Curating the Contemporary:
An exhibition history of the museum of modern art as a new Bildung institution
Re-reading art history with a focus on exhibitions bring new understandings of the configuration of contemporary art and the changing role of its central institutions. This research can raise many questions – and provide many answers – to undiscovered aspects of Danish and international art history. Our aim is to investigate, from the postwar era until today, the dynamic interplay between the museum and the curated thematic exhibition, the rethinking of the museum in relation to the contemporary (art), and the reimagining of the museum as a Bildung institution.
Research activities
With a program of research activities the project will examine the changing role of the central institutions in the Danish art world, primarily the curatorial agency and international collaborations of Louisiana and the visions for a national gallery of contemporary art at Statens Museum for Kunst.
Combining research in Exhibition Histories and museology we investigate the complex character of the exhibition and its special relationship to the contemporary, in both academic and museal research environments. The project contributes to the developing field of exhibition research in the Nordic context.
This research project is hosted at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies and SMK – National Gallery of Denmark and is funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research (2019-2021).
Malene Vest Hansen: “Wonderland or Utopia” Louisiana Museum of Modern Art: The New Museum for the Danish Welfare Society, Etudes Germaniques, 2023.
Malene Vest Hansen og Kristian Handberg (eds): Curating the Contemporary in the Art Museum, Routledge 2023.
Kristian Handberg: “Danmark ved Venedigbiennalen 1940-1960: Den nationale vej mod international udstillingssucces”, Perspective 2021.
Kristian Handberg: Vitalitá nell’arte: An Entry into the Trans-European Birth of the Contemporary Art Exhibition? In Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History (2020).
Kristian Handberg: Conquering the present in the Long Sixties. The curatorial birth of contemporary art (Antipyrine 2019).
Malene Vest Hansen: Mellem Slaraffenland og Utopia: Louisiana som velfærdssamfundets nye oplevelsesmuseum, In Bisgaard, L., Christensen H.D., Warring A. (red.) Dansk Museumsformidling i 400 år. I krydsfeltet oplysning-oplevelse, 2020: 233-260.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kristian Handberg | Assistant Professor | +4535334869 | |
| Malene Vest Hansen | Associate Professor | +4535329291 |
Funding
Activities
Event:
Curating the Contemporary in the Art Museum - Editors Malene Vest Hansen and Kristian Handberg in conversation with various authors.
Read more.
New publication:
Curating the Contemporary in the Art Museum - Edited By Malene Vest Hansenand Kristian Handberg, Routledge (2023).
Curating the Contemporary in the Art Museum – an anthology with contributions by among others Claire Bishop, Beatrice von Bismarck, Tominga Hope O’Donnell, Kerry Greaves, and the editors Malene Vest Hansen and Kristian Handberg has been published by Routledge (2023).
International conference:
Curating the Contemporary in the Art Museum,
The conference has been postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis. More information to come.
Read more.
Past activities
Open lecture: A Curatorial History from the Cold War
With Anthony Gardner (Head of School, Ruskins School of Art, Oxford University).
November 28 2019, 14:00-16:00
Read more.
2nd Workshop:
Exhibition Histories
With Anthony Gardner (Oxford University).
Copenhagen, November 28-29, 2019
Open lecture:
Independence? Lawrence Alloway as critic and curator 1955-1985
By Courtney J. Martin (Chief Curator, DIA Arts Foundation, New York).
Copenhagen, February 21-22, 2019.
Read more.
Kick-off Workshop:
The Art World of the Contemporary in the 1960s
With Courtney J. Martin (Chief Curator, DIA Arts Foundation, New York).
Copenhagen, February 21-22, 2019.
See programme (pdf).