WELCOME TO THE WADSWORTH: A MUSEUM TOUR

The sixth Program is dedicated to the museum as an art space: Museums provide explanations, definitions and limitations to culture. In Welcome to the Wadsworth: A Museum Tour, Andrea Fraser guides through the history of public and private interests involved in the Wadsworth Atheneum. Isaac Julien’s The Attendant stages the history of slavery and the homoerotic desires of a black museum attendant in the form of a baroque gay parade. Flash in the Metropolitan by Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer is a detached passage of the camera through the New York museum collection at night, rhythmic flashlights provide unusual views. Based on the architecture of the Contemporary Art Center of Vilnius, Deimantas Narkevicius’ Scena shows the revised requirements of an art institution in post-Soviet society. Ronny Heiremans’ and Katleen Vermeir’s The Good Life presents the museum as a luxury real estate project: Its future occupants are lucky enough to materialise their lifestyle dream amidst an aura of absent Warhols.