Jens Maier-Rothe

My experience of this year's annual conference left me with a heap of impressions. For one I was excited about the program's diversity and the sheer abundance of inspiring art spaces we visited in Tokyo, for another I have mixed feelings about the lecture program. I initially felt intrigued by the thematic outline and how it might resonate with the lineup of keynotes, lectures and interventions. I came in the hope for more provoking statements grounded in an actual practice, whether it is the practice of an institution (to be) or of independent cultural practitioners. Whereas fully fledged academic lectures feel slightly extraneous to me within the context of this conference. I see its main purpose in the exchange of thoughts and ideas around the experiences and struggles we all make in different places in the world.

The introductory note also seemed to reflect that, at first glance, by asking "How global can museums be?" Posing the question like this suggests that being global is only a matter of degree, not of choice. But how do museums want to act global and why? Can we really speak of "one single institutional model" or of "the Museum as we know it"? More pertinent to ask seems why so many different institutions actually seek to define themselves through a common notion of being and acting as global agents. It lies within the nature of the event when an organisation like CIMAM hosts its annual convention that the main objective is to connect, associate and identify with each other among institutions worldwide. Yet it struck me why scores of dissimilar types of organisations would forage for models and protocols in the hope to adjust to some standard reference atmosphere in an expanded global field. Whether small or big, art institutions of all kinds act as if they were pressed for time to boost their global presence. The frame of mind behind this ambition is nothing new of course, all audience driven institutions are anxious to lose touch with a fast moving world and its growing publics here and elsewhere. This is the only way to stay relevant for their local audiences and international readerships. From my personal experience and point of view, this shared anxiety is only healthy as long as it is transformed into inspiring institutional practices. While trying to hatch up universal models that connect and bridge between fundamentally distinct locales seems ill intended. Circulating universal concepts that are not applicable to anyone locally, easily turns into an empty gesture of institutional power.

To some extent a conference always runs the same risk. Events of this kind hinge on creating an abstract space between nowhere and everywhere. At the same time they impart a feeling of being part of a global community. Just how global do I feel amidst all this? On day one, faces across the hall spoke volumes about the effects a considerable time lag can have on anyone's mood and mind. All those who had just traveled halfway around the globe to be here seemed to share that sentiment. Probably this state of mind helped to remain puzzled also by the question set for day one of the conference: Is the museum still a place for debate? We all came to sit in a museum and to debate. Or was the self-imposed question here whether this all would make sense?

As the first speaker, Patricia Falguieres found a truly diverting way to defy simplification when facing such straightforward questions. Her keynote delivered a most elaborate "no" while performing a highly affirmative "yes" by extending the question from the museum as institution to the public sphere at large. While certainly an inspiring way to open this conference her ruminations ultimately left the audience a lot to speculate about the museum's role and agency within the process of creating and negotiating that very public sphere and making it accessible.

The aftertaste of this debate seemed to tie in with another query lodged by the introductory note: "Is the museum the entity most capable of rewriting and modifying Art History?" Museums create two things: discursive experiences and bureaucratic residues of these experiences. The residues are processed in a way to feed back into the fabrication of an ongoing discursive experience by documenting, archiving, ordering and sequencing –in short, historicizing– everything into somewhat linear narratives. These activities is what positions an institution on the global map, what grants it to have an afterlife and play its part in the art hsitorical canon. But what if we don't accept this divide as given? Can we negotiate it as dynamic system in the present instead of a linear sequence of past events? It may help also to overcome the divide between 'local' and 'global' in our thinking. Like all things, this begins with the language we speak and whom we address as who or what.

Here, I welcomed Slavs and Tatars insightful intervention from an artistic perspective. Emanating from dichotomies between crafts and art, innovation and individualism, Payam Sharifi ultimately summoned public institutions and museums to ackowledge and assume their key role as educators in this regard. Public debate is not only enacted and delivered to an audience, it must be nurtured by educating audiences about forms of participating in and enabling it. Otherwise we keep adopting and reiterating the same models and concepts over and over again. In the following public discussion Eugene Tan, Director of the Singapore National Gallery, began his remark by saying: "I think we as museums". Clearly, language frames what we do more than anything else. To move beyond its defining lines we must find a vocabulary that not only sits in this divide but oscillates between multiple poles, one that allows us to be in different places at the same time. Only then we become able to forgo the dilemma of modernity to always create new prototypes.

This resonated perfectly well with my taste for some of the more practice-driven and less academic positions over the course of the three days. Some of which I deeply enjoyed for their downright wit at the base. For one when Jack Persekian gave his account of building and directing the about-to-open Palestinian Museum in Birzeit north of Ramallah, for another when Hammad Nasar's report as Head of Research and Programs at the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. To that same effect, I highly appreciated how all three artistic contributions added to the mix and opened up toward the field of imagination around what forms the Political can take on within the site of the 'Museum'.

Last and most important, I would like to thank our delightful hosts for the welcoming atmosphere, elegant care and wonderful nourishment they provided during the entire time. Thank you Mori Art Museum, thank you National Art Center, thank you CIMAM, and thank you Getty Foundation for making it possible for me to join.