Katherine Finerty

In my dissertation I investigate artist strategies that consciously question the act of curating and the role of the museum institution as a means to establish translocal cultural representation and reflexive critique. The main case study is Benin artist Meschac Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art 1997-2002 exhibited at the Tate Modern in London from 3 July – 22 September 2013. To contextualise this project (simultaneously a fictional museum, work of art, and participatory exhibition) in the contemporary context of twenty-first century art institutions and an age of developing transcultural awareness, I employ both past and current art historical, discursive, museological, and curatorial methodologies.
 
Through an interrogation of key discursive terms integral to the development of global art theory, Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art is located in a trajectory of curatorially-conscious and institutionally-critical expressions of what it means to be translocal today: the Modern (art historical contexts of artist-designed spaces challenging museum institutions, from Marcel Broodthaers to Fred Wilson); the Postcolonial (subversive carnivalesque strategies employed by contemporary artists Yinka Shonibare, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Isaac Julien); the Global (agendas to internationalise the scope of museum collections and programming in institutions such as the Tate Modern); and the Translocal (socially engaged artwork and programming activating cross-cultural references and exchange, from the 1963 Poïpoïdrome to Gaba’s Museum today). 

 
Through these points of analysis I am interested in emphasising progress, inclusion, and collaboration within contemporary art institutions, critique, and discourse. I argue that when exhibited in, and now in the collection of, the Tate Modern, Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art functions as both a self-reflexively critique and celebration of institutions. It is this integral tension – of belonging yet marginalisation, interconnectedness yet differentiation, centre yet periphery – where the translocal is realised. Gaba has powerfully claimed: ‘What I do is react to an African situation in relation to Eurocentric problems’. Moreover, his Museum creates an environment facilitating research, communication, and the breaking down of institutional hierarchies, thus offering a progressive solution of translocal expression to achieve diverse cultural representations and exchanges in art institutions today and moving forward.