[artinfo] CFP: Museum in Motion?

[Andreas Broeckmann]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Museum in Motion?
12 - 13 November 2004
Jan Van Eyck Academie Maastricht / Department of Architecture & Urban
Planning Ghent University / Museum Het Domein Sittard

Since the second half of the twentieth century the museum for contemporary
art no longer functions as a static repository for the art of the past, but
as a dynamic workshop for the art of the present. But since the 1960s, art
has drastically altered its nature and strategies: it has become ever more
agile, critical toward the institutional framework of the museum, and eager
to operate on more specific sites. The museum of contemporary art wants to
keep up pace, but is confronted with spatial, institutional, and
socio-political problems and limitations. It suffers from the unhappy
conscience that it is never able to occupy a true place in the artistic
present, as it always 'frames' art. This identity crisis incites the museum
to indulge in ongoing self-critique, institutional introspection, and
ultimately, self-denial. In recent decades, we have been confronted 
with dozens of museums that, following the artists, contest their own 
space and develop an anti-museum
policy, some even going so far as to pretend to stop being a museum.

The conference 'Museum in Motion?' intends to trace the history of the
critical correlation between contemporary art and the museum, to chart the
various institutional responses, and to frame them within the broader
context of socio-political changes. The title literally refers to one of the
most important publications on the museum discussion in the 1970s: Museum in
Motion? The modern art museum at issue / Museum in Beweging? Het museum voor
moderne kunst ter diskussie, published in 1979.

We seek contributions that discuss the fundamental changes that have
occurred since its publication precisely one quarter of a century ago. Are
museums still confronted with the same problems? When precisely did the
dream of the mobile or living museum originate? Which forms and strategies
of mobility have so far been developed? Where does the real motion stop and
rhetorics come in? Is the critical relationship between art and the museum
still a point of discussion? Or, do the massive socio-political changes in
our society confront the museum with a much bigger challenge? How are we to
define the future role of the museum of contemporary art, being one of the
preeminent public institutions?

The conference 'Museum in Motion?' applies two different formats. On Friday
November 12 a symposium with invited speakers will be held at Museum het
Domein in Sittard (program to be announced in September). Saturday November
13, a seminar with two sessions based on an international call for papers
will be held at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Speakers of the
symposium on Friday will be invited to act as referees during the seminar on
Saturday. Both sessions are open to the public.

More information will be posted in September on:
http://www.museuminmotion.tk

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