Art Insight #13: Chris Dercon

Q. How do you see the Tate Modern’s role in the 21st century?

We have a group called ‘Tate’, consisting of St. Ives, Liverpool, and Tate Britain and Tate Modern, both located in London. Among them, the mission of Tate Modern, which opened in 2002, has been to showcase the concept of London’s contemporaneity, especially, the contemporaneity of its visual art. This is for visitors not only from the city, but from Europe as well as other countries because, before Tate Modern opened, only few small institutions and organizations had presented the story about modern and contemporary art. We have been showing what contemporary art is while trying to be an interesting public space open to the diverse visitors. Tate Modern is very democratic, entertaining, attractive and sexy. It’s very monumental yet talks about daily life, encountering both large and small problems.

A few years ago, we asked visitors why they love the Tate. Some people said they came to experience the genuineness of art. But many said that they came because the Tate is a “space for encounters.” You encounter different people, different expressions, and share things you didn’t know before. Now, the museum that first opened in 2000 has been expanded. This extension includes creating new encounters with diverse art objects and concepts, with collectives and individual artists, with international and local residents, with the old and the young, as well as specialists and non-specialists. Tate Modern is a very democratic place. This sexiness in democracy was possible due to architects, who envisioned this public space they created. When people visit the museum from the city, they enter by crossing a bridge. When they enter from the east, they walk through Turbine Hall and its escalators and terraces. This is why I refer to it as “a city within a city.” The new space will include more space for artworks and more space for movement. Tate is a museum on the move.

Q. Tate Modern has partnered and collaborated with corporations in the past. What do you think is the ideal relationship and balance between the museum and the corporation?

Collaborating with enterprises is an essential issue. If we don’t cooperate with various partners, we will fail. Today, we must share. And companies and corporations are facing the same problem. We are living in a very unstable world, and we don’t know how customers of enterprises and visitors of the museum will change. They change overnight. And the same issues and questions have arisen, about identity, growth and how to live. These issues are important for both companies and culture organizations, and artists are the ones who can provide diverse answers. Corporations and organizations can learn something from them. Artists craft small and large problems into their work, which interact with visitors. Although we live in difficult times, there is renewed hope in the development of conversation. Communication between artists, people and communities enable possibilities and suggest new visions. We can learn through this process, which is why we are working to develop a better life with corporations.

Chris Dercon, born in Belgium, is an art historian and curator. He first gained reputation as a program director at MoMA PS1 in the 1980’s, and was director of Haus der Kunst in Germany and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in the Netherlands. Dercon also organized exhibitions at the Venice Biennale and Centre Pompidou. In 2011, when he was appointed as the director of Tate Modern, he spoke of the museum’s vision of the modern. His first year included a calendar of highly acclaimed shows, cementing his artistic and curatorial capabilities. In 2017, he will move to the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin.