CIMAM announces Los Angeles as Host for the 56th Annual Conference in 2024
→ The 55th CIMAM Annual Conference in Buenos Aires closed on 11 November. This edition focused on The Co-creative Museum: Social Agency, Ethics, and Heritage and was attended by around 250 contemporary art museum directors and curators from all over the world.
→ The 56th CIMAM Annual Conference will be held in Los Angeles from December 6th to December 8th, 2024. This will be the second time the conference is held in the city, the first being 34 years ago in 1990. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Hammer Museum will jointly host the event, giving attendees an excellent opportunity to discover the city's exceptional contemporary art history, diverse culture, and vibrant artistic landscape.
→ During the CIMAM 2023 General Assembly, in the framework of the 55th Annual Conference, it was announced the winner of the third edition of the CIMAM Outstanding Museum Practice Award, which goes to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Panama for its CHAGRES: Nomadic Residency Program.
CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collection of Modern Art, announces Los Angeles as the destination for its 56th Annual Conference in 2024, following the successful 55th edition held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Press Release, Barcelona, 5 December, 2023
In a gathering of around 250 global museum leaders, the 55th edition of CIMAM's Annual Conference, hosted by the Museo Moderno de Buenos Aires, explored the theme The Co-creative Museum: Social Agency, Ethics, and Heritage. The three-day event fostered a progressive conversation, delving into the social and educational responsibilities of modern and contemporary art museums and exploring different facets of art institutions' role in society. Participants discussed how art institutions act as agents of change, the various practices shaping organizational and individual agency, and the interpretation of memory as a social tool. Co-creation emerged as a central theme, emphasizing mutuality and care in the art world.
During the days of the Conference, an ambitious program of visits to more than 60 institutions and cultural spaces in the city of Buenos Aires was developed.
To facilitate Conference participants' research on Argentine art, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires developed a website that seeks to map the entire Argentine art scene, the “A Rolling Map of Argentinian Contemporary Art”, an unprecedented tool created for the CIMAM Conference in Buenos Aires.
CIMAM 2024 Annual Conference
The 56th CIMAM Annual Conference will be held in Los Angeles from December 6th to December 8th, 2024.
“We are delighted to host CIMAM's 2024 Annual Conference in Los Angeles, a city with a rich contemporary art history and a dynamic cultural scene. As a pan-American, trans-Pacific city, Los Angeles embodies diversity and vitality, shaped by its diasporic roots. With the 2028 Olympic Games on the horizon, the city's cultural projects and infrastructure developments create a compelling backdrop for global discussions.” Declares Clara Kim, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Board Member of CIMAM and Chair of CIMAM’s Annual Contents Committee.
The collaboration between The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Hammer Museum, three prominent contemporary art institutions in Los Angeles, presents a unique opportunity for the local art community to address pressing issues and outline future directions in the field. CIMAM's 2024 Conference will align with PST Art: Art x Science Collide, an initiative of Getty with arts organizations across Southern California presenting thematically linked exhibitions and public programs. PST ART will delve into intersections of art and science, with diverse organizations presenting on topics like ancient cosmologies, Indigenous sci-fi, environmental justice, artificial intelligence. The Getty Foundation will generously be the main supporter for this upcoming edition of the CIMAM Annual Conference.
The CIMAM 2024 Annual Conference is being thought and designed by the Content Steering Committee consisting of:
- Clara Kim (Chair of the Contents Committee), Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
- Suzanne Cotter, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney.
- Joselina Cruz, Director/Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila.
- Amanda de la Garza, Director, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City.
- Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles.
- Aram Moshayedi, Interim Chief Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
- Kitty Scott, Independent Curator, Toronto.
About the CIMAM Annual Conference
CIMAM Anual Conferences since 1962
Outstanding Museum Practice Award #OMPA23
The CIMAM Outstanding Museum Practice Award recognizes exceptional practices in museums worldwide that promote excellence in innovation, accessibility, public exchange, and sustainability within the modern and contemporary art sector.
This year, following an open call, CIMAM received 12 nominated practices which were considered by the CIMAM OMPA Working Group, composed of Joselina Cruz, Leevi Hapsala, Chus Martinez, Suhanya Raffel, and chaired by Suzanne Cotter, and then by the full CIMAM Board. Particular attention was given to practices that were contributing to real structural change in terms of how the Museum functions and that impact on the broader cultural/economic and socio-political context in which it is operating.
The CIMAM Outstanding Museum Practice Award, now in its third edition, recognizes Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Panama for its CHAGRES: Nomadic Residency Program. This innovative five-day residency program fosters collaboration between contemporary artists and indigenous communities, contributing to cultural exchange, knowledge transfer, and empowerment.
“The “Nomadic Residency Program” is a decentralized artistic residency project that is carried out directly in and with the communities involved. In this first edition, “CHAGRES: Residencia Nómada” is developed in the Alto Chagres region, in the Emberá Drúa community, Ējuä So (indigenous territory). The project is a joint effort among Enea Lebrun, Artist and cultural manager; Andrea Lino, leader of the Emberá Drúa community; Tranchichi (Community cooperative, Emberá Drúa); and the team of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá, led by our public program curator Kevin Lim.”, comments Juan Canela, Chief Curator of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá.
With the intention of questioning the boundaries drawn between art and artisan work, the project create spaces for dialogue between artists and artisans addressing issues related to contemporary artistic practices, the dignity of traditional craft work, reconnection with ancestral knowledge, rescue of cultural heritage of the people and the visibility and representation of these art forms that resist to the hegemonic and canonical currents of Western art.
Suzanne Cotter, expressing her delight at the selection, underlines the importance of initiatives like CHAGRES: "In difficult contexts, the resilience and impact of projects like CHAGRES demonstrate the power of museums to bring about positive change".