Snježana Pintarić

CIMAM conference is a great place to meet coleagues from all over the world, to see and to hear their experiences and their ideas and to discuss problems which we all have in the world of museums of modern and contemporary art today.

In this report I would like to point out four speakers whos practical and theoretical approaches were very stimulating and inspiring for me – this are Alistair Hudson and Miguel Amado from Middlesborough Institute, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev form Castello di Rivoli and Yuliya Sorokina from Asia Art+PF. Three very different positions, different experiences but they all are connected with the same passion for art and passion for museums, something what we are, in my trengt, missing sometimes in our everyday practice. Repositioning of an institution is complex and “dangerous” process which can fail or have success. Alistair showed on the example of Middlesbrough Institute that repositioning is possible even in difficult situations. The programs, which he and Miguel presented – like Museum 3.0, ART without ART and Arte Util are wonderfull contributions to the mission of contemporary museums, specially in the field of building new audiences. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s lecture about the art world today and the position of a curator or a museum director in this complex network opened many questions and discussions among the coleagues but in my trengt, she showed us how wonderfull and big this art world is and she remembered us that we have to question our position every day again. In last years many coleagues, when they saw the big new building of the Museum, asked me if I am planning to organize some biennale in Zagreb and I always answered no. After Calolyn lecture I am planning to reconsider this question!

Yulia Sorokina is coming from the land in which there is no museum of contemporary art but she is organizing so wonderfull actions and exhibitions and I would like to congratulate to her and to CIMAM board for inviting her.

I would also like to mention one exhibition space which we visited only shortly – Fundació Foto Colectania which is very interesting institution in terms of collecting and promoting Catalonian photography. I am planning to stay in touch with Foto Colectania for some exchange trength, between their collection and MSU Tošo Dabac Archive.