PRESENTATION

PRESENTATION

10,000 francos de recompensa (A 10,000 franc reward) is the title of a 1974 interview given to Irmeline Lebeer by Marcel Broodthaers in which the Belgian artist criticised the fact that art was imprisoned by its own ghosts, used to embellish spaces of institutions as a sign of power, and wandered like a shadow through the layers of history. Broodthaers clearly distanced himself from the modernist belief that museums, as repositories of artistic essence, had to expose a universal reality which should be able to transform society. More than thirty years later, the questions and doubts posed by Broodthaers regarding the role of modern museums continue to be valid and most of them remain unresolved.

With the aim of discussing the role of museums in today's society and proposing organisational models, the Spanish Association of Contemporary Art Directors -ADACE - which was established as a forum for reflection and debate on the role and function of museums and contemporary art centres in Spain - has proposed the setting up of an international seminar which is intended to be held every other year.

At the seminar, Spanish museum directors and curators will be reviewing the current situation of the subject with other international colleagues, thinkers and artists.

10,000 francs reward (The Contemporary Art Museum, dead or alive) is a project directed by the Spanish Association of Contemporary Art Directors-ADACE and organised by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad-SEACEX and the International University of Andalusia-UNIA artandthinking.

PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME

Friday, 15 December 2006
· 17:30 h
Opening

· 18:30 h
Programme presentation: Manuel J. Borja-Villel and Yolanda Romero

· 19:00 h
Opening lecture: Benjamin Buchloh

Saturday, 16 December 2006
· 10:00 h
The museum as a space of regeneration
Looking beyond Huntington's clash of civilisations, it is highly likely that we find ourselves at the end of an era and that its outcome may well be conflict on a world scale. Recent political events, fundamentalisms of every type and this kind of self-imposed authoritarianism towards which Western democratic models seem to be degenerating would suggest such a scenario. It may be appropriate to remember that, as occurred in the time of neo-realist Europe, in this context art and museums acquire a leading role in the regeneration and re-establishment of new spaces of sociability. How do we see the 21st-century museum? What new forms of sociability and education can we create? How can we rethink the museum as a space of social regeneration?

Discussion table: Benjamin Buchloh, Chris Dercon, Simón Marchán, Santos Zunzunegui
Moderator: Manuel J. Borja-Villel

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· 17:00 h
Between the white cube and the black box
The rupture brought about by the change in artistic paradigm that took place in the sixties and seventies onwards also entailed a rethinking of mediation spaces. These could no longer be considered in terms of either white cube (modern art museum) or black box (cinema). Theatricality involves an opening up of relational space, a wide, agonizing space. It also requires space for performance. In the same way as text in the theatre is in fact a kind of pre-text that only makes sense when the work is "performed", perhaps we should be thinking about exhibition devices in which this "updating" of artwork is also made possible.

Lecture: Martin Jay
Discussion table: Jean-François Chevrier, Antoni Muntadas, Suely Rolnik
Moderator: Nuria Enguita Mayo

Sunday, 17 December 2006
· 10:00 h
What history are we telling? How are narrations built?
All works of art are of course complex, and any display practice, any exhibition, is never entirely consumed at the very moment it appears. The classical history of art, which attempted to situate artwork in its original setting, makes no sense in this context. In the case of exhibitions, the figure of the narrator becomes obvious in their very structure. How do we narrate? How are narrations built? What role is played by the curator and his or her relationship with the reality of art? These are just a few of the questions we have to ask ourselves regarding what histories we are telling.

Lecture: Mieke Bal
Discussion table: Roger Buergel, Beatriz Herráez, Allan Sekula
Moderator: Javier González de Durana

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· 17:00 h
The sub-alternative voice: Latin America
In a world where the predominant discourse is one of multiculturalism, and cultural policy is that which is politically correct, we are inclined to imagine an artistic construction in which "the other" can talk to us, when in fact this is not the case and, in the end, the real tendency is for us to nullify any kind of difference or discord. The need to understand the sub-alternative is essential if we want to prevent the art institution from becoming a kind of republic of arts, and the artists our national patriarchs.

Lecture: John Beverley
Discussion table: Gustavo Buntinx, Paulo Herkenhoff, Ana Longoni
Moderator: Teresa Velázquez

Monday, 18 December 2006
· 10:00 h
Towards a distorted education
Education is still largely ignored as a valid element in the attainment of freedom. Most of today's education programmes continue to promote inequality, obstructing real access to knowledge. We cannot fail to recognise that with the best of intentions the museum as an institution goes to great lengths and employs considerable resources to "take art to its public" in an attempt to display the treasures accumulated in its collections. These reformist measures have achieved nothing more than the perpetuation of some of the fallacies on which modern education systems have been established, such as transparency, progress, and education as mere transmission and access. How can a museum explain history, the memory(ies) of which it is the guardian? In short, how can history be written and explained? The subject of education is obviously inseparable from that of narration. No alternative education policy can be put into practice unless the history(ies) being told are also alternative.

Lecture: René Schérer
Discussion table: Manuel Asensi, Ute Meta Bauer, Martha Rosler
Moderator: Juan de Nieves

PARTICIPANTS

PARTICIPANTS

Manuel Asensi. Professor of Theory of Literature, University of Valencia.

Mieke Bal. Academy Proffesor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Proffesor of Theory of Literature, University of Amsterdam.

John Beverley. Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies, Pittsburg University.

Manuel J. Borja-Villel. Director of the Museu d' Art Contemporani of Barcelona.

Roger Buergel. Director of Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany.

Benjamim Buchloh. Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Art History, Harvard University.

Gustavo Buntinx. Director of the San Marcos Cultural Centre, Lima.

Jean-François Chevrier. Professor of the Higher National School of Fine Arts, Paris.

Chris Dercon. Director of the Haus der Kunst, Munich.

Nuria Enguita Mayo. Project Director of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies of Barcelona.

Javier González de Durana. Director of the Artium Vitoria-Gazteiz Museum.

Beatriz Herráez. Historian and art critic, Madrid.

Paulo Herkenhoff. Art critic, Rio de Janeiro.

Martin Jay. Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley.

Ana Longoni. Professor of the University of Buenos Aires and Researcher (CONICET).

Ute Meta Bauer. Associated Professor and Director of the Visual Arts Program, MIT, Cambridge, USA.

Simón Marchán. Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory, Department of Philosophy of the Spanish Open University.

Antoni Muntadas. Artist.

Juan de Nieves. Artistic Director of the Espai d' Art Contemporani of Castelló.

Martha Rosler. Artist.

Suely Rolnik. Coordinator of the Postgraduate Studies on the contemporary subjectivity, Catholic University of Sao Paulo.

Yolanda Romero. Director of the Centro José Guerrero of Granada.

René Schérer. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Paris-VIII Saint Denis University.

Allan Sekula. Artist.

Teresa Velázquez. Manager of Contents of Centro Matadero, Madrid.

Santos Zunzunegui. Professor of Audiovisual Communication and Publicity of the Department of Social Sciences and Communication, University of the Basque Country.