interview Maria Lind

8/10/2019 interview Maria Lind

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29 Issue 21 / December 2013

Interview with Maria Lind (New) Institution(alism)

Lucie Kolb & Gabriel Flckiger:How do yourelate to the label New Institutionalism for practiceslike yours?

Maria Lind: It is like a nickname; it came romother peoples thoughts and opinions. I think itssimilar to what happened to some o the artists asso-ciated with Relational Aesthetics, which is not theartists own term, but all o a sudden it took over thereception o their work in a rather strange way. It isnot completely inappropriate to speak about NewInstitutionalism, as we did indeed try to reimagine

the unctioning o art institutions, but its a bit limit-ing. Te issue with any label that gets widely usedduring a short period o time is that it acilitatesseeing the phenomenon as consumed. It is supposedto be something that is over. However, this is ocourse not the case. What Charles Esche, AnnieFletcher and the rest o the team at the Van Abbemu-seum are doing, and what the team and I are doing atensta Konsthall now (currently the team consists oFahyma Alnablsi, Emily Fahln, Ulrika Flink, AsrinHaidari, Hanna Svensson and Hedvig Wiezell) isclearly related to what we did ten years ago. At the

same time it is also different. In the early 2000s neo-liberalism and certain effects o globalization werebecoming more and more palpable, at the same timeas the social welare state o Northern Europe wasbeing dismantled. Tose changes played into some othe thinking around and working with institutions,such as the ones mentioned, but also or exampleWitte de With under Catherine David.

Maybe it is helpul to think about New Insti-tutionalism as an example o how deerred value iscreated, in the sense o how Sarah Talwell discusses

it in her 2012 report Size Matters, commissioned by

Common Practice in London. She describes how anumber o small-scale visual arts organizations inLondon are producing a lot o value, but it does notbecome palpable until ten to feen years afer theinvestments. Tese small organizations work withartists who are not yet established and they developnew curatorial and educational modelsthey there-ore take a lot o risks. However, it is not these organ-izations who can benet rom the value that thiscreates, instead it is the commercial sector on the onehand and the mainstream institutions on the otherhand, who down the line pick up artists and methods

supported and created by others. We can now seethat a lot o what is described as the concerns o NewInstitutionalism is becoming accepted and usedmuch more widely.

LK & GF: Would you say it could be a catalyst,or that the moment of labeling serves to establish awider sensibility and visibility?

ML: New Institutionalism gave a name, albeit alimiting one, to certain developments that hadalready gone on or a decade. All o a sudden they

were accounted or in a different way. It is good toremember that when I did Moderna Museet Project(1998-2001) or instance, there were hardly anyreviews. It was really not in the eye o the media, nordid it have enormous amounts o visitors. Te pro-gram at Kunstverein Mnchen (2002-2004) was not

very well publicized either. However, today manypeople seem to be aware o what we did in bothplaces back then. Which is a nice discovery andthanks to New Institutionalism among other things.When you mention that NI helped make visiblecertain institutional practices together with curato-

rial practices, I need to underline that it is a concern

We want to become

an institutionAn Interview with Maria LindMaria Lind reflects on how concerns of New Institutionalism became more accounted for andwidespread during the last ten years, arguing that some practices that arose in this processare too institution-centered. In her current position at Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, she focuseson a curatorial practice that aims to establish a long-term institutional continuity.


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ity o certain practices, trying to accommodate them.Monthly screenings, a yearly video estival, commis-sioned work and the Sputnikswhich was a long-term engagement with a group o artists, curators,critics who were ellow travellers with the Kunstver-ein. Te latter was a way o thinking the relationshipbetween artists and institutions differently. Teagents at the recent Documenta reminded me o theSputniks, or the generals at Art in General in NewYork when Soa Hernndez Chong Cuy was a cura-tor there.

LK & GF:Regarding the format of Sputniks, itseems that it is also a challenge for artists to develop apractice that may be different to how they usually work.

ML: We thought about it like that. We askedthe Sputniks to give us input into what an institutiono contemporary art could be and should be, andsimultaneously they were invited to make a newwork, which could take any shape and orm. Someartists were a bit disappointed by that because theywanted a time-slot with set budgets etc. and they, in

most cases, didnt do anything. Others jumped at thisand came out with brilliant work, like Carey Young,Apolonija uteri, and Deimantas Narkevicius.

LK & GF:Did you intend to blur the roles ofartist and curator with the Sputnik project?

ML: Tat was not my intention. Ive neverbeen interested in blurring the boundaries betweencurators and artists. I it is part o the logic o theartwork then I can be on board, so to speak. Mypersonal drive is to look at art, to think about art, to

take care o and use the potential that is in art, by

and worry when those things come too much to theoreground, leaving art and artists in the back-ground. I would like to see more detailed studies othe art works, projects, exhibitions etc. that cameabout then, discussed in relation to curatorial andinstitutional approaches alike. Only then can weunderstand what NI actually did.

LK & GF:Could you give us an example thatwas crucial, which could exemplify problems that oneencounters as a curator, and how institutional prac-tices should react to such problems?

ML: Te program that I put together with theteam (Sren Grammel, Katharina Schlieben, AnaPaula Cohen, Judith Schwarzbart, essa Praun andJulienne Lorz) at Kunstverein Mnchen, and how weworked there operationally, must be seen in light othe particular characteristics o that institution. Itwas a particular point in time as well. A Kunstvereinis a membership organization, which since the Sec-ond World War has typically been a site o experi-mentation o different kinds or artists, curators anddirectors. ogether, with me at the helm, the team

shaped a program that reected this legacy. But morethan anything, it was to do with trying to ollow thelead o art and artists to think about how an institu-tion could be more sensitive to them, to be in theservice o and in an interesting dialogue with artists.My way o working even beore was to try and besensitive to artistic practicesnot lenient, but sensi-tive. Tis also includes answering back, returning thechallenge. Because every artwork is a challenge in thebest sense to institutions and other people workingwith art. A direct consequence o that was how wecame to work with our different rhythms simultane-

ously, thinking a lot about the logic and the sensibil-

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LK & GF:In terms of historical examples, is itcompletely obsolete to speak of institutional critiquefor instance?

ML: As a general approach to things it is

important, but I was never very engaged with AndreaFrasers or Fred Wilsons work. Robert Smithson is anexception because I co-curated a Smithson retro-spective at Moderna Museet. And yet, Smithsonltered in more through the practice o the artists Iwas working with. For example the kind o transpor-tation, site- and non-site, logic o Ann Lislegaard andDominique Gonzalez-Foerster.

LK & GF:In the beginning you mentioned thatyour practice now is still very much related to whatyou did when you were at Kunstverein Mnchen or at

Moderna Museet, but also different. In what waywould you say is it different? How did your practice atModerna Museet inform your practice at Kunstver-ein?

ML: I could have stayed at Moderna Museetor the rest o my lie. It was a permanent job and itwas antastic to do Moderna Museet Project. DavidElliot, the director, was supportive o more or lesseverything I suggested, but I elt that the institutionwas too big and too heavy. It was hard to convincethe staff members, or instance the technicians and

the administrators: or most o them it remainedstrange to work with production, adapting to artistsand their methods. It was too ordist or me, like aconveyor belt with one exhibition afer another pro-duced the same way. I wanted to try something else,where I could inuence the methodology. I inormedthe director that I was going to leave at the end o theyear but I didnt know where to go. In the meantimethe Kunstverein came up.

LK & GF:The Tensta Konsthall is a muchsmaller and less heavy institution than Moderna

Museet. There are different formats and sites, e.g.exhibition spaces, lobby, discursive programs, postersand the website, where different artistic projectsparallel one another. It seems that a conceptualapproach to institutional formats is an importantmethodological tool for you. At KunstvereinMnchen you worked closely with artists, designersand architects on the concept and design of the logo(Christoph Steinegger) and lobby (Apolonijauteric). How do you handle the institutional frame-work here?

thinking about how it can exist in the best possibleways. Best in this case also means challenging andstimulating. A lot o the ormats and methods thatwe see limit the art, rather than allowing it to blos-som. I take my unction to be to detect some o this

and suggest how it can be teased out and combinedwith other works, places, people, questions, contextsetc. Tis is what I mean by working curatorially,which also includes the horizon o not accepting thestatus quo. Furthermore, institutions have to supportart that doesnt sell, and doesnt have other kinds osupport, in terms o production.

LK & GF:You mentioned that the program atKunstverein Mnchen was not very well publicized

ML: We had a core group o locals who came

to almost everything that we did, a bit like a an club.Te diffi culty was the local art scene and the provin-cial critics in the Munich newspapers. Most o themthought that our program was neither relevant normeaningul. One objection was that it was quiteprocess-oriented and several program lines wererunning at the same time. We ofen heard things like:Its too much, you can never grasp everything. As ithat is the point, to be able to catch everything that isgoing on in an institution.

LK & GF:Did you have references or certain

other curatorial or artistic practices in mind whenworking in that way?

ML: Primarily artistic practices. Work bypeople like Philippe Parreno, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Rirkrit iravanija, Liam Gillick, Matts Lei-derstam, Elin Wikstrm and eventually people likeMarion von Osten and Hito Steyerl. I did not knowthe work o the latter two when I started; they wereintroduced to me by Sren Grammel. We continue todo things together to this very day. Curatoriallyspeaking, there are some colleagues that Ive always

admired and respected, Lynne Cooke and Ute MetaBauer or example. I also ound Jens Hoffmans workstimulating in terms o ormats, particularly early onwhen the ormats had not taken over and overshad-owed the work. LikeA Little Bit of History Repeatedat Kunst-Werke, which was a project on the historyo perormance art without traditional documenta-tion. Instead, each historical work was reely reen-acted by a younger artist, which was inspiring. Tismust have been one o the rst reenactment projectsin the wave which later ensued.


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at the entrance too. It is made o concrete, whichgrew out o our discussions that one o my ambitionshere is or ensta Konsthall to become an institution.So ar it has been run as a project. In a place likeensta it is extremely important to create continuity,

stability and agility. Almost everything here is run asa project, creating a completely ragmented society. Iwant to be able to say that ensta Konsthall willsurely exists in ten years time, that it is a continuousplace. Another way o saying this is that we want tobecome an institution. Metahavens response was thatto put this across, the sign absolutely had to be madeout o concrete.

LK & GF:To finish, we could talk about thesituation in Tensta. How do you interact with peopleliving here?

ML: ensta is located twenty minutes by sub-way rom the city center o Stockholm. It was built inthe late 1960s as part o a big housing scheme calledTe Million Program, whereby between 1965 and1975 one million housing units were constructedacross Sweden. ensta happens to be one o the sin-gle biggest ones, with 5600 apartments. odayaround 19.000 people live here, roughly ninety per-cent o whom have a trans-local background. Teaverage income is lower than in the rest o the coun-try, and average unemployment is higher. Over the

last feen years a lot o societal services have beenremoved. Te situation is not unlike many ruralareas: there is no bank anymore, theres no liquorstore. Te local city administration is now housed inan industrial area in the middle o nowhere, ratherthan in the middle o the neighborhood where peo-ple live. Tis creates tensions. Just like in the innercity o Stockholm, which is strikingly white, ensta isa place where segregation is visible. o have a Kun-sthalle with an excellent program here is extremelyimportantI wish there were theatres, research insti-tutes, and other kinds o institutions as well.

LK & GF:Whats the history of the Kunsthallein Tensta? What do you want to achieve here?

ML: In act, ensta Konsthall is a grass rootsinitiative that coincided with a regeneration schemeo the city o Stockholm, and rom the outset themission was to have an active relationship to theneighborhood. Tis has been perormed in differentways by the different directors and teams. It is aprivate oundation, which today gets approx. 50% oits unding rom the city o Stockholm and the state.

Tese are grants which we apply or every year, and

ML: We are working with Metahaven, anAmsterdam-based design duo. Ive always workedclosely with designers: Christoph Steinegger inMunich, bke at Iaspis and Project Projects at CCSBard. Its important or me to work with people who

are inventive and daring in terms o graphics andcommunication. When I started here I asked Meta-haven how we could organize communication. en-sta Konsthall is a private oundation ounded in 1998and unded primarily by the city o Stockholm, alittle bit by the state and all kinds o other sourcesthat we have to nd ourselves. Tese days we live in aculture o persuasion where we, as institutions, con-stantly have to talk about how we are the best, thebiggest, the bravest and the most beautiul in theworld. O course we need to communicate in waysthat make our program appear interesting and rele-

vant. My question to Metahaven was: how can we dothat without being completely immersed in thatlogic? Furthermore, how could we potentially com-municate without a classical logo, to not be in themidst o todays branding renzy? Tey suggestedthat we work with a mark. Te mark has so ar beena square, but that can change. Inside the square italways says ensta Konsthall, but its written in di-erent ways, as it is taken as a acsimile rom specicplaces where it has been mentioned. Te way we lookis affected by our inrastructure in terms o where weare mentioned, which means that its also constantly

changing, and the square can also change into some-thing else. Metahavens idea is inuenced by how thearchitectural inrastructure o Centre Pompidou inParis is revealed, as a necessary support mechanism.oday, the immaterial and communication-basedinrastructure is as important as the architecturalone, i not more so.

LK & GF:Are the flags only on display here inthe caf?

ML: Yes. Tis is another result o a close com-

munication with the graphic designers because westarted out with posters. A poster is usually mass-produced and you are supposed to plaster it every-where, but we could never afford to do that. Weended up printing ve o each and then using themonly inside the space. In this way they became morelike signs, which led us to talk about that we shoulddo a sign instead o a poster. Metahaven suggestedthat we print it on textile, and it is brilliant. Teybecome contemporary tapestries. Our ca is ratherdomestic, and we want to be welcoming, particularlyor women, as most o public space in ensta is very

male dominated. Metahaven designed our main sign


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and theoretically on ashion, style, lie-style andidentity. Te activities range rom workshops withdesigners and lectures on ashion history at theCenter or Fashion Studies at the Stockholm Univer-sity to discussions about their own choice o clothes

and makeup, and exhibits with their own work at theCulture House at the city center. Some o the partici-pants remain, others change, but there is an interest-ing continuity here.

which have to report every year. Te other 50% comerom collaborations, oundationsmostly beyondSweden as there are basically no oundations sup-porting contemporary art in the countryEU-grantsand private donations. I or mysel want to make a

program o contemporary art that speaks to peoplelike yourselves, to other artists and other art proes-sionals, that is really part o a discussion about whatcontemporary art is and what it could be. Tis issimilar to the thinking in Munich. But I want that tobe mediated in ways that are meaningul in ensta,which means that we work a lot with mediation.However, it is always small-scale and it is tailor-madein relation to particular individuals or groups, wherewe try to identiy certain shared concerns andthrough that establish what we could call a thirdspace, or semi-public space. Te notion o the pro-

duction o space comes rom Henri Leebvre and hasbeen elaborated in interesting ways by people likeSimon Sheikh. At its best, this is how I hope it workshere.

LK & GF:Could you give some examples ofhow you produce space in that sense?

ML: Te ca is the most important point omediation. We are too small to run it ourselves so itis run by a local social company. Tere are placeswhere you can buy tea and coffee in ensta, but not

really a ca. On top o that, those places are verymale dominated. When I began working here westarted something super basic, which turned out tobe effi cient: we visited almost all associations, workplaces and organizations in ensta, ofen in the ormo us having our staff meetings on their premises andthen asking them to tell us about their activities. Wetold them briey about the Konsthall and invitedthem to visit us, promising a guided tour. We alsoasked how the Konsthall could be interesting, mean-ingul and even useul to them. Some o them didnot reply; others immediately had ideas, like the

Womens Center who told us that they wanted to holdtea and coffee salons in our ca. Since then we col-laborate every other month on salons in the ca. Inaddition, we collaborate with them in a number oother ways, public as well as non-public, includinghaving hired one o their members as our reception-ist.

Te Fashion Project, organized and run byour mediator Emily Fahln or two years, is anotherexample. It involves young women rom the localsenior high school who on a weekly basis during the

school year meet at the Konsthall to work practically

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Maria Lind is a curator and crit ic. Since 2011director of Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; 2008-2010 direc-tor of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies,Bard College; 2005-2007 director of Iaspis; 2002-2004director of Kunstverein Mnchen; 1997-2001 curator at

Moderna Museet, Stockholm; 1998 co-curator of Mani-festa 2.

Captions1Apolonija uteric, This is a testing area for

a better world, in: Maria Lind, Schlieben, Katharina,Grammel, Soren, Schwarzbart, Judith, Cohen, AnaPaula, Lorz, Julienne, Praun, Tessa: GesammelteDrucksachen, Frankfurt am Main: revolver Publishing2004. pp. 406-407.

2Tensta konsthall, Tensta Museum: Reports

from New Sweden, 26.10. 2013-18.5. 2014, Flagdesigned by Metahaven, Photo: Jean-BaptisteBeranger.

3Tensta konsthall, Spring 2013 13.629.9 2013,Flag designed by Metahaven, Photo: Jean-BaptisteBeranger.

4Tensta konsthall, Cafe 2013, Logo designedby Metahaven Photo: Jean-Baptiste Beranger.

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interview Maria Lind