New Belgian Art Center, Baltic Triennial, and More
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART OPENS AT GRAND HORNU, BELGIUM: Le Monde's Emmanuel de Roux visits the new Musée d'Art Contemporain (MAC), recently opened at Grand Hornu, an abandoned former coal-mining village near Mons, Belgium. Liège-based architect Pierre Hebbelinck added a new structure to a nineteenth-century brick complex, creating six thousand square feet of exhibition space, for a total of 25,500 square feet. To de Roux, the transformation—which cost 16.7 million euros—successfully unites the aims of "heritage" with the practices of contemporary art. He contrasts the site with Paris's Palais de Tokyo, "a neoclassical building disguised as an abandoned factory." Apart from exploring the site, de Roux gives readers a history of Grand Hornu, which stopped mining in 1954 and was saved from demolition in 1970, before its fate as a museum was decided in 1991. In an interview, the director, Laurent Busine, describes how he began to build an audience from local students and educators over three years ago, when construction for the museum was already underway. "We went to a small group of people to speak to them about an original artwork that we brought along," recalls Busine. "We responded to their questions. This campaign was a great success, and we will continue it." Busine also comments on the MAC's first exhibition, "The Herbarium and the Cloud"—a reflection on the "theme of the earth and the sky, the memory of people, and the inventory of images of the world." The exhibition includes works by Bram van Velde, Michel Frère, Andres Serrano, Rineke Dijkstra, Zhuang Hui, and Fausto Melotti.
BALTIC TRIENNIAL: The Frankfurter Rundschau's Matthias Mühling reports from the 8th Baltic Triennial for International Art, which is taking place in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The German curator Tobias Berger has created one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art in Eastern Europe to date—covering eighteen thousand square feet and including sixty artists hailing from the West and from such local climes as Minsk, Novosibirsk, Riga, Tallinn, and even Vilnius. Berger's theme—"Center of Attraction"—"highlights the problems and possibilities of art, city, and knowledge centers while playing with the entertainment expectations of the jet-setting art public," writes Mühling, who notes the predominance of video, photography, and installation works over painting in the exhibition. In the growing flood of bi-, tri- and quadrennials, Mühling sees the Baltic Triennial as exceptional, if not for its location, then for its history. "The highly respected facility has existed since 1979," he writes. "It was already a forum for contemporary art during the Soviet era, where positions could move outside the Party-dictated canon." While the reputation remains, the themes have clearly changed. Among the Lithuanian artists participating, Darius Miksys uses CDs to explore the history of youth in a postcommunist society, while Audrius Novickas offers a video of the German chancellor's site-seeing tour of the city.
GERMAN CULTURAL ADVISER RESIGNS: Julian Nida-Rümelin, the German government representative for culture and media affairs, has announced that he will leave his position in order to return to Göttingen University, where he has held a chair in philosophy since 1993. Like his predecessor Michael Naumann, Nida-Rümelin served as Chancellor Schröder's top adviser on cultural and media affairs for only two years. The philosopher-statesman would have liked to have kept his position longer, but he was unable to reach a compromise with Göttingen in order to extend his already extended sabbatical leave. Nida-Rümelin's accomplishments include the creation of a national cultural foundation as well as reforms on copyright and artists' health insurance and a reduction in the taxation of foreign artists. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's report offers no speculation on a possible successor, but Süddeutsche Zeitung's Marianne Heuwagen names Thomas Krüger, who heads the government head office for political education, as well as Monika Griefahn, the chairperson for the government cultural committee. The Frankfurter Rundschau's Christian Schlüter adds Berlin publisher Arnulf Conradi and the former Woche chief editor Manfred Bissinger to the list of possible candidates.
— Jennifer Allen
Dercon Goes To Munich; The Stedelijk's Woes
DERCON HEADS FOR HAUS DER KUNST: Chris Dercon is leaving his position as the artistic director of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam to head the Haus der Kunst in Munich. The forty-four-year-old Belgian, who has been at Boijmans for seven years, has signed a five-year contract in Munich and will officially take over for the current director, Christoph Vitali, in June 2003. NRC Handelsblad's report speculates that the change in Rotterdam’s political climate may well have hastened Dercon's departure. Recently, Dercon lamented the "Berlusconi culture in the city" since Leefbaar Rotterdam (Liveable Rotterdam), the right-wing party of the assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, came to power. Wim Pijbes from the Rotterdam Kunsthal as well as Sjarel Ex from the Centraal Museum in Utrecht are named as possible successors to Dercon, although the museum has made no comment.
In Germany, the reaction is positive. "A bonus for Munich, an extraordinary stroke of good luck," writes Süddeutsche Zeitung'sHolger Liebs, who welcomes Dercon's appointment following a long period of uncertainty that began when—to the surprise and dismay of many in the art world—Bavarian art minister Hans Zehetmair did not renew Vitali's contract. In an interview with Liebs, Dercon unveils his plans for Haus der Kunst, which include projects with architects Herzog & de Meuron, filmmaker Alexander Kluge, and even rock legend Patti Smith, as well as institutional collaborations with Fundação de Serralves in Porto, the MACBA in Barcelona, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.
Claiming a need for a change, Dercon denies that the motivations for his departure were political and adds that he will remain active in Rotterdam. "I'm organizing the protest there," Dercon explains. "The situation is catastrophic. The city's new program—'Safety First'—is supposed to cost seventy million euros—with an annual ten million euro contribution coming directly from the arts budget. Imagine that! Recently, I brought Maurizio Cattelan's sculpture of the praying Hitler to Boijmans Van Beuningen—an interesting political effect."
GRIM OUTLOOK FOR STEDELIJK: In Amsterdam, the Stedelijk Museum is feeling a budget crunch, not from the new conservative-right government, but from the local Liberal Democratic majority. According to an NRC Handelsblad report, the Amsterdam city council has decided that the museum will not be expanded, as originally proposed, but simply renovated. Expansion plans, which were initiated thirteen years ago, have proved too costly. Unable to secure the ninety-seven million euros needed for a new building, the city council has instead pledged approximately fifty-seven million euros to make much-needed repairs throughout the existing museum. The NRC Handelsblad's
Steven Adolf spoke with the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, the designer of the would-be extension, in Madrid. "I'm speechless," was Siza’s angry reaction. "The project planning was a disaster from the beginning." As if the failed expansion were not bad news enough for the Stedelijk, it appears that the next round of budget cuts will only hasten the museum's decline. When nixing the extension, Hannah Belliot, Amsterdam's Liberal Democratic councillor for culture, added that the city could not cover the museum's annual nine million euro maintenance costs and will be offering no more than three million euros in 2003.