Clémentine Deliss: The Metabolic Museum

by Clémentine Deliss

For quite some time now, ethnographic museums in Europe have been compelled to legitimate themselves. Their exhibition-making has become a topic of discussion, as has the contentious history of their collections, which have come about through colonial appropriation. Clearly, this cannot continue. That the situation can be different is something that Clémentine Deliss explores in her current publication. She offers an intriguing mix of autobiographically-informed novel and conceptual thesis on contemporary art and anthropology. Reflections on her own work while she was Director of Frankfurt's Weltkulturen Museum (Museum of World Cultures) are interwoven with the explorations of influential filmmakers, artists and writers. She introduces the Metabolic Museum as an interventionist laboratory for remediating ethnographic collections for future generations. 

CLÉMENTINE DELISS has achieved international renown as a curator, cultural historian and publisher of artist's books. In her role as Director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, as a curator, and as a professor and researcher at eminent institutes and academies, she focuses on transdisciplinary and transcultural exchanges. She is Associate Curator of KW Berlin and Guest Professor at the Academy of Arts, Hamburg.

Genres: Art

122 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2020

Reviews

[nadia]

Kind of pretentious and idealistic, doesnt escape the idea of the universal museum even though it tries to, anthropological lens also pissed me off. But still gave me a lot to think about re: methods and experimenting with different perspectives, and i respect how she tried to push the boundaries of what an ethnographic museum should be. Also how tf did she manage to pay for all this what kind of budget did that museum have???