MAX HOLLEIN AND ROBERT STORR THE SECOND HOME

Can the encyclopaedic museum be enriched indefinitely? How can we juxtapose Western traditions and the primitive arts? Ancient art and contemporary art? Use digital tools without interfering with the perception of objects? Meet public expectations, including when works no longer represent their values? These age-old questions are currently compounded by the issue of restituting certain works to their country of origin. Robert Storr, who was a curator at MoMA and the first American director of the Venice Biennale in 2007, decided to discuss these issues with Max Hollein, who was born in Vienna

(the son of the architect Hans Hollein), and has been the director of the Metropolitan Museum since 2018.

Robert Storr You have, generally speaking, worked for museums that were encyclopaedic rather than specialised, notably the Schirn in Frankfurt, the deYoung in San Francisco, and now the Metropolitan. So you are a “museum man” who has always worked on a very broad historical canvas but also a culturally interlaced and problematic one as well. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about general principles, general ambitions in that sphere?

Max Hollein So I would say that the definition of an encyclopaedic museum—or a universal museum—is shifting. In reality, the collections of these institutions are often less encyclopaedic than eclectic. I would argue that the whole premise that museums should cover the entire cultural development of mankind across the globe is unfulfillable. And so this striving for completeness that some institutions pursued in a certain way over some decades is basically bound to fail. What I think is more relevant and more important is an institution that, based on its collections, but more importantly based on its knowledge and its approach, can become more universally relevant.

RS So is the role of the director with regard to steering the discourse. Is it like chairing a seminar at which all of these issues are discussed more or less dialectically by specialists?

MH I think that the role of the director is firstly to recognise the discourse. I’m speaking here of course as the director of The Met, but you can also apply that to any other institution of a certain size where you have an enormous specialisation within your infrastructure. We have 140 curators right now, and of course, that expertise tends to go deep. These scholars and experts are often involved in a particular discourse that goes on within their particular field. But sometimes I see that there is a broader discourse on the horizon, that I as Director believe the whole institution has a responsibility to engage with. Of course, we are in the middle of the postcolonial discourse, but probably like 20 or 30 years ago you could already see that the most relevant discourse and academia was going that way. Also in our case, I want to clarify that the discourse is very much object-based, that it’s really about the art and about the work in our collection and context.

RS One of the people you worked with, William Lieberman, (1) used to say that what a curator does is collect collectors. But too often what that results in is just the eclecticism that you were talking about. So when you suggest a more considered approach, presumably you mean that, as an institution, you collect in anticipation of developing certain fields. Are you doing that now?

MH When I came to The Met, I tried to push ourselves to not always having the first question be “What else do we need,” meaning which other object, but rather “What do we do with what we have, and what is missing so that we can best do that. What is the context for an object that we already have.” It’s really also about the perfect mise en scène of these objects, how they can best be seen.

EXPANDING THE STORY

RS That’s interesting because outside the museum there’s a big sign for the new show of vernacular sculpture from the Southern United States, Hear Me Now— folk sculpture, some people would call it. And then there’s also a show of polychromed antique art Chroma. Now, both of these things are anathema from the point of view of classic “high modernism” in America. So, I wonder whether the alignment of the two shows might not be an implicit way of questioning some of the truisms that have dominated American museums for so long. Or, if this is just a happy circumstance.

MH I think that, yes. Both in regard to our exhibitions as well as how we are expanding our collections, we are complicating our narrative. And we are sometimes even undermining people’s expectations and perceptions. And the Chroma show that you just mentioned is a research project that has been going on for 40 years.

For many it is an enormous surprise that ancient Greek and Roman sculpture was actually originally painted with vibrant colors. But it also shows you how the reception of works is not only a single-viewer experience, but it actually also goes through different cultural contexts. Greek sculpture was perceived differently in the Renaissance and that had an effect on Classicism, etc. And in regard to the show on Edgefield pottery, basically doing this show was part of our commitment to expanding the story of the development of nineteenth-century American art. It’s a process, but I always found it interesting that you have these galleries of eighteenth and nineteenth-century American art that mostly tell only one story. It’s the story of the white settler. And you want to make sure that that’s not the only story being told.

RS Does it help in this paradigm shift to be a European, so that you're not part of a family squabble in the United States, and can actually take a broader view?

MH Well, I’m not sure if it helps per se, but clearly The Met is based on a background that became more and more global. At its beginnings, it had a certain Eurocentricity ingrained in this institution but then it was always striving to go international. My own trajectory, my own education about what museums are, what they can do and what they should do and what they should reflect, has certainly also expanded during my time being involved with American museums.

RS Interestingly enough, Robert Goldwater, (2) who was one of the advisors to the Rockefellers in the creation of collection of tribal art, was keenly aware of cultural differences and discrepancies among the many indigenous traditions represented in those galleries and of all the distinctions concealed or distorted by the label “Primitive Art.”

MH It’s absolutely fascinating. Because I read that too, and, of course, I was interested in Goldwater and his connection to the arts. And, I could cite a number of leading curators and thinkers—for example Alexander Dorner (3)—who had already expressed reservations about that label. But there is another major step to be taken to transform those misgivings into general knowledge. And I would argue this shift is tougher for American museums than for European ones. I say that because American institutions are built on philanthropy and that introduces a certain additional history into the institution where every gallery is named, sometimes making change more complicated. So it is also a kind of complex negotiation with the history of that institution. Accomplishing change requires an enormous amount of different stakeholders, but you need to make sure that the idea of the museum can evolve with your community.

In the US people feel that the museum is their museum. I mean, it’s ideally like a home away from home. You feel emotionally attached and it should represent your values. I grew up in Vienna, I went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum all the time, but I never felt “this museum is my museum,” or that it represents my values, whatsoever. It was an institution about the history of art. It wasn’t a civic institution per se from the start. The

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CONTEMPORANEITIES

RS One of the constantly vexed questions at The Met has been the role of contemporary art.

MH Yeah. I would say from the outset, what differentiatesThe Met from its other peer institutions, say the Louvre, the British Museum, the Hermitage, or the Prado, is that basically from the moment of its founding to now, it has never had a cut off point in regard to what it collects. For The Met, in the context of the museum’s infrastructure and the narrative outlined by the museum, having modern and contemporary art as an integrated part of the museum is absolutely critical. So for us, over the long run, to run a satellite for modern and contemporary art that was not connected to the main building, would not be the right choice for The Met. I think thatThe Met Breuer was a great venue, especially for programming, but in the long run it doesn't make sense for The Met to have that kind of separation. (4) Contemporary art thrives in different cultures and times. The Met’s collection, I still argue, is probably one of the best in the area of modern and contemporary—especially postWorld War II—and is still probably one of the best kept secrets in New York.

RS That’s true.

MH On the other hand you need to acknowledge that our collection from the twentieth century, although very strong, is also eclectic in certain ways. And there are many more areas within The Met where we show 20th century art. A big proportion of the objects that you see in our galleries for sub-Saharan African art are from the twentieth-century, like the Bis poles, (5) for example. But we might not recognize it as such. This has to change.

RS It’s a long tradition, but it’s a contemporary object.

MH That’s right. Yes. So I think that what The Met can do is on the one hand connect, over centuries, artistic and cultural developments that fuel one another, but you also can show both contemporaneity as well as asynchronous movements during that time and how that sometimes connects, and how that sometimes is a completely different environment for artistic development depending on

both the infrastructure as well as the discourse. So this more complex developmental model is something that we will put forward in a strong way, and that will allow us to tell a complementary story with what the Whitney, MoMA and, to a certain extent, the Guggenheim can tell. It also informs our collecting, which is probably also quite different from other institutions.

POWER TO THE PUBLIC

RS Do you have the resources to collect as you’d like?

MH Well, the answer is always no. The Met is in a very good position to acquire in all different areas, and especially in modern and contemporary art. I’m more focused and concerned about the thoughtfulness and curatorial approach that allows us to really bring together these kinds of arcs and bridges we are building.To make the presentations and the stories that The Met can tell not only compelling, but also more complex and more multicultural and multi-perspectival. That—for me—is a core point.

RS You’ve done a lot with digital media to foster active engagement with the public, not just provide information. Could you talk about that a bit, because you are clearly an object man, and digital media is, in some ways, the enemy of the object.

MHWell, I would say that what’s so important is that we see the museum as a place where you can experience art together. This communal experience is very important.

On the other hand, I think that a museum has such a broad mission to engage and to educate and to narrate and to involve people that you can fulfil that mission in multiple ways, not solely linked with a physical visit. But there are other ways of staying connected with audiences. I was always surprised that people in the US go to baseball games completely prepared. They know exactly who is playing, what the batting statistics are, but they come to the museum to see a show often unprepared. So I thought, we need to provide tools that make it easy for people to be a bit more prepared so that they can have a richer experience. We basically want to send you a digital tutorial on the broader curatorial framework before you visit. That’s also something that digital tools can provide. It’s not something instead of a visit.

RS But if you think that your audience will be prepared as you describe them, then you can show less information in the space of the art, right? And let people explore it for themselves.

MH No, I agree. As we know, people buy the catalogue and then read it after the visit and suddenly recognize: “Oh, that was where I saw it and why it was there.” So I think it allows you to really have a richer understanding and also to appreciate the curatorial effort more. It’s like with music—if you go to the opera, if it’s the first time that you have seen, I don’t know, Wozzeck or whatever, it’s kind of a first exposure to a complex piece. But if you’ve been a couple of times and you’re already prepared, you understand that the whole cosmos and maybe the specific way in which that particular director understood the piece... It’s also supportive of our work as curators to interpret the art without having to burden it with didactic materials that completely destroy the visual power of the object.

RS That’s also music to my ears. Because you’re presenting a situation where choices and dichotomies are basically bound together. They’re there for the viewer, or reader, to consider as they wish. Which is also, again, giving power back to the public rather than taking it away from them. It’s like when you have sparks of energy arcing between two electronic poles.

MH No, exactly, that’s a very great, that’s a wonderful image of that.

SHARED CULTURAL HERITAGE

RS Let me ask you a question. One of the problems, which all museums have and you’ve recently had, which is if collectors buy objects that are dubious in their origins. What do you do about the general clamour, in parts of the world that have been heavily mined for art, to repatriate the things to wherever they were taken?

MH Yes, yes. So, we as an institution, first of all, have not only a legal obligation, but also a moral obligation to be an institution that collects based on high legal and ethical standards, which basically means that we are returning works for a number of reasons. Yet, as the director of a universal museum, I’m obviously not a believer that every object can only fulfil its artistic power or quality at the place of its origin.

RS I’m with you there.

MH So I would argue that basically, more often than not, it’s actually the other way around. And so, if there’s the idea to bring back all the artworks from different cultures to their place of origin, then not only is the idea of the encyclopaedic museum obsolete, but I think also our whole understanding of cultural dialogue and of a shared cultural heritage is being questioned. You want to, on the other hand, make sure that these transactions or the migration of objects are being both reflected within the museum and are there in a way that you can ethically, as an institution, say yes, we are the best custodian of this works and these works are here for reasons that we feel we can stand for. But basically the journey of objects, and the journey of wealth—and both of them are very connected—, these are stories that stem from the complexities and cruelties of war, of exploitation, and of changes of power. There’s no doubt about that. So in a sense, museums are also institutions of history, and reflections of history, and so for me, the path moving forward is to be not only as responsive as possible to the questions of illegal excavations—we return these objects, or objects that come out of a context where they were still being used for spiritual or religious purposes. All of these are certainly reasons for the museum to act and react swiftly. On the other hand, to rewind history, and be able to basically right all the wrongs that have happened over the course of the many centuries, or even the last two centuries, is a very complex path.

RS It’s frankly impossible.

MH Yes, and as I say, there are responsibilities that come with it. I was a museum director in Germany for 15 years, and for sure, German museums first and foremost have a responsibility, an ethical responsibility to restore to victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, in a broader definition than probably other museums applied to that, or other private collections. The United States over the last 200 years is a complex story of shifting power. As a history and a legacy institution, we are part of that. It is ingrained in our institutional fabric.

William S. Lieberman (1924-2005), curator and later director of the Department of Prints and Drawings at MoMA, and later the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In 1971, he was the first director of the newly established Department of Drawings. In 1969, the American patron Nelson Rockefeller (19081979) donated his collection of 3,000 African, Oceanic, and American objects to The Met; it was not until this date that the museum began a policy of systematic acquisition in this field. Robert Goldwater (1907-1973), American art historian, specialist in primitive art; he was also the husband of Louise Bourgeois. Alexandre Dorner (1893-1957), German art historian, close to the constructivist avant-garde. The Breuer Building, site of the Whitney Museum from 1966 to 2014, later housed an extension of The Metropolitan Museum from 2016 to 2020. Carved wooden funeral poles produced by the Asmat people of West New Guinea (Indonesia).