What Should the Programme of a Museum Be?

The first event organised by MOCAK is the discussion panel What Should the Programme of a Museum Be? with the participation of Piotr Krajewski, Dorota Monkiewicz, Joanna Mytkowska, Piotr Piotrowski, Anda Rottenberg, Jarosław Suchan, Marek Świca and Maria Anna Potocka.

The aim of the panel is to reflect on the formula of a contemporary museum, which – as Gerald Matt puts it – ‘no longer has an enduring place in the constantly changing, dynamic environment. It is constantly reshaped; obliged to revise and define over and over again its status in terms of the public function that it performs’ (Kultur und Geld, transl. by A Wajs, Aletheia, Warsaw 2006). How, then, can one create a stable programme which will reflect the dynamics of the development of the most recent art at a time of constant fluctuation in the market of symbolic capital? Is it a matter of choice or necessity to limit the programme? How should its boundaries be set? What to choose: deconstruction - or strategic essentialism? The managerial model - or social involvement?

The members of the panel will be those engaged in creating the programmes of the most important Polish institutions dealing with the most recent art.  During the first part of the meeting, each invited speaker will present his or her own proposal of what a programme of a museum should be like. After the break, an open discussion will take place. The panel will be chaired by Paweł Brożyński and Sebastian Liszka.

The panel discussion will take place on 28 April at 4 pm in the hall of the Centrum Studiów Humanistycznych of the Jagiellonian University.