 |
| Der Direktor (Peter Noever) mit seinem Konterfei auf der Eintrittskarte seines Museums |
Montag, 25. April 2011
Bei freiem Eintritt... (Entrée 25)
Mittwoch, 20. April 2011
Transitraum Museum...
 |
| Entdeckt, fotografiert und gespendet von Theresa Zifko. -- Hm. Man kommt ins Grübeln. Warum nicht auch mit Objekten? Warum nicht auch als Form der Deakzession oder des Sammelns? -- In Ilya Kabakovs "Palast der Projekte" gibt es eins, das den Umgang mit Objekten reguliert, die einem - nun sagen wir: unangenehm geworden sind. Man soll sie, rät uns der Palast-Konstrukteur und Projeketemcher Kabakov, eine Zeit lang hinter einem Vorhang verschwinden lassen, den man in einer Ecke eines Wohnraumes montiert hat. Wer weiß, nach einiger Zeit (vielleicht schon Stunden, oder Tagen...) haben sich die Dinge so verändert, daß wir sie wieder in unseren Alltag integrieren können. -- Ach ja, wo sind wir da überhaupt? - Im Musil-Museum in Klagenfurt. |
Wann ist Museum?
 |
| Wann ist Museum? - Wenn ein Schild dran ist. (Für die - auch jahreszeitliche sehr passende - Bildspende danke ich Clara Schlichtenberger). |
Dienstag, 19. April 2011
Eintrittskarte mit Aussicht (Entrée 24)
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| Eintrittskarte für das nagelneue Tirol Panorama auf dem Bergisel |
Überraschungen sind leise und unauffällig. "Wir sind Bettler" im Grazer Stadtmuseum
Als ich unlängst mit Freunden, die in Graz zu Gast waren, die Ausstellung "Grazgeflüster" im Stadtmuseum besuchte, gabs eine Überraschung. In den an der Sackstraße liegenden und wie ein Schaufenster zur Straße geöffneten Räumen waren grade Handwerker mit letzten Handgriffen an einer Ausstellung beschäftigt.
An der noch verschlossenen Glastür gabs einen Text mit der Überschrift "Wir sind Bettler" (ein Luther-Zitat). In großen handgeschriebenen Blockbuchstaben wurde hier gegen das Bettelverbot, das in der Steiermark und in Graz ab 1. Mai gelten soll, Stellung bezogen.
Das Verbot "überschreitet eine Grenze, die unberührt bleiben muss. Es muss erlaubt bleiben, um Gaben zu bitten, und Gaben zu empfangen".
Was ist daran überraschend?
Ich denke, daß Museen selten direkt zu politischen und gesellschaftlichen Fragen Stellung beziehen, wenn diese aktuell und konfliktreich sind. Hier ist das der Fall, auch wenn nicht nur das Museum spricht, sondern die Graz Akademie, die sich gegen das Bettelverbot sehr engagiert. Mit dem Text und der kleinen Ausstellung, die der Text gewissermaßen 'eröffnet', positioniert sich auch das Museum klar und unmissverständlich.
Warum geschieht so etwas so selten, daß es einen überrascht, wenn es einmal doch passiert? Die Antworten scheinen auf der Hand zu liegen: ein Museum ist seinem 'Auftraggeber' und 'Geldgeber' verpflichtet, in gewisser Weise auch von ihm abhängig und geht Risiken ein, wenn es sich mit der 'herrschenden Meinung' anlegt; Museen können aus praktischen Gründen schlecht auf aktuelle Entwicklungen und Ereignisse reagieren, weil sie ausreichend Ressourcen und Zeit benötigen - Ausstellung zu produzieren ist aufwendig; Museen sind neutral und sollen neutral bleiben.
Das letzte Argument ist das, das verschleiert, daß Museen strukturell in dem Sinn politisch agieren, in dem sie 'zivilisatorische Rituale' sind, die es immer mit Herkunft und Zukunft, Identität, Distinktion und Hegemonie zu tun haben und wirkungsvoll ihre soziale Macht gerade dann ausspielen, wenn sie behaupten, sie hätten keine.
Das zweite Argument wird widerlegt von Beispielen und von der Vielfalt der Mittel, Medien und Methoden, die Museen zur Verfügung stehen. Das erste Argument hat auf den ersten Blick etwas für sich. Das Grazer Stadtmuseum wird von der Stadt nicht grade verwöhnt. Die finanziellen Mittel sind eine sehr kurze Decke, nach der man sich mühsam Strecken muß und Loyalität von Politikern ist ein labiles Gut. Und Museen sehen sich vielleicht mehr als andere kulturelle Einrichtungen einer direkteren Gängelung ausgesetzt.
Doch stellt sich die Frage, wer ist der 'Auftraggeber' und der 'Geldgeber'? Ein Stadtrat, ein Kulturamtsleiter, eine Abteilung der Verwaltung usw.? - Der Leiter des Museums, Otto Hochreiter, hat unlängst in einer Diskussion mit Gastkuratoren und MitarbeiterInnen des Hauses von einem "öffentlich-rechtlichen Erzählauftrag" des Stadtmuseums gesprochen. Klingt bürokratisch, gefällt mir aber sehr, weil diese Formel klar macht, daß das 'Projekt Museum' ein gesellschaftliches ist (alle zahlen mit, alle besitzen de jure das Sammlungsgut) und Politiker und Verwalter den öffentlichen Auftrag Museum nur treuhänderisch verwalten. Verpflichtet ist ein Museum im emphatischen Sinn allen, 'der Öffentlichkeit'.
Daß hier Probleme liegen, ja gewiss. Aber ein Museum, das sich über (s)einen 'Erzählauftrag' wieder an die Öffentlichkeit rückkoppeln, geht mit einem ganz anderen Selbstbewusstsein an seine Arbeit und öffnet ganz andere Optionen für Kooperation und - wie im Fall dieser Ausstellung - auf Positionierung, Intervention, Stellungnahme. Und es räumt der Zivilgesellschaft andere Möglichkeiten ein, 'ihr' Medium für kollektive Selbsterfahrung, für gemeinsame Lernprozesse selbst zu nutzen. Über das scheinbar beiläufige Faktum hinaus, setzt die (der Sache nach banale, im Prinzip oft geübte) Kooperation des Museums mit der Graz Akademie eine grundsätzliche Option frei. In dem Maß, in dem sich das Museum freispielt von politischer Rücksichtnahme, öffnet es sich Räume für zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement. (Und als Museumshistoriker füge ich hinzu: das ist nicht der Verrat an einer Idee, sondern die Reanimation des Museums als Projekt der Moderne).
Isoliert betrachtet ist die Ausstellung bescheiden, versammelt Arbeiten von Künstlerinnen die sich in den letzten Jahren und aktuell zum Betteln und zum Verbot 'geäußert' haben. Aber die Ausstellung und die spontane Artikulation des Museums ist in ein Netzwerk zivilgesellschaftlichen Widerstands und Widerspruchs eingebunden. Als solche ist sie gedacht und als solche wird sie hoffentlich auch etwas bewirken.
So bescheiden die Ausstellung ist, ich habe allen Respekt vor der Haltung, die damit zum Vorschein kommt. Sie ist so klar, wie der Text. "Eine Grenze darf nicht überschritten werden". Den Satz mochte man in den letzten Jahren und auch ganz aktuell öfters zücken, angesichts der politischen Entwicklung, angesichts der Implosion demokratischer Rechte und Strukturen, angesichts des Abbaues sozialstaatlicher Werte und Normen.
Museen sollten sich nicht hinter den logistischen, finanziellen oder institutionspolitischen Fragen verschanzen, also nicht hinter ihrer eigenen Fantasielosigkeit und Feigheit. Sie sind - um ein Wort Aby Warburgs zu gebrauchen - durchaus als 'nervöse Auffangorgane' gesellschaftlicher Prozesse zu gebrauchen.
***
Wir sind Bettler
Eine Kooperation von Akademie Graz und Stadtmuseum Graz - KuratorInnen: Martin Behr, Astrid Kury
„Wir sind Bettler. Das ist wahr!“ schrieb Martin Luther am 18. Februar 1546, kurz vor seinem Tod.
Es ist wahr, wir sind Wesen, die bedürftig sind und es ein Leben lang bleiben. Ein generelles Bettelverbot, wie es in der Steiermark und in Graz am 1. Mai 2011 in Kraft tritt, überschreitet eine humanitäre Grenze, die unberührt bleiben muss. Es muss erlaubt bleiben, um Gaben zu bitten und Gaben zu empfangen. Die Ausstellung versammelt bestehende und neue künstlerische Positionen zum Thema Betteln und Bettelverbote.
Mit Arbeiten von: ERIC AUPOL, DELAINE LE BAS, JOACHIM BAUR, ERNST M. BINDER, CHRISTIAN EISENBERGER, STEFANIE ERJAUTZ, OLIVIA FÜRNSCHUSS, KARL GRÜNLING, PETER GERWIN HOFFMANN, ZLATKO KOPLJAR, XXKUNSTKABEL, CLAUDIA NEBEL, NORBERT NESTLER, FRIEDERIKE NESTLER-REBEAU, RESANITA, CHRISTOPH SCHLINGENSIEF, JOSEF SCHÜTZENHÖFER, WOLFGANG TEMMEL, GUSTAV TROGER, THEATER IM BAHNHOF, FRANZ WEST, JOSEF WURM, ZWEINTOPF, U.A.
Ausstellungsdauer: bis 4.Mai 2011
Öffnungszeiten: Di – So, 10:00 – 18:00 Uhr
Stadtmuseum Graz
Sackstraße 18
8010 Graz
***
Akademie Graz
http://www.akademie-graz.at/
Gegen ein Bettelverbot in Graz / Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121805051185095
Montag, 18. April 2011
Sonntag, 17. April 2011
Eine Antwort auf die Stellungnahme des ICOM-Vorstandes das Jüdische Museum der Stadt Wien betreffend
An den Vorstand von ICOM Österreich
Wien am 13. April 2011
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Gestern wurde mir die Stellungnahme des Vorstandes von ICOM Österreich
bezüglich des Schreibens des Präsidenten von ICOM Österreich an die
Direktorin des Jüdischen Museums Wien übermittelt. Ich muss gestehen, dass
mich diese Stellungnahme einigermaßen irritiert.
Der Präsident und nunmehr auch ICOM Österreich unterstellen den
Unterzeichnern des Schreibens an die Direktion des Jüdischen Museums (Brief
der Direktoren und Wissenschafter) Unkenntnis über die Dauerausstellung im
Jüdischen Museum Wien, oder wie es im Brief des Präsidenten Dr. Wilfried
Seipel heißt: „Dabei kann man wohl davon ausgehen, dass keineswegs alle
schreibenden und unterschreibenden Kollegen die Corpora Delicti jemals zu
Gesicht bekommen haben.“ Dies obwohl die betreffenden Kollegen und
Kolleginnen immer wieder zu Gast im Jüdischen Museum Wien waren und unter
anderem auch von mir persönlich mit ihren Gästen durch das Haus geführt
wurden und selbstverständlich auch die Hologramme besichtigten.
Das Schreiben des Präsidenten von ICOM Österreich und nunmehr auch des
Vorstandes von ICOM Österreich unterstellt allen Unterzeichnern, ihre
Betroffenheit über die Zerstörung der Hologramme sei sachfremden und
persönlichen Motiven geschuldet und sie würden die ICOM Richtlinien dafür
instrumentalisieren. Mit keinem Wort wird darauf eingegangen, dass die
Hologramme tatsächlich „Originalobjekte“ mit einem hohen und international
anerkannten innovativen Potential waren. Eine Installation die immer wieder
für Irritationen, aber vor allem für hohe Anerkennung in der Fachwelt
sorgte. Völlig ignoriert werden die tatsächlichen Diskussionspunkte, nämlich
die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Geschichte in jüdischen Museen und ob wir als
Museumsleute den zivilisatorischen Bruch durch die Schoa als Herausforderung
ernst nehmen. Somit aber auch die Frage was ist bewahrenswert in unseren
Sammlungen, wie gehen wir mit den eigenen Ausstellungsmaterialien um.
(Fragen die in meinen Augen nicht nur für Jüdische Museen relevant sind.)
Die Hologramme sind gerade in diesen Zusammenhang im Laufe der Jahre, und
durch die Diskussion über sie, tatsächlich zu Ausstellungsobjekten geworden.
Also genau zu jenen Dingen, die wir zu bewahren und zu erhalten verpflichtet
sind.
Zu keinem Zeitpunkt der Diskussion ging es um die Frage ob die Hologramme
Teil einer neuen Dauerausstellung sein sollten oder nicht. Es war allen
Beteiligten klar, dass dies nicht der Fall sein würde. Allerdings war auch
allen Beteiligten klar, dass ein Konzept für eine neue Dauerausstellung
nicht hinter die Errungenschaften der alten zurückfallen dürfe, damit
stellte sich auch die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Elementen der alten
Dauerausstellung wie z. B. der Installation von Nancy Spero (die ebenfalls
viel Raum einnimmt) und eben den Hologrammen. Die Argumentation des
Präsidenten, die Hologramme wären einer Neugestaltung im Wege gestanden
läuft ins Leere. Umso mehr erschreckt die Ignoranz gegenüber der Zerstörung
einer bahnbrechenden musealen Innovation, die noch dazu, wie wir
mittlerweile wissen, nicht notwendig gewesen wäre.
Weiters wird behauptet, dass die Hologramme „zuletzt einen erbärmlichen,
weil ungepflegten und verstaubten Eindruck“ hinterlassen hätten. Ich war bis
Ende Dezember 2010 Mitarbeiter im Jüdischen Museum Wien und verwahre mich
entschieden gegen diese unwahre Behauptung und somit der unausgesprochenen
Unterstellung, die MitarbeiterInnen des Jüdischen Museum Wien hätten die
Dauerstellung dem „Verfall“ preisgegeben. Es ist auch unrichtig, dass es zu
einem Verfall der optischen Qualität gekommen wäre. Diese Behauptung ist
ganz einfach sachlich nicht gerechtfertigt.
Zuletzt noch ein Wort zur sich wohl selbst richtenden Behauptung die
Chefkuratorin des Jüdischen Museums hätte eine Kampagne gesteuert und die
nationale und internationale Kollegenschaft instrumentalisiert. Ich bin
wirklich verblüfft und entsetzt, dass der Vorstand von ICOM Österreich
glaubt, dass Direktoren, Wissenschafter und Kuratoren wie ferngesteuert auf
Zuruf reagieren und sich für eine persönliche Kampagne einspannen lassen.
Welche Vorstellung über die professionelle und ethische Einstellung ihrer
KollegInnen liegt dieser befremdlichen Behauptung zu Grunde?
Vom Vorstand von ICOM Österreich hätte ich mir einen differenzierteren
Zugang zur Diskussion erwartet. Vor allem aber auch, dass der Vorstand den
Unterstellungen und Diffamierungen gegenüber Kollegen und Kolleginnen
entgegentritt.
Mit kollegialen Grüßen
Mag. Gerhard Milchram
Wien am 13. April 2011
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Gestern wurde mir die Stellungnahme des Vorstandes von ICOM Österreich
bezüglich des Schreibens des Präsidenten von ICOM Österreich an die
Direktorin des Jüdischen Museums Wien übermittelt. Ich muss gestehen, dass
mich diese Stellungnahme einigermaßen irritiert.
Der Präsident und nunmehr auch ICOM Österreich unterstellen den
Unterzeichnern des Schreibens an die Direktion des Jüdischen Museums (Brief
der Direktoren und Wissenschafter) Unkenntnis über die Dauerausstellung im
Jüdischen Museum Wien, oder wie es im Brief des Präsidenten Dr. Wilfried
Seipel heißt: „Dabei kann man wohl davon ausgehen, dass keineswegs alle
schreibenden und unterschreibenden Kollegen die Corpora Delicti jemals zu
Gesicht bekommen haben.“ Dies obwohl die betreffenden Kollegen und
Kolleginnen immer wieder zu Gast im Jüdischen Museum Wien waren und unter
anderem auch von mir persönlich mit ihren Gästen durch das Haus geführt
wurden und selbstverständlich auch die Hologramme besichtigten.
Das Schreiben des Präsidenten von ICOM Österreich und nunmehr auch des
Vorstandes von ICOM Österreich unterstellt allen Unterzeichnern, ihre
Betroffenheit über die Zerstörung der Hologramme sei sachfremden und
persönlichen Motiven geschuldet und sie würden die ICOM Richtlinien dafür
instrumentalisieren. Mit keinem Wort wird darauf eingegangen, dass die
Hologramme tatsächlich „Originalobjekte“ mit einem hohen und international
anerkannten innovativen Potential waren. Eine Installation die immer wieder
für Irritationen, aber vor allem für hohe Anerkennung in der Fachwelt
sorgte. Völlig ignoriert werden die tatsächlichen Diskussionspunkte, nämlich
die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Geschichte in jüdischen Museen und ob wir als
Museumsleute den zivilisatorischen Bruch durch die Schoa als Herausforderung
ernst nehmen. Somit aber auch die Frage was ist bewahrenswert in unseren
Sammlungen, wie gehen wir mit den eigenen Ausstellungsmaterialien um.
(Fragen die in meinen Augen nicht nur für Jüdische Museen relevant sind.)
Die Hologramme sind gerade in diesen Zusammenhang im Laufe der Jahre, und
durch die Diskussion über sie, tatsächlich zu Ausstellungsobjekten geworden.
Also genau zu jenen Dingen, die wir zu bewahren und zu erhalten verpflichtet
sind.
Zu keinem Zeitpunkt der Diskussion ging es um die Frage ob die Hologramme
Teil einer neuen Dauerausstellung sein sollten oder nicht. Es war allen
Beteiligten klar, dass dies nicht der Fall sein würde. Allerdings war auch
allen Beteiligten klar, dass ein Konzept für eine neue Dauerausstellung
nicht hinter die Errungenschaften der alten zurückfallen dürfe, damit
stellte sich auch die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Elementen der alten
Dauerausstellung wie z. B. der Installation von Nancy Spero (die ebenfalls
viel Raum einnimmt) und eben den Hologrammen. Die Argumentation des
Präsidenten, die Hologramme wären einer Neugestaltung im Wege gestanden
läuft ins Leere. Umso mehr erschreckt die Ignoranz gegenüber der Zerstörung
einer bahnbrechenden musealen Innovation, die noch dazu, wie wir
mittlerweile wissen, nicht notwendig gewesen wäre.
Weiters wird behauptet, dass die Hologramme „zuletzt einen erbärmlichen,
weil ungepflegten und verstaubten Eindruck“ hinterlassen hätten. Ich war bis
Ende Dezember 2010 Mitarbeiter im Jüdischen Museum Wien und verwahre mich
entschieden gegen diese unwahre Behauptung und somit der unausgesprochenen
Unterstellung, die MitarbeiterInnen des Jüdischen Museum Wien hätten die
Dauerstellung dem „Verfall“ preisgegeben. Es ist auch unrichtig, dass es zu
einem Verfall der optischen Qualität gekommen wäre. Diese Behauptung ist
ganz einfach sachlich nicht gerechtfertigt.
Zuletzt noch ein Wort zur sich wohl selbst richtenden Behauptung die
Chefkuratorin des Jüdischen Museums hätte eine Kampagne gesteuert und die
nationale und internationale Kollegenschaft instrumentalisiert. Ich bin
wirklich verblüfft und entsetzt, dass der Vorstand von ICOM Österreich
glaubt, dass Direktoren, Wissenschafter und Kuratoren wie ferngesteuert auf
Zuruf reagieren und sich für eine persönliche Kampagne einspannen lassen.
Welche Vorstellung über die professionelle und ethische Einstellung ihrer
KollegInnen liegt dieser befremdlichen Behauptung zu Grunde?
Vom Vorstand von ICOM Österreich hätte ich mir einen differenzierteren
Zugang zur Diskussion erwartet. Vor allem aber auch, dass der Vorstand den
Unterstellungen und Diffamierungen gegenüber Kollegen und Kolleginnen
entgegentritt.
Mit kollegialen Grüßen
Mag. Gerhard Milchram
Dauer / Nichtdauer. Museum / Ausstellung (Museumsphysiognomien 12)
 | ||
| Marcel Broodthaers gräbt mit einem Freund den Grundriss eines Museums Moderner Kunst in den Strand von le Coq. Wir schreiben das Jahr 1969. Die Flut wird das Museum in einigen Stunden wegspülen... |
Das Thema Dauerausstellung…
…eine Wiederkehr? Eine Rückbesinnung?
Es geht um Entgegensetzung: Dauer / Wechsel, zwei Zeitformen des Ausstellens.
Wirklich?
Wie lange dauert eine Dauerausstellung?
Eben habe ich im Internet ein paar Fotos der verschiedenen Themenausstellungen der Dauerausstellung des Technischen Museums entdeckt, die nach 1918 entstanden sind. An die meisten der Ausstellungen kann ich mich erinnern, sie waren bis zur großen Umgestaltungen des Museums in Gebrauch, waren teilweise beschädigt oder ungepflegt, wirkten aber gestalterisch - und einige von ihnen auch didaktisch - noch immer modern.
Eine solche Dauer von 40, 50 Jahren fände heute kein Museumsverantwortlicher mehr wünschenswert; man spricht von etwa 10 bis 15 Jahren 'Lebenszeit' für eine 'permanente' Ausstellung.
Dagegen sind Wechselausstellungen meist nur auf einige Monate angelegt, gelegentlich nur Wochen, manchmal bis zu einem Jahr, selten länger, wie bei der Ausstellung 'Berge - eine unverständliche Leidenschaft', die fünf Jahre gezeigt wird.
Schon ein Unterschied, aber weniger gravierend, als man glauben möchte.
Vielleicht ist aber der Maßstab, den man anlegt, irreführend. Das Wort Dauerausstellung kooperiert mit einem strukturellen Merkmal des Museums (das es es erst in den letzten 200 Jahren zugemessen bekommen hat), mit der Vorstellung einer unabschließbaren Dauer. Und diese Vorstellung hängt nicht an der Ausstellung, sondern an den Dingen (und der Institution). Die Dinge bilden ein 'technisches Gedächtnis', das wegen der vermeintlichen Unzerstörbarkeit seiner Materialität (all die Investitionen in die Aufbewahrung, Konservierung…) selbst als unzerstörbar gilt.
Es ist ein 'Gattungsgedächtnis', in das wir uns alle tröstlich einschreiben können, und damit ein Ort, wo nicht nur die Dinge, sondern auch wir unzerstörbar zu sein scheinen.
Dieses Phantasma ist zwar durch die globalen Kriege und vor allem durch den Holocaust zerstört worden und es ist auch durch die wirtschaftliche und ökologische Entwicklung immer weniger plausibel, angesichts der Kalkulierbarkeit der Endlichkeit von (Überlebens)Ressourcen. Und Museen haben insofern darauf reagiert, als sie sich nun auch den Kehrseiten der Zivilisation stellen, den Traumata und Katastrophen.
Doch das - mehrfach - unmögliche Versprechen bleibt verlockend…
Dagegen die zeitlich befristete Ausstellung mit ihrem anderen Anspruch auf Aufmerksamkeit und Gegenwärtigkeit… Sofern Museen sich selbst zueinander in Konkurrenz sehen und setzen (und zu anderen Ereignissen der Unterhaltungsindustrie und Mediengesellschaft), werden sie auch in eine Konkurrenz um Wahrnehmung und Positionierung geraten. Sie machen sich zu Marken, Slogans, Schlagworten, Zeichen, um nicht unterzugehen.
Was aber immer gleich bleibt, bleibt nicht lange interessant; deshalb der Wettbewerb über Ausstellungen, über Behauptungen von Werten (Gold, Schätze, Erbe…), das Schüren von Erwartungen, Versäumnisängsten, das atemlose Vokabular der Anpreisung, die immer kürzeren Takte, mit denen Museen immer mehr Ausstellungen ('Formate') generieren. (Und dadurch auch als Organisationen, durch Überbeanspruchung der Ressourcen, vor allem der Mitarbeiter, in Atemnot geraten).
Dauer / Wechsel, die beiden Ausstellungsformen sind unter anderem unterscheidbar durch unterschiedliche Potentiale, Verheissungen generieren zu können. Und dadurch, zwei unterschiedliche Weisen, Erfahrungen machen zu lassen. Das eine kann mit dem anderen in Konflikt liegen. Es gibt immer mehr Verheißungen, aber immer weniger Zeit, sie genießen zu können.
Das Museum ist ein langsames Medium. Langsames Durcharbeiten problemhaltiger Materialen hat ein Freund (ein Pädagoge) mal in gemeinsamen Projekten die Tugend des Museums beschrieben. Die wiederholbare Erfahrung, die durch keinen inneren Zeitrahmen (sieht man von Öffnungszeiten ab) eingeschränkt ist, die also langsam sein kann, so wie man es selbst langsam haben will (in Kabakovs 'Palast der Projekte' halte ich mich stundenlang auf, hier gibt es auch viele Sessel…Tische, an denen man Lesen, Nachdenken kann…es wird mich lange beschäftigen).
Ich lese: in den Wissenschaft wird jährlich etwa 10% des Wissens auf Nimmerwiedersehen abgestossen. Es ist gerade das ältere Wissen, das 'gefährdet' ist. Wäre das dann ein Plädoyer fürs Museum, für sein 'veraltetes' Wissen (ich war ja immer der Meinung, das Technische Museum hätte nicht alle seine alten Ausstellungen abbrechen sollen…). Und ich erinnere mich an ein Seminar, in dem sich ein Teilnehmer weigerte, einen etwa 10 Jahre alten Aufsatz zu diskutieren. Weil so etwas veraltet sein muß. In der Pause verließ er das Seminar und reiste ab.
Dauer lässt veralten zu, damit abkoppeln von etwas, wovon das Museum meist ohnehin abgekoppelt ist: von Gegenwart und Zukunft, damit von der Überprüfung dessen, was es bewahrt und tut in Hinblick auf Zukunft. Nicht zufällig ist museal umgangssprachlich ein negatives Eigenschaftswort. In der Dauer steckt somit Hegemonie. Die Geltung ungeprüft übernommener Werte.
Also doch besser ein 'dauerloses' Museum? Eins, das vorm Tiefschlaf bewahrt wird, durch Menschen, die etwas vom Museum wollen, erwarten, verlangen.
Die will das Museum aber gar nicht. Das will zahlende und zählbare Kunden. Und je mehr Ausstellungen, desto mehr lässt sich zählen.
Und so weiter...
Samstag, 16. April 2011
Freitag, 15. April 2011
What does society demand from museums? (Part Two)
What does society demand from museums? Vortrag, Micheletti Award Conference and Award Ceremony - Quality in Museums, DASA Dortmund, April 2011. Gottfried Fliedl
IV. The museum in modernity: the right to enjoy cultural heritage and the socialising force of cultural heritage
I have appealed several times to something that I call the notion of the modern-day museum and I just said that the activities of Hamburg's museum fans take place within the framework of this notion and can appeal to it.
In the historiography of museums emphasis is normally placed on the continuity of a development of collecting and exhibiting from the early modern age to the present. But together with many other researchers I see a crucial break in the development between about 1770 and 1810. In this period there developed the notion of the museum as the location of a common, state-sponsored and state-protected stock of cultural assets. In other words the notion of a heritage which is preserved, studied and enjoyed and for which a special architectural and social location is created to do this: the museum.
Since the foundation of the British Museum in 1753, and quite definitely since the foundation of the Louvre, that legal notion of the common ownership of collections has therefore been a central structural feature of the museum. As a complement to the legal notion of common ownership there emerges at the same time the social notion of the museum as a place of collective identity. Of patrimoine, in France, beni culturali, in Italy or heritage in England.
In order to highlight the incomparable cultural dynamism of this dual notion of material and spiritual ownership, of ownership and identity, I would ask you to consider briefly the notorious, but for our purposes unbeatably illustrative brand name of an Italian criminal organisation: "Cosa Nostra".
The idea of common ownership of cultural goods, of an asset which in a certain way helps create community and which represents the community, emerges in a special historical situation. The religious and old politico-social means of endowing life with meaning imploded and had to be replaced by new ones, and one of these legitimising and meaning-endowing entities was (national) history. The ancient unifying bond of community, religious faith and belief in a king, the guardian of this religious idea, had to be replaced. This changed the relationship to cultural heritage. One began to collect, to preserve and to cultivate. In the France of the revolution they began to nationalise the royal possessions, to annex aristocratic collections, to secularise churches and monasteries. There arose an enormous store which could then be used to feed the museums founded by the revolution.
With the founding of a number of great museums something like a common object is created, collections of culturally and historically significant items around which the community can form and collect – literally and symbolically. Perhaps you consider this reference to the idea of cultural heritage in the age of bourgeois revolution and enlightenment to be empty theory. But follow me back to a certain date in the year 1793 and just see what happened on this day in Paris.
We write the 10th August 1793, the anniversary of the storming of the Tuileries, the event that is regarded as the definitive end of the monarchy in France, the day from which Louis XVI became a prisoner and accused.
On this day three events are being consciously planned and synchronised which make it in the eyes of today's historiography the day on which the people of France declared themselves to be a national and democratic society.
It is the day of a festival, a document and a place.
The festival is La fête de l'Unité, the Festival of Unity. We should imagine it as a kind of procession culminating in a ceremony which took place on the ruins of the Bastille. The deputies from all the départements in France drank from a cup water flowing from the breasts of an Egyptionesque statue of Wisdom.
The document is the Constitution, the first democratic-republican constitution of France. It is solemnly declared on this day.
The place is the Louvre, since the middle ages the palace of the King and the structural and symbolic insignia of an absolutist power. On this day the royal palace becomes a public museum.
All three events together constitute the French Nation on the basis of a democratic, judicial and symbolic act.
Like the other events the opening of the museum in the Louvre was also – and I quote Andrew McClellan, the historian of the history of the museum in the age of revolution - “tied to the birth of a new nation. The investiture of the Louvre with the power of a revolutionary sign radically transformed the ideal museum public. To the extent that the Louvre embodied the Republican principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, all citizens were encouraged to participate in the experience of communal ownership, and clearly many did.” What is being talked about here is not the experience of art, not collection and exhibition, but the socialising function of the museum.
The importance of Clellan's formulation and the level of aspirations established with the museum in the Louvre only becomes clear if one returns to the Constitution declared at the same time. The right to universal education is rooted in this, as is the state's obligation to enforce this right: "Education is the need of all. Society must exert all its powers to further the progress of general reason and to make education accessible to all citizens", are the words of article 22 of the Constitution. This state guarantee forms the core of the welfare state perception of politics, in other words also of cultural policy and museum policy. But: The participation of all is not the goal, it is one of the essential conditions for attaining the goal. And this is, literally in clause 1 of the Constitution "…. general happiness".
From our understanding of a welfare and social state, the awareness of the perspective of our community as can be found in the first constitutions of the United States and France and the associated declarations of the human rights has largely been lost.
Education is not only the acquisition of knowledge or experience of art, but active participation in public affairs, a civilizing process through which the individual and the community, citizens and the state generate themselves so to speak. And participation is not mere access to cultural institutions and definitely not customer status with a service provider. Participation means a public actively producing itself and becoming actively involved in public affairs.
The notion of the museum in modernity is thus inseparably linked with the notion of democracy. But for reasons of time I am unable to pursue this line of thought any further.
How aridly and pathetically the talk of a service provider, of the museum customer and of his needs seems, and even more so the stubborn self-misconception of the museums themselves and of the museum policy that goes no further than seeing the museums' public nature in making them accessible to the general public.
But going way beyond this, what lies embedded in the concept of the museum in modernity is the self-justification and self-reflection of society as being more democratic, although the museum is one of the many places where that sphere of the civil public can develop in which 'common affairs' can be negotiated freely and without constraint and ideally also without consideration of any social barriers. The public realm is that in which the welfare state concept can first be realised and it is an essential condition of democratic socialisation – including in the cultural sphere. Museums are, like other institutions, highly precious vessels in which this public produces itself, develops and emerges. This public is necessarily discursive, analytical and critical, since only in this way can the permanent negotiation take place with which the citizen can identify with the community and the latter can 'form' itself – in a process without closure.
V. The museum in modernity: a civilizing ritual
When Carol Duncan and Sabine Offe speak of the civilizing role of the museum, in essence what they mean is this social process. In order to move from these ideas to a criticism of the museum and back to the question of the "good museum" a few explanatory remarks are needed.
"The myth of the Enlightenment" Sabine Offe writes " is based on the notion of the knowability, presentability and shapability of the world and its controllability through human reason. The museum as a place of education displayed the hopes and illusions involved in the narrowing of the western civilisation process and long-term changes in standards of human behaviour and sensitivity. Potentially all museums were thought of as places were the public could form a picture of the world by looking at objects from nature and art and from the ordering of history in terms of artefacts whose past significance seemed to be trend-setting for the tasks of the contemporary present and future."
In this understanding he museum is not exclusively conceived of retrospectively and merely as an archive, not as a place for the guarded and protected slumber of things , as a wide-spread curatorial role model would suggest, nor is it exclusively an agency of knowledge that didactically imparts lessons.
The museum is a place of self-description and self-interpretation in an individual and social respect. The ritual of the museum served to introduce civil norms, which were appropriated by public ritual performance, rendered visible as being generally binding and practised. They served to dramatise the "self-description" and "self-interpretation" of civil society and its members, to present a civilisation which they were supposed to create at the same time.
"But", and I quote Sabine Offe once more, "that's not all, that is not the end of the museum's function. What is ignored here is the ambivalent relationship intrinsic to these rituals towards the living everyday reality. They have a latent function which is not taken up by the "civilising" function. As such they represent a wish-fulfilment of civil society which is reflected not in how it is, but in how it should be and would like to be. But 'civilising' rituals in the museum create – like all rituals – counter-images which refer not only to social values and norms, but also to quite different real social experiences. They take up a theme which is concealed in a distorted form. They not only testify explicitly to the ideal picture but implicitly also to the nightmare images of civilisation. For museums, all museums, represent not only what there is to see, but also what has to be removed from the public discourse and perception or what remains concealed, a history of social violence." (End of quote) My experience is that museums do not perceive their own reverse side, or not sufficiently. But to the extent that something is suppressed, remains masked, it acts all the more strongly on the practice of the institution as something not seen through. Museums seem to tend to celebrate culture and history in a triumphant and affirmative way, instead of penetrating them analytically.
From this I conclude the need for museum work to become self-reflective, critical towards its own actions, towards the methods of presentation, the mediation, the collecting, in short the entire repertoire of activities which constitute the institution of the museum.
Here a potential for self-reflective practice opens up for the museum, one through which it could enlighten itself and its public about itself and could render what is distorted, concealed and suppressed visible, legible and speakable.
Museums would have to take a big step, jump over their own shadow and question their manipulative and hegemonial function. After all museums are also, as Carol Duncan has described, "sites that publicly represent beliefs about the order of the world, its past and present, and the individual's place within it. [...] To control a museum means precisely to control the representation of a community and its highest values and truths."
VI. Museums need reflectivity
An example: the heart of the permanent exhibition in the Jewish Museum in Vienna was an installation of holograms showing fragments of earlier Jewish life. They were arranged around an urban space, and whoever entered this space experienced how the things, street views, portraits, ritual objects, buildings, industrial products emerged and disappeared in front of his eyes, an effect of holograms as the observer moved forward and back, bent down or turned around in front of the holograms.
The curator responsible for this part of the exhibition, Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, explained the installation like this: "The medium of the transmission hologram deals with (the) disappearance, with the fact that history withdraws from us. Furthermore it questions the absolute starting point of the historical object just as it does the concept of a 'true' historical reconstruction. No exhibition can make clear what Austrian-Jewish history actually was to its full extent."
'Disappearance', the ephemeral nature of the 'images' of a hologram also does not admit a phantasmatic expectation directed at the museum: that it could through the permanent securing, fixing of things also secure and preserve memory and historical truth permanently.
The installation thus reflects the memory of the museum destroyed in the Nazi period, a memory violently broken off. The museum conveys to us – with purely visual means – that we cannot without further ado take possession of a history, not even in a museum.
The work of an exhibition, as I indicate here in outline, lies not only in its documentary function, not only in the imparting of knowledge, but primarily in expounding the problems of the historical experience in a museum context.
This involves a very high quality I believe; to do something like this is demanding, challenging, and it demands of the visitor not that he consume, but that he challenge himself, that he wish to know something, not that he remain a spectator, but that he behave actively towards himself and his history. Achieving this is certainly not only a function of museums concerned with Jewish culture and history.
VII. Summary
There is evidence that the debates on museum quality are concerned too narrowly with an almost exclusively business management approach, heading towards a narrowing of the museum concept to an organisation where economic profitability is demanded and the social objectives are extremely unclear. The rich and complex options which such a uniquely hybrid cultural institution as the museum possess are misunderstood and pared down to the ideal of satisfying consumerist needs.
Against this I propose a museum concept this can be derived both from the history of the institution and from current social demands.
In my view quality is not a feature that can be established and fixed once and for all, but rather the articulation of demands directed at the museum and the monitoring of their fulfilment.
The quality of museums must be a matter of discussion and dispute, in a process which may hardly come to a standstill and in a discourse which must be conducted actively and energetically, not solely by the museums themselves, but primarily by them.
High quality museums exist where museum criticism exists, in the museums themselves, within the museum community and the museum association and in the communities which carry the museums financially and socially and which need really the museums.
Good museums arise not through control, but through criticism.
High quality museums exist where social groups demand something of the museum and museums are smart enough to respond.
What does society demand from Museums? (Part One)
What does society demand from museums? Vortrag, Micheletti Award Conference and Award Ceremony - Quality in Museums, DASA Dortmund, April 2011. Gottfried Fliedl
I. Quality is not measurable, it is the product of contention
The qualities of a museum are not objectifiable features of the institution and its practices which can be measured against criteria that can be fixed once and for all.
Quality is defined in a social environment which encompasses the institution and organisation as well as the visitors and users, but also the social ambience, in other words the public, politics, cultural policy or the historical culture of a society and the museum's typological or media peculiarities.
And this is certainly not an exhaustive list. One of the significant features of the museum is that it has so many. It is a 'hybrid'. It consists of the oldest media of image and script and is able to integrate newer and the newest ones, such as film, video or the internet. And I am not only talking here about the media, about the architecture, about the collection, about the organisation and so on.
Quality is constituted between rigidified cultural practices, rapidly changing expectations, different demands and immanent institutional intentions and structures. It is made up of both individual actions and expectations, such as curatorial decisions or interests and expectations, on the one hand, and of social notions aimed at the museum on the other.
Attempts at a standardising intervention in quality are limited from the outset to measurable and countable aspects of the museum. But there are only a few of these, such as visitor numbers, budget figures or exhibition areas. At the same time this involves general characteristics of organisations, and precisely not that which constitutes what is special and unmistakable in a museum.
What is quality specifically as regards a museum is not fixed and cannot be fixed, it is fluid, moving, erratic. It is not essence and not a regulatable standard.
Quality is not a feature of museums but an expectation directed at it, an ongoing process in which expectations and the fulfilment of expectations are balanced out. Quality doesn't need measurement, but criticism. And quality arises through criticism, not through control.
In principle I see two possibilities for developing a museum criticism. By analogy, for example, with film or theatre criticism, from the area of tension within which expectations, interests, the medium and its history, its aesthetics and its technical conditions exist. And secondly from the history of the institution, from the logic of development which the museum has assumed. I may respond productively to this history, affirming it or rejecting it. But what is not possible in my view and also not desirable is to forget and ignore this history.
Quality can therefore now, today, become determinable from what we expect of the museum, what we need from the museum, but also from what the museum once was or what it has perhaps not become in many respects and still could become.
Quality is not a standard whose attainment can be monitored, but quality is for me the interplay of museum work and expectations and demands directed at the museum, something which can be debated and about which it is necessary to argue.
II. Quality is a discourse without closure
Taking two current examples with which I have been occupied in recent times I want to show that criteria for quality have to be negotiated in a social process of which it can hardly be said at any point that it is has come to an end.
Museums can establish their objectives, for example with help of a mission statement or a statute. But this will and should not obviate the need for them to occasionally review and modify these objectives. Or they are smart enough to incorporate the process aspect of their institutional identity in the mission statement itself. As the National Museum of Canberra has done, whose programmatic statement contains questions such as: "What does it mean to be an Australian?"
And now to my two examples. A few months ago the government of the city of Hamburg resolved to adopt a package of savings involving cuts in the cultural domain, including the closure of a former regional and urban district museum. A community movement emerged to protest the politically ordered closure of the Altona Museum. This community group recently submitted a petition with much more than 20,000 signatures to the newly elected senate of the city putting forward demands not only to the government but also to the museums. One of the demands was for the government's to be responsible in future only for the legal supervision of the city's historical museums and not the specialist supervision. This would make the museum politically more independent and autonomous in terms of specialist matters, but the community movement also articulated its interests in relation to the museum. It insists on its right to get involved.
This idea may make museum directors and curators feel very uncomfortable, but Hamburg's museum citizens are operating precisely within the framework which makes the notion of a modern museum so fascinating. They use the museum as social and cultural representation venue and one for self expression, as a place for negotiating historical and current questions, a place of knowledge and of the design and trying out of identities.
What I mean by this will probably become clearer if we look at my second example. About 15 years ago the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna was founded, formerly the oldest Jewish Museum, founded at the end of the 19th century by the Jewish community in Vienna, but then destroyed during the Nazi period.
A new museum management appointed a few months ago ordered hastily and without discussion that the permanent exhibition be terminated, an exhibition which was renowned on account of refinement in terms of museology and historical theory.
Today the Jewish community is no longer the body that sponsors the museum and it has been replaced in this role by the City of Vienna, although it is represented in the supervisory board and invariably carries considerable weight.
After the permanent exhibition had been terminated, a dispute was ignited in which the professionalism of the management was vigorously questioned by prominent representatives of European Jewish museums. An extremely unusual case because normally such open criticism is not expressed within a group of museums linked to one another in their specialist interest. And this was of course a debate on the former, considerably above-average quality of a museum which included the hitherto still open question of the quality the subsequent permanent exhibition would enjoy.
But the dispute also centres on different notions of what a Jewish Museum could be at the beginning of the 21st century. The old permanent exhibition posed the question of the recallability of history irrevocably damaged and rendered precarious by the Holocaust, and turned this into an ingenious installation dealing directly with the subject. But now there are also currents within the Jewish communities which more strongly take as a theme today's changed living conditions and wish to liberate themselves from a fixation on the Holocaust. The new management appears to wish to follow this line.
At the moment I am interested not so much in the factual questions, but in the mechanism of the debate, of the dispute, of the planning. After all what is involved here is more a number of notions of quality which are dependent on interests and projections, on experiences and knowledge of several groups.
III. The museum as a service provider – a change in paradigm without reflection
Perhaps in view of these two examples you will understand why I argue against a certain perception of quality that has become so popular in museum circles and among politicians.
I mean that notion of quality which is cultivated in the methodology and practice of quality control. Quality control seems to have become fashionable in Germany and Switzerland, but hardly at all in Austria as yet. I see at least four problems, two methodological and two connected with museum policy, discussion of which would be highly desirable.
First the two methodological questions: clearly there are very different levels on which one can talk about quality. A museum can be appreciated because of the quality of objects, e.g. its collection of paintings; but it can also be considered famous and significant as a lieu de mémoire of museum history, like for instance a tolerably preserved "cabinet of arts and wonders" of the 16th century; or again it may be currently very important as a social venue for a community, as a place where there is an engagement with high-conflict social or cultural questions. These are three completely different levels and the assignment of quality relates correspondingly to completely different aspects.
I don't see that and how it would be possible to do justice to the normative and qualifying process of quality determination. At the museum where I work I have learnt what the limits of benchmarking are. Apparently identical classes of figures turn out to be unsuitable for a comparison because they can signify very different things in relation to highly different museums.
I have already mentioned the second methodological problem, the extensive lack of quantifiable features specific to the museum which could be used to measure the museum.
Thirdly: control always assumes a subject of the control that pursues intentions and an object that is controlled. This is a hierarchical situation with unequal distribution of power. The questions therefore arise as to who desires such a control, with what intention and to what purpose, how transparently the control proceeds, how clear the criteria, methods and objectives are and who the acting individuals or bodies are – and what competence is assigned to them.
It seems clear to me that the desire for quality control has to do with the general socio-economic development. There is a hardly questioned imperative to achieve organisational and economic efficiency. "Thrift" prevails like a law of nature in public administration and also affects the museums. The museum where I work will this year lose 25% of its public funding and in the coming year its budget is to be cut further.
Quality control is a tool of precisely this state administration. And it is a tool which is used to execute exclusions: museums which do not meet the criteria can "justifiably" be closed down or their fund-worthiness will be questioned.
That is why in quality control criteria are central which serve the purpose of the state control intention described, such as visitor numbers, public payments, own funds, concern size etc., but never, normally not the educational or museological quality of museum work.
It becomes evident that the methods of quality control are not neutral. What is recorded is reinterpreted as the yardstick for success or failure. Figures which only make sense in terms of business management suddenly become the benchmark for the quality of a museum. What could only be an incentive to monitor and optimise organisation and operational sequences becomes the 'meaning of the museum'. Government policy and administration, the media, the general public and quite dramatically also the museums themselves now make profitability the measure of all things.
Here it is therefore no longer a matter of methodological questions. Rather it is a matter of a change in the social function of the museum.
What is becoming apparent is a perception of the museum as a service provider and of the visitor as a customer. This not only fails to correctly recognise the relationship between the museum on the one hand and the general public on the other. The museum would then only be a producer of commodities, such as catalogues, or of services, such as guided tours which are provided for a fee or occasionally free of charge, but overall so as to cover costs.
This is a fundamentally incorrect perception of the character of the public and the educational notion of the museum within the context of the idea of a welfare state society. The state then no longer has to see itself as a guarantor of the conveyance of education and knowledge, but only as a the guardian and regulator of operational rationality and thrift. It is possible to observe, for example, how state funds are no longer seen as essential maintenance in a socially meaningful function, but as subsidies. It is as though a museum is a commercial concern aimed at maximising profit.
I think that it is underestimated, also and precisely in museums themselves, what kind of rupture is taking place in the history and self-perception of the museum. This is a change of paradigm which completely disappears behind the fine adjustments of quality control, a change of paradigm which is caused – not only but also – by this rupture.
What is happening is nothing more nor less than the replacement of a social perception of the museum by a commercial one.
What really angers me is the impertinence of selling us service orientation as customer orientation, and wishing to hold this up as a kind of value added or progress in relation to previous development. Service orientation is justified and recommended as a way of meeting the interests of visitors more effectively.
As though the museum would not be conceivable in its own right without the response of a public, which also goes way beyond what we call visitors. This is not only not an evident case or progress, but on the contrary – what we see here is destruction. And namely destruction of that notion of a civil and democratic public not restricted to simply "being there" in consumerist fashion, but involving participation in public affairs and being a structural feature of the museum in modernity.
Approaching "customers" in the form of a service means instrumentalising them for the purpose of ratings, acclamation and revenues, seeing them merely as passive consumers of something offered. The notion of the public education museum assumes, however, the active and productive participation of citizens in their affairs, including in the cultural domain and in and through the museum.
Part Two
I. Quality is not measurable, it is the product of contention
The qualities of a museum are not objectifiable features of the institution and its practices which can be measured against criteria that can be fixed once and for all.
Quality is defined in a social environment which encompasses the institution and organisation as well as the visitors and users, but also the social ambience, in other words the public, politics, cultural policy or the historical culture of a society and the museum's typological or media peculiarities.
And this is certainly not an exhaustive list. One of the significant features of the museum is that it has so many. It is a 'hybrid'. It consists of the oldest media of image and script and is able to integrate newer and the newest ones, such as film, video or the internet. And I am not only talking here about the media, about the architecture, about the collection, about the organisation and so on.
Quality is constituted between rigidified cultural practices, rapidly changing expectations, different demands and immanent institutional intentions and structures. It is made up of both individual actions and expectations, such as curatorial decisions or interests and expectations, on the one hand, and of social notions aimed at the museum on the other.
Attempts at a standardising intervention in quality are limited from the outset to measurable and countable aspects of the museum. But there are only a few of these, such as visitor numbers, budget figures or exhibition areas. At the same time this involves general characteristics of organisations, and precisely not that which constitutes what is special and unmistakable in a museum.What is quality specifically as regards a museum is not fixed and cannot be fixed, it is fluid, moving, erratic. It is not essence and not a regulatable standard.
Quality is not a feature of museums but an expectation directed at it, an ongoing process in which expectations and the fulfilment of expectations are balanced out. Quality doesn't need measurement, but criticism. And quality arises through criticism, not through control.
In principle I see two possibilities for developing a museum criticism. By analogy, for example, with film or theatre criticism, from the area of tension within which expectations, interests, the medium and its history, its aesthetics and its technical conditions exist. And secondly from the history of the institution, from the logic of development which the museum has assumed. I may respond productively to this history, affirming it or rejecting it. But what is not possible in my view and also not desirable is to forget and ignore this history.
Quality can therefore now, today, become determinable from what we expect of the museum, what we need from the museum, but also from what the museum once was or what it has perhaps not become in many respects and still could become.
Quality is not a standard whose attainment can be monitored, but quality is for me the interplay of museum work and expectations and demands directed at the museum, something which can be debated and about which it is necessary to argue.
II. Quality is a discourse without closure
Taking two current examples with which I have been occupied in recent times I want to show that criteria for quality have to be negotiated in a social process of which it can hardly be said at any point that it is has come to an end.
Museums can establish their objectives, for example with help of a mission statement or a statute. But this will and should not obviate the need for them to occasionally review and modify these objectives. Or they are smart enough to incorporate the process aspect of their institutional identity in the mission statement itself. As the National Museum of Canberra has done, whose programmatic statement contains questions such as: "What does it mean to be an Australian?"
And now to my two examples. A few months ago the government of the city of Hamburg resolved to adopt a package of savings involving cuts in the cultural domain, including the closure of a former regional and urban district museum. A community movement emerged to protest the politically ordered closure of the Altona Museum. This community group recently submitted a petition with much more than 20,000 signatures to the newly elected senate of the city putting forward demands not only to the government but also to the museums. One of the demands was for the government's to be responsible in future only for the legal supervision of the city's historical museums and not the specialist supervision. This would make the museum politically more independent and autonomous in terms of specialist matters, but the community movement also articulated its interests in relation to the museum. It insists on its right to get involved.
This idea may make museum directors and curators feel very uncomfortable, but Hamburg's museum citizens are operating precisely within the framework which makes the notion of a modern museum so fascinating. They use the museum as social and cultural representation venue and one for self expression, as a place for negotiating historical and current questions, a place of knowledge and of the design and trying out of identities.What I mean by this will probably become clearer if we look at my second example. About 15 years ago the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna was founded, formerly the oldest Jewish Museum, founded at the end of the 19th century by the Jewish community in Vienna, but then destroyed during the Nazi period.
A new museum management appointed a few months ago ordered hastily and without discussion that the permanent exhibition be terminated, an exhibition which was renowned on account of refinement in terms of museology and historical theory.
Today the Jewish community is no longer the body that sponsors the museum and it has been replaced in this role by the City of Vienna, although it is represented in the supervisory board and invariably carries considerable weight.
After the permanent exhibition had been terminated, a dispute was ignited in which the professionalism of the management was vigorously questioned by prominent representatives of European Jewish museums. An extremely unusual case because normally such open criticism is not expressed within a group of museums linked to one another in their specialist interest. And this was of course a debate on the former, considerably above-average quality of a museum which included the hitherto still open question of the quality the subsequent permanent exhibition would enjoy.
But the dispute also centres on different notions of what a Jewish Museum could be at the beginning of the 21st century. The old permanent exhibition posed the question of the recallability of history irrevocably damaged and rendered precarious by the Holocaust, and turned this into an ingenious installation dealing directly with the subject. But now there are also currents within the Jewish communities which more strongly take as a theme today's changed living conditions and wish to liberate themselves from a fixation on the Holocaust. The new management appears to wish to follow this line.
At the moment I am interested not so much in the factual questions, but in the mechanism of the debate, of the dispute, of the planning. After all what is involved here is more a number of notions of quality which are dependent on interests and projections, on experiences and knowledge of several groups.
III. The museum as a service provider – a change in paradigm without reflection
Perhaps in view of these two examples you will understand why I argue against a certain perception of quality that has become so popular in museum circles and among politicians.
I mean that notion of quality which is cultivated in the methodology and practice of quality control. Quality control seems to have become fashionable in Germany and Switzerland, but hardly at all in Austria as yet. I see at least four problems, two methodological and two connected with museum policy, discussion of which would be highly desirable.
First the two methodological questions: clearly there are very different levels on which one can talk about quality. A museum can be appreciated because of the quality of objects, e.g. its collection of paintings; but it can also be considered famous and significant as a lieu de mémoire of museum history, like for instance a tolerably preserved "cabinet of arts and wonders" of the 16th century; or again it may be currently very important as a social venue for a community, as a place where there is an engagement with high-conflict social or cultural questions. These are three completely different levels and the assignment of quality relates correspondingly to completely different aspects.
I don't see that and how it would be possible to do justice to the normative and qualifying process of quality determination. At the museum where I work I have learnt what the limits of benchmarking are. Apparently identical classes of figures turn out to be unsuitable for a comparison because they can signify very different things in relation to highly different museums.
I have already mentioned the second methodological problem, the extensive lack of quantifiable features specific to the museum which could be used to measure the museum.
Thirdly: control always assumes a subject of the control that pursues intentions and an object that is controlled. This is a hierarchical situation with unequal distribution of power. The questions therefore arise as to who desires such a control, with what intention and to what purpose, how transparently the control proceeds, how clear the criteria, methods and objectives are and who the acting individuals or bodies are – and what competence is assigned to them.
It seems clear to me that the desire for quality control has to do with the general socio-economic development. There is a hardly questioned imperative to achieve organisational and economic efficiency. "Thrift" prevails like a law of nature in public administration and also affects the museums. The museum where I work will this year lose 25% of its public funding and in the coming year its budget is to be cut further.
Quality control is a tool of precisely this state administration. And it is a tool which is used to execute exclusions: museums which do not meet the criteria can "justifiably" be closed down or their fund-worthiness will be questioned.
That is why in quality control criteria are central which serve the purpose of the state control intention described, such as visitor numbers, public payments, own funds, concern size etc., but never, normally not the educational or museological quality of museum work.
It becomes evident that the methods of quality control are not neutral. What is recorded is reinterpreted as the yardstick for success or failure. Figures which only make sense in terms of business management suddenly become the benchmark for the quality of a museum. What could only be an incentive to monitor and optimise organisation and operational sequences becomes the 'meaning of the museum'. Government policy and administration, the media, the general public and quite dramatically also the museums themselves now make profitability the measure of all things.
Here it is therefore no longer a matter of methodological questions. Rather it is a matter of a change in the social function of the museum.
What is becoming apparent is a perception of the museum as a service provider and of the visitor as a customer. This not only fails to correctly recognise the relationship between the museum on the one hand and the general public on the other. The museum would then only be a producer of commodities, such as catalogues, or of services, such as guided tours which are provided for a fee or occasionally free of charge, but overall so as to cover costs.
This is a fundamentally incorrect perception of the character of the public and the educational notion of the museum within the context of the idea of a welfare state society. The state then no longer has to see itself as a guarantor of the conveyance of education and knowledge, but only as a the guardian and regulator of operational rationality and thrift. It is possible to observe, for example, how state funds are no longer seen as essential maintenance in a socially meaningful function, but as subsidies. It is as though a museum is a commercial concern aimed at maximising profit.
I think that it is underestimated, also and precisely in museums themselves, what kind of rupture is taking place in the history and self-perception of the museum. This is a change of paradigm which completely disappears behind the fine adjustments of quality control, a change of paradigm which is caused – not only but also – by this rupture.
What is happening is nothing more nor less than the replacement of a social perception of the museum by a commercial one.
What really angers me is the impertinence of selling us service orientation as customer orientation, and wishing to hold this up as a kind of value added or progress in relation to previous development. Service orientation is justified and recommended as a way of meeting the interests of visitors more effectively.
As though the museum would not be conceivable in its own right without the response of a public, which also goes way beyond what we call visitors. This is not only not an evident case or progress, but on the contrary – what we see here is destruction. And namely destruction of that notion of a civil and democratic public not restricted to simply "being there" in consumerist fashion, but involving participation in public affairs and being a structural feature of the museum in modernity.
Approaching "customers" in the form of a service means instrumentalising them for the purpose of ratings, acclamation and revenues, seeing them merely as passive consumers of something offered. The notion of the public education museum assumes, however, the active and productive participation of citizens in their affairs, including in the cultural domain and in and through the museum.
Part Two
Donnerstag, 14. April 2011
"Skandal und Scherbengericht". Wir über uns, ganz unabhängig. Peter Menasse läßt schreiben.
"Die Redaktion war aber überwiegend der Ansicht, dass es eine Berichterstattung geben soll. Barbara Tóth, promovierte Historikerin und scharfsichtig-unbeeinflussbare Journalistin, erklärte sich bereit, die Aufgabe zu übernehmen. Lesen Sie also ihren Beitrag zu den Ereignissen."
Das schreibt Peter Menasse, zurückgetretener Prokurist des Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien in seiner Eigenschaft als Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift "Nu", deren Redaktion auch Danielle Spera, Leiterin des JMW angehört.
Hier können Sie den Artikel (NU, Nr. 43 (1/2011), "Skandal und Scherbengericht") lesen und sich von seiner Unbestechlichkeit überzeugen.
Barbara Toth, ach ja, beinahe hätte ich es vergessen zu erwähnen, ist stellvertretende Chefredakteurin und Chefin vom Dienst. Von "Nu".
Das schreibt Peter Menasse, zurückgetretener Prokurist des Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien in seiner Eigenschaft als Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift "Nu", deren Redaktion auch Danielle Spera, Leiterin des JMW angehört.
Hier können Sie den Artikel (NU, Nr. 43 (1/2011), "Skandal und Scherbengericht") lesen und sich von seiner Unbestechlichkeit überzeugen.
Barbara Toth, ach ja, beinahe hätte ich es vergessen zu erwähnen, ist stellvertretende Chefredakteurin und Chefin vom Dienst. Von "Nu".
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