Re-examining International Exchange: The Future of a Global Art Community

Join the last CIMAM webinar of 2020 on Thursday 26 November.

5 pm Singapore Time (10 am Central European Time)

• 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.

Rapid Response Webinars are free of cost and accessible ONLY for CIMAM Members. Sessions are recorded and posted at the Members Only section of the CIMAM website for those who missed the time.

Register here

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?

Biographies

• Mami Kataoka

Mami Kataoka was Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery from 1997 to 2002 prior to the Mori Art Museum (2003-), where she has served as Chief Curator since 2009, and Director from 2018. Kataoka was also International Curator at the Hayward Gallery, London from 2007 to 2009; Co-Artistic Director for the 9th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2012); and Artistic Director of the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018). She serves as Visiting Professor at Kyoto University of the Arts Graduate School, the Tokyo University of the Arts’ Faculty of Fine Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts; as well as Chair of Contemporary Art Committee Japan, Art Platform Japan [Initiative by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan]; and Member of AICA [International Association of Art Critics]. Kataoka was appointed President of CiMAM in 2020 to 2022, the first non-European President in its history. Kataoka frequently writes, lectures, and juries on contemporary art from Japan, Asia and beyond. She was recently appointed the Artistic Director of Aichi Triennale 2022.

• Andrea Lissoni

Andrea Lissoni is Senior Curator, International Art (Film) at Tate Modern, London (United Kingdom). At Tate Modern, he launched an annual Cinema Programme conceived as an exhibition unfolding throughout the year. He also curated the major survey exhibition Joan Jonas (2018), the Turbine Hall commission by Philippe Parreno (2016), and the live programme for the opening of the new building (2016). In 2018, he co-curated The Sound of Screens Imploding, Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Geneva (Switzerland)/Turin (Italy). In 2012, he co-founded Vdrome, an online cinema for artists and filmmakers. Previously, he was curator at HangarBicocca, Milan (2009-13) and co-director of the international festival Netmage, Bologna (both Italy). Lissoni was appointed artistic director at Haus der Kunst in Munich (Germany) in April 2020.

• Haegue Yang

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Haegue Yang now lives and works in Berlin. Her work seeks to communicate without language through a complementary vocabulary of visual abstraction and sensory experiences that include scent, sound, light and tactility. Combining industrial fabrication and folk craftsmanship, Yang explores the affective power of materials in destabilizing the distinction between the modern and pre-modern. Her ongoing research is empowered by underlying references to art history, literature and political history, through which she re-interprets some of her recurrent themes: migration, postcolonial diasporas, enforced exile and social mobility.

Recent and notable exhibitions include: Handles, The Museum of Modern Art – MoMA, New York; In the Cone of Uncertainty, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Tracing Movements, South London Gallery, United Kingdom (2019); Chronotopic Traversées, La Panacée, Montpellier, France (2019). Her work has also been included in the following biennials: 21st Sydney Biennial, Australia (2018); Liverpool Biennial 2017, United Kingdom; Sharjah Biennial 12, United Arab Emirates (2015); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); 8th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2010) and the 53rd Venice Biennial (2009) amongst many others.

Register here

Rapid Response Webinars are free of cost and accessible only for CIMAM Members. Sessions are recorded and posted at the Members Only section of the CIMAM website for those who missed the time.