Volume 11, Number 1-2, 2026 Perspectives curatoriales sur les collections Guest-edited by Marie Fraser and Lisa Bouraly

EN:

In an elegant display case at a Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition in New York, archival documents from the Art Workers’ Coalition and its 1969 actions at the museum recount struggles for artists’ rights and raise questions of political and social justice. The material is carefully preserved and formally presented. Yet how should we interpret the Coalition’s thirteen demands to MoMA—demands such as free admission, a dedicated section for the work of Black artists, and a public hearing on “The Museum’s Relationship to Artists and Society”? The display case protects what it contains while highlighting the value of these documents. But what does it mean for political demands addressed to the museum itself to appear inside the museum’s vitrines? In this text, Nora Sternfeld examines these concrete questions alongside broader ones: What does the relationship between institutions and anti- institutional struggles look like from the institution’s own perspective? If a museum’s responsibility toward its collections involves what she calls critical fidelity, then how might an institution remain faithful to the materials it preserves? Is it simply a matter of protecting the sheet of paper on which the thirteen demands were typed, or does fidelity require acting in accordance with what that document advocates? Shouldn’t an institution that wishes to be faithful to its objects also be faithful to the demands those objects articulate—in this case, by implementing them? And if we want to imagine forms of progressive conservation, how might museums preserve the conflicts embedded within their objects and documents so that these tensions can be reactivated, rather than neutralized or paralyzed by institutional practices?

EN:

This article examines the instrumentalization of works of art in certain contemporary museum settings for communication purposes, particularly as related to ecological issues. It is based on a critical analysis of the museum intervention «A Few Degrees More Will Turn the World into an Uncomfortable Place,» produced in partnership with the Climate Change Centre Austria and the Wien Nord Serviceplan communications agency, and involving the permanent collection of the “Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism” exhibition at the Leopold Museum (Vienna). Enacted in response to the actions of environmental activists targeting the museum, the curatorial gesture involved altering the manner of hanging of some fifteen works from the collection that represent landscapes destined to disappear. The works, dispersed throughout the exhibition, were hung at an angle, prompting visitors to tilt their heads to contemplate them. Varying from 1.5° to 7°, the inclination represents concretely the predicted rise in temperatures relative to pre-industrial levels. The methodology adopted is based on a critical reading of the display and its effects on reception, a study of the labels and signage, and an analysis of the narrative conveyed by the exhibition and its impact on institutional positioning. In particular, the article highlights the divergence between the ecological mediation proposed by the institution and the depoliticization of the complex issues linked to the climate crisis.

EN:

While artistic and curatorial practices based on the appropriation of museum archives are regularly associated with the methods of certain conceptual artists, and particularly with those engaged in institutional critique, their expansion to an institutional level within museums is nonetheless non-existent. The emergence of these so-called «appropriationist» practices in the 1970s appears to have been informed by the critical re-reading by certain museums of the conditions under which their collections are presented. Drawing on the case of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (Netherlands), this article considers the status, new uses and re-semiotization of the visual exhibition archive through the re-enacting of past exhibitions.

FR:

Depuis le début des années 1990, le tournant archivistique a remodelé la façon dont les archives sont créées, interprétées et diffusées en tant qu’artefacts culturels, remettant ainsi en question les approches conventionnelles de la recherche archivistique. Au-delà de la redéfinition des modes d’interprétation et d’appréhension des archives, ce tournant a attiré une attention accrue sur leurs usages, soit la manière dont elles sont activées, recontextualisées et investies de nouvelles significations. Ce tournant met ainsi de l’avant l’archivage comme processus, plutôt que l’archive comme produit. Largement répandu dans les arts visuels et les études culturelles sous le nom d’« impulsion archivistique », ce tournant se distingue par l’abandon des flux de travail archivistiques linéaires – acquisition, classement, description, conservation, accès, exposition – au profit d’approches plus flexibles, discursives et spéculatives.

Si les pratiques curatoriales axées sur les archives ont gagné en importance et ont évolué au-delà des stratégies traditionnelles d’exposition centrées sur les objets, leurs implications dans le champ de l’architecture demeurent sous- explorées. Pourtant, les archives architecturales, qu’elles soient analogiques ou numériques, constituent des outils privilégiés pour transmettre les idées et les visions qui précèdent souvent la réalisation matérielle d’un projet. Les expositions d’architecture reposent ainsi, le plus souvent, sur des documents relatifs à un processus et, au mieux, sur des représentations plutôt que sur les résultats tangibles de ce processus. Ce déplacement de focale fait passer l’attention de l’objet fini au processus génératif, de la forme à l’idée, des propriétés physiques du bâtiment à la réception critique de sa conception. Dans ce contexte, les archives architecturales n’apparaissent plus comme un récit linéaire, mais comme une constellation de fragments qui, selon leur mode d’assemblage et les personnes qui les manipulent, constituent la base de multiples récits en latence.

Cet article explore l’impact du « tournant archivistique » sur la culture architecturale à partir de l’étude de cas du programme de recherche et d’exposition Out of the Box au Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA). En interrogeant la conception traditionnelle des archives comme simple espace de préservation, il met en lumière l’interdépendance croissante entre les pratiques archivistiques et curatoriales. L’article explore la manière dont Out of the Box active la collection du CCA, abordant le travail archivistique comme une pratique curatoriale et considérant les archives comme un médium à part entière. Il met ainsi en évidence des usages réflexifs et expérimentaux qui repensent leur potentiel au-delà de l’historiographie conventionnelle. Ce faisant, l’article introduit le concept d’« archivologie comme pratique frontalière (boundary work) » – une pratique hybride, nourrie par l’enrichissement mutuel des pratiques professionnelles et rendue possible par la porosité croissante entre les disciplines. Cette approche engage les archives non plus uniquement comme sources documentaires, mais comme outils de production de savoirs et d’exploration curatoriale. L’essai se conclut par une réflexion sur la manière dont le dépouillement collaboratif des archives – tant matériel qu’intellectuel – reconfigure non seulement le rôle des musées d’architecture, mais génère également des savoirs implicites à l’intersection des fonctions de préservation et de mise en exposition.

FR:

Dans cet article, nous retraçons, à la lumière de trois moments de transformation ayant marqué au cours du dernier siècle tant les musées que la société en général, l’évolution de sens du concept « social » et de son corollaire plus récent, la justice. Nous abordons ce sujet à partir des idées formulées dans les années 1960 et 1970 par des muséologues engagés, tant dans les pays du Nord que dans ceux du Sud, ainsi que par d’autres acteurs clés du champ muséal associés à l’organisme international qui chapeaute le domaine, l’ICOM. Dans ce contexte, la conception du « social » était largement influencée par les politiques et les programmes de développement de l’après-guerre, qui prônaient le progrès social et économique. Une seconde définition articulée par des théoriciennes et théoriciens critiques au cours des années 1960 à 1980 s’est manifestée par de nouvelles pratiques de réflexivité institutionnelle et professionnelle dans un contexte de demandes croissantes de justice sociale au sein et entre les musées qui a pris place dès les années 1990. Les théories contemporaines de la représentation et de l’interprétation ont permis à un nombre croissant de chercheures et chercheurs de critiquer de façon soutenue les préjugés, les omissions et les régimes disciplinaires inhérents aux récits historiques et hégémoniques des musées, ainsi qu’aux pratiques de collection et d’exposition. Elles ont également appelé au démantèlement des structures de pouvoir inégales au sein de ces institutions et, par conséquent, à l’émergence d’une sphère muséale plus équitable et inclusive. Ces appels à la justice sociale ont récemment pris une dimension et une intention réparatrices. Celles-ci ont conduit à une reconfiguration des fonctions muséologiques, du collectionnement et commissariat, de la conservation, des expositions et de la programmation qui s’alignent sur les principes de la justice réparatrice. L’émergence, à l’échelle globale, au tournant du XXI^e siècle, de musées communautaires et , dans certains cas, de musées d’État consacrés aux droits de la personne, et influencés par les théories du soin, de la justice historique ainsi que par la montée des mécanismes de justice transitionnelle, se caractérise notamment par de nouveaux discours sociaux et par de nouvelles pratiques de guérison et de réparation. Dans le monde muséal, cette troisième catégorie introduit des rôles importants et fondamentaux pour les musées qui sont confrontés aux injustices historiques et à l’héritage des traumatismes laissés par la (néo)colonialité, les conflits armés, les régimes totalitaires et les violations des droits humains.

EN:

This article falls within the scope of reflection on the decolonization of Canadian museums, in accordance with the 2022 report of the Canadian Museums Association (CMA), which responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action 67. The article represents a collaborative effort between a professor, an Ilnu museologist and a non-binary Indigenous curator, guided by an Indigenous methodological approach foregrounding reciprocity, orality and the plurality of voices. Together, the authors present two contrasting but complementary case studies: on the one hand, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), a major institution undergoing transformation, and on the other, the Ilnu Museum of Mashteuiatsh, rooted in an Indigenous community approach since its creation in 1983.

The concepts mobilized in this article are decolonization, empowerment and museum self-governance. The authors raise the issue of the colonial character of museums and the challenges of decolonizing their apparatus, with all that this evokes. A central criticism is the use of the word «object» in Western museology, which disconnects museum contents from their living, relational role in Indigenous cultures. Instead, the authors prefer to speak of «belongings,» a concept that encompasses the attached memory, relational aspect and sacredness of these elements.

The aim of this work is to explore the decolonization of museums and the expression of genuine Indigenous sovereignty in the museum through two exemplary cases. It calls into question the actual capacity of museum institutions to integrate Indigenous knowledge in a profound and respectful way that moves beyond stated intentions. It also demonstrates the limits of museum decolonization without the real empowerment of Indigenous institutions, which must (re)construct the foundations of a museology rooted in community values. The article looks back at recent events, such as Wanda Nanibush’s controversial departure from the Art Gallery of Ontario, to illustrate the concrete limits of Indigenous inclusion in major cultural structures.

The three authors call for a structural transformation of institutions, including a sincere recognition of Indigenous cultural sovereignty. Decolonization cannot be reduced to metaphor or symbolic gestures; it must be embodied in sustainable practices, backed by resources, human support and real political will. This is the only way museums can become places where knowledge can be co-constructed and passed on, and where ancestral ties can be reactivated.

EN:

Is it possible to promote a form of Indigenous sovereignty in art museums? This article examines the elements that make it possible to achieve this result in a permanent exhibit of a collection of Indigenous and Canadian art, by considering the exhibition inaugurated in 2018 at the J.S. McLean Centre at the Art Gallery of Ontario. A concrete example of the concept of curatorial activism and of the ethical space of engagement, the curatorial approach brought forward by Wanda Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik highlights a rare paradigm shift within the museum complex. Referring to the textual media in the galleries, the presence of Indigenous languages, the selection of works and artists, the manner of their presentation and the exhibition catalogue, we will show how the exhibition is rooted in Indigenous territory, specifically that of the Anishinaabe. While the exhibition contributes to consolidating and highlighting a canon of Indigenous art, one element undermines this manifestation of radicality and sovereignty: the rotation of works.

EN:

The aim is to consider various forms of participatory curating and deliberative democracy practices, in the context of art collections, which have emerged in recent years in France, with a particularly intense focus on contemporary and fine art, as related to three bodies of work that enact dissimilar participatory protocols, sometimes stemming from quite different rationales. While the practice of delegating the curation of art collections has, over the last few decades, been adopted in the form of carte blanche exhibitions, even while accepting the consequences of sometimes radical institutional criticism, it is rarer in the field of contemporary art for curators to agree to transfer their responsibilities to amateurs, to non-professionals, - that is, to those for whom the exhibition is intended: namely, the public, the visitors, the viewers.

Protocols vary widely, and are not without impact on assessments of the degree of participation and curatorial co-construction that results. Public involvement was conceptualized in several ways, in considering possible steps toward the creation of conditions for expanding citizen participation in pop curating, providing a framework for long-term advancement toward equality and emancipation. Firstly, limited acts exercised by the voting visitor result at the very least in the decompartmentalization and decanonization of collections, and lead to broader knowledge of museum reserves. With the citizen curator, the feeling of belonging to a group, to a community, and involvement in an ongoing deliberative process as part of this collective, creates the possibility of a fully collaborative curatorial effort. Finally, when collaboration and cooperation become co-creation, through a dual personal and collective contribution on a par with the museum’s functions, the resident-museologist, the collector-mediator, can undoubtedly flourish.

EN:

Shifting away from the cultural impacts of physical museums to the virtual realm, this article explores two important benefits of digitized online art collections. Based on empirical research, it aims to demonstrate that these increasingly interconnected collections have the potential to activate a new model of cultural participation capable of sustaining power-sharing that goes beyond public consultation, and of transforming the stratification inherent in the art system, by opening up access barriers to institutional prestige in the art world, to the benefit of artists, by levelling the playing field. The argument is that digitized art collections can serve as a digital infrastructure for recruiting collective intelligence on a mass scale to democratize culture and foster equality and diversity in the art world. However, these impacts cannot be achieved simply by transforming users into citizen curators, or by leveraging alternative impact metrics or “altmetrics” (i.e., views and likes) to influence selection and alter order within an aggregated or distributed database. The main obstacle to achieving these virtual impacts is neither limited online access, nor insufficient participation. Multiplying users, facilitating discovery and promoting public choices are all essential; but these initiatives cannot hope to transform the art system if the individual judgments captured are subject to various spheres of influence and to network effects productive of inequalities. To overcome these effects, the article proposes a new choice-based “pathfinding” tool, designed to recruit users’ sensemaking faculty as opposed to their personal tastes, and in so doing, more effectively capture what users find meaningful and establish a new value proposition for art.

EN:

The close of the 2010s saw the acquisition of several works of the Quebec choreographer Paul-André Fortier by various cultural institutions. These acquisitions took the form of scenic elements, plans or audio and visual documentation. In 2020, the work Bras de plomb (1993), the result of a collaboration with the artist Betty Goodwin, was acquired by the Mackenzie Art Gallery (MAG), which received all the costumes and sets. At the time of the donation, the choreographer, as the donor, shared his desire to see these elements “used,” and the MAG was to take him at his word, presenting the elements as objets d’art, sources of inspiration and even, actual scenography supporting re-creations. Shaped by Goodwin’s creative thinking, the scenic elements of Bras de plomb are works in themselves that the MAG could place alongside other works - sculptures and drawings - by the Canadian artist already in its collection.

Informed by the concept of authorized heritage discourse (AHD) derived from critical heritage studies, the example of Bras de plomb collected by the MAG and activated through partnerships with the performing arts milieu, illustrates the articulation of different modes of knowledge production based on the generative potential of an acquisition associated with the performing arts. Everything suggests that it is the fundamental components of this specific heritage (material, immaterial and performative) that lead inevitably to an encounter between forms of expertise, giving rise to interdisciplinary practices that can be approached as acts of heritage. How are these fundamental components connected to the challenges that this type of heritage pose for cultural institutions? Why do they impel these institutions to integrate expertise from outside the boundaries of AHD, and what impact does the integration of this expertise have on knowledge production? Finally, do these acts of collaboration supports the institution’s semantic and confirmatory role (Boltanski, 2008)? The fundamental components that constitute the heritage of performing arts function in this exploration as a heuristic framework for examining the generative potential of museum collection components associated with the performing arts, creating a relational space where multiple points of view collaborate in articulating knowledge stored within the work. It is this interdisciplinary process that seems to support the collective value of these components and, potentially, the heritage value of the choreography. This essay thus contributes both to theorizing the fundamental components of memory for the performing arts and to reporting on collaborative curatorial practices activating a collection in a Canadian art museum.