Lucia Stubrin

Conference Report. November 2023

The International Conference of Modern Art Museums at the Museo de Arte Moderno in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was one of the most cosmopolitan and stimulating academic, artistic, and social experiences of recent times. Without a doubt, it was a privilege to be chosen as a grant recipient by ArtHaus to be able to attend such an important cultural event for the training and insertion of professionals from museums and galleries who live and work in other cities in the country.

At a personal level, and because of my own visits and research interests related to the crossovers of art, science, and technology, the presentations of Elvira Espejo, Luis Camnitzer, and Marian Pastor Roces were a particular highlight. They all stressed the importance of art in relation to the production of sensitive, situated, interdisciplinary knowledge, and asserted the role of visual poetics in criticism when themes and methodologies introducing epistemological discussions are put on the agenda. For example, the ideas of “mutual nurture” (Espejo), the “artistic shift” (Camnitzer), and “reverse archaeology and taxonomic revision” (Pastor Roces) have been stored in my repertoire of theory as inputs to continue thinking about the contemporary scene.

There was also the selection of presentations that helped me delve into topics that, at first glance, were not part of my sphere of interest but which surprised me, moved me, and have now become part of my ideas and concerns. In this respect, I would highlight the presentations by Nicolás Testoni, Dayna Leiton, María Belén Correa, and Ana Gallardo. I learned much from each of them, but they left me with some cross-cutting messages, such as attention to difference, resilience, care, respect, tolerance, the need to question in detail, to work with different communities, to recognize identities, attentive learning, and the exercise of memory, to name but a few. I feel these examples of art management, on the one hand, point to the importance of cultural policies within institutions and, on the other, show how they are transmitted and contribute to building possible audiences for these museums, archives, alternative spaces, galleries, etc.

As for the personalized circuits, I think they were a great success for the organization because, first of all, they showed the special attention that was given to each of the participants and allowed us to link up with others who had similar profiles. Furthermore, the visit to the artists’ studios (and everything that involves: direct conversations, the recognition of the working conditions that artworks sometimes go through, the details of the production, etc) helped to complete and bring full circle the understanding of the actors who make up the contemporary art scene in Buenos Aires. Even if it was only for a short amount of time, we had an opportunity to approach, meet, or appreciate artists, spaces, and colleagues with whom, without knowing it, we share thoughts and feelings in common. For me, it was an opportunity to converse in more detail with professionals whom, in many cases, I had not had the opportunity to meet.

As for the professional opportunities promoted by CIMAM, I believe the lessons learned and the impact of these three days of conferences have been transformative for my work as a researcher and independent curator. First, because of the recognition of the cultural diversity that sustains museums worldwide and the different ways they are organized (for example, something which is known but is not commonly expressed by their directors, are those behind-the-scenes difficult institutional decisions.) Second, because of the new perspective that emerges our horizons of understanding are expanded a little and we can see beyond our everyday life.

I am left with the feeling that although we spent those three days gathered together in Buenos Aires, we were actually in each one of the places that each of the participants took us to in each of the conversations. It seems to me to be more accurate to think that for those three days, we were traveling non-stop around the globe while covering the programmed agenda.

In closing, I would like to express my deepest thanks for having received this grant, and I am also grateful for the human touch that was evident throughout the organization of the conference; it fostered, above all, a horizontal relationship between participants, where words, knowledge, and images were circulated and, in short, the ties of international professional solidarity were strengthened within a framework of respect and tolerance.

Bio

PhD in Theory and History of the Arts (UBA) and BA in Social Communication (UNER). Author of the book 'Bioarte. Poéticas de lo viviente' (2020) co-published by EUDEBA and Ediciones UNL. Director of the PICTO 'Bioarte situado: relecturas semióticas desde el arte contemporáneo argentino (2010-2010)', funded by the CONICET Agency (FCEdu-UNER), Professor of Semiotics (UNER) and Epistemology of Visual Arts (UNL).

Curator of 'Cabelleras imaginarias (1973 - 2002)', a patrimonial retrospective of the engraver Rosa Renk (Museo Municipal de Artes Visuales Sor Josefa Díaz y Clucellas, 2023), winner of the call for exhibition projects of the Secretaría de Cultura de la Municipalidad de Santa Fe. Winner, together with Dr. Jazmín Adler, of the 3rd Hugo Padeletti Contest. Stimulus for research in the field of the arts, awarded by the Provincial Museum of Fine Arts "Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez" for a study of heritage in the key of art, science and technology (2020). She obtained mention with her curatorial project 'Terceridades' (Margarita Paksa + Carla Tortul) in the New Curators Competition (2021), organized by the Argentine Association of Art Critics and the AMALITA Foundation.