Between a Museum of Modern Art and a Museum of Contemporary Art at the Start of the 21st Century

11.07.2006

Conversation between Peter Pakesch, director of the Kunsthaus Graz,
and Zdenka Badovinac, director of the Moderna galerija, Ljubljana

Tuesday, 11 July 2006, at 6 p.m.

Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Information center

You are cordially invited to attend the conversation between Peter Pakesch, the director of the Kunsthaus Graz/Landesmuseum Joanneum, and Zdenka Badovinac, director of the Moderna galerija, Ljubljana. With this conversation, the first part of the series of talks addressing the relationship between the museum of modern art and the museum of contemporary art will be concluded. Moderna galerija is organizing these talks as part of its reorganization into two units, a museum of modern art and a museum of contemporary art, and also due to the new and disparate suggestions concerning the possible use of the building at Metelkova 22.

In 1994, Moderna galerija was allotted the use of one of the buildings in the former Yugoslav Army barracks complex at Metelkova. In 2000, during the time of the Ljubljana edition of Manifesta, we used the not yet renovated building for the first public presentation of our Arteast Collection 2000+, which focuses predominantly on Eastern European art based on the traditions of the avant-garde. This presentation was also a harbinger of a new museum of contemporary art that was to evolve on the basis of the collection.

The allotment of a new building also suggested the division of the Moderna galerija into a Museum of Modern Art, which is to remain in the existing Moderna galerija building, and a Museum of Contemporary Art, to be housed in the allotted army barracks building at Metelkova. The founding of a special museum dedicated to contemporary art is further dictated by the fact that there is no major institution in Slovenia that is suitable for contemporary innovative practices and their traditions.
The program we have planned for the museum at Metelkova focuses on the new ways of presenting and interpreting contemporary art as well as on greater interdisciplinarity.

Peter Pakesch was the director of the Kunsthalle Basel from 1996 to 2003, and has since 2003 been the art director of the Kunsthaus Graz/Landesmuseum Joanneum. He founded the Grazer Kunstverein (together with Helmut Strobl) and curated many exhibitions, among them: Painting-Wallpainting, Steirischer Herbst, 1987; Graz 1988, Art between Moscow and Los Angeles, Steirischer Herbst, 1988; Herbert Brandl, Albert Oehlen, Christopher Wool, National gallery, Prague - Riding Hall of the Castle, 1994; Raumkörper, Kunsthalle Basel, 2000; Painting on the Move, Kunsthalle Basel, 2002; Moving Parts, Kunsthaus Graz, 2004; Inventur - Works from the Collection of Anton and Annick Herbert, Kunsthaus Graz, 2006.