"How can we ensure that our professionals' younger generation continues to stay committed to this idea of an international global art community?"
"How can we ensure that our professionals' younger generation continues to stay committed to this idea of an international global art community? At the Singapore Art Museum, curators couldn't travel around to do their research, so we conducted these research workshops by inviting curators and artists to talk to us and establish a network. When traveling becomes possible again, all these relationships are already set up."
Eugene Tan, CIMAM Board Member, Director of National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, and moderator at CIMAM's Rapid Response Webinar #7: Re-examining International Exchange: The Future of a Global Art Community.
#7 Re-examining International Exchange: The Future of a Global Art Community
Thursday 26 November 2020
- Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich.
- Haegue Yang, South Korean artist, Berlin, Seoul.
- Mami Kataoka, President of CIMAM, Director, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
Moderated by Eugene Tan, CIMAM Board Member, Director of National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the internationalism upon which contemporary museology is premised. Yet given the current situation, such as with travel restrictions, doubts have surfaced about the sustainability of this premise and its practices (to say nothing of its impact on the climate crisis); this is coupled with the rising perspective that museums should focus on local communities and their collections.
How then should museum professionals, curators, artists, and cultural workers approach and rethink the relationship between institutions, locals, and the world?
Are there ways we can re-think what the international can mean? Will we witness—or even bring about—an entrammelled internationalism, or can we conceive of new modes of exchange and collaboration that is both more sustainable, and more inclusive?
How can we support new generations of practitioners to ensure that we do not lose the sense of a global art community?