New Museum Model

In the fall of 2020 Magasin III welcomed visitors back after having paused the public program for a three-year intermission of reflective introspection with the aim to develop a new model of operating.


The new visitor model intended to make Magasin III accessible via scheduled and guided visits all year, completely independent from the traditional concept of museum seasons. In addition to current exhibitions, it added transparency to the institution, inviting people to come closer to the art by giving access to how it is created and how it is taken care of when it is not shown. Personal encounters and in-depth exploration were guiding principles.


The re-opening was postponed six months due to the at the time raging COVID-19 pandemic. Once the new visitor model was launched in October 2020, it took about four weeks until the pandemic put a spanner into the wheels that had just about set in motion. As if another reminder was needed not to slip back into old patterns of seasonal production cycles, this time force majeure de-inflated cultural life in Stockholm as a whole, as it did to an overheated art bubble around the globe. Temptations and expectations of openings with events, manifestos and declarations changed into carefully tiptoeing towards the unknown. Negotiating models of future access, education and visitor experiences was not optional anymore, it had become mandatory for an entire cultural sector. Core ideas behind Magasin III’s new model became closely associated with the pandemic instead of looked at for the actual reasonings behind them.


Our intermission (2017–2020) had offered the museum to opt out from the forcefield of an overblown art world that dominated pace and production cycles by means of relentless schedules of announcements, previews, vernissages, biennales and awards. The privilege of pausing allowed a unique opportunity to think new thoughts, reframe our work, and to reformulate our mission.


Magasin III was founded in 1987, in times when private art institutions barely existed in Sweden, with all major institutions fully funded by the state and municipalities. It was created as a free zone where traditional institutional parameters were taken out of operation. Magasin III could bring art to the local scene that probably otherwise would not have come here. For the artists it meant having a new kind of platform that could offer flexibility in a way the prestigious institutions could not.


Since the inception of Magasin III, many new art institutions have opened in Stockholm, Sweden and across the world. There are art initiatives that have turned cities off the beaten track, suburbs and remote places in nature into destinations. Private collections are made accessible to the public. Impressive buildings are constructed. There are over 230 international art biennials and triennials. The range of exhibitions and the pace of associated programming has accelerated. Many institutions also feel a need to offer so much more than art and the education around it in order to attract visitors. As a private institution we have the privilege to create our own mission, and with this comes also the freedom to rethink our model when others can’t. With our intermission we wanted to investigate what an alternative could be. We had to ask ourselves: How can a collecting private institution stay relevant in the long run? How could our institution be as flexible as at the very beginning when it was founding director David Neuman and one assistant running the space? How could we build on our history and our collection without becoming a time capsule? And how could we avoid being burdened by our own structures?


We always considered our institution “temporary”, why building a signature building was not an option for our new future. We rather put our focus, energy and resources, into the content. And we wanted to let the content decide the structure, rather than vice versa. This lead us to continue to build on all the work and institutional experience and competence built over the years, but with a twist. The aim was to again fill a gap and create a complement to a cultural and social landscape that has changed over the years. Magasin III would continue to produce exhibitions and the collection grow hand-in-hand with the program. Artists would also in the future be given the possibility to experiment and produce new work. The additional idea was to make the institution more transparent. Transparency as in sharing the part of the institution’s work that moves art from the mind of the artist into the world. Transparency by giving access to the creators – artists, curators and other professionals and specialists. This also included developing content for and together with higher education programs, so that future curators, artists and art historians get a deeper and hands-on understanding of the production of art, exhibition making and caring for art from the perspective of an art institution.


The new model was to give the public access to Magasin III through scheduled visits guided by members of the staff, all year round. Instead of sometimes forcing projects into a given structure and timeframe, each project could take the time and space it needs. In this way, there would always be something to see and engage with in its finished format and under process.


The physical spaces were partly adapted and arranged to align with this new model. Two of the exhibition halls were permanently transformed into work rooms for the collection – spaces where artworks could be researched and cared for prior or after inhouse exhibitions and loans. All accessible for visitors in the company of and through the expertise of staff members. During the opening month, amongst others, American artist Andrea Zittel’s largescale Wagon Stations were being checked and prepared prior to going on loan to Accelerator at the Stockholm university. The main exhibition space on the upper floor was temporarily dedicated to the over 30 years of exhibition making and projects, conversations, sketches, ideas, thoughts and memories of the visual, written and any other variety.


The Swedish architect studio DinellJohansson was hired to help create a new outline for lobby and library. The guiding principles went hand in hand with the new visitor model – building on the institution’s history with a twist. Signature details were kept or remodeled to fit the new needs. The lobby was transformed into an open space, flexible and adaptable for both the daily visitor operations, larger standing gatherings as well as seated lectures and talks. It also gave room for temporary installations of works from the collection. The welcome desk was created by reusing the table from the old library, enlarged with an additional tabletop, hand painted with a marbling pattern. Artists Carin Ellberg, Lap-See Lam, and Bella Rune were invited to transform three existing benches. Blending functionality with artistic expression, they offered a place to settle in on and for conversations to start.


The reference library which had been located in the lobby for over ten years was moved to its own room. The architects fulfilled the wish for a combined library and seminar room (open to both staff, visitors, students, and researchers) by creating a room within the room, leaving the walls free for art to be installed on. Parts of the old library were reused and added to with another shelving system. The shelves filled with books were arranged to open up outward and towards the corridor, keeping the inner of the room free from distraction. In the center a long table and chairs were placed for reading, speaking, listening, thinking. Artist Oscar Guermouche was commissioned to create a site-specific permanent work for the library. The Fireman (2020) is a text-based work that runs along parts of the solid table edge and most of the time is covered by a leather tablecloth.

These were, in brief, the reasonings and their manifestations behind Magasin III’s new way of engaging with visitors. As the world moved on after the crisis, Magasin III found a path in the middle: a museum sharing its time between regular opening hours for the general public and in-depth access for students. A museum where the artistic research is embodied in the physical encounter, and where the visual experience is of primary importance. A site of learning, not of teaching, where a culture of practice takes precedence over any formal education.

– Tessa Praun, museum director and chief curator, October, 2020

ARCHIVE
In 2017 Magasin III handed over the entire exhibition space to itself, interrupting the stream of producing and exhibiting of artists and works in order to look at the institution it had become over the course of three decades. Magasin III’s history, like the one of everything else, is written in the now, in the constant little movements that resulted in works, in exhibitions, publications, encounters and experiences, in artists and visitors who came, stayed and returned. Entering into Intermission and in thousands of documents, papers, photos, artifacts, letters and notes, the museum laid itself out, for once not to the public, but for its own eyes, and onto its own walls.

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WORKSPACES FOR THE COLLECTION
The purpose of the new museum model was to create increased transparency. In line with this, museum visitors were invited to come closer to the art by gaining access to how it is created and cared for when not on display. Prior to the reopening in 2020, the physical spaces were partially adapted to align with this new model. Two of the exhibition halls were permanently converted into workspaces for the collection – spaces where artworks are prepared and cared for before or after internal exhibitions and loans.

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LIBRARY
Adjacent to Magasin III’s entrance is Magasin III’s reference library and seminar room. The library is used internally, but is also available for outsiders who, out of curiosity or for research purposes, want to read about contemporary art, architecture, and design. Most books have direct connections to Magasin III:s history and exhibition program, while others relate to art in a broader sense. The room is also intended for seminars and smaller lectures.

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TAL R – NATTEN
The painting Natten (The Night) (2019) was created by Tal R as a commission by Magasin III, and with the intention to be presented as the only artwork in Tal R’s solo exhibition : Men Who Can’t Sit on Horses at Magasin III Jaffa, Tel Aviv, from October 2019 to March 2020.

Natten (The Night) is on view together with a series of woodcuts, close studies of the painting’s subject matter. 

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JAMES TURRELL – DAWNING
James Turrell’s light installation Dawning (1992) was installed for the artist’s solo exhibition in 1994, and became Magasin III’s first permanent work.

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ENTRANCE
In connection with the reopening of Magasin III, the needs of the new museum model gave rise to a minor renovation. The architecture studio DinellJohansson designed the space to accommodate both exhibitions and various types of program activities, such as artist talks and lectures.

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