Luxembourg Exhibition Challenges the Role of the Contemporary Museum
By Mary Whitlock
Mudam, Musée d’Art Modern Grand-Duc Jean. Photo courtesy of Luxembourg City Tourist Office.
The Mudam Museum, a contemporary art museum in Luxembourg, has recently opened the second chapter of its three part exhibition titled A Model. The first instalment opened in December 2023 and will overlap with the second one by running through until May 2024. It was titled A Model: Prelude – Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy and involved a monumental site-specific installation centred around pivotal moments in Luxembourg history. The second part, A Model, involves commissions structured around the museum’s collection. The third, A Model: Epilogue, will challenge our value systems by placing unassuming everyday objects in a museum context.
It is the first exhibition organised by the new Director Bettina Steinbrügge since she took up the role in 2022 and through it she aims to explore the role of the contemporary art museum. She believes that “Artists are shaping the museum model” and so wanted to give them space to re-evaluate it. For her it is all about “building up different kinds of experiences”, creating the opportunity “for the team and for Luxembourg to reflect openly on what Mudam can become.” Part of this re-evaluation is in emphasising the need to take social change into consideration and rethinking beliefs that have been taken for granted for decades.
The exhibition is in part inspired by the 1968 work by Palle Nielsen at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm; a piece, titled The Model: A Model for a Qualitative Society, that combined education project, art installation, and political protest. It involved setting up a large and varied indoor playground, giving a total of 20,000 children the opportunity to run and play around the museum freely, with no rules, parents or educators. Children’s play became an instrument for social and political activism, demonstrating their importance in the formation of communities and challenging the social elite connotations of art and museum culture.
It is this deconstruction of the ‘White Cube’ idea of an art gallery that Steinbrügge wanted to build from. For the second part of the exhibition, she chose twelve artists whose “practice critically reflects on museum institutions” and commissioned them to produce new work based on the museum’s existing collections. As such the pieces are “urgent and necessary and tell us about our time” but are also in dialogue with the institution’s past.
Andrea Bowers, Radical Feminist Pirate Ship Tree Sitting Platform, 2013, recycled wood, rope, carabiners, misc. equipment and supplies, 360 × 800 × 220 cm. Photo courtesy of Artsy.
One such installation from the collection is Andrea Bowers’ 2013 work titled Radical Feminist Pirate Ship Tree Sitting Platform. It subverts the traditional idea of patriarchy through turning the masculine symbol of a pirate ship into a feminist vessel. Another is The Rebellion of the Roots (France) by Daniella Ortiz from 2021. This involves painted panels of three figures resisting colonial rule, including François Machandal, leader of a slave revolt in Haiti in the 18th century. Steinbrügge stresses the importance of decolonisation and states that she doesn’t “believe in neutrality. We have to understand our context, where we are coming from and be transparent about it.”
The exhibition seeks to go beyond the role of the museum as object repository to that of an active and performative environment that can respond to the needs of its age. It creates a museum that is a “living place, sensitive and receptive to contemporary debates”, something that all museums should aim to be.
Bibliography
Art. Play. Children. Learning. “Palle Nielsen, The Model & play as social activism”. 3 September 2017. Accessed 27 February 2024. http://www.louisapenfold.com/palle-nielsen-the-model/
Cane, Hesper. “The Group Exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg Reimagines New Models for the Museum”. Widewalls. 25 January 2024. Accessed 27 February 2024. https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/group-exhibition-mudam-luxembourg
e-flux Announcements. “A Model”. 5 February 2024. Accessed 27 February 2024.
https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/581703/a-model/
Harris, Gareth. “Do museums still matter? New show at Mudam Luxembourg examines why and how museums operate.” 23 February 2024. Accessed 27 February 2024. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/23/do-museums-still-matter-new-show-at-mudam-luxembourg-examines-why-and-how-institutions-operate
MACBA, Palle Nielsen. “The Model - A Model for a Qualitative Society”. Accessed 27 February 2024. https://www.macba.cat/en/learn-explore/publications/palle-nielsen-model-model-qualitative-society
Mudam: A Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg. “A Model”. Accessed 27 February 2024. https://www.mudam.com/exhibitions/a-model
MUDAM Luxembourg. Facebook Post. 17 January 2024. Accessed 27 February 2024. https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=773374601502785&id=100064907553167&paipv=0&eav=AfYOkCwrrXsTFtLY8RM_JotSZYettInzNW0oNPHVSy-QdoThyyDiYc-5j4slXUjeGLU&_rdr