Museums and Universal Heritage: Contemporary Institutions as Producers in Late Capitalism

  • CIMAM (International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) Annual Conference

    Generali Foundation, Austria, Vienna
    August 20-21, 2007

ACSl was represented at the CIMAM Annual Conference incorporating 120 museum directors and curators from 45 countries. The conference is an important forum for communication, collaboration, and information exchange between museum professionals, artists, and other individuals and organizations concerned with the issues of modern and contemporary art. The guiding principle of the conference is the presentation of new, unpublished works followed by an open discussion. One of the aims of the annual meeting is facilitating innovative possibilities for partnerships among modern and contemporary art professionals from different regions of the world, contributing to overall cooperation and emergence of joint initiatives. One of the main topics of the conference was the shift of paradigms in museum policies. While acquisition and collecting, conservation and preserving, scientific work and research, exhibiting and publishing, as well as education are still in the official agenda, contemporary art museums and institutions have to cope with a great number of complex issues of different kinds in order to legitimize their existence.

 
The 2-day meeting was comprised of 3 sessions:

  • The Museum as a Public Sphere and Its Audience;
  • Beyond Museums;
  • Research, Education, Production and Dissemination of Knowledge.

 
Conference speakers

Alfred Pacquement – President of CIMAM and Director, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Sabine Breitwieser – Director, Generali Foundation, Vienna
Peter Weibel – artist, curator, art and media theoretician, Director ZKM, Karlsruhe
Charles Esche – director, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Chantal Mouffe – political theorist, University of Westminster, London
Georg Schöllhammer – author, curator and editor in chief of Documenta 12 magazines, Vienna
Ann Goldstein – senior curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Pavel Braila – artist, Moldova and Germany
Natasa Ilic – curator of ‘What, How and for Whom’, Zagreb
Florian Pumhösl – artist and editor of montage, Vienna
Christian Höller – art and cultural theorist, editorial board of Springerin, Vienna
Lisette Lagnado – chief curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo
Gerald Raunig – philosopher, eipcp.net, Vienna
East Art Map/IRWIN – artist group, Ljubljana, Slovenia