Looking for Signs of Life

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Notes

1. The Moderna Museet was developed from the collection of the Nationalmuseum, which was one of the first public art collections, dating from 1792. On Moderna Museet's history, see The History Book: On Moderna Museet, ed. Anna Tellgren, Stockholm/Göttingen, 2008.

2. Much of the following argument is founded on my book, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, Cambridge, MA, 1998. See also the author's articles cited in note 13.

3. Poetry Must Be Made by All! Change the World! was conceived and organized by Ronald Hunt, Department of Fine Art, University of Newcastle, England.

4. »Introduction«, Poesin måste göras av alla! Poetry must be made by all! Förändra världen! Transform the world!, Katja Waldén (ed.), Ronald Hunt (curator), with texts by Istvan Foth, Pontus Hultén and Ronald Hunt (exhibition catalogue), Stockholm 1969, p. 5.

5. »The hang of it. Hans-Ulrich Obrist talks with Pontus Hultén«, Artforum, April 1997, available at BNet: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n8_v35/ai_19416259/pg_8 (accessed 13 December 2008).

6. »The hang of it. Hans-Ulrich Obrist talks with Pontus Hultén«, Artforum, April 1997, available at BNet: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n8_v35/ai_19416259/pg_8 (accessed 13 December 2008).

7. »The hang of it. Hans-Ulrich Obrist talks with Pontus Hultén«, Artforum, April 1997, available at BNet: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n8_v35/ai_19416259/pg_8 (accessed 13 December 2008).

8. This description was part of a overarching thesis regarding the establishment of conventions of modern art museum practices, and a reconfiguration of this system that took place in the US, which was marked by a foreclosure of social, economic and political engagement at the Museum of Modern Art from the mid-1970s on; see Staniszewski, The Power of Display. In my lecture I gave a more in-depth presentation of this material.

9. See Staniszewski, The Power of Display, particularly chapters 5 and 6, and for quote, p. 281.

10. See Cecilia Widenheim and Eva Rudberg (eds), Utopia and Reality: Swedish Modernism 1900–1960, Stockholm, 2000. English translation New Haven, 2002, p. 134.

11. Hultén in his interview with Obrist, see note 5, but at the url http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n8_v35/ai_19416259/pg_9

12. During informal talks with participants at the symposium at Moderna Museet, the former curator Monica Nieckels argued that it had little effect on the museum's programming and Beate Sydhoff, former art critic, did contextualize the museum's programming in terms of the »new freedom« gained at the end of the 1960s.

13. For a more extensive analysis and »tour« of the »New MoMA«, see the author's »What's so new about MoMA?«, Newsday, Sunday Opinion Section, 23 January 2005, p. A. 41, and »Grand Illusions: The ‘New’ Museum of Modern Art«, Curating Subjects, ed. Paul O'Neil, London, 2007.

14. See Samuel Cauman, The Living Museum: Experiences of an Art Historian and Museum Director, Alexander Dorner, New York, 1958.

15. See »Exhibitions«, Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/ (accessed 14 December 2008).

16. See »Past Programs«, Exit Art, http://www.exitart.org/site/pub/exhibition_programs/current_exhibitions.html (accessed 14 December 2008). Also see the author's forthcoming essay that reviews Exit Art's programming history, »An Exit Is Always an Entrance« (a short history of Exit Art), in the forthcoming Exit Art: 25th Anniversary book. I present a more in-depth overview of Exit Art's exhibition history than was presented in my lecture.

17. The following discussion briefly references a more in-depth examination of these issues found in my articles on this subject (note 13).

18. The comment was made by my husband, Mark Looney.

19. See John Schwartz, »Museum Kills Live Exhibit«, New York Times, 13 May 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/science/13coat.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin, and Cory Doctorow, »Curator Euthanizes Living Leather Jacket made from … « , BoingBoing, http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/08/curator-euthanizes-l.html (accessed 14 December 2008). E-mail to author from Oron Catts, 5 August 2008.

20. I am a professor in the Department of the Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.