We collect information around the artwork that we have around the acquisition, artist and the collection. But not everything, we do not take in archive. We are following the artists. If an artist presents a piece of work where the documentation is an important

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part of it, then we will include the documentation, such as document and film. We give a full picture of the artist that we collect or include in the collection. We do not have an archive of everything, when we include a new work, we also have information around that work. We try to be very careful now to receive information about the work that we need in order to take care of the work.

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Appendix 2: Questionnaire

About contemporary art:

1. How does your institution define “contemporary art”?

2. What do you understand by “contemporaneity”?

3. How do you think the institution will contribute to our understanding of contemporary

art/contemporaneity in a global/local perspective?

About institution:

4. What constitutes the acquisition policy in your institution?

5. Is the acquisition policy a dynamic protocol or a static document? Who decides how

and when to change the protocol?

6. How has the acquisition policy been formulated in accordance with certain

government regulations and by the museum?

7. How much institutional power and binding power does the acquisition policy exercise

on you as a curator and the museum as an institution?

About acquisition policies:

8. How is working with acquisition policy changing the direction of the museum,

towards modernity/contemporaneity over time?

9. How may the acquisition policy be trend sensitive? Would it be problematic to change

the policy in response to current trends?

10. Is it still important for your institution to collect originals? Would you collect for

example, social documentations from various political movements that have

significant cultural and historical value?

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