What does it mean to engage in a curatorial practice of liberation through the platform of the museum? In this Curator’s Perspective, Victoria Noorthoorn (Director, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires) was joined by ICI’s Executive Director Renaud Proch for a conversation about her decade-long transformative leadership of Argentina’s largest public institution dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
In this talk, Noorthoorn discussed how the Museo Moderno fulfills its civic potential today while engaging in a global art discourse from a Global South perspective: “against a background of economic fragility and social vulnerability, we redefined our priorities and mission to construct a museum for all; we amplified and diversified our curatorial strategies in order to further the emancipation of artistic thought and seek curatorial and social justice with a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion; and we emphasized educational access and integration, making of accessibility and mental health priority objectives in all our work.”
Since she became director in 2013, the Museo Moderno—a public museum, funded by the City Government of Buenos Aires—has undergone a deep process of growth and transformation. With an expanded budget, a team of 130 museum professionals, and exhibition spaces that have doubled in size, the museum has presented over 100 exhibitions, publishing over 50 bilingual publications, and created multiple education programs to involve 7000 teachers a year, while becoming a leading institution in the areas of mental health and accessibility.
A version of the video with ASL intepretation is available here.
