[ M A K_o n l i n e ]

MAK Permanent Collection

Artistic Interventions

The reinstallation of the MAK's permanent collection and redesign of the gallery spaces by contemporary artists was the first experiment to be realized in the course of the Museum's search for a new identity. Here, for the first time, one can sense what the notion of fruitful confrontation between traditional collections and new artistic trends signifies. A conscious decision was made not to have architects design any of the spaces. It was hoped that different new positions and viewpoints in relation to the objects in the collections would supply the objects with fresh, contemporary legibility in a way that re-educates our eyes and our perception towards the specific sensitivities and strengths of the individual materials.
Objective display is impossible in a museum; to display is at once to present, to interpret, and to evaluate. The MAK choses to realize the viewpoints of significant contemporary artists, who reinstalled the permanent collection after intense collaboration and long discussions with the responsible curators.
The permanent collection is arranged in chronological order - not, however, with the intention of "covering" each stylistic epoch as completely as possible, but rather of introducing the Museum's highlights, its particularly interesting and unique objects. (In the study collection, on the other hand, the Museum's traditional arrangement according to materials has been preserved in a concentrated, orderly form of presentation.) Working with colors, special lighting installations, electronic text displays, special show cases, enclosures, pedestals, and special perceptual alienation effects, the artists found a variety of spatial solutions for their respective rooms. Particularly striking was that, while pursuing their highly personal strategies, they carried out their tasks with such a respect and understanding for the objects that it always remained unmistakable that displaying these objects was their primary motivation. One has to subject oneself to the qualities of the rooms and decide for oneself whether or not this concept has proved to be right; whether the artistic involvement adds a new dimension to contemporary interpretation; whether it actually contributes to the complexity and multiplicity to which the Museum aspires.
The artists themselves responded energetically to the unusual task, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm and periods of intense frustration in the process. Donald Judd, for example, ended up thinking it would have been better to install the Dubsky Chamber underground, partly because he had problems with any kind of museum installation; and Barbara Bloom committed the sacrilege of mentioning the bentwood furniture - the serial, almost minimalistic variations of which she made clearly visible - in the same breath as the mass-produced furniture of IKEA.All of the rooms have been the subject of much discussion. But in fact, the Museum could not ask for anything better than to spark off a radical, critical debate about the relation of old to new, about how to bring old, traditional spaces into the present day and into correspondence with the work of contemporary artists./ Peter Noever