Interview: Magnus Jensner & Moderna Museet Malmö

Moderna Museet Malmö. Exterior view of the new annex made by the architects Tham & Videgård Hansson.		Moderna Museet Malmö. Interior view of the turbine hall.

Could you tell us about the background for the decision to make a branch of Moderna Museet here in Malmö?

To begin with, the City of Malmö wanted to use this building for something as it has been empty since Rooseum closed four years ago. Various propositions were in play, for example they wanted to make it the city’s art museum (Malmö Konstmuseum, red.), but the museum said no because they found the building too small to house their whole collection. They also thought about making it into a center for architecture and design, but that was also voted down. Then they approached Moderna Museet in Stockholm and asked if they were interested in creating a branch here, and they thought it was a very good idea and responded to it. After some negotiations about the conditions regarding the building and the facilities, it all went pretty fast. It was also decided that Region Skåne should be a part of it, so it has become a three part solution between the Swedish state, Region Skåne and the City of Malmö. All parts are involved in the financing, which makes it a very stable solution.

But what is the interest of Moderna Museet to be here in Malmö?

Today it is quite common to make these branches, like Tate in England or in France, where they are creating all sorts of branches right now. I think this tendency has inspired the politicians, and it is a very good idea, because it creates dynamic possibilities, when you can show a collection in different places. It is going to be very interesting to see what will happen when we open this museum, not least because the collection of Moderna Museet is of a very high standard, and I think it will have an important impact on this area as a whole, including Danish art life.

Dan Flavin: Monument 7 for V. Tatlin, 1964. © Dan Flavin. Diane Arbus: Child with a toy hand grenade, 1962/ca 1977. © Diane Arbus. James Rosenquist: I Love You with My Ford, 1961. © James Rosenquist/BUS 2009.

What is your organizational status in relation to Moderna Museet in Stockholm? For instance how much autonomy do you have in the planning of exhibitions?

We are an independent museum in the sense that we have our own staff, we do our own planning regarding exhibitions, public relations, and in connection with the operational level in general. At the same time we also co-operate closely with the museum in Stockholm, because now that we have a new venue for the collection, it is necessary to talk about and coordinate how to use it, and that requires planning made by staff from both museums. For example when we make an exhibition here with works from the museum in Stockholm, we empty some of the rooms there. As it influences both museums how we choose to use the collection, we have to rethink and discuss in what ways they will show the collection in Stockholm, and how will we show it in Malmö.

I hope that this new branch will give us the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the collection and see what we can find, maybe show things in a new way. The big difference is of course that the museum in Stockholm is so much larger, it is a big museum, and they can have these chronological presentations of the 20. Century, as they do now. We cannot do that here, as the building is too small. Thus we have to think in different ways, maybe show a few artists, maybe show an –ism, or ten years of art history like our opening exhibition on the sixties.

Luc Tuymans: Kontor, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen, and David Zwirner, New York. Luc Tuymans: Bridge, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen, and David Zwirner, New York. Luc Tuymans: CCTV, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen, and David Zwirner, New York.

Luc Tuymans: Neck, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen and David Zwirner, New York. Luc Tuymans: Reflections, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen and David Zwirner, New York. Luc Tuymans: Sniper, 2009. © The artist, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerpen and David Zwirner, New York.

Could you briefly tell us a bit more about the profile of the museum?

Well, our profile is more or less like that of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Moderna Museet has a collection and our exhibitions will be much based on that collection. As I said before we will try to find new ways to use it in this context, but we will also work with contemporary artists. It will also depend on how we can attract an audience. When you start a museum like this I think it is very important to attract a wide audience and to make both broad and narrow exhibitions. It is bit like Louisiana that has these warm and cold exhibitions. It is wonderful to show both types at the same time, because then you can attract a certain kind of audience to one exhibition and then they will likely see the other as well. That is also a main difference between Stockholm and Malmö. In Stockholm you can go and see Dali for example, which they show right now, without ever seeing the other exhibitions, but since we are such a small museum it is possible to see all the exhibitions in one visit and that will give the audience the opportunity to discover the connection between them. We will use the exhibitions in a pedagogical way, for instance by showing the audience what happened in the 60’s and how it is linked to contemporary art. So it is an integral part of the visit here that you can actually see everything, and that is the advantage of a smaller place.

We have three exhibition spaces in the museum. The plan is to show the collection in one of the spaces, and each exhibition will be on show for fourteen months, which give the audience a chance to come back and see certain works they like, and the schools can come and work with the collection in different ways. In the other spaces we will make special exhibitions, lasting between two and half to four months, so we will have openings five to six times a year, which I think is pretty good. This way we can always attract new people.

It is a rather rare, but exciting situation to be involved with the development of a new art institution, how has it been for you?

It has been both very exciting and challenging to be part of all this. I was also involved in the opening of Dunkers Kulturhus, and when you are participating in a large project like that you think it is a once- in-a-lifetime experience, but now I have the chance to do it again. It is really fantastic; to be able to hire new staff, to build up your own organization, to create contact with Stockholm, and to solve all the different challenges regarding the use of the collection etc.

Astrid Svangren: En violett doft av nykammat hår/eller som att normalisera I, 2009. © Courtesy of the artist, ELASTIC, Malmö, and Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm. © Astrid Svangren/BUS2009. Astrid Svangren: En violett doft av nykammat hår/eller som att normalisera V, 2009. © Courtesy of the artist, ELASTIC, Malmö, and Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm. © Astrid Svangren/BUS2009. Astrid Svangren: En violett doft av nykammat hår/eller som att normalisera IV, 2009. © Courtesy of the artist, ELASTIC, Malmö, and Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm. © Astrid Svangren/BUS2009.

You open the museum with three different exhibitions, could you make a small introduction to them?

First of all, we wanted to show something that is very typical of Moderna Museet and the 1960’s was a very formative period in the history of the museum. Moderna Museet opened in 1958 in Stockholm, and in the beginning of the 60's Pontus Hyltén became director. He introduced a lot of new international artists in Sweden like Andy Warhol and Niki de Saint Phalles, and as he was a very dynamic person with many connections all over the world, he was also able to get many of them to come to Stockholm, which was quite unusual at that time. I imagine that the museum was very much like a workshop back then. Furthermore, in 1962 the Swedish government gave Moderna Museet 5 million SEK, also a quite unusual thing, and for that money the museum was able to buy a lot of key works for the collection. I think it is one of the best investments that the Swedish state has ever made. Therefore we have a lot of great works by many of the most important artist from that period, and to open the museum with a show of these works is a fantastic possibility, and I think it will attract a lot people.

Then in the big turbine hall on the ground floor, which is approximately 350 square meters, we have an exhibition with Luc Tuymans. In the beginning of this year he made a whole new body of work, which has been shown at Wiels in Brussels. Very early in the process we were asked if we were interested in showing it here, and we said yes immediately, because it is always very interesting to show new works by such an important contemporary artist.

The third space we could have used for the collection as well, but I thought it was a very good opportunity to introduce a younger artist, in this case a young Swedish painter, Astrid Svangren. She was educated at Malmö Art Academy and now lives in Copenhagen, so she is part of this region, and I think she is one of the more important painters of her generation. To be able to show new works by her as well, is in my view a very good mix.

Thanks.