moving in and out of history courtauld
DESCRIPTION
(Kun engelsk version, 2012) Lecture given at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London in 2012 on the past, present and future of the royal cast collection based on the theory of performativity studies (J. L. Austin, J. Derrida, J. Butler). The lecture traces the history of a collection once considered a good, even necessecary performance in the eighteenth century, turning into an unwanted one during the twentieth century. In the presentation a future for the collection as a place for remembering that we forget, repress and want to get rid in history and memory, and as an experimential place for performing the loss and possible futures of sculpture and history, by focussing on co-creation and participatory projects for museums, is proposed.TRANSCRIPT
Moving in and out of historyThe fate and the future of the Royal Cast
Collection, CopenhagenBy Henrik HolmPh.d., Curator
Bio-Power / Bio-Politics:
The application and impact of political power on all aspects of human life
(Michel Foucault)
”West Indian Warehouse”
What casts do: they perform “stylized repetition of acts” / “stylization of the body” = creates the idea of
gender and identity (Judith Butler)
Bio-Politics
”We worship man, our invention…”
Evolution of art, spirit, freedom, and mankind
Once a happy performance…
Plaster cast of the ”Apollon Belvedere”
and ”The Parnassus” by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1761
Nazism and antiquity
Stills from Leni Riefenstahls movie ”Olympia” and from her book ”Beauty in Olympic Battles”
”Towards a Newer Laocoon”
Barnett Newman:
Onement 1, 1948
…. turning into an ”unhappy” one
Cecil B. DeMille directing a scene form ”Cleopatra” (1934)
Van Gogh drawing ca. 1880
1966: Moving out of History
Returning in post-modernist times
The Renaissance gallery now, and a prospect of the future housing
Museums in crisis
• Irrelevant• Authoritative• Uncomfortable • No change• No creativity• No marks left• Less Money• Less Impact• Less Power
A solution: participatory strategies
”gipSMK”on Facebook and YouTube
(”gips” is plaster in Danish, ”SMK” is the abbreviation of Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery))
Moving in and out of historyThe fate and the future of the Royal Cast
Collection, CopenhagenBy Henrik HolmPh.d., Curator
”West Indian Warehouse”