[spectre] recycle bin exhibition, Belgrade, 5 Sep - 3 Oct 2001

[Inke Arns]

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 13:08:56 +0200
From: Bojana Pejic <bo.pejic@snafu.de>
Subject: Fwd: recycle bin: exhibition info

  

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Belgrade
5th September - 3rd October 2001
 

Recycle Bin, the folder for storing files on a computer's hard disk before
they are erased for good or restored to use.

Recycling (Lat. re back, again; Gr. kyklos circle, cycle), the reusing of
waste material in the production process.



How can a museum - an institution intended for the collection, cultivation,
preservation, protection and presentation of cultural objects and documents
- join in the process of recycling, which characterises the industrial
economy of processing waste material? And what, in such a case, would the
Recycle Bin of the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade be?

In question is the unconscious accumulation of objects and documents,
something resembling the files forgotten in various folders on the hard
disk awaiting a final decision on their further fate - temporarily set
aside in the Recycle Bin, restored to use or permanently erased. In the
basements and attics, the corridors and corners, the offices and exhibition
halls, in long unopened crates and boxes, a collection of dysfunctional
objects and unsorted documents (excluding those taken from the official
museum archives) from the life and work of the Museum has accumulated,
which represents a special Recycle Bin located in complete opposition to
the Museum's order of things and its inherent spatial disposition. The
Recycle Bin is non-location, a chaotic and scattered conglomerate of
discarded and forgotten things interlaced together by the logic of
hibernation while awaiting the definitive command - 'restore' or 'empty'.

However, the very moment the Recycle Bin conceptualises itself in the form
of an exhibition, it then becomes clear that the Recycle Bin is a rambling
and invisible micro-museum located within the Museum. It represents the
history of the many years of decline and the neglect of its infrastructure,
at the same time being reminiscences on the former status and glamour of
the MMA, the socio-political context of the Titoistic and Post-Titoistic
eras, the interior life and work hidden from the public eye and the like.
The stabilisation of the Recycle Bin in a visible location is based on the
inversion of the Museum's presentation policy: the usual displays are
returned to the depot, while the Recycle Bin bric-a-brac transforms itself
into a museum exhibit through recycling. If we compare the Museum to the
human body, then we can say that the representation of the Recycle Bin
resembles a medical scan of the internal organs with the aim of discovering
anomalies whose symptoms are not immediately visible in the behaviour and
appearance of the body.

In order to begin work on the necessary reconstruction of the building and
the infrastructure of the Museum, on the reorientation of the program and
the reorganisation of the Museum, it is essential to undertake first the
task of a critical self-historicalisation and scan of the situation found.
Therefore, the Recycle Bin project represents a particular contribution to
setting the MMA on new foundations. On the dismantling of the exhibition,
both operating commands will be issued - the objects will be put on the
scrap-heap, while the documents will be restored to use, systematically
sorted into the museum's documentation.

Dejan Sretenovic, exhibition author