WHOSE MUSEUM:WAS HERE
August 23 - September 8, 2024
WHOSE MUSEUM: WAS HERE
Retrospective bash across multiple venues
Celsius Projects, August 23 – September 8, 2024
Opening: August 23, 18.00-21.00, Celsius Projects
OTHER VENUES:
Moderna Museet Malmö
Deseo Tattoo Studio
August 23 – September 8, 2024
Malmö Konstmuseum
Malmö stadsarkiv
Whose Museum
BienVélo Bike Shop
August 23 – September 29, 2024
List of more events see below.
Consider for a moment that a museum is a living organism, their collections forming a body whose relationships compel them to move and to act. Who will they become?
With this exhibition, the international art collective and loose archival network Whose Museum presents its first retrospective in Sweden. After half a decade of community-oriented, experimental art practice and a cross-disciplinary program in its Möllan gallery space, Whose Museum’s activities in the city of Malmö culminate in this major solo exhibition, inviting the public to get to know a part of Whose Museum’s identity that is often hidden: Whose Museum in itself is a monumental artwork. It extends the boundaries of our understanding of what art is and can be. The collective creates a deep network of installations connecting museums, archives, artist-run spaces and shops in a meaningful narrative.
Whose Museum works with the participatory collecting of everyday objects, alternative conservation and archiving as an artistic practice. The premise of the museum is simple: anyone can donate anything to the collection.The items range from the banal to the bizarre, including drawings, discarded objects, prosthetic body parts, plants, songs, and ephemera. At Malmö stadsarkiv, Anna M. Szaflarski’s sci-fi graphic novel The Band (2022) compels us to dive into Whose Museum's earliest history, when in 2008 a group of travelling musicians on a cross-Canada tour started the Whose Museum collection.
At Celsius Projects, a selection of works made by members of the collective are presented. The works draw upon the museum’s history and collection in a painterly and joyful display of the unprofessional and ornamental bureaucracy that define the collective’s ethos. Visitors are greeted by the original sketch for Whose Museum’s window sign, produced when KRETS gallery extended the invitation to Whose Museum to host a year of exhibitions in Malmö in 2019. This invitation led to the collective taking over the space for the past five years. As part of the retrospective, Whose Museum’s gallery space itself is on view during the entire exhibition period.
In the social area of Moderna Museet Malmö, a sculpture by Max Ockborn can be visited. The sculpture was in residence at the gallery space of Whose Museum in Malmö 2019–24, and was donated to the collection of Whose Museum. It now wishes to continue its social relations with the staff, visitors and artworks at Moderna Museet.
The Whose Museum collection holds three cacti. One is on a long-term loan to an associate in the USA who sends regular updates, another has died and the third one is now at a local shop in Malmö, BienVélo, where the cactus is watching the bike mechanics at work.
At Malmö Konstmuseum, a large number of objects from Whose Museum’s collection have found their way into a constellation that has facilitated social interactions throughout Whose Museum’s history: the Collection Body (2008-2024). At the entrance to the newly installed collections of the Konstmuseum, the work sprawls across the floor and invites visitors to consider hierarchies produced by museums and their collecting.
Several events are part of the retrospective, including a tattoo flash day at DESEO studio, where one can encounter a selection of works on paper from Whose Museum while getting tattoos of collection items. Skånes konstförening hosts an artist talk by Alanna Lynch whose stink bombs have resided at Whose Museum since 2019. Whose Museum hosts a drag noise show by The Evacuation Ensemble, and, together with the local food-art initiative Konstitori, Patrick Cruz and Sahar Alkhateeb prepare a feast.
Spread out across venues, the exhibition highlights the interconnectedness of various types of art spaces in the city; how they are conditioned and worked upon by the state, commerce and funding, but also by relations between people, objects and stories.
The retrospective allows viewers to witness a transformation as it marks the end of Whose Museum’s activities in its Malmö gallery. The past five years have allowed a local community to grow who will now take over the space, while Whose Museum returns to its transient state. In Malmö, it has done what it came for and is ready to transition.
EVENTS:
Artist talk with Alanna Lynch: August 24, 13.00, Skånes konstförening
Tattoo flash day from Whose Museum’s collection: August 25, 13.00-17.00, Deseo Tattoo Studio
Konstitori with Patrick Cruz and Sahar Alkhateeb: September 4, time tba, Whose Museum The Evacuation Ensemble drag noise concert: September 6, 20.00, Whose Museum
Funded by Malmö Stad, Region Skåne and Kulturrådet.
Moderna Museet Malmö
Deseo Tattoo Studio
August 23 – September 8, 2024
Malmö Konstmuseum
Malmö stadsarkiv
Whose Museum
BienVélo Bike Shop
August 23 – September 29, 2024
List of more events see below.
Consider for a moment that a museum is a living organism, their collections forming a body whose relationships compel them to move and to act. Who will they become?
With this exhibition, the international art collective and loose archival network Whose Museum presents its first retrospective in Sweden. After half a decade of community-oriented, experimental art practice and a cross-disciplinary program in its Möllan gallery space, Whose Museum’s activities in the city of Malmö culminate in this major solo exhibition, inviting the public to get to know a part of Whose Museum’s identity that is often hidden: Whose Museum in itself is a monumental artwork. It extends the boundaries of our understanding of what art is and can be. The collective creates a deep network of installations connecting museums, archives, artist-run spaces and shops in a meaningful narrative.
Whose Museum works with the participatory collecting of everyday objects, alternative conservation and archiving as an artistic practice. The premise of the museum is simple: anyone can donate anything to the collection.The items range from the banal to the bizarre, including drawings, discarded objects, prosthetic body parts, plants, songs, and ephemera. At Malmö stadsarkiv, Anna M. Szaflarski’s sci-fi graphic novel The Band (2022) compels us to dive into Whose Museum's earliest history, when in 2008 a group of travelling musicians on a cross-Canada tour started the Whose Museum collection.
At Celsius Projects, a selection of works made by members of the collective are presented. The works draw upon the museum’s history and collection in a painterly and joyful display of the unprofessional and ornamental bureaucracy that define the collective’s ethos. Visitors are greeted by the original sketch for Whose Museum’s window sign, produced when KRETS gallery extended the invitation to Whose Museum to host a year of exhibitions in Malmö in 2019. This invitation led to the collective taking over the space for the past five years. As part of the retrospective, Whose Museum’s gallery space itself is on view during the entire exhibition period.
In the social area of Moderna Museet Malmö, a sculpture by Max Ockborn can be visited. The sculpture was in residence at the gallery space of Whose Museum in Malmö 2019–24, and was donated to the collection of Whose Museum. It now wishes to continue its social relations with the staff, visitors and artworks at Moderna Museet.
The Whose Museum collection holds three cacti. One is on a long-term loan to an associate in the USA who sends regular updates, another has died and the third one is now at a local shop in Malmö, BienVélo, where the cactus is watching the bike mechanics at work.
At Malmö Konstmuseum, a large number of objects from Whose Museum’s collection have found their way into a constellation that has facilitated social interactions throughout Whose Museum’s history: the Collection Body (2008-2024). At the entrance to the newly installed collections of the Konstmuseum, the work sprawls across the floor and invites visitors to consider hierarchies produced by museums and their collecting.
Several events are part of the retrospective, including a tattoo flash day at DESEO studio, where one can encounter a selection of works on paper from Whose Museum while getting tattoos of collection items. Skånes konstförening hosts an artist talk by Alanna Lynch whose stink bombs have resided at Whose Museum since 2019. Whose Museum hosts a drag noise show by The Evacuation Ensemble, and, together with the local food-art initiative Konstitori, Patrick Cruz and Sahar Alkhateeb prepare a feast.
Spread out across venues, the exhibition highlights the interconnectedness of various types of art spaces in the city; how they are conditioned and worked upon by the state, commerce and funding, but also by relations between people, objects and stories.
The retrospective allows viewers to witness a transformation as it marks the end of Whose Museum’s activities in its Malmö gallery. The past five years have allowed a local community to grow who will now take over the space, while Whose Museum returns to its transient state. In Malmö, it has done what it came for and is ready to transition.
EVENTS:
Artist talk with Alanna Lynch: August 24, 13.00, Skånes konstförening
Tattoo flash day from Whose Museum’s collection: August 25, 13.00-17.00, Deseo Tattoo Studio
Konstitori with Patrick Cruz and Sahar Alkhateeb: September 4, time tba, Whose Museum The Evacuation Ensemble drag noise concert: September 6, 20.00, Whose Museum
Funded by Malmö Stad, Region Skåne and Kulturrådet.
Celsius Projects, Celsiusgatan 45, 212 14 Malmö