Institutional experiments in urban relationality: repairing the social bond in capitalist urbanism

ABSTRACT

Isolation and loneliness have become characteristic of capitalist cities where spaces for sociality, connection, and togetherness are few and far between, supplanted by an abundance of artificial “pseudo-social spaces” mediated by capital. This social fracture at the heart of contemporary urbanism is an urban-spatial extension of sociality’s degradation and economic capture under capitalist production. For many urban Marxist scholars, urbanization is a process now characterized by the commons’ continuous appropriation and annihilation by private interests. Arguably, within this context, “experimental institutionalism” has aimed to reconfigure art institutions into sites for sociality, dialogue, care, and collaboration. Experimental institutionalism is a field of institutional reform, curatorial practice, and debate concerned with the art institution’s transformation into a socially responsible agent. In this paper, I summarize experimental institutionalism’s main dimensions, drawing on key examples from the field to explore the art museum’s capacity to repair the social bonds ruptured by capitalist urbanism.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimental institutionalism
• relational art
• museums
• social
• capitalist urbanism
• urban Marxism

Introduction

Urban Marxist geographers like David Harvey (2001, 2012) have pointed to a social fracture at the heart of the contemporary urban experience, or what could be called “urbanism’s relational crisis”, meaning the pervasive and detrimental conditions of isolation and loneliness that have become characteristic of capitalist cities. As it appears, this crisis is an urban-spatial extension of sociality’s general degradation and economic capture under capitalist production. As Political Theorist Jodi Dean (2013) has argued, communication and sociality are now a “primary means of capitalist expropriation” (p.71). This capture and breakdown of social bonds under capitalism has extended into the urban environment, producing conditions of isolation, separation, and a poverty of care (Harvey, 2012, p. 80). Within these circumstances of social fracture and urban alienation, “experimental institutionalism” has aimed to establish art institutions as sites of sociality, dialogue, care, and collaboration. With intentions to prioritize public programming and community engagement, “experimental institutionalism” is a field of institutional reform, curatorial practice, and debate concerned with transforming art institutions into socially responsible agents (Aikens et al., 2016; Byrne et al., 2018; Hudson, 2017a; Szreder, 2018; Papastergiadis, 2020, p. 9). In this paper, I summarize experimental institutionalism’s main dimensions, drawing on key examples from the field to explore the potential of this approach in repairing the social bonds ruptured by capitalism. What is at stake is how to transform the art museum into a permanent, long-term social space—a permanent fixture in the urban commons, where social relations and community spirit can flourish. I will draw on (micro) case studies from the field to build an argument around the capacity of art institutions to repair the fractured social bonds and urban alienation caused by capitalism. My critique is leveled at modern and contemporary art institutions engaged in experimental institutionalism. However, I approach these particular institutions with the expectation that their attempts to create relational spaces and promote civic engagement can contribute to how we think about art museums in general. The theoretical framework used will center on a critical engagement with the agendas and strategies developed under the umbrella of “experimental institutionalism”, teasing out and scrutinizing both their successes and limitations relative to examples from the field and their respective responses to urbanism’s relational crisis. This paper is structured into four sections that each addresses a theme in experimental institutionalism’s relational activities, namely the reclamation of social space, dialogue, care, and collaboration. These themes speak to the urgencies symptomatic of urbanism’s relational crisis (i.e. the loss of “social space” and degradation of care and labor’s social dimensions).

Acquiring its moniker from the Director and Curator Charles Esche (Kolb & Flückiger, 2014), “experimental institutionalism” is a socially engaged approach to artistic institutionality whose express intention is to encourage institutional praxis and its emergent discourses to orbit around the art museum’s social “outside”. Whilst not all of its examples are “urban”, experimental institutionalism tends to be associated with modern and contemporary art institutions situated in cities and towns across the UK, Europe, and America. This emergent, socially responsive approach to artistic institutionality has many dedicated proponents, such as Charles Esche (Director of the Van Abbemuseum) and Alistair Hudson (former Director of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and The Whitworth), as well as academics like John Byrne (Reader in “The Uses of Art” at Liverpool John Moores University) and Jesús Carrillo (Professor of Contemporary Art History at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). Experimental institutionalism connects to concepts such as “museum 3.0”, the “useful museum” and “constituent museum”, all of which infer that the art institution has reconceptualized its publics as “users” or “constituents” who co-produce the program and are placed at the center of its social ontology (Aikens et al., 2016; Byrne et al., 2018; Szreder, 2018). Whilst most art institutions aim to engage with proximate communities outside their walls and have education and outreach programs, this tends to support the production of exhibitions and collections, a core agenda based around a market system (Hudson, 2017b). The institutional praxis highlighted in this paper aims to make public programming its main focus that exhibitions and collections support. Experimental institutionalism’s aim to formulate artistic institutionality that is not based around a market system suggests a commendable unwillingness to subjugate local needs and concerns to corporate and commercial interests. However, detaching from the market could also mean losing accountability to local audiences, catering more to art world interests rather than producing popular blockbuster exhibitions that might actually engage local audiences more than “museum 3.0” activities. It is certainly possible to take a critical perspective on experimental institutionalism’s socially responsible approach to artistic instituting—indeed, why should art institutions take responsibility for social urgencies and perhaps unwittingly become pressure release values for conflicts to which power holders have failed to respond? This is a clear vulnerability and jeopardy of experimental institutionalism that proponents of the field have rarely addressed.

Experimental institutionalism also suggests a socialistic reimagining of the art museum, opposing its conventional yielding to corporate institutionalism. However, as it stands, experimental institutionalism’s anti-corporate tropes only exist in relation to its programming and the intents of its associated directors, curators, educators, and producers. Experimental institutionalism’s “museum 3.0” ambitions to create socially responsible art museums is yet to expand into all areas of its associated institutions, particularly their financial structures and management. Many of its affiliated institutions still have corporate sponsorship and museum governance that has ties to the marketplace. L’Internationale associate member The Whitworth, however, is tackling this issue of funding and capitalist co-optation with its research project Economics the Blockbuster (2019–22). In partnership with Vastari Labs, this project involves the museum entering into the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to test out alternative models of financing social art practice. Nevertheless, art institutions engaged in forms of experimental institutionalism are still not fully inoculated against capitalist co-option, affecting their ability to create truly “unmediated” opportunities for sociality, connection and togetherness. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello (1999/2018) have highlighted how co-optation is a constant, always latent possibility as capitalism assimilates its critiques. Capitalism uses anti-capitalist critique to equip itself with a “spirit”—an ideology that justifies engagement in capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999/2018). Similarly, Patricia Stuelke (2021) has demonstrated how reparative modes of artistic and cultural production have unintentionally reinforced forms of neoliberal governance. However, this should not mean that critical, socially reparative processes are impossible in art institutions and that it is necessary to disarm experimental institutionalism’s ambitions to create a “museum 3.0”. As Political Theorist Chantal Mouffe (2013) has suggested, because art institutions are “hegemonic machines” and therefore where power lies, they are, at the same time, places where it is possible to contest hegemony and subvert the ideological framework of consumer society (p.100). Therefore, instead of taking an altogether anti-institutional stance, it may be wiser to put the powers of art museums towards more radical, socially responsible purposes.

As Nikos Papastergiadis (2020) highlights, the L’Internationale museum confederation heavily aligns with experimental institutionalism (p.6). Appropriating its name from the left-wing worker’s anthem of the same name, L’Internationale is a confederation of several European art institutions that aims to “reset the function of the museum”, transforming art institutions into “civic institutes where art is used for public benefit”, which is also a marked aim of experimental institutionalism (L’Internationale, 2013; Marstine, 2017, p. 173; Papastergiadis, 2020, p. 6). In its publication, The Constituent Museum (2018), the confederation touches on the relational themes of experimental institutionalism; they ask, “what would happen if museums put relationships at the center of their operations?” Therefore, pertinent to this paper, L’Internationale reimagines the art institution as a social hub, a “relational” museum—a place for sociality, connection and co-labor (Byrne et al., 2018, p. 77). In discussing the “relational” art museum here, it might seem necessary to discuss “relational aesthetics”—a term and discourse produced by curator Nicholas Bourriaud in the late 1990s that has dominated scholarship on relational and socially engaged art practices. However, whilst Bourriaud’s (1998/2009) theorizations were an arguable influence for experimental institutionalism, relational aesthetics was relatively depoliticized and embodied a high-art, exhibition-centered approach (Ribalta, 2008, p. 251; Voorhies, 2016).

With all but one exception, my examples are situated in European urban sites, as they are affiliated with L’Internationale, an exclusively European museum confederation. Because L’Internationale aligns with experimental institutionalism, the examples I address are almost exclusively members and associate members of this confederation— Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia; The Whitworth; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA); and Moderna Galerija. Queens Museum is the only US example I address—specifically, the museum’s Immigrant Movement International (2011–18) project. This example connects to my European/L’Internationale focus vis-à-vis Tania Bruguera’s notion of “Arte Útil” (“Useful Art”). Whilst it was a key concept underlining the activities of Immigrant Movement International, Arte Útil has also been at the center of L’Internationale exhibitions and projects. A demonstrable example of this was the Museum of Arte Útil (2013) exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum, which saw the museum reimagine itself as a “social power plant” (Van Abbemuseum, 2013). However, Queens Museum exemplifies a crucial difference between experimental institutionalism in Europe and the US. As I will later address, in the US, the quest to reclaim urban social space from capitalist expropriation connects to museum decolonization, a process in which museums contest colonial histories and expand the perspectives they represent beyond dominant cultural groups. Some of the examples presented in this paper are on-site exhibitions, programming, and projects situated inside or within the immediate vicinity of the museum, i.e. Reina Sofia’s Museo Situado (2020–Present) and MACBA’s Las Agencias (2001). Other examples are “satellite projects”, existing outside the main museum campus in other parts of a city or town, i.e. Moderna Galerija’s Radical Education (2006–14) and Queens Museums’ Immigrant Movement International (2011–18). This creation of relational spaces inside and outside the museum, both in its immediate vicinity and dispersed across urban sites, is indicative of experimental institutionalism’s aim to break down the traditional boundaries of the museum. Experimental institutionalism redefines “the museum” as a relational architecture, constituted by a network of practices, social relationships, affinities, and encounters rather than a physical building whose activities center around collections of art objects (Byrne et al., 2018). As the following section will demonstrate, this redefinition of museums as relational architectures could be situated within an urban Marxist frame.

Reclaiming social space

From an urban Marxist perspective, capitalism’s degradation of social relations has extended into the urban environment. Urban Marxism is a field of scholarship that examines the relationship between capitalist production and urbanization. It is about “enriching our critical understanding of the kind of city most of us inhabit today: the capitalist city” (Merrifield, 2002, p. 1). For many thinkers and academics in this field, “urbanization” is a process characterized by the urban commons’ “perpetual appropriation and destruction by private interests” (Harvey, 2012, p. 80). David Harvey (2012), a leading voice in the field, has described how urban planning has destroyed the street’s former existence as a “place of popular sociability” (p.74). Capitalist urban planning prioritizes traffic flow “at the expense of the parks, public plazas and common spaces where people naturally congregate” (Samuel, 2015). In late capitalism, when sociality is captured and instrumentalized, unlike ever before, a multitude of “communication zones” are created and imposed on us and the social exchange that occurs in these spaces is mediated by capital (Bourriaud, 1998/2009, p.16). Bourriaud (1998/2009) theorized that “before long, it will not be possible to maintain relationships between people outside these trading areas” (p.9). “Communication zones” here mean the “pseudo-social spaces” created by capitalism to enable the economy’s comprehensive co-optation and mediation of our social relations. Like a chain coffee shop on the high street today, such spaces give the pretence of a space existing for sociality but are, in all actuality, artificial “social spaces” whose primary function is to serve the needs of capitalism.

Countering these capitalistic, pseudo-social spaces that Bourriaud (1998/2009) describes, experimental institutionalism has developed both “temporary assemblages” as well as permanent, long-term spaces for social exchange in urban sites (p.16). By “temporary assemblages”, I refer to relational gatherings that exist temporarily, not on a permanent ongoing basis. Central to experimental institutionalism’s quest toward a museology of social responsibility and usership is the notion of the art museum becoming a space for social exchange and encounter (Aikens et al., 2016; Byrne et al., 2018; Esche, 2005). As Charles Esche (2005) suggests, the museum becomes “part community-center” (p.122). Queens Museum’s former Director Laura Raicovich analogously describes how the future of the art museum may be as “a commons”—a site where “public space and public resources productively coalesce” (Krause-Knight & Senie, 2018, p.xix). This idea of the art museum becoming a social hub and constituent part of the urban public sphere is not merely conjectural. Under the rubric of experimental institutionalism, there are many examples of art institutions attempting to reclaim social space from the grips of capitalist hegemony. For instance, during Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona’s (MACBA) 2000–2008 period, the institution transformed itself into an active hub of social activity (Ribalta, 2008). During this period, MACBA was a site for “commoning” that opposed the type of relationality that Barcelona’s 2001 World Bank meeting and 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures were promoting—a relationality mediated by political consensus building, touristic spectacle, real estate speculation and globalized flows of urban capital. These activities of MACBA were, however, only “temporary assemblages”—that is, they operated only as temporary sites for relationality, which failed to transform the Spanish institution into a fixed, permanent locus of sociality in the urban realm.

MACBA’s immediate urban surroundings (Plaça dels Àngels) are a long-term site of sociality. Students, skateboarders, bohemians and a whole host of other Barcelonans frequently gather in this area Figure 1.

Figure 1. Crowds gathering in Plaça dels Àngels Outside Museu d’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Photo: Amy Melia.

However, MACBA’s activities seem to have not played a part in developing this dynamic and permanent social hub in central Barcelona. The museum’s early millennial period of intensified engagement with the city and its social movements seems now a distant memory. MACBA’s internal spaces have returned to traditional high-art environments where audiences are passive spectators of artworks and collections and displays mediate social exchanges. It is nevertheless promising to see aspirations to connect again to the institution’s immediate urban social surroundings in the proposal of recently appointed Director Elvira Dyangani Ose. Dyangani Ose expresses her desire “for Plaça del Àngels to enter the Museum and for MACBA to become the museum of affections, which recognizes its users—neighbors, spectators, skateboarders, tourists, communities, and even casual passers-by” (MACBA, 2021). Hopefully, the museum’s dynamic urban public sphere can once again enter the space as it did in its 2000–2008 period, contributing to its development into a permanent rather than terminal site for commoning, collaborating and “being together” in Barcelona’s market-driven urban milieu.

Like MACBA, fellow L’Internationale confederate Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia has also attempted to reclaim spaces for sociality in the context of urbanism’s relational crisis, albeit again, temporary, sporadic ones. Reina Sofia also, unfortunately, exemplifies an ongoing issue with experimental institutionalism—despite its ambitions to redirect the art museum’s purpose towards more social intents, its associated institutions remain underlined by capitalism through corporate sponsorship and displays aimed at catering to touristic spectacle. Museo Reina Sofia is a large, prestigious cultural institution situated in central Madrid, whose activities have an array of corporate sponsors and impressive physical architecture is constituted, in large part, by spaces dedicated to the traditional display of art objects for passive spectatorship—one of these spaces displays Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica (1937). One immediately questions where the critical interventions of experimental institutionalism take place exactly, and upon first encountering the institution, one struggles to find such spaces. There are, however, examples; it is simply the case that such initiatives have been and continue to be temporary assemblages and are, therefore, not permanently perceivable parts of the museum. Recently, for example, in collaboration with the Museo Situado network, the institution has begun to carve out spaces for sociality and connection in response to Madrid’s loss of commoning space to real estate speculation. Established in 2018, Museo Situado is an assembly of individuals, collectives and associations from the Lavapiés neighborhood who work within the museum’s Public Activities Department. By promoting and supporting collaborative programs between neighbors, social movements, artists, and the museum, Museo Situado aims to develop the Reina Sofia into a public space. Since the network’s inception, it has held events like Picnic del Barrio (Neighborhood Picnic) (2018–21), in which they reclaim the museum’s Sabatini Garden as a public space for ludic, carnivalesque community gatherings (Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, 2021). The quotidian activity of picnicking becomes a critical act of reclaiming “social space” within the immediate context of Lavapiés’ ongoing struggles with real estate speculation and the appropriation of spaces for commoning by private interests.

Since 2018, under the directorship of “useful art” advocate Alistair Hudson, The Whitworth in Manchester has been developing into a “useful museum” or a “museum 3.0”. These developments have arguably contributed to its ever-increasing status as a permanent and ongoing social space for its users and constituents. For example, the museum’s south gallery was constructed in the 1960s to show large contemporary paintings and works. However, because visitors have been increasingly using the museum’s south gallery for meeting and socializing, curators have started using the space for programming centered around social activity rather than displays of art objects. Combining its “useful museum” aspirations with relational activities, The Whitworth offers a range of ongoing social spaces with correspondent programs for pregnant women/new mothers, young people in pupil referral units, older adults facing dementia and addiction recovery service users (Fancourt, 2017, p. 81). Whilst curators and museum staff still dictate this programming and the social experiences it generates, The Whitworth’s newly formed role of the “constituent curator” promises the possibility of giving communities and constituents some authorship in such endeavors (Outset, 2019). Although inspired by the work of art critic John Ruskin and therefore suggesting questionable bourgeois reformist sources of inspiration, The Whitworth’s exciting future project titled Ruskin Road will see the institution’s ongoing status as a permanent space for sociality expand into its immediate urban surroundings (Hayatsu Architects, 2019). Developed in collaboration with artist Adam Sutherland and Hayatsu Architects, this project will involve an urban green space immediately outside The Whitworth where locals can meet, socialize and engage in various collaborative activities. If successful, the project could represent the impressive and rarely seen endeavor of an art institution claiming space as a permanent part of the urban commons.

Another self-proclaimed “useful museum”, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), has also formed permanent spaces for social exchange. The establishment of such relational activities is particularly significant concerning Middlesbrough’s current urban context of economic austerity and post-Brexit-fuelled racial conflicts. Although the museum has produced many temporary assemblages of sociality (both on-site and off-site via urban, expanded programming), such as New Linthorpe (2014–Ongoing), Gresham’s Wooden Horse (2017) and Middlesbrough Settlement (2018–20), it has also successfully configured permanent social spaces. As part of its intensive public program, MIMA holds a “community day” each Thursday, which invites all Middlesbrough residents to unite and socialize over a free communal meal (Morgan, 2018, p. 51). As Curator Elinor Morgan (2018) describes, MIMA also has an urban garden where the community can connect via weekly workshops (p.51). The Whitworth and MIMA have perhaps been successful in developing long-term relational spaces because such spaces have emerged out of holistic efforts to move towards a “museum 3.0/useful museum” model—a democratic, socialistic vision of the museum that touches all aspects from programming and education to management and administration. Nevertheless, as the first examples demonstrate with their propensity towards what could be called “temporary assemblages” (temporarily available spaces for social gathering), issues still exist in institutions like MACBA and Museo Reina Sofia in terms of developing museums into permanent sites of sociality.

Discursive activism

It is also possible to view experimental institutionalism’s pronounced shift towards dialogical activities within the context of repairing the social bond within capitalist urbanism. Because experimental institutionalism places social relationships at the center of museological activity, as in its notion of the “constituent museum”, there is also a general shift from art objects and displays towards the “discursive” or “dialogical” (Marstine, 2017, p. 171). The intent of this dialogical activity, however, is not to build publics or museum clientele but to create citizen-activating “discursive platforms” that counter urbanism’s relational crisis and create openings for strategizing against urban meta-narratives and addressing social urgencies. During MACBA’s early millennial period, when it launched many projects to promote the museum as a constituent part of the public realm, the institution held many seminars centered on dialogues with urban activists (Ribalta, 2008). The goal of these dialogues was political action—to oppose the meta-discourse of Barcelona’s 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures launched by the city council to promote the urban renewal of the city’s seafront, a proposal that was going to be very lucrative for real estate developers (Mouffe, 2013, p. 103). Initiated by Curator Bojana Piškur and Architect Marjetica Potrc, Moderna Galerija’s Radical Education (2006–14) project, on the other hand, focused on overcoming the dichotomy between the art institution and urban social movements. This project was a series of dialogue-centered workshops, seminars and debates between gallery staff and activists at the Social Center ROG, a former bicycle factory in Ljubljana (Piškur, 2018, p. 175). Radical Education’s dialogical activities aimed to build and transfer political knowledge from the museum to urban movements and collectives. Whilst MACBA initiated and mediated dialogues between locals that would counter the urban spectacle discourse of Barcelona’s 2004 Universal Forum, Radical Education facilitated discussions regarding Ljubljana’s urban social urgencies, such as immigration and employment. Dialogue in these examples was not mediated by capital, as is often the case in the capitalist urban landscape. Instead, common social interests were at the center of dialogue and the conversations held focused on improving urban living conditions.

MACBA and Moderna Galerija’s dialogical activities started with smaller groups and then expanded significantly, including more representatives from the everyday urban social sphere. Such an approach mirrored “conversation-based activism”. For sociologist Nancy Naples (1998), conversation-based activism begins with locating existing conversations amongst communities and then gradually widens the base of participants sharing the same social concerns (p.111). Private conversations about shared problems can therefore take on a more public character, which gradually builds knowledge and solidarity, a sense of community belonging, and capacity for social change. Experimental institutionalism has also referenced discursive activism’s distinction between the horizontal micro-dialogues of urban users and the powerful meta-discourse of capitalism. As Jason Hackworth (2007) describes, “discursive activism” is rooted in the idea that capitalism is itself a dominant discourse that is often blindly followed. MACBA opposed the everyday dialogues of city residents with the capital-centered-meta-discourse of Barcelona’s 2004 Universal Forum (Ribalta, 2008, pp. 243–246). In other words, similar to discursive activism, MACBA treated capitalist urbanism as a unidirectional meta-discourse that is often not challenged with dialogue. Through its workshops and seminars, cultural agents from the institution and Barcelona residents placed urban micro-dialogues against the meta-discourses of capitalist urban governance. Instead of a governing and oppressive discourse, delivering information in a unilateral stream, the dialogues within said projects created reciprocal exchanges that countered urban meta-narratives. However, on a more critical note, MACBA and Moderna Galerija constructed dialogues that ceased to exist beyond the time frame of their respective projects. Arguably, discursive activism needs to be ongoing, regular, and sustained if it is to foster conditions of equity, build trust between its participants, and be truly capable of dismantling the voice of authority.

Politics of care

The degradation of care and affective labor is integral to urbanism’s relational crisis. Care work has been essential to experimental institutionalism’s creation of reparative social spaces in the fragmented urban landscape. Its notion of a “constituent museum” (a museum that puts social relationships at the center of its operations), for example, signals a shift from looking after objects to looking after communities (Byrne et al., 2018). As architect Alberto Altés Arlandis (2018) argues, inhabiting the constituent museum “requires attention and care … it is a practice of exposure, vulnerability, fragility and care” (p.84). Within this shift, the role of the curator is less about the custodianship of art objects and more about the care of urban communities, actively fostering their welfare in the context of immediate urgencies. This shift towards care is particularly noticeable in The Whitworth and Van Abbemuseum, where, along with funding from Outset Contemporary Art Fund, the “constituent curator” role has arisen—a curatorial role that puts community relationships at the heart of the institution (Outset, 2019). Care in the case of the constituent curator means responding to needs beyond aesthetics, cultivating community relationships, and ensuring that these are at the center of the institution’s programming. The constituent curator role aids museums in ascertaining the nature of their care work, how they can care for immediate communities, and integrating this into programming.

This shift toward care has significance within the broader context of what feminist scholar Nancy Fraser (2016) has called capitalism’s “crisis of care”. With its facets of competition and self-interest, it would appear there is no place for care within the logic of capitalism. Fraser (2016) suggests that financialized capitalism commodifies care and affective labor forms (p.32). Nevertheless, one can still arguably regard care work as an anti-capitalist protest—admitting our dependency on each other negates financialized capitalism’s self-interested politics, dismantling its logic of competition, self-interest, and self-help. Our contemporary context of neoliberal privatization cuts, deregulation, and gentrification has constructed an enormously negligent urban milieu. Capitalism’s “crisis of care” or its shameful culture of toxic irresponsibility clearly extends into the urban environment and is a crucial aspect of urbanism’s relational crisis.

Immigrant Movement International (IMI Corona) (2011–18) is a notable example of experimental institutionalism’s shift towards care and integration of affective labor forms into institutional praxis. In this project, with support from Creative Time, Queens Museum and Cuban activist-artist Tania Bruguera established a community space in 2011 called “IMI Corona” in Corona, Queens—a New York City borough heavily populated by immigrants. Inspired by Bruguera’s notion of Arte Útil (“Useful Art”) and Queens Museums’ interest in addressing the needs of Corona’s immigrant community, this project examined growing concerns around the political representation of immigrants and diasporic experience. IMI Corona offered a comprehensive educational program and health and legal services to Corona’s diasporic community at no cost. Providing a range of services to immigrant residents and responding to their immediate needs, this project seemingly embodied the “constituent museum” as a site for attention and care (Arlandis, 2018, p. 84). This project involved Bruguera and cultural agents from Queens Museum caring for Corona’s immigrant community rather than collections and displays of art objects. Undocumented immigrants could access legal support and services, counseling and support were available for victims of domestic abuse, and as many of the center’s users did not have a formal education, a comprehensive educational program was also accessible. Ultimately, the constituent museum’s conditions of care and affect were realized in this project, as the immediate needs of Corona’s urban diaspora were cared for via the educational, legal, and health services offered. Immigrant Movement International also created a permanent social hub in Corona as between 2018 and 2019, Bruguera handed over the project to residents who have sustained IMI Corona into a long-term community center called “Centro Corona”. Therefore, unlike some of the case studies addressed above, Immigrant Movement International is an example of experimental institutionalism’s successful creation of an ongoing, long-term social space—a permanent part of the urban commons.

Queens Museum itself exists as a permanent site of care in the neighborhood of Corona. The institution has been forging progressive forms of community engagement and public programming since the millennium and, as a result, is a clear example of experimental institutionalism. Queens has an ongoing community engagement program that aims to care for and support the residents of Corona. The Museum’s care incentive even continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in its project La Jornada Food Pantry (2020–Ongoing), the museum hosts a weekly food distribution service in collaboration with a local food bank to provide its immediate neighbors with food during the pandemic (Queens Museum, 2021). In association with New York non-profit Street Lab, Queens Museum’s Art Lab in the Park (2020–Ongoing) provides art-making stations and playtime for children of families visiting the Museum’s food bank Figure 2.

Figure 2. “Art Lab in the Park” at Queens Museum. Photo: Street Lab.

One could more critically question whether art museums like Queens should be responsible for providing comprehensive social support systems, particularly when other structures have failed. If art institutions like Queens Museum become long-term spaces for care and sociality, power holders could exploit this, using them to assuage the disastrous consequences of toxic irresponsibility that capitalist urbanization processes continuously create.

Immigrant Movement International and Queens Museum’s approach to care could arguably be understood as promoting a “politics of care” as they combine care/conviviality with antagonistic and conflictual forces; they appear to involve a yin/yang balance between “care” and “criticality”, combining these in the context of urban social urgencies. “Politics of Care” here means care that has been politicized and set to action. This balance also helps to contain antagonistic forces, preventing said activities from becoming too conflictual. Feminist scholar Fiona Robinson (1999) suggests that affect (the personal) and criticality (the political) do not negate one another but are mutually reinforcing, and the best way to serve social justice is by combining the two. Robinson (1999) asserts, “care and justice are no longer fixed in a dichotomous relationship” (p.26). Rather, politicizing care radicalizes it and sets it into action. Immigrant Movement International combined its care for Corona’s immigrant community with space for discord and antagonism via its more politically dense aims to fight for the rights of urban immigrants. As well as a dedicated space that cared for Corona’s diaspora, Immigrant Movement International protested for immigrant rights and built a political platform. IMI Corona also served as a hub for cultural organizing initiatives surrounding the socio-political representation of immigrants. Queens Museum’s pandemic initiatives contest the lack of care and unequal distribution of resources that characterize capitalist urbanization whilst providing care and empathy in a time of unprecedented crisis. Because of the severe toxic irresponsibility that prevails in contemporary urbanism, providing “care” in urban sites must have political density to make an impact.

Immigrant Movement International and Queens Museum exemplify how, in the US and therefore unlike the European examples of experimental institutionalism addressed in this paper, the reclamation of social space from the grips of capitalist control connects to the marginalization of specific identities in the urban public sphere. Situated in an area populated by diasporic peoples who have been plundered into precarity by government policies, museums like Queens exemplify this combined interest in social space and decolonizing struggles. In recent years, Queens Museum’s pro-immigrant and decolonizing initiatives have caused tensions between museum board members and management. Former Director Laura Raicovich’s resignation in 2018 arose after her activism for Queens’ diaspora clashed with museum board members. Some initiatives formed under Raicovich’s directorship, such as Art Space Sanctuary, which was a call for cultural spaces to declare sanctuary and provide support to vulnerable populations, were challenged by board members and described as “completely untenable” (Raicovich, 2021, p. 6). In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2016 and subsequent promises to repeal DACA protections, many staff at Queens vowed to join the inauguration day strike as they risked losing temporary relief from legal uncertainty and even faced deportation (Raicovich, 2021, p. 2). DACA, an acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a policy that protects eligible immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation. Queens Museums’ board felt its staff should not “take sides” in political debates about immigrants and wanted them to remain “neutral” on issues that deeply affected its community and staff (Raicovich, 2021, p. 6). Queens Museum here, unfortunately, exemplifies the ongoing limitation of experimental institutionalism—its “museum 3.0” attempts to form socially responsible art institutions still only exist at the level of programming and do not extend to the financial and governance structures of its associated institutions. Critically, one could ask if it is possible to authentically build relationships and create spaces for sociality and care if museums only make changes at the level of programming and not the level of governance, where figures exist who can impede their capacity to undertake sincere decolonizing efforts.

Collaboration (Co-labor)

Experimental institutionalism has also focused on repairing the relational qualities of labor in its larger quest to create relational museums in urban sites. Within experimental institutionalism, there has been a distinct shift away from the idea of “participation” towards “collaboration” (Aikens et al., 2016; Byrne et al., 2018). This shift has also occurred, more broadly, within the field of socially engaged art as a whole. In the last few decades, alongside relational aesthetics, “participatory” art has been at the center of much contemporary art discourse—most notably discussed and critiqued by art historian Claire Bishop (2006, 2012). However, experimental institutionalism’s relational activities have tended to be more collaborative than participatory. As Alistair Hudson (2017a) argues, “participation” implies an imbalance of power—it suggests the “museum 2.0 where you get people to participate in someone else’s agenda.” As a more democratic, horizontal form of working with others, collaboration signals the social dimension of labor (Byrne et al., 2018, p. 27). “Collaboration” offers an effective opening within the context of urbanism’s social fracture for socially conducive forms of labor. The etymological roots of “collaboration” are, in fact, “co-labor” (Byrne et al., 2018, p. 27). Collaboration, then, touches upon the distinctly social dimensions of production processes. Institutions affiliated with experimental institutionalism are, as John Byrne (2018) highlights, aiming to “radically rethink themselves as collaborations”—as organizations of ideas that have resulted from collaborations between museum staff, artists and communities (p.27). Like many aspects of social life, the relational dimensions of labor have also been broken down and instrumentalized within capitalist society. Marx (1867/1990) suggested that, via the labor process, capitalism exploits our innate need and desire for social exchange (p.444). The capitalist labor process brings workers together only so far that this increases productivity. In traditional Marxian terms, this is called “cooperation”. Cooperation here implies economic capture of our basic need for sociality—the mobilization of our basic human need for connection to increase productivity levels and, ultimately, capital (Marx, 1867/1990, p. 444). This degradation of labor’s social dimensions extends into the urban environment by and large, where work is isolated, individualistic, and competitive.

MACBA's Las Agencias (The Agencies) (2001) demonstrates experimental institutionalism’s attempts to reinstate and repair the social dimensions of labor. “Agency”—the idea of socio-political empowerment, was imagined as a nexus, as a meeting point, between the production processes of the museum and radical urban production processes (Ribalta, 2008). The idea of agency formed an opening towards a large-scale “co-labor” process. Las Agencias was a collaborative project that evolved from various workshops conducted at MACBA in 2001 led by Jordi Claramonte (from the Madrid-based art collective La Fiambrera Obrera) and Jorge Ribalta (MACBA’s former Head of Public Programs). In Las Agencias, cultural agents at MACBA would collaborate with artists, urban activists and resident Barcelonans to form a counter-campaign against the World Bank meeting scheduled for June 2001 (Ribalta, 2008, p. 235). The project merged a variety of production processes in an attempt to contribute to Barcelona’s counter-summit protest against the World Bank meeting, meaning that it aimed to reinstate labor’s social dimensions within a decidedly capitalist urban context (Ribalta, 2008, pp. 235–236). Different “agencies” worked in MACBA on various aspects of Barcelona’s counter-campaign (Ribalta, 2008, pp. 235–236). A graphic agency produced posters and printed matter, whilst a photographic agency created images and an archive. Another agency assembled different multi-purpose tools for counter-summit protests. A media agency published Esta Tot Fatal (Everything is Terrible) magazine, which would function as the mouthpiece of the counter-summit, and finally, a fifth agency took over the museum’s bar, which became a relational space (Ribalta, 2008, pp. 235–236). The different production processes united within this project underlined the highly collaborative and social nature of its constituting labor. The project reclaimed labor’s social dimensions because all parties involved partook in a co-defined process. More generally, by speaking to and representing urban labor processes through artistic activity, the project was undoing capitalism’s processes of commodity fetishism, which mask social relations and alienate us from one another. Human labor (the very quality that makes the commodity “magical”) was made visible through artistic-institutional activity and, ultimately, unalienated (Child, 2019, p. 106). By making the social relations integral to human work visible (no longer masked by “things” or commodities) and thereby undoing the alienating effects of commodity fetishism, Las Agencias highlighted, in a post-Marxian sense, the socially cohesive potentials of collaboration/“co-labor”.

Las Agencias demonstrated how reinstating labor’s social dimensions in a contentious urban context means accepting tensions and conflicts. It does not mean submitting to some false, utopian notion of untroubled social cohesion but instead means that tensions and conflicts are confronted and worked through. As Alba Benavent (2013) and Emma Mahoney (2016) have highlighted, the collaboration between MACBA and urban activist groups in Las Agencias was fraught with conflict. Urban activists involved in the project complained about the museum’s lack of accommodation for them, whilst MACBA, on the other hand, got angry with its collaborators for not asking permission before copying and distributing keys to workshops and manifesting a fear that computers and internet loaned out could be used for activities potentially defined as illegal (Benavent, 2013; Mahoney, 2016). Arguably, these conflicts came not from a socially fragmented labor process but from one that effectively reclaimed the social aspects of labor to the extent conflict naturally arose and confronted. As Mouffe (2013) suggests, conflict is productive, as “the specificity of pluralistic democracy is precisely the recognition and legitimation of conflict” (p.13). Rosalyn Deutsche (1996) similarly contended that conflict, division, and instability “do not ruin the democratic public sphere; they are conditions of its existence” (p.289). Las Agencias registered the irreducibility of tension and conflict in the urban social sphere, demonstrating how relationships in relational museum praxis do not always have to possess convivial qualities but can be conflictual. Through its invitation of urban dissidents into the art institution, it welcomed democratic dialogues to confront and tackle conflicts and ultimately render them productive. Consequently, the conflictual relationships in Las Agencias did not necessarily suggest “failure” as many critiques have implied (Benavent, 2013; Mahoney, 2016). Instead, the project successfully spoke to the irreducibility of conflict in the urban social sphere and its labor processes, and through this, vitally reclaimed and provisionally repaired labor’s relational dimensions.

Nevertheless, Las Agencias’ conflicts highlighted how labor relations internal to the museum and relations between staff and their roles/labor are an ongoing issue in experimental institutionalism. The project created problematic conflicts between museum management and its consortium that were enough to curb the project’s continuity (Benavent, 2013). These tensions internal to the museum led to demands to fire Jorge Ribalta and even threatened Manuel Borja-Villel’s directorship. Las Agencias, therefore, exemplified how relations between staff and their roles can problematize experimental institutionalism’s attempts to create openings for sociality in art museums. There is often an expectation from museum governance for management and staff to maintain “business as usual”. Art institutions capable of repairing the social bonds ruptured by capitalism will require the possibility of criticality entering into museum roles, enabling museum workers to be also community organizers, activists and allies whose job is not merely to maintain the status quo and claim positions of neutrality. In Las Agencias, figures like Borja-Villel and Ribalta were only temporarily able to insert criticality into their roles, and so at issue here is how to make long-term changes.

Conclusion

This paper has explored the main dimensions of “experimental institutionalism”, critically examining its attempts to transform the art museum into a relational site capable of repairing the social bonds ruptured by capitalist urbanization. As I have highlighted, there have been and continue to be many commendable attempts by directors, curators, and other institutional actors, under the umbrella of experimental institutionalism, to forge spaces for sociality, dialogue, care, and collaboration in the urban environment. The findings suggest that experimental institutionalism tends to produce many temporary and sporadic sites for relational activity. To more resolutely respond to urbanism’s relational crisis, art institutions engaged in experimental institutionalism must be willing to transform into permanent relational spaces and therefore truly constituent parts of the public sphere. However, the deeper issue is that systematic change is still required in institutions aligned with experimental institutionalism. Many structures, from sponsorship to governance, to operations, and the treatment of staff, undergird the presentation and interpretation of collections, exhibitions, and programs. As this paper has revealed, some of these structures still exist in ways that problematize experimental institutionalism’s attempts to create socially responsible art institutions. Experimental institutionalism has been, until now, far too focused on museum programming. Museum directors and curators leading in this field might succeed in bringing public programming to the fore, but more systematic changes are needed in art museums if they are to become constituent parts of the public sphere capable of repairing the social bonds ruptured by capitalism and urban alienation. The answer to how art museums might transform into a long-term part of the urban commons where social relations and community spirits can grow arguably lies in this requirement for systemic change. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated urbanism’s relational crisis and underlined, more boldly than ever, our need for sociality and connection. If L’Internationale institutions and instances of experimental institutionalism address the limitations this paper has highlighted, now (our “post-pandemic” contemporary moment) could be the exact time they come into their own as attempts to establish socially responsible art institutions, offering spaces for sociality, connection, and togetherness in the fractured urban landscape.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank John Byrne and Dr. Michael Birchall for their expertise and support with this research. Thanks also go to the journal editors and reviewers for their time and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Amy Melia

Amy Melia is an art historian, lecturer and community organizer. A recent Ph.D. graduate from the School of Art and Design at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), her research examines the urban Marxist tendencies of contemporary art. Her work to date has analyzed how contemporary art practice has responded to capitalist urbanism’s most pressing urgencies (i.e. the housing crisis, gentrification, neo-colonial spatial forms, social fragmentation, and urban spectacle). Amy has taught on the History of Art and Museum Studies BA (Hons) program at LJMU and lectured at Liverpool Hope University. Over the last few years, she has also worked with a university access charity, teaching a self-designed course called Art, Activism and Social Movements, which introduced high school students to art’s ability to function as a tool for social change. Amy is currently working as a community organizer in Merseyside, mobilizing and empowering communities to respond to educational inequality and place-based struggles.