[artinfo] online course: Public/Private: Museums and Rival Institutions in the Contemporary Art World

[Fruzsina Kigyós]

*The next course:* Public/Private: Museums and Rival Institutions in the
Contemporary Art World

*Lecturer:* Gábor Ébli, PhD, associate professor

*Dates:* 10th September-24th September 2013

The course offers 3 video conferences every Tuesday, 5 pm CET

*Application deadline:* 2nd September 2013

*Course fee:* 85 €

www.cartc.hu



 *Programme:*


 *week1:* Historical and Theoretical Background of the Public / Private
Controversy

Museums both benefit and suffer from the tension and co-operation between
the public and private spheres of culture. Often established or enriched by
private donations, they are dominantly public institutions, financed by
taxpayer money and directed by state administration. While large national
museums tend to conform closer to governmental guidelines, flexible museums
of contemporary art increasingly integrate private initiatives in funding
and in curatorial content alike. From private foundations to corporate art
awards, a growing spectrum of competitive institutions of contemporary art
also forces museums to adopt new collection strategies and exhibition
schemes. This first lecture, in a line of three, will look at earlier
models of the public / private relationship in modern museum history as
well as at the structural, theoretical foundations of why and how public /
private museums engage in contemporary art.


 *week 2: *Museums and Cultural Policy: Case Studies from Eastern Europe

Lecture II of the series concentrates on public museums of contemporary art
from two points of view. First, their ties to the central and local
governments are examined. Why do governments finance the representation of
the art of the present in institutions that are supposed to be the
custodians of the past? And once they do so, what specific canonisation
guidelines do these state bureaucracies try to force upon museums? Second,
in selecting the examples and case studies to illustrate these issues, this
lecture will have a geographic focus – on Central and Eastern Europe. Since
the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the notions of contemporary art and of
public museums have been severally re-defined in this region. The as many
as twenty independent states, plus a giant on its own, Russia, in this vast
terrain from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans, boast today some quite
progressive museums (for instance in Poland, Slovenia and Croatia), along
with numerous examples where national governments restrict the professional
autonomy of museums and other institutions of contemporary art.


 *week 3:* Private Collecting and Corporate Patronage: Comparative Overview
from Eastern Europe

The current economic crisis highlights the importance of private
institutions of contemporary art by proving that in times of scarce public
budgets – and often of conservative governmental cultural policies –
private initiatives may provide a financially and politically welcome
alternative to monolithic state museums. This lecture will present the
leading private collections of contemporary art in Central and Eastern
Europe and the private museums, with their often spectacular architecture,
that have been born of these collections, from Prague to St. Petersburg.
Next to individuals, the “private” label also covers companies, whose
awards and prizes, such as the Strabag Prize, the Young Visual Artists
Awards and the projects funded by the Vienna-based Transit Network, are
instrumental for the development of contemporary art in the region.


 Application form avaible from www.cartc.hu



-- 
Kigyós Fruzsina
36.70.636.7132