Graphic contribution made for the digital publication Decolonizing Art Institutions,
after an invitation by Giovanna Bragaglia, member of the international
collective Oncurating, and in collaboration with the Post-Graduate
Programme in Curating, ZHdK, Switzerland.
No museums exist departs from the
introduction of André Malraux's 1947 book Museum Without Walls,
in which the author praises (rather uncritically) these western institutions
when he exclaims: "So vital is the part played by the art museum in our
approach to works of art today that we find it difficult to realize that no
museums exist, none has ever existed, in lands where the civilization of modern
Europe is, or was, unknown".
The image shows a reproduction (in negative) of this page from Malraux's book, with the original illustrations replaced. Where there was a work by Flemish painter David Teniers and a room from the National Gallery in Washington, there are now two newspaper images of the fire that consumed the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 1978, destroying more than 1000 works of art, including almost the entire constructivist phase of Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García, there in a retrospective exhibition at the time.
The image shows a reproduction (in negative) of this page from Malraux's book, with the original illustrations replaced. Where there was a work by Flemish painter David Teniers and a room from the National Gallery in Washington, there are now two newspaper images of the fire that consumed the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 1978, destroying more than 1000 works of art, including almost the entire constructivist phase of Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García, there in a retrospective exhibition at the time.
+ Source > site oncurating-space.org
+ Publication Decolonizing Art Institutions