Editor’s Note: Soon after the pandemic struck, New York-based arts writer and cultural strategy consultant András Szántó reached out to museum directors around the world. The result was an anthology containing interviews with 28 of them. The book gives us hope that the future of museums in China and elsewhere might be something to look forward to. In an exclusive interview to China Daily, Szántó discussed how COVID-19 pushed museums toward greater inclusivity, among other ideas. Excerpts:
In his new book, The Future of the Museum, András Szántó writes the epicenter of new activity around museums has shifted from Europe and North America to Africa, Latin America, Australia, and parts of Asia. (PHOTO COURTESY: ANDRÁS SZÁNTÓ)
One of the charming features of your just-published book – The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues (Hatje Cantz) – is that you were already friends with most of the museum directors you interviewed, and that set the general convivial tone of the book…
I've been meaning to do a book like this for many years. Each of the dialogues was a kind of collaboration between people who really are colleagues of mine, and in many cases, I count them as friends. I'm glad that came across.
Let’s begin by trying to unpack the new definition of museums proposed to International Council of Museums (ICOM) by the Jette Sandahl-led commission. It kicks off the introduction to your book and comes up many times in the dialogues with the museum directors. The proposed definition suggests that a museum is answerable to the public (“they hold artifacts and specimens in trust for society”) and advocates that it has a political awareness, (“addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present”). “Aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary well-being” sounds like the enterprise of the museum has more to do with activism than art. Please could we have your responses to each of these clauses in the definition?
ICOM’s attempt to re-define the museum reflects the mood of this sector at this time. The majority of the respondents in the book said they agreed with the spirit of the definition, although some see it as slightly over the top. They see the relevance of adding dimensions to the museum’s more established functions.
Many museums were established as national institutions – to custodians of the very important things that have something to say about who we are, what we value, and what are the most important achievements of our culture. Museums are therefore meant to be public institutions and repositories of objects held in public trust.
But I think all museum leaders today would agree, museums are not just there to talk about the past and keep objects as though they were trapped in amber. Rather, they have an active, dynamic relationship with society, and they function as a forum for exchange about issues that matter. A museum is not a mausoleum, but more of a public square. It is a secular institution where everybody is welcome. You can go there and engage with ideas without having to buy something or subscribe to a particular set of beliefs. Embracing this powerful notion is one of the many ways in which members of this generation of museum directors are expanding the remit of the art museum.
András Szántó feels in the future West Kowloon Cultural District, with its two new museums, might provide people with a “third space” between work and home. The sketch is an artist’s rendering of the approach to M+ building. (PHOTO COURTESY: WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT AUTHORITY)
Duncan Cameron discussed the museum’s relationship with the public it serves in his 1971 essay, “The Museum: a temple or the forum.” It’s an idea that recurs in your book.
A temple is about devotion, and that suggests a hierarchical relationship. In the past, many museums literally would be located on top of a hill, designed to look like a Greek temple. We need to bring that temple closer to the ground. At the same time the idea of the temple has resonance in the sense that a museum, among other things, is a place where you can be alone to think deeply and reflect, even find solace.
I think the part of the definition — which is still under consideration at ICOM — that made some people scratch their heads is about advancing “human dignity, social justice, global equality and planetary well-being.” That sounds like a tall order. But most museum directors today would agree that objects are not innocent, and neither are interpretations. The stories we tell, the things we collect, the way we use these museums have a deep connection to our sense of justice and the types of societies we want to build. “Planetary well-being” may sound a bit like something out of Star Trek. Yet most people do subscribe to the urgency of sustainability. So, all in all, the ideas enshrined in the definition are alive in the field. And I do believe that the pandemic experience and social justice protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in mid-2020 had an accelerating, catalyzing effect, pushing museums even further in this direction.
To quote from your book, “The contrast between the art museum’s traditional functions — to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit — and its expanded role as an agent of community life and social progress has intensified in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.” Would you like to elaborate on why the pandemic triggered a re-think in terms of a museum’s social role, and also give us one or two examples of the difference museums have already made by addressing these concerns?
Clearly, 2020 is destined to go down as one of those big dates in history, where one period ends and another begins. This strange moment has crystallized an awareness that some things needed to change.
It was reassuring to see how adeptly institutions responded. For example, Marion Ackermann, the director general of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, Germany, mentions in her interview how their staff sent 10,000 handwritten postcards bearing images from the museum collection to people stuck at home. Similarly, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, in Moscow, sent warm meals to hospitals and senior citizens. These are faces of museums that we don’t often see. And they are here to stay.
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Meanwhile, because of George Floyd, almost every American museum has completely reappraised its policies regarding equity and inclusion.
You write in your book about the geographical shift of the epicenter of new activity around museums from Europe and North America to Africa, Latin America, Australia, and parts of Asia. You say these new institutions are ready to “disentangle their art histories from Western cultural narratives.” Can you think of reasons why there is a readiness to find a new language to speak of museum collections at this present moment?
I wanted the book to reflect that museums now are everywhere. I am happy to say that there are four museums from Africa in the book. Many people wouldn't associate Africa with museums and yet they're evolving there rapidly. I would have loved to add more museums in Asia. There are so many worth talking about, we could have done a whole other book.
As a Hungarian who has lived in New York for 30 years, I have a deep affinity for underappreciated parallel art histories. If you visit national museums in Oslo, Bermuda, Buenos Aires or Saint Petersburg, you’ll find that a parallel universe of art has been excluded from the master narrative. That’s ignoring the extraordinary cultural heritage of many regions of the world, stretching back tens of thousands of years, which have not been adequately collected, studied, and interpreted.
Museum experts these days are committed to presenting local histories alongside previously-told stories of art. This idea is embodied in the collections of new institutions, like M+, which see themselves as custodians of diverse cultural narratives. That's a huge contribution they're making: not only shining the spotlight on different aspects of a culture, but bringing a different interpretative framework, a different lens through which to look at classical objects as well as the latest cultural practices.
M+ museum director Suhanya Raffel is among the 28 museum directors interviewed in The Future of the Museum. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)
Is this easier to do by new museums of contemporary art as they do not have to deal with historical baggage?
It’s definitely an advantage if you don't have to deal with a legacy infrastructure. Many European museums were built in buildings with an architectural language that reflects a particular set of assumptions about how culture is organized. European “classic” art is often presented at the core, and other cultures on the periphery. In a new institution you can approach things differently — architecturally, organizationally, intellectually. Starting from scratch allows for a more open attitude.
There is less pressure today to simply copy institutions from Europe or North America. Now we may be seeing the emergence of a more pluralistic museum field. Just as art became more pluralistic in the late 20th century, now museums can be varied. I hope tomorrow’s museum leaders will resist the temptation to follow old models. They should insist on high professional standards but not be afraid to come up with their own answers to what a museum is, so it can best serve their cultures and communities.
Selected items from the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing will be on show at Hong Kong Palace Museum which opens in 2022. Would you have a suggestion as to how a museum showcasing Imperial legacy could stay relevant at this time and connect with a Hong Kong audience?
I'm a believer in cultural diplomacy — fostering some kind of cultural conversation. Generally speaking, we should be happy that the new museum infrastructure is in place so that future generations of progressive-thinking leaders in these institutions can take them in exciting directions. A museum is a long-term proposition.
To decolonize museum acquisitions is a major goal for museums, as part of a general drive to look at art critically and in a wider context. Would you like to pick an example from your book to illustrate this?
This reckoning with colonial legacies and racial issues is going to be front and center for the foreseeable future. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of story-telling happens around collections.
For example, Thomas P Campbell, director and CEO, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, said in the book that while they will continue to show the great 19th-century American landscape paintings of Yosemite or the Hudson River that are full of light and nature and spirituality. But they are going to put a note next to these magisterial paintings explaining that at the same time as these works were being created, the United States was embarked on a campaign to eradicate the native populations from these very landscapes. This re-contextualization is going to be a generational job.
Museums in China seem to be coping better with COVID-19, in terms of staying open for longer periods and quick digitalization of content to be shared online. Could this be because turning a crisis into an opportunity is among the cultural underpinnings of Chinese society?
Not long ago, I traveled with two delegations of American museum directors visiting China, organized by the Asia Society. One thing we discussed was that where an American museum would spend four years developing a show, a Chinese museum would do it in three months. This ability to do things quickly is certainly a major asset in the current moment. Of course, most museums from China, Singapore and Taiwan did not have to cope with the horrendous COVID-19 situation we saw in Europe and the US. I admire the energy I see in China’s museum sector, that desire to build and evolve and never take no for an answer. It’s a similar energy Europeans were startled to find in the United States a century ago.
As is evident from your book, the location, surroundings and architecture of museums are perhaps as important as what they contain. What kind of roles do you expect new Chinese museums to play in terms of placemaking?
I'm a believer in cultural institutions being anchors of community life. We're all curious to see how the idea of placemaking comes together in the forthcoming museums of Hong Kong, in West Kowloon Cultural District, and what kind of urban fabric they may help bring to life. It will be up to the future generations who operate these institutions to bring out their full potential. I applaud the vision to build cultural infrastructure on land that is among some of the most expensive in the world. M+ will make a huge impact, providing a communal space, generating a sense of belonging, and offering a respite from one of the most intense urban environments anywhere. You will be exposed to their programing by just watching the giant LED screen from the outside. It’s not just about the museum, but the entire urban milieu around it.
The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues by András Szántó explores the new “expanded role of museums as an agent of community life and social progress.”
The museum business model has collapsed in the wake of COVID-19. How could museums without public funding offset the losses they have made and survive in the short term?
Hopefully, we will soon see the light at the end of the tunnel. But regardless of COVID-19, museums are in a bind. Society keeps asking more and more of them. You need to collect art, of course, which is getting ever more expensive. You need to hire diverse and well-trained staff. You need a green roof and recycling. You need to give access to people with disabilities. People expect vegetarian food in the café, facilities for kids, music programs, free wi-fi, and so on. So costs are ballooning.
On the other hand, revenue sources are finite. Governments need to spend on many other things. Many philanthropists are looking in other directions, especially now, when there are a great many problems to solve. And if the public doesn't return, or if you're operating at 25 per cent capacity, your earned income is cratering. The math works if you can get a lot of visitors, but not for a half-empty museum.
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As Axel Rüger, secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, says in the book, there are very few magic bullets. It’s hard to monetize museum assets, such as digital information. However, what we have now, perhaps, is a greater openness to testing out different ideas. One of these could be to form alliances and combine resources. A second area is fundraising. The list of industries from which taking money is no longer acceptable keeps getting longer year after year. I suspect there will be some new rules about sponsorship and how museums can monetize their facilities through rentals etc.
Also, people are talking about unlocking value from museum collections. This is a contentious topic. The Brooklyn Museum raised US$40 million by selling works — not their masterpieces but secondary works in the collection. I believe we will see innovation in financial technology in the next few years. And Asia, where romantic ideas attached to art are not as deeply entrenched, might be the region where solutions to unlocking value will be found.
Consider an old but poor institution with a lot of art, and a new and well-funded institution that doesn't have a lot of good art from the periods that it wants to collect. Could the new institution buy some of the works from the older institution, or enter into some kind of co-ownership arrangement? The older institution receives a cash infusion and the upstart institution can show the works. Such constructs are beginning to be talked about.
Do you think when COVID-19 subsides and museums reopen, there might be a challenge in drawing back the audiences who have got used to getting their museum tours online? Additionally, new museums in China, including Hong Kong, have to deal with the challenge of creating newer audiences in a region where the culture of visiting museums is in its early stages…
People will reset the patterns of their daily lives and the museum-going crowd will be back. I am quite certain of that.
The long-term problem is that the vast majority of people don't go to museums. Capturing these audiences will require speaking to a much wider range of people. People from different backgrounds should be able to come to a museum and think: “I see people here who look like me. I see stories I care about, and which resonate with my history and my heritage. I can understand what is being presented to me here. I feel welcomed. It's cool. It's exciting. And by the way, I just had a great lunch.”
Once we have a more open and welcoming, community-friendly museum, we will get those larger audiences. People are desperately hungry to be around other people. So we have to create the circumstances where they feel comfortable. For me, one of the big takeaways from this book is that I'm reasonably convinced today’s museums understand the challenges they face, and are working on fixing these problems.
Eugene Tan, director of National Gallery Singapore, and Singapore Art Museum, says in your book that it is perhaps harder for museums located in the tropical region to maintain energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprint, because air-conditioners have to do double duty in both protecting the antiquities as well as ensuring the comfort of visitors. How does one work round this problem?
The key role museums could play in this respect is by helping shape mentalities and educating people. It is not just about putting on exhibitions that tackle climate change, but about weaving an environmental awareness into the presentations on multiple levels. It's a wonderful curatorial challenge.
One of my favorite stories in the book is told by Marie-Cécile Zinsou, who founded the Fondation Zinsou and the Musée de la Fondation Zinsou, in Cotonou and Ouidah, in the Republic of Benin. She built an up-to-date museum for which she was able to borrow works from state collections in Paris. She then realized she was spending a fortune on electricity for air conditioning. So she decided she was going to build a new kind of museum for Africa. Maybe it won't even have a roof. But it will be able to show many examples of African culture and accommodate the community.
Museums don't all have to be the same. Yes, certain types of museums need to abide by certain climate standards and that's costly. Hopefully they will choose technologies that meet the latest safety standards. On the other hand, not all museums have to be air-conditioned glass palaces.
All your interviewees were asked to share their idea of a museum. Interestingly some of them see museums as a home or a sanctuary for visitors while some others see them as a space where the visitor is a guest. Which one do you prefer?
A museum is an enormously complex organization – there’s storage, scientific research, conservation and preservation. There is educational activity going on and galleries where people can see objects and exhibitions. People often underestimate how much goes into making all that happen. In a larger sense, I would like to think of museums as something that's part of one’s everyday life. A home is a nice metaphor. But the truth is that there are too many empty museums in this world on a typical Wednesday morning. That's because often people feel the museum is not for them.
I would like to imagine museums as a place where you can go to hang out or work, not just be in an educational mode. Museums could establish co-working facilities — to be that “third space” where people spend time between work and home. Get a cup of tea or coffee. Use the wi-fi. It's warm, or cool, and pleasant. And of course, you can see art.
The message of this book is that we can break down the barriers between everyday life and museums. We don't have to walk in and feel obliged to speak in hushed tones and adopt a reverential posture of passive reception of the expertise that's being handed down to us. The museum and the green spaces around it — because so many museums are surrounded by green spaces — should become a part of our everyday lives. So in Hong Kong, it would be perfectly natural to say, “I'm going to spend my day in the West Kowloon Cultural District. If you need to reach me, call me, or we'll Zoom from a park bench. Come meet me there.”
At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, there is a so-called living room. It's just a big room with plants, comfortable furniture, books, lamps and good wi-fi. You can go spend time there for any number of reasons. All museums should have these kinds of spaces, which exist to enable sociability.
I think this leads to the idea of the non-museum or post-museum that Marc Olivier-Wahler (director, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire Geneva, Switzerland) offers in your book. The idea that in the future one might be carrying museums on a chip implanted at the back of one’s head is not difficult to imagine anymore after Olafur Eliasson created an AR-based app which allows people to experience rain-bearing clouds in their living rooms. And as Philip Tinari (director and chief executive, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing) remarks in your book, China is ahead of many other cultures in the applied technology race. Do you think the new museums in China could take a leadership position in this respect?
Daniel Birnbaum, who now runs Acute Art, in London, which creates virtual reality works with leading artists, is in the book, and he curated the Olafur Eliasson project you mentioned (Wunderkammer). Daniel said, maybe the museums of the future won't just have to be about things inside big buildings; maybe they will be in your pocket. A museum could have a flagship physical entity, but it could replicate itself on all kinds of digital platforms. It could escape its physical edifice and take its DNA to be realized it in other formats.
I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion that some of these innovations may first take root in Asia. Many people in China, Singapore or Japan are living a more digitally-evolved life than we do in the United States. This will transform museums. Europe gave us the first iteration of the museum — grand palaces devoted to a certain ideal of high culture. The influence of the United States in the 20th century was about creating a more democratic, civic, education-oriented, user-friendly museum. Now we have turned the page to Asia, and its imprint will likely be both cultural and technological. We're seeing the third great boom. It will usher in a different mentality and new infrastructure.
Anton Belov, of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, in Moscow, described the museum as a friend, as not so much of a place but an attitude – an entity that won’t talk down to you and which can help you in your quest to understand and express your identity and provide you with resources to do just that. Whether a museum is an 18th-century palace, or a 20th-century glass box, or a 21st-century digital platform, the question will always be: is this museum your friend?
Interviewed by Chitralekha Basu
