Discussion among "L'Internationale" Museums' Directors
Internationalism After the End of Globalisation

The second part of the "Never Again: Art against War and Fascism in the 20th and 21st Centuries" conference was the summit "Internationalism after the end of globalisation".

Following the famous 11th thesis on Feuerbach, the aim of the summit was not only to reflect upon the failures of globalisation, but to revisit internationalism as an unfinished project.

A discussion among directors representing European museums belonging to the L’Internationale confederation was devoted to a comparison of the social mission and program tasks of the museums, in the face of political tensions, including tensions arising in the interpretation of history and relating to the history of works of art.

Participants:

Zdenka Badovinac

Director of the Moderna galerija and the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova MSUM (Ljubljana) since 1993. Curated numerous exhibitions presenting both Slovenian and international artists. Initiated the first collection of Eastern European art, Moderna galerija’s 2000+ Arteast Collection. Slovenian Commissioner at the Venice Biennale (1993–1997, 2005, 2017) and Austrian Commissioner at the São Paulo Biennial (2002). In 2011–2013 president of CIMAM - International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Her recent projects are: “Low-Budget Utopias”, with Bojana Piškur, at MSUM Ljubljana (2016); “NSK from Kapital to Capital. Neue Slowenische Kunst – an Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia” at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2016); “Heavenly Beings: Neither Human nor Animal”,with Bojana Piškur, at the Museo Reina Sofía Madrid (2017); “Hello World. Revising a Collection; Sites of Sustainability. Pavilions, Manifestos and Crypts” at Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin and MSUM Ljubljana (2018).

Bart De Baere

Director of M HKA (Antwerp) since 2002. Member of the board of directors of CIMAM - International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art. Between 2003 and 2008 he served as chairman of the Flemish Council for Culture, which advises the government on cultural policy, and from 1999 to 2001, he was advisor for cultural heritage and contemporary art to the Flemish Minister of Culture. Before this, from 1986 to 2001, he was curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent (now S.M.A.K.). He organised and curated events for several venues abroad including Documenta IX in Kassel where he was member of the curatorial team.

Ferran Barenblit

Director of MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, since 2015. Previously, between 2008 and 2015 director of CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, the Region of Madrid contemporary art museum. From 2002 to 2008 director of the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica in Barcelona. In the second half of the 1990s curator of Espai 13, at the Fundació Joan Miró. From 1994 to 1996, he was assistant curator at The New Museum, New York. Lecturer in universities and museums around the world, including: UC Berkeley; UC Santa Barbara; Arizona State University; Otis School of Art, Los Angeles; Cincinatti Arts Center; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Universidad de Buenos Aires; Universidad Santa Cecilia, São Paulo; Université Paris III - Sorbone Nouvelle; Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Guest lecturer for the Curating Contemporary Art programme of the Royal College of Art, London, from 2006 to 2011.

Charles Esche

Director of Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven); professor of contemporary art and curating at Central Saint Martins, London and co-director of Afterall Journal and Books. He teaches on the Exhibition Studies MRes course at CSM, and at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. Outwith the museum, he (co) curated Le Musée Égaré, Kunsthall Oslo 2017 and Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse 2016; Jakarta Biennale 2015; 31st Sao Paulo Bienal, 2014, U3 Triennale, Ljubljana, 2011; RIWAQ Biennale, Palestine, 2007 and 2009; Istanbul Biennale, 2005; Gwangju Biennale, 2002 amongst other international exhibitions. He is chair of CASCO, Utrecht. He received the 2012 Princess Margriet Award and the 2014 CCS Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence.

Meriç Öner

Head director of Research and Programs at SALT (Istanbul and Ankara). Previously exhibitions coordinator at XII World Congress of Architecture in Istanbul, curator at Istanbul gallery Garanti Galeri, and editor of the interactive database developed for “Becoming Istanbul” at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt am Main in 2008. She advocates for the establishment of physical and online platforms that present co-learning opportunities as SALT’s main institutional responsibility, reaching beyond the act of classical exhibition-making.

Manuel Borja Villel

Director of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madryt) since 2008. Previously director of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies and the MACBA/Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. An important part of his programme in the MNCARS is centred on the development and reorganization of the collection, changing the method of presentation of works. Recent exhibitions he has programmed include: "Poetics of Democracy" (2018), "Pity and Terror in Picasso's Path to Guernica" (2017), "Marcel Broodthaers: A Retrospective" (2016), "Territories and Fictions: Thinking in a New Way of the World" (2016), "Not yet, On the reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism" (2015), "Really Useful Knowledge" (2014), and "Playgrounds, Reiventing the Square” (2014).