PER KIRKEBY23.11 -12.12.1973

galerie s:t petri
s:t petri kyrkogata 5
lund – sverige
046/14 78 00

PER KIRKEBY
November–December 1973

"A museum involves not only that which its work or objects directly portray and the conditions immediately associated with their existence or creation, but also an entire historical background. Thus, a museum makes a statement about something and not simply about what is immediately displayed.

There is nevertheless much in recent thinking about museums which is ahistorical, attempting for so-called pedagogical reasons to divorce itself from history. Considered more deeply, the pedagogics here are highly reactionary and constitute an unsound mode of thought, however good their intentions. To contemplate without reference to history is like using a spade without a shaft. Terrible things have occurred in recent years, it seems to me, under the name of modernizing museums.

The same is happening in the world of art in general, i.e. in the promotion of major international art tendencies. The real creators here are those arranging for exhibitions and it is actually their creations which are being shown. Artists whose work are chosen for the degree to which these fit into the overall picture sought by the arranger serve simply as elements. The result is one of small diverse units without historical background, so that real meaning or statement is lacking.

Fluxus represented the most significant development since the War. It involved simplicity and a way of saying simple things. Much of that which has come since, as in conceptual art for example, possesses quite the opposite of simplicity, having little or no meaning and being executed in an empty and pompous style. If methods and materials are reduced to pure demonstrations, they are without interest. Fluxus always involved and was something definite, which a museum in its true sense is as well."