International News Digest
ART AT COPENHAGEN TALKS
While Copenhagen failed to produce a tough climate deal, there was no lack of dialogue. The Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Andrian Kreye listened in on a unique session held at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebæk, where figures such as curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, artist Olafur Eliasson, philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, mathematician Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and ecological engineer Matthias Schuler took to the podium. While Kreye notes that consensus was rare, climate change remains one of the few themes where all agree that something must be done. “My generation has witnessed the transformation of nature from a steadfast reality into a condition that reacts to our actions,” noted Obrist. “Art doesn’t have the power to find solutions. But it can find productive ways to disagree.”
For Eliasson, the experience of global warming may be difficult for many to comprehend. “We save memories in a very different way when we link them with a physical experience,” he said. As Kreye notes, the impact of global warming—such as melting glaciers at the poles—may simply be too distant for many to grasp. Sloterdijk called for nothing less than “a rethinking that goes further than the Reformations of the sixteenth century.” Like their political counterparts, the speakers found no hard solutions in Kreye’s opinion. But they managed to establish “a frame” for the debates that goes beyond simple “statistics and slogans.”
TRADING MODERNITY FOR HISTORY IN WARSAW?
The Museum for Modern Art in Warsaw may be the next victim of the financial crisis—and a growing interest in Polish history. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Thomas Urban reports, the Warsaw Gazette has announced that the long-debated proposal to build a museum for Polish history is gaining momentum. Yet there’s a new twist to the old debate about the historical museum, which may be built over the city’s underground freeway. Due to the financial crisis, Warsaw’s municipal coffers are not full enough to finance a new historical museum while keeping up the existing Museum for Modern Art, which may be “sacrificed” for the historical museum. According to the report, the majority of the Polish population is now said to be “proud” of the history of the nation.
SAINT PETERSBURG’S HERMITAGE WELCOMES CONTEMPORARY ART
While Warsaw contemplates sacrificing artistic modernity for national history, the monumental Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg is opening its doors to contemporary art. As Le Monde’s Marie Jégo reports, the current exhibition “Newspeak”—a collaborative show with London’s Saatchi Gallery featuring British artists—is the first step in a historical expansion plan that will make contemporary art exhibitions a regular event at the museum.
Since the Hermitage attracts 2.5 million visitors per year, the Russian state has agreed to cofinance an expansion with nearly 650,000 square feet in a building facing the museum. Six hundred workers are currently laboring day and night on the $105 million renovation, which has been 49 percent financed by the World Bank. The renovated building—which opens in 2014, just in time for the twenty-fiftieth anniversary of the Hermitage—will be home to works from the nineteenth and twentieth century as well as temporary exhibitions with contemporary art. With the new building, the Hermitage expects to welcome five million visitors annually.
Jégo spoke with the Hermitage’s director, Mikhaïl Piotrovski, who explains the museum’s turn toward contemporary art. “The Hermitage is a universal museum,” says Piotrovski. “The art of all epochs must be represented there. And moreover, the museum has always collected contemporary art. Catherine the Great, Alexander I, Nicolas I, Alexander II—all were collectors of the art of their eras. It’s about integrating contemporary art into the classical universal museum.”
Unlike the earlier royal collectors, Piotrovski does not see a future for the museum purchasing contemporary art. “What’s the use of acquiring when the most important thing is showing?” says Piotrovski, adding that Wim Delvoye’s work will be shown in September and a group of French painters in October.
“During the Soviet era, we were a closed country, and contemporary art was not really part of our concerns. And then, it’s expensive and complicated. Some artists have made donations—Pierre Soulages, Fernando Botero, Louise Bourgeois, Bernard Buffet, Ilya Kabakov, Robert Rauschenberg.”
While Piotrovski remains open to cooperations with foreign museums—the Louvre being a fruitful alliance—such institutional exchanges, which often depend on the state, can be “complicated.” “It’s just easier with private galleries,” says Piotrovski. “All collectors—French, German, Russian—are competitors. To be honest, we never participate in auctions because we don’t have the means. But we have good relations with large patrons of the arts.” These may include not only Russian oligarchs, such as Viktor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, but also foreign concerns, such as IBM and Coca-Cola. “Newspeak” continues until January 17.
SOCCER VERSUS ART: ALGERIAN ARTIST KICKED OUT OF EGYPTIAN BIENNIAL
The Algerian artist Zineb Sedira has denounced her eviction from the Alexandria Biennial in Egypt. As Agence France-Presse reports, Sedira, who was to represent Algeria in the exhibition, found herself barred from the event by Egyptian authorities, who cited the violence that has marred the qualification matches between Egypt and Algeria for the World Soccer Cup in 2010. Last November, Egypt’s defeat by Algeria led to violent clashes in both countries. Sedira, a Franco-Algerian artist who lives in London, was said to be “appalled” after being impacted by the soccer affair between Egypt and Algeria. The artist received a letter from Mohsen Shaadan—the president of the biennial and the head of Egypt’s fine arts sector—who informed her that Algeria would no longer be participating in the biennial due to the “anger” of the Egyptians about the behavior of Algerian soccer fans who went “beyond all the criteria and customs of the Arab citizen.” Sedira was reported to be “disappointed” by the link made by the Egyptian authorities between a soccer crisis and her own artistic activity. “I thought that we shared the same values and celebrated the virtues of art in its capacity to go beyond the national borders of a country and other vague nationalist desires,” stated the artist, adding that she had no intention to transform the Algerian national pavilion at the biennial into a soccer field or courtroom.
The Alexandria Biennial, which features artists from countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, runs until January 31.
PREGNANT SAINT PETERSBURGERS FLOCK TO EXHIBITIONS
Along with contemporary art, Saint Petersburg museums are seeing growth in a unique population segment. As Agence France-Presse reports, pregnant women have become regular visitors at the city’s museums as part of their preparation for giving birth. “It’s said that a pregnant woman should look at beautiful things,” says Macha Zvereva, a twenty-five-year-old expectant mother who is taking art courses at the Russian Museum along with “dozens” of other pregnant fellow citizens. “I’m sure that these courses are good for me but also for my baby,” adds Zvereva, who found out about the course “Knowing Beauty Before Birth” at her gynecologist’s office. The Russian Museum, inaugurated in 1898 by Emperor Nicolas II, features religious icons, as well as modern and avant-garde paintings by artists such as Kandinsky, Chagall, and Malevich.
For the gynecologist Marina Komova, who initiated the program in 2006, the courses “help pregnant women to improve their physical condition thanks to their emotional state.” “It’s clear that art objects have a harmonizing effect on human beings,” says Komova. That’s not the only benefit. “It’s strange, but babies five or six months old whose mothers have followed the courses and who come to see us occasionally with them will stop crying the very moment that they hear the voice of the guide” at the museum.